Artificial Evolution

by Joseph R. Lallo

  It was for this reason that she didn’t expect to find anything when she switched to the signal monitor. It was a basic device that detected the presence of transmissions in an area. Like a radio without the pesky playing-back-the-audio feature. Since the communicators had been killed, it should have been dark… but there was a signal now. It was faint, but not faint enough to be a mistake.

  “That’s odd. Someone out there’s got a working communicator,” she said.

  “Odd indeed,” Garotte said. “A shame our own communicator has been spiked, or we’d have a chat.”

  “Yeah,” she said, noting the coordinates of the signal. “Whoever it is, the signal’s headed toward the lab.”

  “That’s inadvisable.”

  “To put it lightly.” She flipped through a few more sensors until she hit the QPS, the sensor they’d stolen from the Neo-Luddites that seemed capable of detecting the Gen-Mechs.

  “Oh my…” she said. “Whoever it is has got a trail of robots on his or her tail. I’ve been tinkering with this doodad while you’ve been poking at the engine, and I think I’ve got it so we can count how many bots we’re dealing with. There’s at least two hundred skittering along in a conga line.”

  “Hence the inadvisability of a lab visit.”

  “You don’t think this is a Neo-Luddite, do you? They went to that icy, yak-infested planet to get one robot; I’ve gotta believe they’d risk a TKUR blockade to get a few dozen from this place. This could be a pied piper thing.”

  “Unlikely. Movi is blockaded by drones. Even if there was a Neo-Luddite operative on the capital ship, they wouldn’t be able to get to the surface.”

  Silo stood. “We’re going to have to do something about it regardless.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Our radio-toting friend must have just noticed the robots. The signal turned back around. It’s leading a string of them right back to Gloria.”

  “Well, we can’t allow that,” Garotte said, hopping down. He grabbed a pair of rifles from the Declaration and climbed up onto the hovertank. “Refresh my recollection. What did we steal from this beast?”

  “A few redundant circuits, secondary shield generator, some armor plating. A bunch of stuff like that. Nothing it needs to run or fight, but I wouldn’t want to take too many hits in it.”

  “That should give us a tremendous impetus to avoid being hit. Come, my dear. Duty calls.”

  The pair settled into the cramped interior of the hovertank, brushing aside stray bolts and liberated wires from their parts harvest. It was made for a two- person crew, and in accordance with standard military design principles, it had thus been built with enough space for approximately one and a half people. Small indicator screens and complex controls covered every surface, and in lieu of a windshield, navigation was achieved by a network of cameras around the exterior of the vehicle to avoid creating a weak point in the armor.

  “I’ll handle navigation and weapons, you just get us there, hon,” Silo said, strapping in and angling the sensor. “We’ll start with a heading of thirty-seven mark two.”

  “On our way.”

  The potent thrusters hummed to life. Unlike the hoverbike, the fully enclosed cabin and powerful shields meant it could easily achieve hundreds of kilometers per hour without the threat of tearing the flesh from any skulls. As the acceleration shoved each of them forcefully into their seats, a realization dawned.

  “I believe we may have cannibalized the inertial inhibitor from this vehicle,” Garotte grunted as he fought to keep his hands on the controls.

  “Seems that way, sugar.”

  “This ride will be a bit bumpier than previously anticipated.”

  The uncomfortable amount of acceleration eased as they reached their top speed.

  “The local military is probably following orders and staying put inside population centers. We shouldn’t have any trouble with them, so we can do a straight shot to the radio signal and the robot swarm… or one of them, anyway.”

  “One of them?” Garotte said.

  “Now that we’re moving, I’m seeing two clusters. One near the remains of the laboratory, and one near the mines. No, correction, three clusters. There’s one on the move farther out. About midway between the mine and… checking the map… oh no.”

  “What is it?”

  “A dry dock. Ship manufacturing.”

  “In other words, enough raw materials to turn a thousand-robot horde into a ten-thousand-robot horde.”

  “Easily. But they aren’t headed right toward it. It looks like they might be headed to a long-range communication antenna about three kilometers east of it.”

