Siege (11 page)

At 9:00 p.m. we report to McGuire's headquarters building for our briefing with General Hawke. All the Pioneers crowd into a wood-paneled conference room and stand around a rectangular table that's way too small for us. Zia has to lean over to keep her War-bot's head from busting through the ceiling. Marshall stands in the corner, silent and motionless, as if his outburst in the decontamination room had drained his batteries. Hawke stands too, even though there's a chair for him at the head of the table. Dressed in his combat fatigues, he folds his arms across his chest as he listens to our reports.

Shannon does most of the talking, partly because she's our commander and partly because she doesn't seem to mind giving a minute-by-minute summary of the battle and answering all of the general's questions. After Shannon's done, DeShawn—who has transferred into a robot that's similar to my Quarter-bot, because Hawke isn't comfortable conversing with a swarm—adds a few comments about the striking similarities between the machines he developed and Sigma's oversize versions. Hawke is clearly displeased to hear this. His ruddy face darkens.

“Let me get this straight.” The general unfolds his arms and rubs his hands together. I've noticed he often does this when he's unhappy. “You're saying Sigma copied our plans? There's no chance that it could've developed those machines on its own?”

DeShawn shakes his robot's head. His machine has plastic humanlike features, and like Marshall, he chose to give his robot a famous face rather than a more personal one. I don't really understand this decision—when DeShawn was human he had a very handsome, dark-skinned face—but he has a quirky sense of humor, and I guess he couldn't pass up the opportunity to build a robot that looked like Albert Einstein. DeShawn used bushy strands of white fiberglass for the hair and mustache, and he carved deep wrinkles into the plastic on the forehead and around the eyes. It's always amusing to see the seven-foot-tall Einstein-bot toiling away in our lab in New Mexico, but it doesn't seem so funny in this conference room. Everyone's too anxious.

“The evidence is pretty solid.” The Einstein-bot's voice usually has a German accent, but DeShawn has turned off that feature for now. “Take the Snake-bots, for instance. There are hundreds of ways to build a burrowing robot, but Sigma used the same kind of flexible armor that we built into our machines. And when Sigma's Snake-bots transformed into Swarm-bots, the hovering modules used the same kind of rotors I designed, and the same technique for deploying the hydrochloric acid.”

“But you never thought of combining all those technologies into one package, correct?” Hawke points at DeShawn. “That was Sigma's innovation?”

I retrieve a recent memory from one of my files. I know Hawke doesn't like it when I interrupt him, but I have something important to say. “Sigma is the mathematical symbol for a sum. It's programmed to combine all the best features of its rivals. That's what the AI told me when we were in radio contact.”

Hawke frowns at me, as I expected. Then he reaches for a stack of documents on the table. These are our after-action reports, which include the full transcript of my conversation with Sigma. The general thumbs through the papers, squinting. “I guess Sigma could've built the machines at its factories in North Korea. But how did they get to New York?”

I shrug, lifting my Quarter-bot's shoulder joints. “It's a distance of seven thousand miles. If the Snake-bots can burrow through the seabed at twenty miles per hour, they could get here in two weeks. And no one would spot them on radar either. Traveling underground is the perfect way to get past the military's defenses.”

“And you think more of Sigma's machines might be on the way here?”

“Yeah, that's what I'm worried about. Sigma knows the U.S. Air Force can bomb the North Korean factories and turn them into rubble, so the AI probably took precautions. It probably built all the machines it needed
before
it launched this attack. I bet there are dozens of Snake-bots tunneling through the earth's crust right this minute, heading for the United States.”

Hawke keeps squinting at the documents. I feel sorry for him. I really do. He can't download all the information into his memory files like the Pioneers can. He can't analyze the data in a thousandth of a second, seeing the problem from every angle so he can figure out the best solution. He's limited by his biology, all the soft, soggy tissue inside his skull, where his thoughts move so slowly and his memories are so thin and changeable. Sigma was right about one thing: a human brain simply can't compete with our circuits. Yes, flesh-and-blood scientists built the first microchips and computers and robots and AI programs. But maybe the human race has outlived its usefulness.

And yet I'd give up my circuits in a nanosecond for the chance to be human again. Even for just a day. Even for just long enough to take a single breath.

While Hawke fumbles with his papers and tries to think of his next question, DeShawn swivels his head toward me and rolls his Einstein eyes. He's as impatient as I am, maybe more so. After waiting another two seconds, he raises one of his robotic arms to get the general's attention.

