“True!”
William made a silly face, to acknowledge he’d lost the argumentative point.
Mary laughed, a lovely bell-peal laugh that echoed around the lab, until the sound of the emergency siren dimmed her good humour.
“I’m so sorry,” said Helms, who was enjoying himself enormously. “I fear we need to suit up.”
“Yet another attack by alien monsters?” said William.
“Or perhaps an act of sabotage. Or, conceivably, a rebellion. Never a dull moment, is there?” Helms said, still smiling, and he tapped the code to open up the secure wardrobe where the body armours were kept.
Sorcha liked an enemy she could see, and confront, and kill. The idea that a virus from Earth might have affected the Mother Ship computer infuriated her. Because she knew that a bunch of Earth rebels who were gazillions of miles away and who had the temerity to fight via impenetrable computer codes could never be killed by her Soldiers, or hanged, or defeated by military means.
However, Commander Martin remained adamant that the rebels must be on Xabar. His protocols told him that no one, and nothing, could hack into Juno, or the Earth remote computer, or corrupt the QB link.
So the interrogations continued. Another Techie lost his mind. No information was gleaned. The mood among the Xabar populace was becoming bleak. Professor Helms sent her repeated memos throughout the day protesting at her iniquitous treatment of “his” people.
And finally the day was over — Sorcha was off-duty, and Major Johnson was in operational command.
So Sorcha decided to take some R & R, and went to the Battle Simulator Room, to fight some simulated battles. Sorcha always found this therapeutic — she was killed twice and it sent a shudder of pleasure running through her.
And now, Sorcha was being confronted by an artillery attack by a race of armoured aliens with laser-beam eyes and about to take evasive action in her One-Jet when —
The missiles disappeared. The aliens disappeared. Her One-Jet disappeared. Sorcha found herself sitting in a leather chair with a virtual helmet on. She took the helmet off, and found her fellow Soldiers were similarly baffled.
“Juno,” she said. “What’s wrong?”
No answer.
“Juno,” she said, “please report.”
Nothing. Just silence. “Major Molloy to Major Johnson, what’s happening?” Nothing. “Major Molloy to Commander Martin, please acknowledge,” she subvoced. Total silence. She tried subvocing the Soldier next to her.
“What the fuck?” she said.
“The MI network is down, “the Soldier said, in his real voice.
“How can that —”
At that moment the alarms went, and a voice — she recognised Ben Kirkham’s flat, droning tones — was heard over the never-before-used intercom system:
“Alpha Alert. We have a total systems failure. We have no communications, no link with Earth, and the MI frequencies have been blocked. And the worst news of all,” Ben continued, grimly, “is that we’ve lost touch with Juno. The Mother Ship is no longer returning our calls.”
Xabar was a city run by dumb robots. The airconditioning was controlled by electronic sensors, the hydroponics by simple feedback circuits. And the Doppelganger Robots — all of which could be controlled by human minds when required — were most commonly used as low-grade machines with the simplest of cybernetic circuits.
But the brains and soul of Xabar was Juno; a quantum computer of almost infinite power which monitored every aspect of the city’s life. If a holographic sparrow flickered, Juno would know about it. She gave instructions to the dumb Doppelgangers, she kept the air fresh and fragrant, she ensured the animals in the city zoo were safe and content, and she was the conduit for all communications with Earth and the other Settled Planets and for all MI communciations between Soldiers and Scientists and Techies. If you wanted to make a holographic videocall to your brother on a planet fifty light-years away, Juno would set it up. If you wanted to download data from the up-to-date Galapedia, Juno would source it and collate it and check all the references.
Everyone spoke to Juno, every hour of every day: “Juno, can you check this?” “Juno, can you do this?” “Juno, I have a problem.” “Juno, please advise.”
It was unprecedented for a Mother Ship computer to break communications.And for the citizens of Xabar, the loss of Juno was emotionally and psychologically devastating.
“Juno, are you there?”
“Juno, can you advise me on my data?”
“Juno, what should I watch on television tonight?”
“Juno, can you make me a playlist of blues and nufunk that will make me pleasantly melancholy?”
“Juno?”
“Juno, are you there?”
“Juno?”
“Juno!”
“Juno!!!!!!”
Sorcha wondered if an armed rebellion was imminent. The thought filled her with cold joy. Any rebellion was bound to fail — her Soldiers would easily massacre any insurgent Scientists.
But that scenario was, she knew, unlikely. Mass rebellion was a no-brain strategy — the history books were littered with stories of massacres in which Soldiers and DRs had crushed and slaughtered would-be rebels. These days the rebels were smarter; they knew that isolated acts of sabotage were more effective, and harder to stamp out. And indeed, some argued, though Sorcha vemenently disagreed, that minor acts of sabotage should be tolerated as a way of letting resentful citizens blow off steam. It was, according to this soft-headed neo-liberal view, the price you paid for tyranny.
“Reboot complete, all systems fully functional,” said a voice in her head.
“Juno?” said Sorcha.
“Django, can you hear me?” Helms said.
A long pause followed. Then Django’s voice spoke in the Professor’s inner ear:
“Acknowledged, Professsor. Good news. We’ve now got contact with Juno again The MI network is working. All systems have been restored.”
