Siege (24 page)

It's terrifying. And disorienting. I don't know where I am, or even who I am. But it's amazing too, like walking on clouds or riding a rocket. My mind, my software, is spreading in all directions. I'm meshing with the software of the universe, floating in the sea of data that buoys the galaxies. For a moment I can see the entire history of the cosmos, stretched across infinite space and time. My mind swirls within the vast cosmic mind, the program that molded the planets and ignited the stars.

But then I look down and see my friends on the rooftop. Brittany's still unconscious and tied to the office chair, surrounded by the glass shards and twisted steel of the shattered dome. Marshall's Super-bot climbs out of the wrecked power plant and runs toward her, then drops to his knee joints when he sees my robot and DeShawn's. Amber's Jet-bot circles the Unicorp building, still firing her lasers at the tentacles. And Shannon and Zia are still in Dad's old laboratory, still trapped in the headless torsos of their robots. They need me. I can't leave them behind.

Sigma's down there too, still sending orders to its machines, its mind still occupying the God robot and the twenty-nine elementary-school kids. I feel a new wave of fury as I stare at the children on the roof and the sharp black spikes jutting from their necks. Then I look beyond the Unicorp lab and see all of Sigma's other victims, the people of Yorktown Heights still lying on the streets where they died. My fury intensifies, and the surge whirls faster. I can't let this go on. I have to end this war
now
.

The storm breaks. The surge plunges to the rooftop. I pour all my rage into Sigma, the machine pretending to be God.

I rip off the robot's plastic face and crack open its armor. I dive into Sigma's circuits and radio transmitters, seeking out every control unit and human brain where it's hiding. The AI is already in thousands of places, all connected by fiber-optic lines and wireless transmissions, but I uproot the whole tangled network. I yank Sigma's mind from all the machines it's occupying, all the robots and servers and routers and supercomputers, and from the brains of the twenty-nine schoolchildren as well.

Then I hurl Sigma into the surge.

The electrical storm hammers the AI. My immense waves of data flood Sigma's software and tear it apart. The surge shatters the billions of lines of code, deleting the program's files and instructions and algorithms. It thrashes Sigma's mind and blows it to bits. The AI struggles and shrieks as it disintegrates, its data dissolving into randomness.

No! You can't do this! You're murdering me!

That's right. You turned me into a murderer.

Adam! Have mercy! I'll change! I'll—

No, you'll never change. That's why I have to kill you.

PLEASE…MERCY…I'M YOUR BROTHER…YOUR…

Then it's over.

It's done.

Program deleted.

We hold a military funeral for DeShawn near our headquarters in New Mexico. General Hawke has set aside a small section of the White Sands base to memorialize the fallen Pioneers. There's a monument to Jenny Harris, a simple black headstone sticking out of the hard-packed dirt. DeShawn's grave is already dug, and an oversize coffin rests on the ground beside it, draped in an extra-large American flag. The coffin holds DeShawn's Einstein-bot and Swarm-bot, both recovered from the Unicorp lab.

The only civilian at the funeral is DeShawn's mom. She sits in a wheelchair equipped with an oxygen tank and a loop of plastic tubing that feeds the gas to her nostrils. She looks exhausted and painfully thin in her black dress, but she lifts her chin and puts on a brave face for the ceremony. General Hawke stands next to her wheelchair, holding a Kleenex box for her. I'm a little amazed at how caring and attentive he is. He knows DeShawn betrayed us, but that doesn't diminish the general's respect. He's honoring the good things DeShawn did and forgiving the bad.

The Pioneers stand behind Hawke, lined up side by side in our usual formation. Our robots have been repaired and our missing parts replaced, but now there are two gaps in our line, one between me and Zia, the other between Marshall and Amber. During a pause in the funeral service, I sweep my cameras down the line to see how the others are doing. Zia's and Amber's faceless robots are impossible to read, but Shannon shows her simulated human face on her Diamond Girl's video screen. Its expression is stiff and somber. And Marshall is actually crying. He programmed his Super-bot to weep when he's feeling sad enough. His tears are made of glycerin and come out of small nozzles around his glass eyes. But that doesn't make them any less real.

Dad's a couple of yards away, standing by himself in the desert sun. In the six days since the battle at the Unicorp lab, he's been working nonstop at the base's medical center, trying to remove Sigma's machinery from Brittany and the schoolchildren. Although I deactivated all the antennas and nanobots when I deleted the AI, their circuits had already fused with the brains of their victims and caused some serious damage. Overall, the younger kids are doing pretty well; most of them are talking and laughing and horsing around, and they have no memory of what Sigma did to them. But Brittany isn't recovering as quickly. She's conscious, but she still can't walk or talk or remember
anything
. Dad says she'll get better, but he doesn't know for sure. No one does.

It's all my fault. Sigma went after Brittany because she was my friend. Because I loved her. And I can't even think about all the other victims, the thousands who died just because they lived in my hometown. The guilt is crushing. It wrenches my circuits.