“Uh, sir? If Adam's right, and I think he is, then we can make a few guesses about Sigma's strategy. If it takes two weeks for the Snake-bots to tunnel across the globe, Sigma must've started building them at least a month ago.” As DeShawn talks, the steel fingers of his raised hand waggle back and forth. It looks like he's tapping the keys of an invisible calculator. “We drew the first blueprints for our Snake-bots only three months ago, and I didn't start working on my Swarm-bot until six weeks ago. That means Sigma must've seen our engineering plans almost as soon as we made them. And the AI probably had access to our tactical plans as well.”

Hawke looks up from the reports. “Tactical plans?”

“I think Sigma knew in advance about our reconnaissance mission in North Korea. That would explain why Adam and Shannon were ambushed as soon as they entered the factory.”

I nod my Quarter-bot's head. DeShawn's explanation makes a lot more sense than Dad's theory about acoustic sensors detecting our vibrations. “I agree, a hundred percent. The North Korean soldiers were waiting for us. Sigma must've told them we were coming.”

Hawke frowns again, more deeply this time. His left cheek twitches, just below his eye, maybe because he's been squinting so much. Then he lets out a grunt and tosses the stack of papers on the table. “All right, Pioneers, I'm going to level with you. I haven't said anything about this until now because the subject is classified. But the truth is, the U.S. Defense Department has done a poor job of keeping our secrets.”

A wave of alarm courses through my circuits. I know the other Pioneers are feeling it too, because their machines begin to fidget, shifting their weight and scraping their footpads on the floor. Shannon seems particularly surprised; she leans her Diamond Girl forward, her cameras focused on the general. “Sir? What secrets are you talking about?”

Hawke shakes his head. This admission is obviously painful for him. “Over the past few months I've shared information about the Pioneer Project with other generals in the Pentagon. I told the Air Force and the Navy about our plans for the North Korea mission, and I showed some of our designs for new robots to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In each case, I made it clear that no one should put any information on the Pentagon's computers, because I knew Sigma could hack into our networks. But the secrets spread too widely, and some of the officials in Washington were careless.” Hawke winces. All of his usual bluster and energy are gone. He looks tired and old. “In the end, though, the fault is mine. I should've been more cautious. I want to apologize to all of you.”

No one says a word. We're all thunderstruck. I never thought Hawke would apologize for
anything
. It's so out of character that none of us knows how to respond.

Finally, Zia takes a step forward. Still bending over, she lifts one of her massive arms and salutes the general. “
No apology necessary, sir
!
” Her voice makes the walls rattle. “
We're grateful for your leadership
!
”

Hawke returns her salute. His hand is steady, and as he raises it to his forehead, he seems to regain some of his composure. “Thank you. Thank you all.” Then he lowers his hand and clears his throat. “Okay, that's the bad news. And it's pretty bad. But there's some good news too.”

“
Yes, sir
!
” Zia is still saluting, and her voice is still fervent. “
Tell us the good news, sir
!
”

The general leans over the conference table and picks up a map of New York State. He jabs his index finger at Westchester County. “The anthrax spores haven't spread beyond Yorktown Heights. In the past couple of hours we've sent bioweapons experts in hazmat suits to all the neighboring towns, and they haven't detected any microbes in the air or on the ground. The outbreak seems to be confined to the northern part of Westchester County, and in a few days we can start to decontaminate the area. That's a big relief for all the people who live in the suburbs farther south and in New York City. For now at least, the city seems safe, so we haven't ordered any more evacuations.”

I suppose this counts as good news, although I don't feel reassured. We don't know yet how Sigma spread anthrax to my hometown, but there's a good chance that the AI's Snake-bots brought the spores with them. If more of those machines are heading toward the United States, they could deliver the microbes just about anywhere, without any warning.

“We've also put the contaminated area under satellite surveillance,” Hawke continues. “We have cameras focused on every part of the town, twenty-four hours a day. If we spot any more survivors or any of Sigma's machines, we'll start planning another mission to Yorktown Heights. And in the meantime, Tom Armstrong is researching the modified strain of anthrax so we can get a better idea of what we're up against.”

Hawke glances at me when he mentions my father. I think he expects me to respond somehow, but I don't know what to say. I just don't feel confident about the Army's ability to handle a threat like Sigma. The other Pioneers also remain silent, even Zia. She lowers her saluting hand with a clank.

