by P. W. Singer
ASEs had started to pop up around the country a decade back as a merger of real estate development and hate. The ASEs sold themselves as a place for “true patriots” to live and work together like the early white settlers once had. Purpose-built communities of farm-style homes, where you could know and trust your neighbors, mixed with high-tech on-site manufacturing and “Pure Code” software development. It was a classic play-for-profit using the powerful forces of nostalgia, fear, and division, selling ideas and products to one group of Americans on the basis of them being more American than another. Building on that proven model, the Pure Code movement pushed branded algorithms and apps written by “real Americans,” whose racial identity had been certified by genomic testing. Of course, like so much of the shtick, it was bullshit. Most of the programming work was actually outsourced to digital sweatshops in India and Peru.
The gentrification of the rural landscape was also designed around a blend of oversized homes with easily defendable tracts of land against any and all outside threats. For a generation fed doomsday scenarios of everything from Mexican gangs to zombies, having your own secure and self-sufficient enclave seemed like a real need.
The intelligence gathered on this particular ASE showed ninety-six people with National Freedom Front markers, including twenty-three minors. Combined with facial recognition catches of Simpkins making gas station stops on his regular visits to Control Room, it’d been enough to get a search warrant for the site.
“This one’s going to be a tough nut, though. There’s only one road in and we have indicators local law enforcement may be compromised by this particular ASE.”
Images of local press coverage showed the settlement’s history. Led by a former congressional staffer from California named Gregory Heath, the first families affiliated with the National Freedom Front had arrived over the last few years with steady regularity, peeling away from their old lives inside the Beltway to establish an existence they described as a “system reboot of real America.” Any local resistance to the group had ended after the incumbent mayor of the closest town had ended up shot dead in a ditch after Heath contested the election. A later newsclip showed the new county sheriff, another recent arrival appointed by Heath, lamenting that the shooting remained unsolved.
“So we have to assume all ground movements will be monitored. The follow-on force will stage out of the Blue Ridge School about 15 klicks south.2 They’ll mask as a delivery vehicle,” he said, a picture of a large six-wheeled autonomous UPS truck that the Bureau’s Hostage Rescue Team often used as a covert command post popping up on the screen. “It’s a boarding school for boys, so they’ll be used to some traffic there, delivering care packages and such for the rich kids.”
Noah pulled up a 3-D map with their staging area and the routes the FBI force would take from there.
“And then just as everyone in the enclave is waking up to have their coffee and apple pie fritters or whatever the fuck racist fuckers eat for breakfast—”
At that, an enormous agent in the back of the room shouted out, “Tell us what you really think, Reddy!”
“My brief, Keg . . . ,” he said to quiet the agent. “Agent Keegan and her, um, partner will show up at their front door to serve the warrant, brought there safe and sound through the hard work and dedication of the FBI’s most elite unit.” At that, the assembled crowd made the obligatory military-style “Oorah” cheer.
“Agent Keegan, do you have anything more for us? An inspirational message?” Typical Noah, trying to put her on the spot.
She blinked out of the displays on her vizglasses and stood to face the group of body-armor-wearing HRT operators and support staff. “My plan is just let the FBI’s most elite unit”—another Oorah from the crowd—“do its thing, and stay out of your way,” said Keegan.
After the briefing ended, Noah came up to Keegan as she snapped the magazine in and out of her Next Generation Squad Weapon, checking to ensure it didn’t catch, as had plagued the first batches of the gun.3 She’d carried a version of the NGSW in the Marines, which made the “Next Generation” in the name a bit absurd. But at least they’d finally replaced the old M16 variants Marines had carried for some seventy-five years.
“Hey, boot,” Noah said. “You still remember how to use it?”
“Like riding a bike, just with a polymer-cased 6.8-millimeter round.”
But Noah didn’t laugh. “Be careful out there with your back. Exo’s will mess that shit up for you, and I don’t have the free time to visit you in the hospital every week again.”