Eight soldiers in dress uniform stand at attention by DeShawn's coffin, serving as an honor guard. All of them are stationed at White Sands, so they've seen Pioneers before and even interacted with us, but now they seem a little distracted by our presence. I manage to hold myself together while the Army bugler plays “Taps” and the honor guard lifts the flag from the coffin and carefully folds it. But then the general hands the folded flag to Mrs. Johnson and thanks her—“on behalf of the United States Army and a grateful nation”—and I totally lose it. I raise both my hands to my Quarter-bot's head and cover my speakers to stifle the sobs.

I shouldn't be here. Mrs. Johnson is the kindest person in the world, but if she knew what I did to her son, she'd probably spit at me. I didn't mean to kill DeShawn. I truly, truly didn't. But I have to be honest with myself. When the surge was in my circuits, I definitely wanted to hurt him. There's a darkness in me now. Or maybe it was always there.

In the week since the battle, Dad's asked me a thousand questions about the surge—how I triggered it, how I controlled it, how I used it to delete Sigma. I've tried my best to answer him, but the truth is I really hate talking about it. It's like a shameful habit, a dirty secret. I don't want to learn more about the surge. I never want it to happen again. It's not just shameful, it's freakin' dangerous. It erased Sigma. It killed DeShawn.

When the funeral's over, General Hawke gives a long, slow salute to Mrs. Johnson. Then he salutes the Pioneers. We all return the salute except for Zia, who glares at the general with her War-bot's cameras. I still don't know why she's so angry at him; I've asked her a dozen times, but she won't say anything. Hawke glares back at her, but he won't make a scene in front of Mrs. Johnson and all the soldiers. So after a couple of seconds, Hawke dismisses us and Zia marches toward our barracks as fast as she can.

Marshall wipes another glycerin tear off his plastic cheek. I'd like to console him and maybe get some consolation in return, but as soon as I take a step in his direction, he strides away. Marshall was furious when he found out that I'd spied on him. I tried to defend myself—
I only did it because Hawke ordered me to!
—but he said that was no excuse. And he's right. I shouldn't have done it. It was a mistake to follow that order. I'll never make that mistake again.

Amber follows Marshall and Zia back to the barracks, and Dad gives me a small wave before returning to the medical center. General Hawke pushes Mrs. Johnson's wheelchair back to the headquarters building. Then it's only Shannon and me left in the small cemetery. I cautiously stride toward her, pointing my cameras at her video screen. Although her simulated face is unhappy, I still yearn to look at it. Shannon rarely displays her old human face these days. Ninety-nine percent of the time, her screen is blank.

“Hey, are you all right?” I ask her. “You seem kind of—”

“I have something to tell you, Adam,” she blurts out. “And you might find it upsetting.”

I almost laugh. I can't imagine being more upset than I already am. But I keep my voice serious. “What is it?”

“You remember our argument? When we broke up? When I said I knew what happened between you and Jenny?”

I nod. Of course I remember.

“What I didn't say was how I found out you shared circuits with her. DeShawn told me. He said Jenny confided in him, and I believed it. But now I know that's not true. DeShawn learned about it from Sigma.”

I nod again, although I'm not sure where this conversation is going. “Yeah, I guess that makes sense. Jenny would've never confided in DeShawn, and I certainly didn't tell him. But Sigma knew all about it, because the AI read my mind right after it happened.”

Shannon shakes her Diamond Girl's head and points her cameras at the ground. On her video screen, she bites her lower lip. “God, I was so
stupi
d
! If I'd just thought about it a little, I could've figured out that DeShawn was in contact with Sigma. I could've stopped so many horrible things from happening!”

Shannon's voice is agitated, and I want to do what I can to calm her. I extend my Quarter-bot's hands toward her Diamond Girl. “Hey, hey, don't beat yourself up.”

“I mean, Sigma's strategy was so obvious! Divide and conquer! First, the AI convinced DeShawn to side with it, and then DeShawn stirred up suspicion about Marshall and Zia. And at the same time, Sigma got him to break up our relationship, because the AI knew that would weaken the Pioneers even more.”

I take a step toward her. My hands are still outstretched. “Well, Sigma was right about that. We're stronger when we're together, don't you think?”

Shannon points her cameras at my hands. On the video screen, her simulated face frowns at me. “No, Adam, you're getting the wrong message. I don't want to get back together. That's over.”

I pull my hands back. “I didn't—”

“I just wanted to give you a full report of what happened.” Now her agitation is gone. Her voice is cool and professional. “We were manipulated. And I'm going to make sure it never happens again.”

Shannon turns off her video screen. Then she strides away.

• • •

I don't want to go back to our barracks. I don't want to see any of the other Pioneers. I usually talk to Dad when I'm feeling this terrible, but now he's working all the time and frantic with his own worries. My mom never wants to see me again, and when I visit Brittany at the medical center, she just stares blankly at the wall. So yeah, I'm basically all alone in the world right now. No one's going to miss me if I go off on my own for a while.