“And one more thing,” Hawke adds quickly, as if sensing our unease. “This afternoon, the doctors at our headquarters in New Mexico performed the brain-scanning procedure on Amber Wilson. She's the seventeen-year-old from Oklahoma who volunteered for the Pioneer Project. Given the urgency of our current situation, we decided to speed up the timetable for her procedure. And we got lucky—the operation was a success. Amber is doing fine in her new robotic body, and she's eager to meet all of you.”

This is definitely good news for the Pioneers. Soon there will be six of us again in the fight against Sigma. With renewed confidence, Hawke collects his papers from the table and dismisses us from the conference room. He's ending the briefing on a hopeful note.

But my circuits ache as I stride out of the room. I remember the picture of Amber Wilson that Hawke showed us, the photo of the dying goth girl who'd agreed to become a Pioneer. Did she understand what she was choosing any better than we did?

I have four hundred and twenty-nine images of Brittany Taylor in my memory files. I scroll through them all as I stand beside her gurney, looking for the memory that comes closest to what I'm viewing now through my Quarter-bot's cameras: Brittany with her eyes closed and her head turned to the side on a thin, white pillow.

I've been standing here for the past nine hours. After our briefing with General Hawke, I returned to the Biohazard Treatment Center and went looking for my father. I found him in the decontamination room, and unfortunately he had nothing new to report. He said he was having trouble getting samples of Sigma's anthrax from the unconscious students, but he was going to try again tomorrow after he got a few hours of sleep. Then he left the treatment center, and I stayed. I marched straight to the intensive care unit where the doctors and nurses in moon suits were caring for the kids from Yorktown Heights. Unlike Dad, I don't need to sleep, so I spent the night here.

All four students lie on their backs, clad in blue hospital gowns and covered by white sheets that come up to their waists. Fluids trickle into their arms through IV lines, and electrodes pasted to their chests monitor the feeble rhythm of their heartbeats. In the middle of the ward, an Army doctor in a blue protective suit sits behind a bank of video screens, staring at the readings on body temperature, pulse, and respiration. Just above his visor is a name tag that says
Ayala
.

He and the other doctors figured out the identity of the petite ninth-grader we found in the high-school gym. Her name is Emma Chin, and her parents are probably dead because both were working at Yorktown Heights Dental Care at the time of the outbreak. Tim Rodriguez's parents are also presumed dead—his dad was a Yorktown cop, his mom a housewife. But Brittany Taylor's and Jack Parker's folks survived. They're commuters, so they were at work in New York City yesterday afternoon. I assume the Army has contacted them by now, but who knows what kind of story the authorities gave them? Not the full truth, that's for sure.

The conditions of the four kids are remarkably similar. They're all running fevers of 105 degrees Fahrenheit, which is high enough to keep them unconscious but not quite high enough to kill them. All four have irregular heart rates and low blood pressure, and none of them is responding to medication. Jack, whose gurney is farthest from me and half hidden by all the machines between us, seems more fitful than the others. He jerks his arms and legs every so often, maybe because he's having nightmares about the seven-foot-tall robot that rescued him from the high-school gym. But Tim, Emma, and Brittany lie peacefully on their gurneys, their faces relaxed, their mouths half open.

Most of my memories of Brittany are from our elementary-school and middle-school years. I didn't see her as much in high school because my muscular dystrophy got worse and I was in and out of the hospital, and then I stopped going to school and didn't see her at all for a long, long time. In my high-school memories, Brittany is usually wearing her cheerleader's uniform and leaning over my wheelchair to say hello. She always gave me a big smile and sometimes a kiss on the top of my head. Her voice was always jokey and upbeat.

But now that I can retrieve all those memories with total recall and examine them with perfect clarity, I see things that my old human brain overlooked. Brittany, I realize, was never relaxed. Above her blue-gray eyes and swooping blond eyebrows, there were deep creases in her forehead. She was tense in class, in the lunchroom, in the school hallways. And as I keep studying the images, I see other signs of stress: the fleeting twitch in her upper lip, the occasional strain in her voice. I didn't notice these signs when I was human because they were covered up by Brittany's constant cheeriness, but they're so obvious to me now. I had to become a machine to see it.

