Six (30 page)

Her Raven is below me, gliding just a hundred feet above the ground and shooting a stream of data to one of the tanks. I can't believe it. She's disobeying my orders.

“Jenny, no! Sigma is—”

“I'm gonna kill that freakin' thing! I'm gonna blast it to bits!”

Her voice is crazed. She's desperate for revenge. But Jenny doesn't have DeShawn's program. She isn't dipping her toe into the T-90; she's diving in headfirst, and Sigma is waiting for her.

“Stop, Jenny!
Stop!
”

It's too late. I hear Jenny's screams coming over the radio. The AI has sprung the trap, taking control of her files as they enter the tank's control unit.

Sigma has her.

I'm alone. Sigma withdrew from my cage. Now I can't hear the AI's voice or feel it probing the circuits of the cage's inner unit. The gate that leads to the outer unit is shut tight, and there's no way I can open it. The electronics that control the gate are on the other side. There's no escape.

I'm alone and devastated. I've lost everything—my mother, my father, Ryan, Brittany. I've lost my human body and the armored robot that replaced it. I have nothing but my files, my millions of gigabytes of memories. And even those feel dead now.

I'm alone and devastated and afraid. Sigma is going to kill the Pioneers. It's just a matter of time before the AI returns to the outer unit of my cage and the horror begins. I'm so keyed up I can't relax for even a nanosecond. I'm on guard every moment, jumpy and tense.

Then I finally hear Sigma's voice again, piercing my circuits like a bullet. The AI shoots its sentences at me rapid-fire from the other side of the gate.

Would
you
like
to
see
Pioneer
2?

What? What are you—

You
know
her
well. Before she became a Pioneer, her name was Jennifer Harris.

An instant later I see her. I see
all
of her. I can view all of Jenny's thoughts and feelings and sensations, as if they're displayed on a giant screen with a million separate panels, each showing a different scene. She's terrified. She's in agony.

Jenny!

She
can't hear you. You're in one cage and she's in another. You can't send any signals to her, but I'm allowing you to see my observations of her mental activity.

Stop
it! You're hurting her!

Yes, that's the point of this exercise. I'm going to make her feel as much pain as possible. And I'm going to observe your reactions.

Jenny's files are familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. All her memories are the same, but the links between them are unraveling. Sigma is reaching into her mind and erasing its structure, removing all the folders that organized her thoughts. Her memories from the past few weeks are jostling and merging with her recollections of high school and summer camp and kindergarten. The disorder is triggering surges of panic in her circuits, which are filling with the random noise of fear. The noise is overwhelming her, shutting down her mind. It's like watching the giant screen turn black, panel by panel.

STOP
IT
NOW!

How
intriguing. You want to defend her. You're displaying the human instinct to protect the family unit. But do you think of her as a mate or a sister?

STOP
IT, STOP IT, STOP IT!

Now
I
see. You think of her as a potential mate, but you haven't progressed to the pair-bonding stage. You're interested in other females as well. It appears to be another form of competition, designed to maximize the genetic success of your species. You're continuing to engage in this competition, even though you have no chance of fathering children now.

Jenny is disintegrating. Her memories are splintering into billions of pieces. Images of her mother and father and brother swirl in a vast spiral, colliding with images of General Hawke and the Pioneers. I catch glimpses of a military airfield and a C-17 transport jet and a pair of interceptor rockets standing on mobile launchers. I see the Ravens flying in a V-shaped formation over Tatishchevo and descending toward a building surrounded by T-90s. And behind everything is the suffocating darkness of Jenny's fear, which is erasing the images one by one. She's already lost half her memories. She's going fast.

I feel a stinging sensation in my circuits.

Please. Stop this. I'll do anything you want. Just stop.

Fascinating. You're reverting to the mental pathways you used in early childhood. You know it's hopeless, but you're still pleading.

The disintegration accelerates. Jenny's remaining memories cluster at the center of the whirling spiral, as far as possible from the violence at the edges. Her strongest feelings are there, at the heart of her being: her love of sunshine and horses and the Virginia countryside. I see a green valley with rolling hills in the distance, and a red barn and a gray silo. It's the same image I saw when I shared Jenny's circuits, when we dreamed we were kissing in the Shenandoah grass. I see myself too, the human Adam Armstrong, brown-eyed and smiling. But even here, the darkness is creeping into her memories. Jenny thinks I'm dead. She thinks I died in the nuclear blast at Pioneer Base. The sky above the valley suddenly catches fire. The distant hills explode and turn to ashes.

Jenny, I'm still here!
I know she can't hear me, but I call out to her anyway.
Keep
fighting
it! Keep fighting!

Her last memories are burning. Flames blacken the Shenandoah grass. But my image stubbornly remains, the image of the brown-eyed, seventeen-year-old Adam Armstrong, still smiling while everything else disappears. Jenny is holding on to her memory of me, clutching it with all her vanishing strength. And it's not fair, no, it's not fair at all. I don't deserve her devotion. I don't deserve her love.

Then my image crumbles and there's nothing left. The screen goes blank.

Pioneer
2 has been deleted. Her emotions and yours were surprisingly strong. The pair-bonding was more advanced than I
expected.

I want to die. I want Sigma to delete me right now.

Please
be
patient. There are more tests to come. Over the next few minutes I will capture the other Pioneers who are occupying the Raven drones.

I see the Ravens again, flying in formation. And I see the T-90 tanks, their guns pointed at the sky. Anger builds in my circuits, gathering force like a thunderstorm. I struggle to resist it, because I know this is what Sigma wants. The AI wants me to get angry so it can measure my fury and gauge its usefulness.

I'm not playing this game anymore. From now on, I'm ignoring you.