  “Splendid. One problem at a time, then. We’ll treat this as a rescue, so that means no EMP. We can’t risk taking out the tank and thus stranding ourselves. I think the proper course of action will be to concentrate main weapon fire on the robots as soon as we are near enough. Any dent we can make now will buy us a bit more time. To be on the safe side, let’s keep secondary weapons targeted on the subject of our rescue. The last thing I’d want is to find out it is indeed a Luddite and not be prepared.”

  “Sounds like a good plan to me, hon,” she said. “It’ll be fun to see how quickly it falls apart.”

  “Sorry, it’s the plan that offers no room for improvisation.”

  The rising sun cast long shadows across the primordial marsh that made up most of the Movi surface as the hovertank cut across the landscape.

  “Are we still on track?”

  “The signal is getting stronger. It’s… it’s on sort of a crazy course. Turning all which ways. It started heading back toward the lab. New heading, forty-three mark zero. In a few minutes you’ll be able to pick it up on visual scanners,” Silo said. They continued in silence for a moment, each breathing heavily in the close quarters of the tank. She cleared her throat. “Sweetheart, I think maybe once we’re through with this little expedition, it might be worth spending a few minutes getting the sanitary booth up and running again. You could use a shower.”

  “I’m terribly sorry to offend, my dear. Alas, we don’t all travel with a supply of perfume to keep us smelling proper.”

  “I don’t wear perfume, hon.”

  “Honestly?”

  “Never have.”

  “You mean to tell me that intoxicating fragrance is eau de Silo?”

  She gave him a hard look. “I don’t know if that was intended to be sweet, but it took a sharp turn toward creepy near the end there. Is this really something we need to be discussing right now?”

  “I imagine not. I’ve got visual on the target and the laboratory, or rather the portion of the planet formerly occupied by the laboratory. Have a look.”

  Silo leaned forward and looked to the targeting indicator, a screen intended to allow the pilot to spot targets for the gunner to eliminate. It showed what looked like the classic representation of a black hole—a funnel of excavated earth dropping sharply off in the center until it formed a smooth-walled pit. Every scrap of useful material had been scooped away and processed into an ever larger swarm of mechanisms. The resulting robots were scattered across the ground, hundreds of them. They were a hodgepodge of repurposed parts, and even from this distance it was simple to see which of them were made first and which were made last. As the worthwhile materials began to run low, bots were constructed from more and more questionable materials. Some were disturbingly similar to the yak-based one that had originally been found, made almost entirely of flesh and bone.

  “The meaty ones…” Silo said quietly.

  “I choose to delude myself into believing the laboratory had an extensive collection of test animals. The alternative is profoundly unsettling,” Garotte said.

  “You’re telling me… Why are they just sitting there? It’s been more than a day. Why didn’t they move on when they were out of materials?”

  “It looks to me that they aren’t just sitting there. Look toward the edge of the excavated area. They’re grouped u
p, tinkering at one another.”

  Sure enough, upon a second look Silo spotted the gathering. It looked as though the best-equipped of the robots were being serviced by the midrange ones. Only the lowest quality robots were entirely stationary.

  “But still, why aren’t they attacking?”

  “Another bit of luck I shall embrace rather than question. I’m taking us up to a safe altitude. I’ll keep my eyes on the robots, you try to match the signal to a vehicle.”

  “I’ve got him. It’s a man. Middle-aged. Driving a convertible hovercar. Correction. A standard hovercar with the roof forcibly removed. Looks like it happened recently, too. The car is heavily damaged, and the string of robots are almost on top of him. If this is a Neo-Luddite, he’s playing the role of hapless idiot remarkably well,” Silo said.

  Garotte looked over the screen. The driver was clearly screaming at the top of his lungs, swerving from side to side and casting mad glances behind him at the bloodthirsty Gen-Mechs chasing him. The vehicle was a sleek and sporty hovercar, probably carrying nearly the same price tag as the tank, but the robots had been unimpressed by the leather interior and wood trim.

