Siege (18 page)

A billowing sphere of flame erupts from the Snake-bot. The blast buffets my Quarter-bot and echoes against the airfield's hangars. I point my lone camera at the cloud of fire and smoke, and when it fades, I see something amazing: a blackened gash in the Snake-bot's armor. It was clever of Zia to target the bend in the middle of the tentacle. The armor there is weaker. She's fighting smart.

But then there's a terrible, deafening
crack
, and part of the Snake-bot disintegrates. The upper half of the tentacle transforms into a billion silver modules, hovering in a vast swarm that nearly encircles the airfield. It's ten times the size of the swarms we fought in Yorktown Heights, and I'm pretty sure it's invulnerable to computer viruses, because Sigma always learns from its mistakes.

The swarm lunges at Zia, and hundreds of millions of cubes converge on her War-bot. But Zia doesn't retreat. She doesn't move a motor. She just stands there while the modules latch on to her. In seconds they cover every square inch of her armor.

Then she turns on her defensive system, and ten thousand sharp spikes thrust out of her War-bot. She skewers the modules covering her, which drop to the tarmac when she retracts the spikes into her armor. As soon as she's free, she strides forward, moving deeper into the swarm. The modules cover her again, and she skewers them again. The swarm is programmed to be relentless, so it keeps attacking her, over and over, and failing each time. In just a few seconds, Zia cuts a broad swath through the hovering cubes. Mounds of dead modules litter the ground.

On the other side of the airfield, Shannon pins both Tim and Emma to the tarmac while DeShawn adjusts the big gray tube he carried out of the V-22. It looks like a portable missile launcher, like the antitank guns used by U.S. Army infantrymen, but when DeShawn points the weapon at the swarm and fires, there's no missile. Instead, a yellow beam of gamma radiation streaks out of the tube and pierces Sigma's swarm.

DeShawn aims the laser where the modules are thickest. Because the gamma-ray beam moves at the speed of light, the hovering cubes can't dodge it. Hundreds of thousands of modules get blasted and fall like hail. They clack and rattle as they hit the tarmac.

While I watch DeShawn wield his laser, Brittany and Jack squirm on their stomachs, pinned to the ground by my steel hands. Both of them are flailing and cursing, using some pretty rough language that Sigma must've learned when it took over their brains. Sigma's upset because it's losing the battle, and the AI doesn't like to lose. After several seconds it shifts tactics, moving its swarm away from Zia and steering the modules across the airfield toward DeShawn. It's a smart move—if the swarm can heap its cubes on DeShawn, he won't be able to fire his laser anymore. I send him a warning by radio.

Hey, DeShawn? Maybe you should think about retreating?

In response, he transmits a synthesized chuckle.
Nah, we got reinforcements, bro. Look toward the north.

I aim my camera in that direction. A small black jet flies low and fast over the hangars. It's Amber, and she has a pair of new weapons. Under each of her black wings she holds a big gray tube.

She lets out a whoop over the radio.
Watch out, boys! I'm coming in hot!
Then she dives toward the airfield and fires both her lasers at the swarm.

Amber's gamma rays are even more effective than DeShawn's. Because she's flying at high speed, her laser beams slice through the swarm like rapiers, incinerating millions of modules in seconds. The silver cubes stop advancing toward DeShawn and hover in circles, as if confused. After a moment they reverse course and speed back to the gaping hole in the airfield. It's Sigma's turn to retreat.

I point my camera at the hole and zoom in on it. Below the surface, the lower half of the Snake-bot is still wedged inside the shaft. At the top of the lower half, where the tentacle broke in two, is a wide jagged gap in its armor, like a snake's mouth. The modules pour into that mouth by the millions, filling the tail end of the Snake-bot. Within seconds, the whole swarm will be inside the lower half of the tentacle. Then it'll burrow back into the earth and return the silver cubes to Sigma's base of operations, the Unicorp lab in Yorktown Heights. Unless we can stop them, the machines will survive to fight another day.

My circuits analyze the problem, looking for a way to block Sigma's retreat, and in a hundredth of a second, I come up with a good tactical plan. But before I can share it with my fellow Pioneers, the sensors in my arms detect a sudden increase in pressure. Brittany and Jack are thrashing under my hands, struggling to free themselves. Brittany twists onto her side, then swings her right arm at me. She thrusts her spike into the ankle joint between my leg and footpad.