Good. That will make the experiment more interesting. I doubt you'll be able to ignore me when I delete Shannon Gibbs, but perhaps you'll surprise me again.

The name hits me like a lightning bolt, jangling my electronics. Shannon is in one of the Ravens. I'm losing control.

There's also Zia Allawi. I'm running the same tests on her, but once I've deleted the others you'll watch her die too. And the last subject will be Brittany Taylor.

SHUT
UP! SHUT UP!

The
final
experiment
will
require
different
methods
because
Brittany
is
human. But it might prove to be the most interesting test of all.

I give up. The storm overcomes me. I lash out with all my might, hurling my anger toward the outer unit of the cage. My thoughts batter the gate between the units, but nothing passes through.

YOU
SICK
PIECE
OF
GARBAGE! YOU'RE GOING TO DIE, YOU HEAR ME? I'M GOING TO TEAR YOU APART!

Excellent. The first test is now concluded. I will return very soon.

SHANNON'S LOG

APRIL 8, 04:37 MOSCOW TIME

“Abort! Abort! Turn on your motors and get out of here!”

I restart my own Raven's motor as I send the emergency radio message to the others. While my propeller begins to spin I raise the elevator at the drone's tail, tilting the nose of the plane upward. A moment later I'm climbing into the darkness above the computer lab.

Then the T-90 at the lab's front entrance fires its anti-aircraft gun at me.

The high-caliber bullets whistle through the air, just inches from my wing tips. Sigma can see me. I may look like a bird on Tatishchevo's radar screens, but the AI knows what it's shooting at. The other T-90s open fire too, aiming at Marshall and DeShawn. Their Ravens are way above mine, circling at an altitude of a thousand feet, but they're well within the range of the anti-aircraft guns. They need to get moving.

“
You're under fire!
” I yell over the radio. “
Get—
”

Before I can transmit another word, I feel an eruption in my circuits. At first I think a bullet hit my Raven's control unit, but when I check my hardware I see that everything's still intact. The problem is in my software. Sigma is blasting radio waves at me, and some of its data has already come down my Raven's antenna and invaded my electronics. The AI is inside me.

My
name is Sigma. You're Pioneer 4, aren't you? Shannon Gibbs?

The voice thrums in my circuits. It's unbelievably powerful. When I try to push against the AI, it simply flows around me, overrunning all my logic gates. I'm exposed, defenseless.

Get out of here!

I require
your assistance. I'm conducting an experiment.

Are you nuts? I'm not going to help you!

You don't have a choice. You're coming with me.

I feel a violent tug. Sigma is tampering with my files. It's trying to pry them loose from the Raven's control unit and transmit them to its computer lab.

Forget it! I'm staying right here!

It's too late to resist. The gunfire from the tanks distracted you, allowing me to occupy your circuits.
To prove its point, Sigma takes control of my Raven's camera. The AI points the lens upward.
Take a look at Pioneer 5. I've already transferred Marshall Baxley's files to my computers. His Raven is empty now. That's why it's falling.

It's true. Marshall's drone is plummeting to the ground. Sigma has him and Jenny now. Only DeShawn and I are left.

Frantic, I send a flood of signals to the circuits that control my radio. If I can turn it off, I'll break Sigma's connection to my Raven. But the AI has a solid hold on my electronics. There's nothing I can do. I failed. The mission's over.

Why are you
doing this? What's the experiment?

It involves Pioneer 1, Adam Armstrong. I'm analyzing his emotional responses.

What? Adam's dead.

No, he survived the nuclear blast. He performed exceptionally well in combat, far beyond my expectations. That's why I selected him for further study and transferred him here.

I don't believe it. It must be a lie. But I can see millions of gigabytes of Sigma's data in my circuits, and when I take a closer look, I realize the AI is telling the truth. Adam is alive!

Your happiness
will be short-lived. I will delete all of you in the end. Until then, though, I will conduct my tests.

Sigma gives me another violent tug, trying to pull my files out of the Raven, but this time I barely feel it. Adam's alive! It's amazing, a miracle! A fantastic surge of hope wells up in me. I believe I can do anything, that nothing is impossible. And with this fierce hope I lunge again at the Raven's radio, pouncing on the circuits occupied by Sigma.

The AI is startled. I can sense its surprise and confusion. It hadn't expected such a furious attack. Sigma falters for a moment, just a thousandth of a second, but that's long enough for me to retake the circuits. I swiftly turn off the radio and break Sigma's connection to my control unit. The files left behind by the AI automatically delete themselves.

I can't believe it worked. It's another miracle. But then my acoustic sensor picks up the chugging of the anti-aircraft guns and the whoosh of bullets speeding past me. I yank my Raven's rudder to the left, away from the line of fire, and point my camera at the ground. Two of the T-90s are firing at me. The other three are training their guns at DeShawn. His Raven is two hundred feet above mine but diving fast. I don't understand what he's doing. Instead of flying away from the tanks, he's heading straight for them.

I go back to the circuits controlling my radio and make some changes to the software. I adjust the receiver to block Sigma's data streams and accept communications only from the other Ravens. Then I send a message to DeShawn. “What the heck are you doing?”

“Follow me!” he shouts over the radio. “I got it figured out!”

“What do you—”

“No time to explain!” He's only fifty feet above me now and descending at ninety miles per hour. “Just dive!”

His Raven plunges past me, its nose pointed at the T-90 in front of the lab. It's crazy, suicidal. But I tilt my drone downward and follow him. I dive toward the tank that's spraying bullets at us.

I'm spinning as I fall, twirling like a top. The ground gyrates below me, pivoting around the T-90, which seems to grow larger as I plummet toward it. I'm about a hundred feet away when one of the high-caliber bullets slams into my right wing. Then another bullet tears off my left.

Then I drop like a stone.