  “Yes. That is not a soldier, current or former. Even the Movi troops are better composed than that. I’ll get us close; I recommend you start softening up the pursuers.”

  “On it.”

  Silo shifted the main cannon and opened fire, annihilating about a third of the robots before they split into smaller clusters and fell back. Half a dozen stuck with the fleeing man, who had reacted to the weapon fire in much the same way anyone else would have behaved when a tank starts shooting. He veered away and pushed the sputtering vehicle for all it was worth, which at this point wasn’t very much. This, unfortunately, sent him directly toward the former lab. In less than a minute he would be passing over a population of Gen-Mechs a dozen times the size of the one that had been pursuing him.

  “That idiot,” Garotte growled. “Well, let’s hope we left the public address system intact on this thing.”

  He easily brought the tank alongside the hovercar and keyed up the external loudspeaker. “Attention, you are headed for an extreme hazard. Adjust your heading by thirty degrees immediately.”

  “Who are you!?” the man bellowed in reply, barely audible over the whipping wind and humming thrusters.

  “We are a heavily armed rescue team instructing you to adjust your heading immediately.”

  “You were shooting at me!”

  “We were shooting at the mechanisms in pursuit.”

  “Not a whole lot of time left to argue, hon,” Silo said. “Maybe be a little more direct.”

  “Turn left, stupid!” Garotte barked.

  Rather than heed the warning, the man attempted to speed up, pushing the ailing hovercar a bit too hard. A loud pop coincided with a piece of the bodywork flying off to the side, followed by a bright blue streamer of hot vapor. One of the speedier Gen-Mechs caught the flying debris like a seagull snatching a piece of bread. Three more robots began to close in on the opposite side.

  Garotte sighed and turned to Silo. “Should we really rescue this twit? How likely is it he’s making a positive contribution to the species?”

  “We came this far,” Silo said with a shrug.

  She squeezed off two small blasts with the main cannon, first to destroy the nearest of the Gen-Mechs and second to herd the frenzied driver away from the approaching catastrophe.

  Now that he had no choice, the man heaved his vehicle to the left, but it was just moments too late to avoid catching the edge of the massive Gen-Mech swarm surrounding the pit that was once a laboratory. Five robots leaped into motion, sprinting toward the hovercar. Farther into the swarm, three Gen-Mechs rose into the air, thrusters making them more than a match for the damaged car’s speed.

  “Ah, lovely. So that’s what they’ve been up to. Upgrades,” Garotte mused.

  Silo quickly blasted the flyers out of the air, then unloaded the main cannon into the largest cluster of robots within striking distance.

  “Okay, get us close. I’m going to snag him,” Silo said.

  “As you wish.”

  She climbed up through the hatch and squinted into the wind, holding tight to the rungs on the tank’s roof. Garotte eased the tank forward. Silo moved carefully to the angled edge of the chassis and held tight to the final rung, leaning out over the side of the vehicle as Garotte nudged it forward. Their target was hammering the accelerator with his foot and fruitlessly turning dials, as though if he drove vigorously enough, his vehicle would suddenly repair itself. He thus did not notice how close the hulking war machine had gotten until it was less than a meter off his fender. When he finally noticed, he tried to veer away, but Silo hopped down onto the passenger seat and hastily sliced through his restraints with a knife from her belt. The man turned to mount a defense, saw the knife, and quickly put his hands up. This, of course, meant the hovercar no longer had anyone steering it.

  “You are not bright,” Silo cried over the roaring wind.

  She reached down behind him and grabbed him by the belt, then scrambled up onto the hood of the rapidly descending vehicle. With a desperate leap she managed to snag one of the rungs near the top edge of the slanted leading end of the tank chassis.

  “Get us out of here,” Silo cried to Garotte, heaving the raving man up onto the roof of the tank like a rag doll and climbing up after him.