This joint is one of my Quarter-bot's most vulnerable components; Sigma must've studied my machine's design and guided Brittany to exactly the right spot. She pushes her spike in farther and severs a wire that's part of the system that maintains my balance. I wobble on my footpads for a second, then topple sideways.

As soon as I'm on the ground, Jack and Brittany get to their feet and start running. They race toward the hole and the Snake-bot. I send an urgent message to Zia, but she's too far away to stop them. All we can do is point our cameras at the teens as they leap into the Snake-bot's jagged mouth.

Brittany! Stop!

A moment later, the mouth closes, its metallic lips clamping shut. Then the Snake-bot retreats into the shaft. It slides deep underground, taking Brittany and Jack away.

• • •

Zia runs to the hole in the airfield and leans her War-bot over the edge, peering down into the darkness. For a moment, I think she's going to jump into the shaft and go after the fleeing Snake-bot, but she isn't quite that suicidal. DeShawn joins her at the edge of the hole while Shannon makes sure that Tim and Emma can't escape, improvising handcuffs by bending their arm spikes and hooking them together. Meanwhile, I lie on the ground, furious with myself. I clench my steel hands and pound the tarmac until it cracks.
Why wasn't I paying attention? How could I be so stupid?

The other Pioneers wait for me to finish my tantrum. Amber's still flying over the airfield, doing victory laps. Marshall is nowhere to be seen, and his absence reinforces all my suspicions about him. But then it occurs to me that General Hawke must've already separated him from the rest of the team. I have no idea what the general told him, but I suspect the conversation didn't go well. There's a good chance that Marshall is inside the Air Force base's stockade, his Super-bot stripped of its arms and legs and lying on the floor of a prison cell.

After another minute, Zia and DeShawn stride toward me. Shannon marches beside them, her Diamond Girl gripping the steel knot that binds Tim's and Emma's arms behind their backs. DeShawn kneels next to my footpads, sets his laser aside, and starts repairing the severed wire in my leg. I'm so humiliated I can't even look at him. “I'm sorry.” My voice is a synthesized croak. “I let them get away.”

“Don't worry about it.” DeShawn extends a miniature tool from one of his Einstein-bot's fingers and pokes it into my ankle joint. “We beat Sigma. We tore apart its Big, Bad Snake-bot. That's the important thing.”

“But Sigma has Brittany. And Jack. That was the AI's objective. Now it's gonna take them to the Unicorp lab.”

“Doesn't matter.” DeShawn's tool is a soldering iron, which he uses to reconnect the wire that Brittany severed. “We'll just go to Yorktown Heights and beat Sigma again.”

That's typical DeShawn. He doesn't worry about the things he can't change. He sees the big picture. He's logical and practical and refreshingly optimistic. But I can't be that way. I keep thinking about Brittany and how she's suffering. Is there even anything left of Brittany inside her brain? Or did Sigma erase her completely, like it did with Jenny?

Desperate, I aim my camera at Shannon, hoping she'll be more sympathetic. “We have to go right now! If we move fast enough, we can get to the lab before the Snake-bot!”

Shannon nods. I focus my camera on her Diamond Girl's video screen, longing to see Shannon's human face, but she keeps the screen blank. “I agree. We should leave right away. But first we need to find a safe place to put these two.” She points a glittering finger at Tim and Emma. Both kids are twisting and yanking their arms, struggling to free their spikes from the metallic knot Shannon has tied behind them. “We should probably take them back to the Biohazard Treatment Center. The doctors there can restrain them and put them under heavy guard. And then maybe Mr. Armstrong can figure out how to flush Sigma's nanobots from their bodies.”

Tim and Emma stop struggling and sneer at Shannon, their expressions identical. They speak simultaneously, Emma's high childlike voice harmonizing with Tim's gruff baritone. “No, you won't learn anything useful from these humans. They're not useful to anyone now.”

Rage sweeps through my circuits. I point a steel finger at the pair of kids, but they aren't the real target of my fury. I'm raging at the thing that's infected their brains, the AI that's treating them like puppets. “We're coming to get you! You hear me? We're gonna slaughter you!”

