Zone War

by John Conroe

  His eyes narrowed. “We’ll see about that.”

  Chapter 16

  Lots of talking, lots of threats. Lock me up, national security, blah blah blah. My attorney showed up about halfway through it. Nobody remembered that my personal AI was in my armor the whole time—recording. And calling.

  Sarah Jarit was young, looked even younger. Small, petite even, with curly brown hair and light brown eyes. Most people thought she was a college intern. She was thirty-two and her pleasant, girl-next-door demeanor hid the sharp predatory mind of the human lawyer equivalent of a Berkut. Finished law school near the top of her class, two years younger than anyone else. Worked in a prestigious law firm for three years, then went out on her own. She was extremely good at the legal framework that surrounded the Zone.

  “They thought they could keep me from seeing you,” she said with a sharp little smile as she entered my plain, institutional interrogation room. “I sent them a clip of their own footage. Good idea having your personal AI on you, AJ.”

  “Which part?”

  “Oh, part of the conversation with that major and some video of you and your robot killing almost as many drones as the rest of them combined. Explained that they had a PR nightmare on their hands.”

  “My AI got all that?”

  “Copied everything the suit was recording. Probably good thing you didn’t ask anyone if it was okay to bring it with you because there are all kinds of prohibitions against it. Seems the battle suit you were in had a more open network than the rest of them.”

  “It was a training suit. Probably less restricted or some shit like that. How much trouble am I in?”

  “AJ, you released an active, deadly Zone drone into Brooklyn,” she said. “That’s a federal felony.”

  “Nope. Didn’t do it. Yoshida told me to bring Rik- ah, to bring the Berkut. Then he was the one to talk about destroying it, which activated its self-preservation programming.”

  “That was one of the parts I played for him. He noted that it’s quite apparent that you emphasized particular words, an activation phrase of sorts.”

  “Yes, I summarized his seizure of my property. Rikki took that as confirmation that he was in danger.”

  “Not sure about that whole property thing, AJ. It’s a listed drone, with a very high bounty, by the way.”

  “Sarah, I’m no attorney, but I’ve read the Zone laws as much as anyone. There are absolutely no prohibitions on possessing anything inside the Zone. If I find a nuke in there, the Zone law says nothing about me not being able to possess it while I was in the Zone.”

  She frowned. “True, but you were no longer in the Zone.”

  “I was directed by the ranking Zone military commander on the scene to bring my captured Berkut out, intact and active. Until I turn it over to Zone Defense for the bounty, it’s my property. Not my fault that the commander discussed taking apart an active drone in front of it. You could argue all day about if it was my paraphrasing or his words that alerted the drone, but there is no proof either way. The drones are artificially intelligent. The Berkut is near the top of the intelligence heap for those drones. Self-preservation is programmed into them, hence the reason they’re still active five years past their expiration date. Rikki sensed eminent danger and fled.”

  “You named the thing?” she asked, uncomfortable.

  “Yes. After the Kipling story,” I said.

  “They told me that. Implied that their case would make you look at best, unstable, and at worst, dangerously psychotic. You even call it a he.” She looked at me carefully.

  “Ah, anthropomorphism. Sarah, that unit was the one that killed my father. The only reason I didn’t utterly destroy it was because both my parents told me to use it. Make something good out of something bad. So I made it my watchdog. Reprogrammed it to hunt drones, not humans. So what if I named the thing? Naming your dog doesn’t mark you as crazy, does it? Rikki is smarter than any dog, has more personality than most people.”

  “But it’s a killer drone from the Zone. No one is ever going to see it as anything but a crazed killing machine.”

  “Well, Yoshida saw it as the savior of Manhattan. That’s why he wants it. To duplicate it so they can go in and hunt the drones.”

  “Then why not let him do that?”

  “Because that drone is unique and Zone Defense will destroy that uniqueness trying to figure it out. And second, they used me to effectively guide their rescue operation with no discussion of remuneration, after freezing my license, then sought to destroy and replicate my property for only the bounty. Rikki is worth four times that bounty in software advances alone.”

  She looked at me thoughtfully, mind racing behind her deceptively soft brown eyes. “How dangerous is it to the public?”

  “Not at all. He… it’s programmed to protect humans, not hurt them.”

  “Where will it go?”

  I looked at the mirrored wall meaningfully.

  “If they are observing this privileged attorney-client meeting, they are in way more trouble than you,” she said.

  Like that would stop them. “Listen, I don’t know where he is or where he’ll go,” I said. True enough. Had some strong hunches but didn’t know anything for certain.