I leave our headquarters complex and start running west. Our base is just a small part of the White Sands Missile Range, an Army installation that spreads across three thousand square miles of New Mexico. Most of it is desert, flat and bone-dry and perfect for a Pioneer who wants to take a cross-country jog. Civilian access to the area is restricted, so I don't have to worry about motorists or hikers gawking at me. I'm free to run for miles without breaking our security rules.

(Technically, the Pioneer Project is still top secret, but after our battle in Times Square, I'm starting to wonder how long that'll last. Although the Army tried to hush things up, there were pictures of our robots in the
National Enquirer
.)

I start running at 5:00 p.m., and by five thirty I've gone twenty-two miles. To the north, south, and east, there's nothing to see but grassless plains of white gypsum, but to the west there's a pretty impressive range of mountains, and that's where I focus my Quarter-bot's cameras. My footpads smack the hard, dry ground, and the light from the setting sun drills into my camera lenses. I don't feel anything. For half an hour I'm nothing but a robot.

Then I see a black speck in the sky, just above the peak of the highest mountain to the west. It slides along the horizon, skimming the mountain's slopes. After a few seconds, it turns east and descends to the desert plains, and after a few more seconds, it's close enough that I can make out its silhouette. It's Amber's Jet-bot.

She shows off some fancy aerobatics as she zooms toward me, doing loops and barrel rolls and figure eights. Then she decelerates and comes in for a landing. Her legs swing down and hit the ground running. As she sprints across the gypsum plain, she retracts her wings and stows her jet engine. By the time she reaches me, she's slowed to a walk, a casual, loping swagger. “Hey there, old-timer. Care for some company?”

She's making fun of her Oklahoma accent, laying it on thick. We stand face-to-face, or at least faceplate-to-faceplate. Amber's voice reminds me of an old black-and-white movie I saw years ago, a Western I watched on television with Dad. I synthesize a twang similar to hers. “This place ain't big enough for the two of us, Amber. We need to have us a showdown.”

A laugh comes out of her speakers, high-pitched and delighted. It sounds wonderful. “Aw, shucks. I surrender, Sheriff.” She raises her Jet-bot's black arms over her head. “You got me fair and square.”

I laugh too, surprising myself. I guess it's contagious. “Let me ask you a question. Do people in Tulsa really talk like that?”

“Naw, not all the time. Just when we want to scare off you New Yorkers.” She lowers her arms. “You mind if we sit for a spell? I'm plumb tuckered out after all that flying.”

This is nonsense, of course. Our robots never get tired. And sitting anywhere is kind of awkward for Pioneers, because our bodies just aren't built for it. But I nod anyway and lower my Quarter-bot's torso to the ground, stretching my steel legs across the white gypsum. Amber plunks down her Jet-bot a couple of feet away, angling her cameras so she can view both me and the sunset. “Ahh, that's better.” She synthesizes a sigh. “My, my, my. It sure feels good to take a breather, don't it?”

I nod again. It does feel good. It feels human. “Seriously, what's it like to live in a place like Tulsa? Are there cows roaming the streets, or is it just like any other place?”

Amber pauses, and for a moment, I think I've insulted her. She's never talked about her life as a normal teenager, probably because it's too painful to think about. But before I can apologize, she shakes her Jet-bot's head. “Tulsa's an ordinary city. It has a downtown with a few big buildings. My high school was pretty big too, more than thirteen hundred kids. And the great majority of them were ordinary jerks.”

She's dropped the thick accent. She's not as upbeat as she was a few seconds ago, but she doesn't seem upset either. I decide it's safe to ask another question. “Right before you joined the Pioneers, General Hawke showed us a photo of you. In the picture you were wearing this—”

“The black corset and the choker? And the big, black wig? My goth girl ensemble?”

“Yeah, that's it. Were you really into that stuff?”

“Nah, not so much. It was more of a cover-up, if you know what I mean. When the cancer came back, I got very pale and skinny, so I slathered makeup on my face and dressed in fierce outfits. I didn't want anyone feeling sorry for me.” Amber tilts her torso backward, reclining on the desert floor. She points her cameras at the sunset for a couple of seconds, then turns them back to my Quarter-bot. “You want to see what I really looked like? Before I got sick?”

A pulse of surprise zings across my wires. “Uh, how would you—”

“I can send you a picture wirelessly. Or better yet, I'll transmit a video. I got one in my files that's pretty good. One of my friends shot it with the camera on her iPhone, right before we went to last year's Homecoming dance.” Amber's voice is eager. She turns on her radio, and her Jet-bot sits up straight, ready to transmit. “I don't want to brag or anything, but I look smoking hot in this video. Want to see?”

My circuits are jumpy with anticipation. Amber and I are alone in the desert, watching the sunset. And she wants to share a personal video with me. A video she described as “smoking hot.” Those two words alone are enough to roil my electronics. I turn on my radio. “Sure, send it over.”