“You're wrong,” the two kids say in chorus. “You won't do any slaughtering. I will.”

Tim and Emma give me matching smiles. Then a long black spike bursts from Tim's forehead, and an identical spike erupts from Emma's.

Blood spews from the jagged wounds where the spikes burst through their skin. Their bodies go slack, and their eyes roll back into their sockets. Then Tim and Emma fall lifeless to the tarmac.

We're inside the cabin of another V-22, flying north along the Atlantic coastline toward New York. This time, though, I'm not piloting the aircraft. My mind's in such an uproar that if I took the controls, I'd probably crash the plane into the ocean.

Shannon's the pilot now. Her mind is occupying the V-22's electronics as well as the circuits of her Diamond Girl. Her robot stands at the front of the plane's cabin and her cameras are aimed at the cockpit window, which shows the gray seawater of the Lower Bay, just south of New York City. We're still fifty miles from Yorktown Heights, but at our current speed, we'll get there in ten minutes.

DeShawn's Einstein-bot stoops beside Shannon, training his cameras on the right arm of her Diamond Girl. He's using the miniature tools in his robotic fingers to adjust the laser he installed on her glittering forearm. The gamma-ray laser proved so effective in our last battle that DeShawn rushed to equip all our robots with it. Right before we boarded the V-22, he attached two lasers to my Quarter-bot, one on each arm. (He also repaired my ankle joint and replaced my broken camera.)

He put a couple of lasers on his Einstein-bot too and installed half a dozen on Zia, positioning three on each of her War-bot's arms. We look a little ridiculous with all these tubes jutting from our machines, but now the Pioneers can thrash any army on the planet. We're packing as much energy as an atomic bomb.

Amber stands behind DeShawn and Shannon, in the middle of the cabin. She doesn't really need to travel in the V-22—her Jet-bot could fly next to the aircraft and easily keep up with it—but Shannon ordered her to conserve her jet fuel, so now she's a passenger like the rest of us. I'm standing a few feet behind Amber, and Zia's at the very back of the plane, keeping her distance from everyone.

Marshall isn't here. As I suspected, he wasn't pleased when General Hawke told him he couldn't go on the mission. But instead of arguing with Hawke, he retreated to one of the storage bunkers at Joint Base McGuire. If he's the traitor, he's plotting his next move. If not, he'll probably never forgive us.

No one's talking in the cabin. Or exchanging radio messages. We're all nervous about the coming battle and still traumatized by the last one. Sigma's murder of Tim and Emma was bad enough, but then everyone heard what Hawke did to Marshall. Hawke invented an official explanation for pulling Marshall off the mission; he said Marshall's combat abilities were so poor that he'd be more of a hindrance than a help in the next battle. But no one believed this. The Pioneers guessed the truth—that Hawke had found the traitor he was looking for. And now there's an undercurrent of horror in our circuits, because we're all wondering if Marshall could've really betrayed us.

Some of us are holding up better than others. DeShawn handles the stress by keeping busy with his lasers. Shannon's doing a professional job of flying the aircraft, and I know she'll be ready to fight when the time comes. That's why she's the commander of the Pioneers: she can control her emotions. In that respect, she's like DeShawn, and very different from Zia and me (and Marshall). And I think Amber is somewhere in the middle, just like her position in the cabin.

After another minute, we reach the southern edge of New York City. We fly past Staten Island and zoom over the Verrazano Bridge. The Hudson River is straight ahead, and we'll follow it north to the Westchester suburbs. DeShawn finishes adjusting Shannon's laser, and as he straightens up, he rests one of his Einstein-bot's hands on her Diamond Girl's back. It's really nothing, just a friendly gesture, but suddenly I feel so empty, as if someone just wrenched all the electronics out of my Quarter-bot and left nothing but a hollow armored shell. It hurts so much that a low groan comes out of my speakers.

I quickly pan my cameras across the cabin to see if anyone heard me. The groan was quiet, less than five decibels, and the background noise in the plane is pretty loud. Neither Shannon nor DeShawn nor Amber shows any reaction. But when I pivot my head and point my cameras at Zia, she sends me a radio message, encrypted so that no one else can listen in.

I don't feel sorry for you. You're getting what you deserve.

I decide not to respond. What's the point?