“All set,” said Keegan, tapping the magazine onto her gray helmet.4 Then she pulled out a plastic-wrapped square of paper, folded over on itself. The warrant was printed out: shockproof, waterproof, and un-hackable. “Our most important weapon.”
“Pretty sure they won’t be happy to see us.” As Noah said it, he absentmindedly tightened the chest fasteners on his body armor that secured it to the exoskeleton. It was a tell that he was nervous too.
“Don’t expect so,” said Keegan. “When was anybody happy to see you and me at their door?”
“Bit different this time. Less danger, more firepower,” said Noah, flexing his arm in the exoskeleton toward the waiting tilt-rotor aircraft. He took a long look at TAMS. “The question is, is your bot ready for this? There’re a lot of HRT applicants who were hot shit in the Kill House, but turned out to be just shit when it came to actually doing the job. I assume it’s the same for machines.”
“It’s done OK so far,” said Keegan, feeling somehow obligated to defend TAMS. It was her machine as far as anybody in the hangar was concerned.
“It going in armed?” Noah asked.
“Benelli shotgun with Taser rounds,” she said.5 Then, after waiting a beat, “It likes shocking Nazis.”
He looked back at her quizzically, not sure if she was putting him on.
“How about your team?” she asked. “Anything else I need to know?”
“Just the basics today; you and that thing are enough of a novelty. We don’t need any more risk.”
She knew Noah trusted her, but she was an outsider to his team and therefore a liability. And the machine she’d brought into their element only magnified an unknown quantity.
Another HRT operator called for Noah’s attention, so he left her. Mostly to keep busy, Keegan tried to find who had feeds of the insect-sized reconnaissance bots the FBI usually deployed ahead of the assault.
She went over to the HRT agent that Noah had called Keg. Six foot five and 250 pounds, he had the football player build that Hollywood imagined of special operators, rather than the reality, which was most of them looking like cross-country runners. Add in the extra inches of lift from his exosuit’s boots, and he towered over Keegan.6
He needed that size, as he carried one of the new .50-caliber M109 sniper rifles that fired hypersonic bullets. It gave them twice the speed and range as regular rounds, but the longer, heavier barrel also meant twice the weight and the need to change out the barrel after every engagement.7 Only the most elite units could afford them, and only their biggest members could handle them.
“Keg?” Keegan asked. She wondered about the nickname’s origin. Was it a reference to his burly size, some legendary drinking escapade, or maybe just some secret handshake acronym among the team’s operators? She didn’t want to give the satisfaction of asking, though. No matter how integrated these units had become, they still had too many vestiges of back when they’d been a boys’ club.
“Yo,” he said, caught in the midst of spitting into a black plastic bottle he’d mounted on the latch-point of his body armor.
These guys and their dip. It never changes.
“I mean, ‘How can I assist you?’” as if parroting an order Noah had given in a talk to the unit before Keegan’s arrival.
“I can’t find any feeds from the recon bots,” Keegan said.
Keg shook his head, an audible sound as the big man’s armor and exosuit strained. “ ’Cause there ain�
��t any. They sent in a set with cover as EPA sniffers. We got about four minutes of coverage, but then they just powered down. I can push you what we have, but all we got were images of sticks and leaves.”
“Damn,” she said.
“Not my call,” said Keg, seeing the look that crossed her face. “We still got the overhead feed from the Iris drone.”
“I’m just looking for something more.”
“Aren’t we all, sister,” said Keg. He had a kind, gap-toothed smile beneath a nose that looked like it had been broken once a year.
So, all they had was the aerial sensor data from a disposable Iris glider loitering 7,000 feet overhead. It could have been a faulty battery set that cut the insect bot feeds, but Keegan’s mind quickly went to a more malicious cause. Most likely a Zapper, one of the networked countermeasures systems that used the drones’ wireless charging capability to rapidly drain their onboard batteries, rather than top them up. A lot of the anti-government compounds, and plenty of inner-city drug dealers, bought them off Alibaba as easily as they did new shoes.
