Zone War

by John Conroe

  “You what?” Eric asked.

  “I customized all our video games to have a Rikki avatar that would partner with whoever was playing a game.”

  “What game?” Maya asked.

  “All of them,” I said, touching the matte black outer shell of the Decimator.

  “Like first person shooters?” Eric asked.

  “Yes, but also all the others. Everything in the family library. Then when anyone, usually me or my sisters, but sometimes Mom, played, Rikki partnered with them. He seemed to learn a lot from partners tennis, but obviously the team play in online competitions worked wonders.”

  “You put your drone online?”

  “Yes. How else was he going to get exposed to as many other players as possible? Mostly it was him and me, but sometimes my sisters would join us in team play on Bleak or Lost Honor 45. Near the end of his training, I put him out on his own for about a week of battle-royale-type competitions. Also used some flight simulation programs to let him explore what his capabilities were after I upgraded some of his features. Then I took his CPU back into the Zone, upgraded old hardware in his shell, and we started some careful recon trips.”

  They all looked at me like I had three heads, then Yoshida started laughing. A real, deep, almost uncontrolled laugh. He caught himself and slowed it down, but he still needed to wipe the tears from the corners of his eyes. “I love this kid. You all have a billion-dollar supercomputer to hook into your beyond state-of-the-art combat aircraft and he takes his into online gaming competitions. Unfreaking believable.”

  They mostly looked embarrassed, although in Aaron’s case, that look crossed over to a flicker of anger. Maya’s chagrin changed to thoughtfulness and Eric just looked stunned.

  “In the flight simulators, how did you model his capabilities?” Maya asked.

  “I had him input his airframe’s specs and aerodynamic features. He knew them way better than I ever would. He already had all the experiences of his earlier life stored in his hard drive. It’s where we first worked out that ammo catch. When I finally took him into the Zone, we practiced it for real during slow moments when no other drone was near us.”

  “But wait, your online gaming would teach him to battle humans, but not other drones?” Aaron asked, an edge in his tone.

  “Yup, and there’s no more inconsistent opponent than a human. He learned to adapt and alter strategies and tactics on the fly. Although I’d bet you a thousand dollars that he wasn’t the only machine in there. These games can go on for days, and some of the higher-ranked players demonstrate too much performance endurance to not have a bit of occasional computer help. Rikki even indicated when he thought a player was too consistently logical to be a human.”

  “You’ve totally personified it. You have no objectivity,” Aaron said, almost in an I gotcha tone.

  “Why do I need objectivity about it? Rikki is the tool that I depend on most to stay alive and thrive in the Zone. You ever been in the Zone, Aaron? You have any idea what it’s like?” I asked.

  “No of course not. I’m not stupid enough to go in there,” he said.

  “Well the major and I are, apparently, that stupid. We use what works,” I said with a nod at Yoshida, who was staring holes in Aaron.

  Awkward doesn’t begin to describe that little moment in time. Eric and Maya actually took a step back away from Aaron, as he flushed red and looked anywhere but at Yoshida.

  Maya finally asked if I would show her what games and programs I used, taking me to a work desk where the resident AI projected a list as I stated them. Eric was quick to follow, which left Aaron to get a short, brutal lecture from the major.

  “You went about this all wrong, at least according to doctrine, and your results are absolutely spectacular. When I saw the footage of you two fighting Zone drones back to back, it was like a glimpse of perfection. Total synergy between man and machine, and the result beat just machine,” Maya said.

  “You also need to take into account the inherent skill of the human in that scenario,” Yoshida said, having left a quivering Aaron behind. “Not many operators have that level of shooting skill. You were seeing genetics, honed from an early age, combined with fantastic software housed in a pretty solid airframe design.”

  “Well, finding and training the human operator side is your job. Ours is to create similar programming in a superior drone,” Eric said, smiling a little uneasily.

  “Superior, huh? Show me,” I said with a wave at the Decimator.

  “Unit 19, bring all systems online,” Eric said, a proud smile on his face.

  With the slightest of hums, the Decimator lifted ten centimeters into the air and hovered absolutely still.

  “Push down on it,” Aaron suggested, finally joining us.

  “What?”

  “Put your hand on it and push down,” he said, touching the top himself.

  With a shrug, I reached over and pressed down on the drone. It didn’t budge. I pushed harder. Not a wiggle, shift, shimmy, or dip. It was like it was sitting on a pillar of stone rather than columns of air.