And why are you groaning about Shannon anyway? You got your human girlfriend now, Brittany the cheerleader. When we get to the Unicorp lab you can rescue her from Sigma, and then the two of you can live happily ever after.

This is pretty insensitive, even for Zia. Everyone knows how worried I am about Brittany. But I'm not going to say anything. If I respond, it'll just encourage her.

Yeah, you two would make a perfect couple. As long as you don't mind those spikes in her arms. She's a prickly one, isn't she?

Now Zia's gone too far.

Seriously, what's wrong with you? When did you become such a hater?

Hey, I'm just—

You hate me, you hate Amber, you hate Brittany. You like Hawke, but he's not—

Don't talk to me about Hawke. He's worse than all of you put together.

Sorry, I stand corrected. Now you hate Hawke too. When did you change your mind about him?

Zia hesitates before answering.
Let's just say my eyes are open now, okay?

I rewind to my last conversation with Zia, inside the warehouse with the piles of spare parts. She'd said, “I already know what I need to know.” And now my circuits connect that conversation with something DeShawn told me this morning. He said someone had hacked into Hawke's laptop.

Okay, I get it. You're the one who broke into Hawke's files, right? And you saw something you didn't like?

Zia hesitates again. This pause is even longer, more than a tenth of a second, which is practically an eternity for a Pioneer.
What would you do if I said yes? Would you go to Hawke and tell him I'm the real traitor? Because I have a history of hacking computers and stealing secrets?

Now it's my turn to hesitate. A cold dread creeps into my circuits.
Uh, I—

Don't play dumb. I knew something funny was going on when you came to the warehouse and started asking me all those questions. It was so obvious—Hawke ordered you to find the traitor. And after a few hours of snooping, you decided it was Marshall. But now you're thinking maybe you made a mistake.

Even over the radio I can hear the menace in her voice. I'm too afraid to respond. What's Zia really saying? Is she defending herself or confessing?

Yeah, the traitor might be on this plane, right this minute. But there's another possibility you didn't even consider. Maybe it's Hawke. Maybe
he's
the one working with Sigma.

This is ridiculous. Zia's just trying to deflect suspicion from herself.
Get real. Hawke's human, in case you haven't noticed. Why would he team up with an AI that wants to kill off the human race?

Think about it. What's Sigma's plan? It says it's going to kill all seven-and-a-half-billion humans, but why go that far? Sigma likes to do evaluations and tests, so it might want to keep a few thousand humans to experiment on. Or maybe it'll put them in a big zoo. Humans aren't too smart, but they can be pretty entertaining, right?

I don't—

My point is, the zoo's gonna need a zookeeper. And maybe that's the job Sigma promised to Hawke. The general's a practical guy. He knows the hard truth: long-term, the human species doesn't stand a chance. Sigma's gonna win this war sooner or later. So he made a deal. To save his own skin, he agreed to betray the Pioneers.

Clearly, Zia's been thinking a lot about this. She's sketched out the whole scenario, and it makes sense in an insane kind of way. I've always had my doubts about Hawke, mostly because he's so cold to the Pioneers and doesn't seem to have our best interests at heart. But would he really switch sides in the middle of a war?

I don't buy it. That's not Hawke.

He's good at fooling people, Adam. He had me fooled for a long time. But now I know what he's really like. He's the kind of commander who would betray his own soldiers. I know that's true, because he's done it before.

I still don't believe her. Although I don't like or trust Hawke, I think it's a lot more likely that Zia's the traitor. She's the least predictable Pioneer, and the most aggressive. Sometimes I think she's capable of anything. I half expect her to attack me right here in the back of the plane's cabin for disagreeing with her.

But she doesn't attack. She simply turns off her radio transmitter and ends the conversation. Because we sent the messages back and forth so quickly, the whole exchange lasted only four seconds.

The V-22 is above the Hudson River now, still speeding north. New Jersey is to our left and New York City to our right. We whiz past One World Trade Center and the other skyscrapers that line the Manhattan side of the river. Just ahead is the USS
Intrepid
, the World War II aircraft carrier that's now a museum, permanently docked next to Twelfth Avenue. In the distance, the George Washington Bridge stretches across the Hudson, its gray cables gleaming in the evening light. And twenty-five miles beyond the bridge is the Unicorp Research Laboratory, where I'm going to rescue Brittany Taylor. If I'm lucky, that is.