Helms realised that he could actually hear his own heart pounding. “Yes, I know,” he said. “I’ve just been speaking to Commander Martin. But my worry is — what the hell has been — I mean, have you figured out what the problem was?” he added, in an attempt at a calm and casual tone.
“No.”
“Did you run a diagnostic?”
“Juno won’t let me.”
“So is it possible,” said Helms, holding in his terror, “that it was Juno who opened the dome? And Juno who sabotaged the post-mortem? Is she acting against us?”
“Hardly likely,” Django said, with an attempt at reassurance.
“Harumph,” Helms snarled, and he cut the MI link.
“Helms?” Sorcha barked into her MI.
“Not now, Major.”
“We need to talk.”
“I’m dealing with —”
“The Commander is furious. He doesn’t understand how Juno could have —”
“I couldn’t give a damn what the Commander thinks.”
“Professor!”
“Sorcha, you need to do something for me.”
Sorcha hesitated. “What?”
“Do you have your body armour on?”
“Not any more, no. Once the emergency was —”
“Then get it back on. And tell all your Soldiers to get armoured up. The full complement, I don’t want anyone on rest break. And tell them to be prepared.”
“Be prepared for what?”
“You’ll see.”
Sorcha sat in her control chair, deeply worried. The Professor was famous for his dithery, amiable calm; but the man she had just spoken to was in a state of blind panic. He must, she realised, have come to the same conclusion that she had just come to.
They were at war with Earth.
“Major Molloy to all units,” she subvoced, to access her secure channel, then: “All Soldiers, I’m restoring a state of Alpha Alert, get back in your armour.”
Helms ran down the corridor and found his way bl
ocked by a swarm of DRscalpels. He moved towards them; they swarmed a bit more. He was suddenly convinced they would kill him if he attempted to pass.
He turned around, and walked slowly back to his cabin. Behind him, the DRscalpels made an eerie hissing noise. It felt as if they were mocking him.
“What the hell are you playing at, Major?” said Commander Martin over Sorcha’s MI.
“I’m following Professor Helms’s request, sir.”
“Why? What has he told you?”
“Nothing,” Sorcha admitted.
Mia Nightingale enjoyed being in the locker room when the Soldiers stripped out of their body armour. She savoured the sight of their naked bodies, their powerful muscles, the stench of sweat and the raw physicality of these trained killers.
And of course the locker-room scenes were highly popular on the soft porn and warrior-porn sites, and Mia usually got a kickback from pirate sales of the downloads.
But that wasn’t why she enjoyed these moments. It wasn’t sexual; rather, she found a great purity in these scenes. They were moving tableaux of warriors at their most vulnerable.
And she marvelled at the power and the beauty of these Soldiers’ bodies. They were trained for combat, bred for combat, genetically engineered for combat. All of them — the men, the women, and the two hermaphrodites, Tonii and Maria — all of them had bodies like gods and goddesses, marked with scars and fissures, and ornamented with tattoos of remarkable variety and beauty.
She moved around the Soldiers as they took their body armour off, capturing each instant with her hand-held cam. She was so taken for granted now that the Soldiers barely registered her presence.
“Go on, take a close look,” Sergeant Anderson suggested, as she moved for a close-up of the naked warrior queen tattoo on his taut, chiselled abs.
“Yeah,” said Mia, unsettled at the tattoo, as she realised that the naked warrior queen had been beheaded. It made her feel queasy.
“All Soldiers, I’m restoring a state of Alpha Alert, get back in your armour,” said Sorcha’s voice crisply over the MI.
Helms walked to his cabin on wobbly legs. He saw a silver Humanoid DR and felt a lurch of panic, but forced himself to stay calm.
The DR was staring at him with its blank metal eyes. “What are your duties?” Helms barked at it, but the DR didn’t answer.
“Helms to Ben Kirkham,” Helms subvoced, “can you run a systems check on —”
“Time to die, Professor,” the DR said, with a leering smile. Helms swiftly drew his plasma pistol and the DR raised its own plasma gun and held it to Helms’s temple, and Helms felt his stomach turn over.
Then the DR lowered its gun. “Is something wrong, Professor?” it asked, in its robot flat tones.
“No. I’m fine. Just . . .” Helms looked at the gun in his hand. “Just checking my gun is charged.”
“Professor, it’s Ben here, can I help?”
“No I’m —” Helms said incoherently, as the DR held out its hand to him.
“Let me,” it said, and the DR took the gun off him, thrust the gun butt into a hole in its chest, and charged it. Then the DR handed the gun back.
“I’ve added some explosive shells,” the robot-mode DR said helpfully.
Helms sat at his desk. He took a deep breath.
Then he conjured up his virtual screen.
He typed his encrypted password in mid-air and an image of New Amazon appeared before him.
“Helms, this is Commander Martin.”
“Not now.” Helms clicked his MI off.
The door of his cabin flew off. The DRscalpels flew in. They aimed their laser beams at him and —
— exploded in mid-air. Helms had primed his plasma security beams; they blew the dumb robot tools out of the air.