  “How did you plan to get him back, then?”

  “I didn’t plan anything. Yoshida said they would reverse engineer him. I paraphrased it back to him. He didn’t disagree. Rikki made the decision to leave at the first opportunity. Fight or flight. Rikki fled.”

  “AJ, if this thing hurts anyone, it’ll come back on you. Probably on Zone Defense too, but you’ll be the face of it.”

  “Not gonna happen. He won’t hurt people,” I said with every bit of sincerity I could. I wasn’t one hundred percent certain, but I was pretty sure he wouldn’t just harm someone. Hadn’t shot me yet so, well, there ya go. “How long can they keep me?”

  “I’ll have you out in an hour. But AJ, they can still charge you,” she said.

  “Hell, they probably want me out so I can find Rikki for them. Then they swoop in, take the drone, and then charge me.”

  She looked at me, considering my theory. “A little paranoid—not entirely far-fetched though,” she allowed.

  “I think there’s a lot of political pressure to win back Manhattan. They’ll go to pretty far lengths to find a way to do it.”

  “Is that really so bad? Killing off the drones and reclaiming the island?” she asked.

  “Not at all. I’m not opposed to helping, but they seem more interested in leveraging me, forcing me, than asking me. Never really gave me a choice on the rescue, but I would have done it anyway. Just don’t like being bullied into stuff.”

  “You know there’s a clause in your Zone license that lets them requisition your aid, right?”

  “Ah, but it says reasonable aid. Not life-threatening aid. Big difference,” I said. “What’s reasonable?”

  “Is that what it says? Exactly?” she asked, eyebrows up.

  I couldn’t stop the grin on my face. “Exactly.”

  Her eyes got real sharpish. The legal eagle preparing to dive on a kill.

  “It’ll be more like thirty minutes,” she said, rising from her chair. “But AJ… you are extremely lucky you had your AI on you and recording.”

  “Yes, but Dad used to say luck was about being prepared to open the door when opportunity knocked,” I said.

  She tilted her head and thought about it. “Smart guy, your dad,” she said, knocking on the door to be let out.

  Chapter 17

  “Ajaya Gurung, it’s nice to meet you.”

  “Thank you, Cade Kallow. It’s nice to meet you too. You’ve been in our living room almost every day for four years,” I said.

  “And yet I can’t recall a single decorative detail,” the host of Zone War said with a smile. Then he turned to the camera. “Here it is folks, as promised: an interview with the sniper who saved Team Johnson. As most of you know, I’m Cade Kallow, your host for a
special edition of Zone War.”

  He turned back to me; his famous smile showing bright white, perfect teeth in a pleasant face that was not at all Hollywood perfect. Cade had been the narrator and host of Zone War right from the beginning, and it had made him an international star. A lean man of about a hundred and eighty centimeters, with ordinary brown hair, brown eyes, and a tanned, weathered face you might see anywhere. Till he smiled. His trademark grin was famous everywhere, along with his easy wit.

  “So we have with us tonight Ajaya Gurung, solo recovery specialist, a Zone salvage expert with over eight years of experience. He’s also the youngest salvager licensed for the Zone. At least that’s what my notes say. Is that correct, Ajaya?”

  “By a month and a half. Not really a significant amount of time to make a big distinction,” I said.

  A loud snort came from off camera. Cade whipped around to find the culprit. One of the six cameras aimed at us turned to take in the peanut gallery.

  “Whoa, look at this audience of fine ladies,” he said as if seeing them for the first time. Five faces smiled back at him. “Who all did you bring with you tonight, Ajaya?”

  “On the right side is my mother, Barbara Gurung, next to her, my grandmother, Purnamaya Gurung. Next is my sister Gabrielle, my sister Monique, and finally, on the end, I believe you know the delicate snorter who is fascinated with counting days of seniority.”

  “Lovely ladies all. Are your sisters models, Ajaya? Or is it your mother and grandmother who work the cameras?”

  “Now you’ve done it, Cade. They’ll play that sound bite back till the speakers fail,” I said.

  “Deservedly so. They are all beautiful. But I do think I recognize the perky blonde on the end. She used to argue with me that she wasn’t, in fact, the youngest salvage operator, and now I know why. Hello,

  Astrid.”

  “Hi, Cade. See, I’ve been right all along,” Astrid said. “Eventually you’ll learn, as AJ did years ago, not to waste time debating me.”

  “AJ?” Cade asked, turning to me.

  “My nickname.”

  “Bestowed on you by?”

  “The twins. Astrid picked it up the first time we met.”