  Garotte took the tank almost straight up, then pitched to the side, giving both Silo and her new friend a fine view of the robot-cluttered ground below. The unmanned hovercar pitched forward and collided with the marsh, flipping end over end. Before it could come to a rest, it was covered by Gen-Mechs, who set about stripping it like piranhas. Even this feast of components wasn’t enough to completely draw the Gen-Mechs from the retreating tank.

  “I could use someone at the trigger,” Garotte said over the loudspeaker. “The auto-aim won’t engage while there’s someone on top of the vehicle.”

  “On my way in, sugar,” Silo said. She turned to the man. “You figure you can hold on to the rungs here until we’re at a safe distance?”

  He didn’t take the time to answer. He was far too busy screaming incoherently.

  “That’s a no,” she said. “There’s not a whole lot of room inside, and to be honest I don’t know how trustworthy you are, so…”

  She reached into a pouch at the back of her belt and pulled out a wrist restraint. It was an old-fashioned one of the sort police used to use, though with a longer chain and a thumbprint electronic release. Clicking one cuff around a rung and the other through his belt, she secured him to the tank near the edge. She then slipped through the hatch and took the weapons control.

  “How’s our boy?” Garotte asked.

  “I cuffed him down. He’s below the sweep of the turret, we can aim freely.”

  “Splendid. Then would you do us both a favor and incinerate that feeding frenzy. It is bad enough they had a laboratory to snack on. I’d hate to see what the hovercar could facilitate.”

  “Give me just a few more degrees of pitch and I’ll take care of it, sweetie.”

  Garotte did as instructed, tipping the tank sufficiently to give the main cannon a clear shot at the ground. This conjured a terrified cry from their unwilling passenger. Three blasts from the energy cannon made sure there was nothing of any use left. Both car and bots were reduced to a glowing soup of molten metal and sizzling polymer.

  Satisfied, Garotte set off on a roundabout course back to their ship, checking both visual and scanner readings regularly to ensure they were not being followed. About fifteen minutes into their return journey, the rooftop passenger seemed to recover sufficiently to switch from fear to anger.

  “I don’t know who the hell you people think you are, but if you don’t land this thing and tell me exactly what’s going on right now, you have no idea the kind of hell I’m going to bring down on your heads,” he cried.

  Garotte cleared his throat
and keyed the PA. “That’s an interesting speech impediment you’ve got there, my boy. I’ve never heard ‘Thank you, I am eternally grateful to you for saving my life’ pronounced in quite that manner.”

  “Do you know who I am?” he shouted.

  “No, but I believe that is a fine place to start,” Garotte said. He turned to Silo. “Silo, dear, would you fetch our friend for a bit of a chat?”

  “Yeah, I suppose I ought to,” she said.

  She stood from her seat and climbed out. A few seconds later, she dropped back down, dragging the ungrateful survivor with her headfirst. She manhandled him against the edge of the hatch and clipped the restraints to one wrist, through his belt, around the rung, and finally to the other wrist. It left him secured entirely upside down with his legs flopping uncomfortably in the wind.

  Now that there weren’t more pressing matters at hand, Silo took a moment to look over their guest. He was middle-aged, as she’d noted, and had the sort of thin-yet-soft physique usually associated with desk work. His hair had probably been styled at one point and still showed evidence of some sort of gel to hold it in place, but the stuff had long ago lost the fight with the wind and was now mixed with the humidity and kicked-up dust to form something akin to library paste. The same whitish soil had plastered his clothes.

  “So I guess we should start with your name, hon,” Silo said.

  “You can’t do this to me!”

  “Rather a useless statement, that. Have you ever noticed how frequently it is uttered after the indicated action?” Garotte said.

  “It’s cute that you think you’re in a position to threaten, hon, but at this point I think it’d be best if you started talking. Once the blood starts pooling in your noggin, it’ll be a lot harder.”

  “Fine! My name is Special Agent Chris Ronzone. I work for VectorCorp,” he said.

  “Ah. Delightful. And I imagine that would explain why you seemed to have a functional radio in that vehicle.” He flipped on the signal sensor. “And still have a signal.”

  “It’s a standard VC-PC-8802 communications implant.”