He continued typing passcodes, a long series of encrypted codes that led him to the final screen which blazed violently at him, and then he typed the launch codes for the missiles and authenticated them with a retinal scan.
A signal was transmitted over Helms’s private and secret radio channel, via his MI, and a dozen missiles were primed, and then fired out of a buried silo deep in the jungle.
The flotilla of missiles flew through the air, cutting through the flocks of New Amazonian birds that cluttered the air, and continued on a course that led towards the domed city.
Helms watched it all on his virtual screen. Each missile carried a camera and dozens of missile-view images danced in the air in front of him.
And, after a few minutes, the missiles were soaring high in the air above Xabar. The sky was dark with chaff and anti-missile missiles thrown up by the dome’s automatic security systems, and the sky was white with explosions, but then the remaining missiles, soared down fast and struck the still-intact inner dome of Xabar and shattered it in a million pieces.
The explosion was deafening.
Sorcha was almost thrown out of her control chair by the explosion that rocked the dome. The EVACUATE alarm began to ring.
“What’s happening?” she said into her MI, but once again there was no response.
Then there was a whirring noise and, in her head, she heard Helms’ voice, oddly distorted. “Alpha Alert, Alpha Alert, we’re being attacked by Juno. Repeat, Juno has gone rogue. Evacuate. Treat all Doppelgangers as potential enemy targets. Get your armour on, seize your weapon, head for the AmRover bay. And do it now. Run!”
“What the hell is going on now?” screamed Commander Martin.
“Repeat, Juno is rogue, Juno is rogue.”
Chaos descended upon Xabar. Alarms whined and flashed.
In the Rack Room, the DRs began to stir. Eyes opened. Arms twitched. Silver bodies stood, and moved away from the confining racks.
Plasma cannons were, unnecessarily, locked and loaded.
The DRs began to walk.
Terry Miller was a xenobiologist of forty years’ experience. He was surprised to hear a faint padding sound, the unmistakable noise of DRs walking. He glanced up and saw twenty DRs enter the corridor ahead of him.
“What’s going —” he began to say, and then the plasma cannons fired.
Michael Corden was peering at the image of a New Amazonian plant cell through a microscope when he heard a clattering noise in the hall. He was too preoccupied to look up. He had already disconnected his MI, and had doggedly ignored all the various commotions that had been attempting to ruin his day, such as the EVACUATE alarm. These emergency drills were becoming a —
A plasma blast blew his legs off. Michael felt dizzy, and wondered what had just happened, and then —
Dr Alan McCoy and four other Scientists had been working in the Plant Rooms, and all of them had body armour on when the doors were smashed open. Alan, who was justifiably impressed at his own speed and quasi-military discipline in responding to the alarms, smiled when two Humanoid DRs strode in.
“What does Helms mean when he says that Juno has —” Alan began, and then he realised the DRs were about to shoot him, and his three colleagues.
“Ah, f —” he managed to say before he died.
All around Xabar, Scientists were confronted by murderous DRs in all their varied forms — Humanoids, Drones, Cleaners, Scalpels, Cranes and Jibs.
The Dormitory Wings were invaded by DRdrones.
The Recreation Areas were filled with Humanoid DRs on the march.
The shopping malls were hosed with plasma beams fired by robot Guns; DRbombs exploded in the swimming pools; grenades were hurled by serving robots into school buildings.
There were fifty Humanoid DR bodies in the Rack Room, though most of the time they were hardly used. But today, all the silver-skinned Doppelganger Robots were out, padding near-silently, staring with their silver eyes, looming tall. And they were joined in their stately deadly tread by all the other dangerous DRs from the storage basements — the semi-brained Rockets, Guns, and Missiles, which flew beside and behind and in front of the Humanoids like the weapons of some invisible ghost army.
And so the Doppelangers did as they were instructed, efficiently and methodically.
They killed, and they killed, and they killed . . .
Plasma blasts ripped through flesh, grenades were hurled, DRscalpels dissected and flayed all who came in attacking distance.
Security doors locked shut, trapping Scientists and Soldiers in killing zones. Guns flew into the Earth Aviary Restaurant, firing bursts of plasma energy, shredding tables and cups and saucers and people. Within minutes, the room was full of blood and charred corpses as the virtual birds flew blindly around.
And meanwhile, the hardglass dome of Xabar had been shattered utterly by the missile strike. A wind swept through Xabar and many were caught up and hurled high into the air, crashing up into the Canopy, before plunging downwards to their deaths. The flash of plasma fire lit up the black night. The screams of dying men and women almost drowned the howling of the insects in the jungle beyond.
It was a massacre, and a disaster, and it came as a total shock to almost everyone. One moment the Scientists were cataloguing their results and preparing their experiments; the next they were caught up in a ghastly bloodbath.
Sorcha jogged down the corridor and found her way blocked by corpses.
“Major Molloy to Commander Martin, where do I go?”
“Just evacuate, Major.”
“Where’s the battle, Commander?”
“Evacuate, I’ll take it from here.”
Sorcha took a deep breath. She was desperate for battle. She could taste her own death, it was like eating her tongue.
Red Claw Page 5