Curious, I take a detour through my files and scroll through my memories of Brittany's parents. I have only a dozen of them—Brittany visited my house a lot more than I visited hers. But in these images I see more troubling signs. Brittany's dad is a rich lawyer who wears expensive silk shirts and a permanent scowl. In one memory, he opens the door to his house to let Brittany inside, glaring at his daughter as she steps past him. Then he slams the door shut and I hear angry shouts from their living room. In another memory, I catch a glimpse of Brittany's mom through their picture window. Her right hand clasps a tall glass of brown liquid, and her eyes are bloodshot and enraged.

In hindsight I can understand how the stress built up inside Brittany. She was an only child, just like me, so all the weight of her parents' disappointment fell on her. And then one day, nearly a year ago, she simply couldn't take it anymore. She took the Metro-North train to New York City, found shelter in an abandoned building in Harlem, and started scrounging for food with other runaway teens. No one told me that Brittany ran away—I'd left school by then—and I didn't hear about it until just before I became a Pioneer. But now my electronic brain imagines Brittany's life on the streets, and the vivid images tear me apart. I see her crouched in the corner of a filthy basement, hungry and afraid. I see her staring at the shadows and cringing at every noise.

I shake my Quarter-bot's head to clear the disturbing images from my circuits. Dr. Ayala, sitting thirty feet away, notices this movement and peers at me from behind the visor of his moon suit. He narrows his eyes and purses his lips. Like the other Army doctors, Ayala seems repelled by the Pioneers. He doesn't call me by my name, most likely because he doesn't know it. To the doctors, we're just “the robots.” They see no point in figuring out which is which.

Because I don't have a face, plastic or otherwise, I can't smile at Dr. Ayala to put him at ease. Instead, I lift one of my steel hands and wave at him in a friendly way. After a few seconds, Ayala turns back to his bank of video screens. Then I train my cameras on Brittany again.

Her eyelashes are long and golden. They rest on the soft skin below her closed eyes. As I focus on those curved fringes of blond hair, I realize which memory of Brittany comes closest to what I'm seeing now. Oddly enough, it isn't one of the more recent memories. It's from five years ago, from the summer between sixth and seventh grades, when Brittany and I were skinny twelve-year-olds.

I retrieve the memory from my files, along with all the thoughts and emotions that are linked to it. We're in the backseat of my dad's Volvo, going home after a long day of swimming on the Jersey Shore. Although I'd started using a wheelchair after my twelfth birthday, I could still swim; my muscular dystrophy hadn't weakened my arms as much as my legs, and the buoyancy of the water made everything easier. And swimming with Brittany was always fun because she liked to pretend there were sharks in the water, and she'd dive into the waves to escape them.

We were both exhausted by the time we got into the car to go home, and within minutes Brittany fell asleep. But I kept my eyes open. As Dad steered the car toward the New Jersey Turnpike and the evening light poured through the windshield, I couldn't help but stare at Brittany.

In my memory, she sleeps sitting up in her red T-shirt and white shorts, with her legs dangling over the backseat and her mouth half open. Her head is turned to the side and tilted over her shoulder, leaning against her seat belt, and her long, blond eyelashes rest on her cheeks. She's still just a kid, pointy-chinned and coltish, still lacking the poise and grace that would make her so popular in high school and turn her into the star of the cheerleading squad, but the resemblance between now and then is astounding. And what I love best about this image is that Brittany's forehead is smooth and untroubled. That's what makes the memory so precious: I caught a glimpse of her when she was happy.

Even back then, I recognized it was a special moment. After staring across the backseat for a couple of minutes, I leaned toward Brittany, straining against my seat belt. I stopped when I was six inches away from her, then glanced at the rearview mirror to make sure Dad wasn't looking. Then I whispered “I love you” at her sleeping face. It was a safe thing to do because I knew she wouldn't wake up. Brittany's a heavy sleeper.

Now it looks like she's sleeping again, but that's just an illusion. Her mind is in a faraway place, unknown and unreachable, and there's nothing I can do to bring her back. It's pure torture to see her this way, so close and yet so far, and it occurs to me that maybe this is all part of Sigma's plan. The AI waited until I was most vulnerable, waited until I lost Shannon. Then it lured the Pioneers to Yorktown Heights just to show me everything else I'd lost.

But I still have that memory of Brittany asleep in the backseat, and it gives me strength. The image is linked to the most powerful emotions in my electronics, and I can feel them surging through me. I send a signal to the motors in my Quarter-bot's torso and bend over Brittany's gurney. I lower my robotic head until it's just six inches above her. I set my loudspeakers at their lowest volume, barely audible even to my own sensors.