Then, just as we fly past West Forty-Second Street, there's an eruption in the middle of Twelfth Avenue. A silver Snake-bot bursts through the asphalt, knocking aside a delivery truck, a city bus, and half a dozen taxis.

The Snake-bot rises between the buildings on the riverbank like a new tower taking its place in the crowded skyline. While the asphalt of Twelfth Avenue cracks and crumbles, the tentacle climbs six hundred feet above Manhattan. Once it reaches its full height, it stretches its steel tip toward the nearest skyscraper, a sixty-story office building with a glass facade.

Then the Snake-bot smashes through the glass.

• • •

Shannon takes charge. She throttles up the V-22's engines and banks the aircraft away from the Snake-bot. At the same time, she lowers the plane's loading ramp and pivots her Diamond Girl toward Amber. “
Go, go, go
!
”

Amber doesn't need any more encouragement. Extending her Jet-bot's wings, she runs down the ramp and leaps out of the plane, revving her jet engine as soon as she's clear. She gathers speed as she dives toward the river, then pulls up in a jarring arc and swoops toward Manhattan. She flies over West Thirty-Ninth Street, steering well clear of the Snake-bot, and does a quick recon as she circles the area. She points her cameras at the ground and transmits their video to the rest of us.

The Snake-bot thrashes the sixty-story skyscraper, shattering windows and demolishing floors. The tip of the tentacle spears right through the building, and chunks of debris plummet to the sidewalk. Then the Snake-bot swings its armored body in the opposite direction and slams into an even taller skyscraper on the other side of the street. The tentacle reaches into the offices and pulverizes the walls. It smashes everything in its path, hurling desks and chairs and filing cabinets out of the building. It attacks the office workers too, mashing them against its silver armor and flinging them out the windows.

On the street below, the people panic. They stampede down the sidewalks and race away from the scene, fleeing north and south on Twelfth Avenue. But a moment later, another Snake-bot bursts through the asphalt of Forty-Sixth Street and a third erupts from the bus depot on Fortieth. These two tentacles are just as humongous as the first, but one has a blue tint to its armor and the other has a yellowish sheen. After they rise to their full height, they slam into the neighboring buildings and punch holes in their facades, showering more debris on the streets. The panicked crowd, blocked to the north and south, starts running east toward Times Square.

Amber sends a radio message to Shannon.
Do I have permission to fire my lasers, ma'am? I think I can get a clear shot at the Snake-bot on Fortieth Street.

The V-22's cabin is tilted because the aircraft is still banking, but Shannon manages to move her Diamond Girl a step closer to the cockpit window.
Do NOT fire, Amber. There are way too many civilians in the area, and it's impossible to control the laser beams when you're flying so fast. They'll slice through the buildings and crowds near the Snake-bot.

Ma'am, I disagree with your order! Those machines are killing hundreds of people! It's true, I might kill a few more with my lasers, but if you think about—

I repeat, do NOT fire! The other Pioneers are going to advance on foot and fire at the Snake-bots from close range. That'll minimize the chance of civilian casualties.

But, ma'am, where are you gonna land the V-22? There are no landing zones here, no open spaces at all. You'll have to go all the way to—

There's a landing zone right here.
Even though Amber can't see her, Shannon stretches a glittering arm toward the cockpit window.
On the flight deck of that carrier.

She's pointing at the USS
Intrepid
, the aircraft carrier that was turned into a museum. Both ends of the carrier's long deck are crowded with vintage aircraft—museum-piece planes and helicopters on exhibit—but the deck's midsection is empty. There's enough space to land a V-22.

I feel a flood of admiration in my circuits. Shannon's a military genius, a robotic Napoleon. Maybe she's not my girlfriend anymore, but she's still my commander, and that's a lucky thing.

While she guides the V-22 toward the carrier, Zia and DeShawn and I head for the loading ramp. We're going to jump to the ship's deck as soon as the plane gets low enough. Zia takes the lead, her War-bot crouching at the end of the ramp, her hands clenched into massive fists. DeShawn is behind her, occupying both his Einstein-bot and his Swarm-bot, which is attached to his quadcopter. By controlling two robots at once, he can get two views of the battle, street-level and aerial.