  “It could hold your body weight and lift you into the air,” Eric said. “Our flight programming is so tight, it instantly compensates for the pressure you exert on it, in all directions.”

  “Unit 19, proceed to the test area,” Maya said and the big drone slid silently through the air, crossing the room in a fast, smooth flight that had it at the glass door in about two seconds. A red light above the sliding glass door turned green and the door opened on its own, probably at the drone’s direction, as no one made any gestures, commands, or touched any controls. The design team led me across the lab to the glass window and I could now see that they were very thick panes of some kind of polycarbonate.

  Out in the test area, the Decimator was hovering on station, waiting.

  “Albert, release four opponent drones,” Yoshida said, earning himself a look from the others.

  “Ah, four, Major?” Aaron asked.

  “Worth the expense for our newest consultant to see what we got here,” the major said. “Albert, first drone, one on one.”

  “Who’s Albert?”

  “Lab AI,” Maya said.

  “Who’s personifying now?” I asked.

  Outside, a panel opened in the far wall and four sleek US Kestrels zipped out into the big test room. Three took up stations by the wall, but the fourth moved directly into attack mode.

  The Kestrel was pretty much current top-of-the-line hardware, or at least I would have said so before seeing the Decimator. About the same size as Rikki, they are disk shaped, like the old flying saucer trope, but in miniature. Fast, agile, and well armed, they are more than a match for a Berkut in tight quarters. In wide open space, the Berkut’s speed and climbing rate outperform, but then the Russian unit would find itself up against the big jet-powered Renders.

  Unit 19 instantly reacted to the Kestrel’s threatening approach, sliding sideways through the air while spinning to fire at the disk. The Kestrel zigged and zagged, avoiding the first two shots, but got tagged with the third. Bright, zombie green paint covered its surface, the other two paintball rounds patterning right on the glass in front of us.

  “Kill shot scored,” a voice said over the speakers.

  “Assault, three on one,” Yoshida said. What followed was a violent, swirling dogfight that ended after about twelve seconds with two green-splashed Kestrels and one blue-painted Decimator.

  “See what I mean?” Yoshida asked.

  “Rikki would have lost too,” I said.

  “Only because Kestrels have better close combat maneuverability. Unit 19 was designed to exceed Kestrels at close quarters and anything else in open airspace. Plug your software into that drone and I think it would have cleaned house,” Yoshida said. “So how can we get from here to there?”

  I spent the next four hours brainstorming with the team, studying what they had done to date and making suggestions. Then Yoshida released me to my own devices, leaving me w
ith a whirling mind and a free afternoon.

  Chapter 30

  “What did you say you wanted this for?”

  “I didn’t. And I’d just as soon not,” I said.

  “You realize I could get in ginormous trouble for this, right?” Dr. Lynn Coffey asked, one eyebrow arched in mild disapproval. She leaned down for a facial recognition scan before sending the prescription.

  “It’s not like it’s an opioid or something,” I said.

  She snorted. “You’d have to be signed up for a licensed monitoring program before I could even issue that prescription. No chance of getting your hands on any of that.”

  “What if I said this will help me survive the Zone?”

  A double snort this time. “How? Removing psoriasis on your gun hand?”

  “Haha. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”

  She put a hand on her hip and studied me with a serious expression. “That one, I actually believe. Can’t imagine any reason for it in the Zone, unless it’s to treat Brad Johnson’s perpetual scowl. Honestly, he’s damned lucky you like his daughter or the whole family would be toast.”

  “Why does everyone keep saying that?” I griped. Dr. Coffey had asked my dad and me to retrieve a prototype treatment device from her old office at the Manhattan Eye, Ear, and Throat hospital. This was like seven years ago and she had credited the device with changing the lives of hundreds of people dealing with semi-circular canal dehiscence, which I didn’t really know much about. She’s been volunteering to do favors for me ever since. I haven’t had much need of an ENT specialist, so this was maybe the first big thing I’d asked for.

  She smirked at me. “Oh I don’t know, maybe because you hang on her every word, follow her with your eyes, and focus on her like she’s the only person in the world.”

  “You got all that from like two episodes?”

  “Ajaya, there are whole discussion boards dedicated to the topic of you and Astrid. People rooting for you two to be a couple, some root against it, you know… typical fan crap.”

  “She has fans. No one even really knows me,” I said.