“Yeah, my spidey senses are reading it as well,” Keg said. “Either way, you and your midget machine are running with me now, so you’ll be fine.”
“Got it,” Keegan said. “Can I ask you another question?”
“Fire away. You’re the reason we get to go out today on a real mission instead of more video game training, so ask what you want.”
“You actually going fit in the Valor with all that shit on?”
“Sometimes we have to leave any deadweight behind if it gets tight,” Keg said. “Usually that’s your boy, Noah. This time, though, I’m sizing up how much you and your bot weigh.”
“You know never to ask that of a lady, especially not one with a robot that carries a shotgun,” Keegan replied.
Keg tipped the rifle in salute. Being able to joke at a time like this was one of the little tests that mattered.
After the team loaded into the Valor, they lifted off into the night sky under total darkness, not using the usual navigation lights. The “squirt” rapid departure helped reduce the chance that plane spotters would be able to capture the flight and report it onto the open-source flight trackers.8
Keegan tried to close her eyes and nap, but it was impossible to sleep aboard the Valor. She hated tilt-rotor aircraft; knew too many horror stories about them. To make matters worse, she was wedged in tighter than even they’d been in the old Ospreys. On one side was the massive Keg, his exosuit secured to the floor and bulkhead by the crew chief—no lap belt was strong enough for the weight. On her other side was TAMS. That normally would have given her more space, but the petite robot was bulked out with a protective armor kit that added a layer of ceramic plating over its chest.
The Valor’s flight path took it north toward the city, another precaution to avoid tipping off their target. The plan was to then fly west along the Potomac and dip back southwest. It added time, but gave Keegan an aerial view of the flooded areas of Washington. The Georgetown waterfront, where she and Jared had first started to run together in that transition period from dating to relationship, was still dark—no power. But the mud- and water-logged streets glinted in the lights of construction equipment and the hundreds of drones assisting in the relief efforts. While the city hadn’t been ready for the fast-moving flood, cleaning up after severe weather events was something that the government was prepared for, as every major metropolitan area along the eastern seaboard had to deal with them more and more in recent years.9
“Look at all that mud,” said Noah, sitting directly across from her. “Bet they have it cleaned up in a week.”
“Just thinking the same thing,” said Keegan. The air cooled as the Valor gained altitude, lifting them above the recent spike in heat that had followed the flood.
“Saw you guys pitching in during all the mess, rescuing kittens from trees and even the Declaration of Independence.”
“Anything to avoid going to the office,” said Keegan.
“Typical of your lazy ass. And don’t think I didn’t notice your buddy there did all the work . . . as usual,” Noah said, nodding at TAMS.
Keegan gave him the finger and watched out the window as the Valor climbed away from DC. As the tilt-rotor crossed over into Arlington, she could make out their high-rise. She gave it a little wave, thinking of Haley and how cool she would think it was that Mommy had flown by in one of the tilt-rotor planes they sometimes saw through the window. Better she didn’t know, though, considering the risks that went with it.
Keg reached across with his exo-shrouded arm and tapped Noah’s knee. “One of your pistol mag covers is popped open.” He pointed at the magazine secured next to the pistol on Noah’s chest plate. “You dive for cover, you’re going to get dirt and shit in there.”
Noah gave a thumbs-up and firmly restrapped the Velcro tab down.
Keg shook his head disapprovingly. “Thomson used to do that. Said it saved him time on the reload,” he said, laughing. “What a moron.”
“You’re just pissed because he shot you in the Atlanta raid,” Noah said.
“He was going to shoot somebody eventually, better it was me.”
“Where’d it catch you again?”
“Right in the plate, between the shoulders. Not even a scratch under the ceramic.”
“Didn’t hurt, that what you trying to say?”
“Of course it hurt, but I wasn’t going to let him know.”