“I still love you, Brittany,” I whisper. “Please wake up.”

She doesn't stir. Her eyes stay closed and her face stays slack. Her body is motionless except for the slight rise and fall of her chest as she breathes through her half-open mouth. But maybe she heard me. Maybe on some unseen level of consciousness she's pondering my confession and deciding how to respond.

A moment later Dr. Ayala turns away from his video screens and rises from his chair. I assume he's going to yell at me for bending over Brittany, so I straighten up fast. But the doctor doesn't even look at me. Instead, he checks his watch and goes to a telephone mounted on the wall. Because of the risk that Sigma might hack into our computer networks, the Army has cut all Internet and phone links between Joint Base McGuire and the rest of the world, but the telephone here is connected to the other phones on the base. The doctor pushes a button on the phone and picks up the receiver.

“Uh, sir?” He speaks in a low voice, but my acoustic sensors can follow it easily. “This is Ayala. Are the visitors here?” He pauses to listen. He's pressing the receiver so tightly to his ear that it's impossible for me to hear the other side of the conversation. “Okay, if they're suited up, they can come into the intensive care unit now.”

Visitors? Who are they? And which patient are they visiting?

I have no idea who's coming, but my circuits are full of dread. I stand there, frozen. Maybe if I don't move, the visitors won't notice me. I'll blend in with all the other machines in the room.

Dr. Ayala hangs up the phone, then looks at me. “Two people are on their way here. They've already been briefed about the Pioneer Project, so they won't be shocked at the sight of you. Just keep quiet, all right? They're going to be upset enough as it is.”

Before I can ask any questions, Ayala goes to the air lock at the far end of the ward, more than fifty feet away. He taps some buttons on the control panel, and the massive door slides open. Then a couple of short, slender people in moon suits step into the treatment center.

The visitors' protective suits are yellow rather than blue and seem more cumbersome and less advanced than the suits worn by the doctors. Ayala escorts the couple into the room, walking to their left so that he blocks their view of me. They can't see much anyway because their visors are narrow, and I can't see their faces either. But then Ayala leads them to Jack Parker's gurney, and I can guess who they are. The visitors stand beside Jack with their backs turned toward me, and then the one on the left leans over the boy and sobs, “Oh, Jack!” Her words are muffled by the moon suit, but my voice-recognition software identifies her. It's Mrs. Parker, Jack's mother.

At first I'm relieved that the visitors are Jack's parents. It would've been so much worse if I'd had to confront Brittany's mom and dad. But then I start to wonder if her parents are going to visit her at all. After she ran away from home the first time, her folks tracked her down and brought her back, but when she ran away again, they made no effort to find her. The word around town was that Brittany's parents had given up on her, that she was as good as dead to them. But now that her life is actually in danger, will they come to see her? I think again of the images in my files—Mr. Taylor's scowl, Mrs. Taylor's bloodshot eyes—and worry that the answer might be no.

Mrs. Parker lets out another sob. “Jack, it's me! Can you hear me? Wake up, baby, wake up!”

Jack's father stretches a gloved hand toward his wife and pats the back of her moon suit. I feel an ache in my circuits, even though I never liked Jack or his parents. My mom became friends with Mrs. Parker because they both suffered from depression, and they forged a bond by listening to each other's complaints. According to Mom, Mrs. Parker can't stand her husband. The guy was apparently a football star in his high-school days, and he bullied Jack into joining the Yorktown High team. And since then, Mr. Parker's favorite activity has been berating and belittling his son after every game.

At that moment my logic circuits detect an inconsistency. Like his son, Mr. Parker has a football player's body, tall and broad. But the visitor on the right, the one who's patting Mrs. Parker's back, is short and slender, even with the added bulk of the moon suit. Then I hear the visitor say a few words of comfort to Jack's mom—“There, there, it's okay”—and I know for sure that it isn't Mr. Parker. My software recognizes the soft, soothing voice.

It's Anne Armstrong. My mother.

My electronics light up like a Christmas tree. I'm buzzing with astonishment and panic. I focus my cameras on Mom, whose figure inside the protective suit now seems so unmistakable that I can't believe I didn't recognize her before. I want her to turn around so I can see her face behind the visor, but at the same time I'm terrified that she'll see me.