  “You don’t keep up with current events much, do you?” she said. “Honestly, Ajaya, you gotta pay a little attention to this stuff. And you’ve been in three episodes and the government mentioned you were a consultant on the Destroyer rescue. I hope the Flottercots are paying you well, ‘cause they’re making money off you hand over fist. What’s your agent say?”

  “Agent?”

  “Ajaya Gurung, tell me you have an agent!”

  “Don’t even know any.”

  “And they haven’t been coming out of the woodwork trying to sign you?” she asked.

  I shrugged. “AI, any queries from media agents?”

  “Thirty-seven emails with agent listed in either subject line, signature line, or body of message.”

  “Oh.”

  Doc Coffey just lifted her light gray eyebrow again.

  “Hey, I’ve been busy,” I protested.

  “And now dealing in elicit medications?”

  “Oh, not elicit… I’ve got a prescription,” I said triumphantly. She frowned. “Trust me. It’s Zone stuff.”

  She sighed. “Alright. Don’t make me regret this. And get an agent already, would you?”

  I nodded, gave her my biggest smile, and headed out the door. A four-hour work day for the gubmint left me with lots of afternoon to get errands done.

  Next, I headed to the surplus shop where I get my stealth suits. It’s one of those stores where olive drab is the main decorative paint color and every thing is festooned with ammo cans, mannequins wearing military load-bearing gear and gas masks, camouflage netting hanging on the back wall, and in this case, a beat-to-shit Humvee parked out front. The proprietor is a short, surly guy whose family emigrated here from Greece sometime in the late nineties. The funny thing is I don’t think he was ever in any branch of any military. He was leaning over his counter, talking to a heavily tattooed individual who was wearing Multicam cargo pants and an overly tight black tank top.

  “Hey Egan,” I said, glancing around at the merchandise.

  “Well, well, well. If it isn’t the celebrity his own self,” Egan said with a frown. The customer he was talking to leaned back to take me in, no expression on his face.

  I waved off his comment. “Eh, so I’ve had my fifteen seconds. That and ten dollars will be me a coffee at Starbucks.”

  He raised one bushy eyebrow, considering, but otherwise the owner of Egan’s Army-Navy store was a blank. Mr. Camo-tattoo was even blanker.

  “Whatcha need?” Egan finally asked.

  “Another stealth suit.”

  “Already? You just got the last one like four months ago?” he protested.

  I waved at the old plasma screen on one wall. “As I keep telling people… I’ve been busy. You got one my size? Otherwise I gotta order it and I hate drone deliveries.”

  “Yeah, yeah, you know I do. I’ll start looking for the next one right after I sell you this one. Gotta tell you, Ajaya, they’re getting harder to find. Sold all my other sizes within two days of your first episode,” he said, pulling back from the counter.

  I expected him to head in back, which is where he always kept them before. Instead, he came out around the counter and moved toward the middle of the room, behind a rack of mall ninja paintball gear. I followed and once I moved past the rack of facemasks and plastic bags of multicolored paint balls, I saw a new display, almost in the center of the room. A brown mannequin wore an older model stealth suit with a fake sniper rifle slung over one shoulder. Hanging from a string off the ceiling was a plastic kit model of a Berkut drone, suspended over the dummy’s head.

  “Really?” I asked.

  “You like? My boy Basil put it together like a year ago. Took it out of his room last night and hung it up this morning,” he said, pointing at the model drone.

  “You put that whole display together after I was on Zone War?” I asked. Then I saw the sign, stuck to the mannequin’s back. Get your gear where the Zone Sniper shops!

  “Zone Sniper? And you are not going to try and sell me that outdated piece of shit, are you?”

  “Hey, it’s marketing, baby. Adapt or die, am I right?” he said with a grin. “And no, I’m not selling you that thing. Have some faith, would ya?”

  There was a footlocker by the display dummy’s legs, covered with a swatch of camo cloth and stacked with expensive hiking socks and several pairs of combat boots. He pulled all the stuff off the top, revealing a lock on the trunk, which he opened with a combination. Out came a plastic-wrapped bundle, which he handed over.

  I pulled it out and inspected it, looking for defects and damage. It was brand new. Actually, it was one of the newest versions, current issue.

  “Where’d you get this?” I asked, eyebrows high.

  “I, ah, made new connections since you bought your last one. Got that special. Cost an arm and a leg though,” he said, shooting a suddenly nervous glance at the other customer, who was watching us like we were Monday Night Football. Ah, connections. Buying straight from the military, or at least people who worked for the military.

  “Alright. Great, let’s tag it and bag it.”