Listening in to their back-and-forth, Keegan watched them with envy. She missed that camaraderie and knew it was something she would never have with a partner like TAMS. Sure, she could train it to speak with something like humor or even to be profane, but it would not commit the kinds of gaffes and screwups that deepened friendships in a way that nothing else could.
The tilt-rotor gained altitude, moving above the personal flier traffic of the super-commuters heading home late. Able to see more and more of the geography, Keegan watched the distinct neighborhoods morph into vinelike entanglements of red and white lights encircling pools of black.
She switched on her full-color night vision. The lightless black zones became vibrant projections of color on her lens, revealing the nighttime activity now taking place in abandoned retail and housing developments at the border line of the exurbs. This palette was the picture of modern agriculture, corn stalks nearly as tall as the empty two-story homes in whose lawns they now grew, as hundreds of mantislike compostable ag-bots moved between them, tending the crops.10
“What’s that down there, TAMS?” as she marked a rectangular 20-acre stretch of land, all trace of human buildings cleared away.
“The designated area is an apple orchard operated by MG Farms, a limited liability corporation registered in Delaware,” TAMS said. Keegan zoomed the view in on the lines of trees, and moving between them were a half dozen Ocado bots, mechanized limbs alternately thrashing and delicately grabbing fruit through the night.11 She wondered if that was it? Was that what drove Shaw, not a sense of “responsibility,” but its dark twin, some kind of guilt buried deep beneath that placid exterior, that the real crop his family’s farm had shared with the world was scenes like this?
“Bet they’re not listening to any country songs,” said Noah, who had hooked on to the same feed.
“Used to be when you wanted to get people to vote for you it was to scream about some immigrant coming to pick fruit for pennies,” said Keegan. “Now, from farm to table, it’s the bots that do it.”12
“Wonder how many Americans down there would sign up to do that work now? I bet more than a few,” Noah said.
“Bullshit,” said Keegan. “They’d just complain about someone taking their jobs, even if it’s jobs they don’t want to do.”
The Valor dropped in a steep dive, engine surging as the aircraft picked up speed. Keegan braced herself and fought the anxiety that made her want to throw up. To focus on something else, she shifted to the external feed from the Valor’s own situational-
awareness suite. The aircraft’s wider-angle view of the landscape just showed more dark zones. Starry motes of light in the night vision were the only sign of human life. It made her think of Shaw and the changes he’d mentioned that had taken place in rural America over just a single lifetime.13 Small town after small town emptied not just of people, but of hope. The Valor flew over closed-up farms, stores, and gas stations that were the only monuments to a way of life made obsolete. The most depressing was an abandoned school’s high school football stadium. For all that she hated the way those places were treated as temples to first kisses and life-changing quarterback passes, the sight of it was jolting. If they’d forsaken even that, what was left?
A moment later, a particularly violent lurch of the Valor caused her to lose her grasp on the NGSW rifle. Keg reached out with an exosuit-shrouded arm and caught the weapon, while he spit dip into his black bottle. Coral-like perforated carbon supports wrapped his limb. The weapon was strapped to her, so there was no chance of her losing it completely, but it was still embarrassing.
Keg handed the weapon back to Keegan. “I was sketched out about your bot, but now I’m more worried about you. Try not to shoot any holes in the floor.” As if to keep her from making a quip back, he quickly flipped down his protective face mask, concealing the last sign that there was indeed a person underneath all that carbon and ceramic.
There may be a person under there, Keegan thought, but he’s already half-machine. The two surveillance appendages on his back could function like extra limbs and even hold weapons. She looked over at TAMS, sitting on her other side, entirely unhuman, but its fragility seeming more human by far. And what was she, other than caught in the middle?
American Solidarity Enclave
Greene County, Virginia
The head-high rock formations jutted out of the hillside like broken bones. They afforded the approaching HRT group plenty of cover—but they did for any defenders as well. This sort of country had a fighting history, and she could feel it.