  “Over ten years ago, if my facts are straight.”

  “Yes. Our fathers were friends at the time. They met in Afghanistan.”

  “Your dad was Baburam Gurung, SAS sniper?”

  “Yup. They ended up having two deployments where their units supported each other. They became friends and introduced their families to each other when they both returned home. Dad left the military and came to the US as a consultant so that we could grow up near my other grandparents and the rest of Mom’s family. They mostly live in upstate New York.”

  He turned his head and looked at my mother. “Barbara, your met Baburam in the UK?”

  “Yes, Cade. I happen to speak Nepali and was working with military families who had immigrated to the UK. My husband had brought Purnamaya with him from Nepal, as the rest of their family had passed. I worked with her to assimilate to her new surroundings while he was on deployment, and we were great friends by the time he returned,” my mother said. Aama smiled at her and patted her hand. Those two did not have anything like the typical mother and daughter-in-law relationship. “We married in London, but I moved back here with Purnamaya when I was pregnant with Ajaya and my husband had another mission. I have a large family, and they made a big fuss over having us back. It was much easier with a baby, and then again when the twins came along.”

  “And somewhere along the way the Johnsons and the Gurungs met up?” Cade asked.

  “Numerous times. I became very close with Karen, Astrid’s mother. Ajaya and Astrid actually met a few times when they were little, but those were short visits and I don’t think they remembered each other well when they came to visit here in New York,” Mom said.

  “That was ten years ago… Drone Night?”

  “Yes,” was all Mom said, her eyes glittering a little.

  Cade gave her a sympathetic smile and turned back to me. “So you really met the Huntress on the actual night of the Attack?”

  “Yes, Cade, but I think you mean the Driver, don’t you? Not like she tracks them down with hounds and shoots arrows into them. I mean, she’s more like a limo driver, right?” I said, carefully not looking to the women.

  “Ouch, I think the gauntlet’s been thrown down. What do you say to that, Astrid?”

  I chanced a glance. She was casually looking at her fingernails. “Oh, he’s much more the hunter type than I am, Cade. You know, the kind that dresses in silly looking green and brown clothes and spends an inordinate amount of time by himself, polishing his, ah, gun,” Astrid said. “And I do drive a lot of very, very expensive vehicles. And yet I can still outshoot him.”

  It was my turn to snort. He spun back to me with raised eyebrows, clearly delighted with our rivalry. “Ajaya, I’ve heard from seriously qualified experts that your shooting from that tower was beyond fantastic, yet Astrid says she can outshoot you?”

  “Cade, I think Astrid is locked in a memory from long ago when our families were vacationing in Vermont together and we did some range time. At that time, Astrid did score slightly higher on a long-range match, but that was the only time and I think she’s perhaps dwelled too long on it. Peak of her career, so to speak.”

  “Grudge match,” Gabby said suddenly, then looked embarrassed that she had spoken.

  “I couldn’t have said it better myself, Gabrielle,” Cade said, nodding. “How about it? You two willing to shoot it out?”

  “Anytime, Cade,” Astrid said, giving me a mock deadly look. I knew her real death stare, and this wasn’t it. She was clearly enjoying herself.

  “Ajaya?”

  “Sure, Cade. What are you thinking? A thousand meters?” I said. “Or is that too much for the, ah, lady?”

  She crossed her arms over her chest and raised one eyebrow. “Anytime, Gurung.”

  Cade turned to the camera. “This is the absolute best interview I’ve ever had and we haven’t even gotten to the good stuff yet,” he said with a huge smile. “But speaking of which…”

  “Nice segue,” I said.

  He nodded sagely. “That’s why I’m the host. Skills, ya know. But let’s get into it, shall we?”

  I just nodded.

  He looked at me for a moment, considering. “I dug around a bit. By which I mean my assistants dug around. You’re the only solo operator in existence at the moment.”

  “That’s what I’m told.”

  “And you’ve been doing it for almost half your life.”

  “Yeah, not so much when I was twelve, but pretty regular the last few years.”

  “What’s it like? To enter the deadliest place on Earth, alone, on foot, no armor?”

  “Mostly really quiet,” I said. “You know, no loud engines, clanging tin cans.”

  His eyes widened just a bit, then he glanced where I carefully wasn’t.

  “As you can see, he has something of a death wish,” Astrid said from the side, voice dry as a desert.

  “Were you two like this in school together?” he asked me.

  “Pretty much,” I said, glancing at Astrid, who just nodded once. “Unless someone else picked on either one of us.”