Captain Spencer stared at Scott Brodie in the dim light, and he looked annoyed by how Brodie had characterized that. “The failure had nothing to do with our containment protocols.” He gestured to the empty bay. “Two days ago, Bucky was among the LAWs that participated in an exercise against two squads of Rangers on the training grounds. It malfunctioned at the end of the exercise and was taken off the battlefield to be evaluated at the DEVCOM lab. Major Ames and I ran diagnostics and could find nothing wrong with the unit, but it was nonetheless unresponsive. Eventually I returned to my quarters, but the major wanted to continue working. The next morning, I went into the lab to find Major Ames on the floor, dead. He had suffered… severe head trauma.”
“What about Bucky?”
“Bucky was there,” said Spencer. “Awake and online, with its key installed. It was standing motionless near the major’s body. His—its—hands were covered in blood and gore. I immediately ran out of the lab and called in three Rangers on sentry duty, who used their EMP rifles to disable the unit.”
Brodie repeated the doctrine statement: “Neutralize the enemy.” He asked Captain Spencer, “Was Major Ames the enemy, according to Bucky?”
“Absolutely not. For one thing, their doctrine statement is only active within a geolocated battlespace that does not include the DEVCOM lab. Secondly, these units are equipped with facial recognition. Bucky knew who Major Ames was, and that the major was not involved with the training exercises.”
Taylor remained staring at the empty bay number twenty as shesaid, “He used his hands to kill the major.” She turned to Captain Spencer. “Not a rifle, or any other weapon. I imagine they are not programmed to do that.”
Spencer nodded. “That is one of the central mysteries surrounding this tragedy, Ms. Taylor. Our robots are capable of great physical feats. They can run, jump, flip, roll, dive for cover. They each weigh two hundred and thirty pounds and can lift twice their own weight. But the idea of them using their hands—or any other object—for melee-style combat is completely absent from their programming. Simply put, they do not really know their own strength, and Bucky could not have known he could use his hands to… do what he did to the major.”
“Maybe he learned,” said Brodie.
Colonel Howe took a step toward Brodie. “They don’t learn, Mr. Brodie. They don’t have the capacity to learn. And I urge all of you to stop using ‘he’ and ‘his.’?” She gestured to the line of robots. “These are things. They are equipment.”
“Equipment,” said Brodie, “that you chose to shape like human beings.”
Howe looked at him with her cold blue eyes, which seemed to take everything in without giving much back. If the eyes were the window to the soul, Colonel Howe’s blinds were drawn. She said to Brodie, “The design of the modern homo sapiens is the product of millions of years of evolution, and a fine blueprint to begin with. And let me emphasize that the work we are doing here, in accordance with the Pentagon’s Third Offset Strategy, is to anticipate and prepare for the developments and actions of our adversaries.”
The Russians made us do it.Colonel Howe had really drunk the Kool-Aid. Or maybe she was the one mixing and serving the Kool-Aid. At any rate, she was leaving something out about the decision to make these things humanoid—the fear factor. Their appearance was uncanny and unsettling and would scare the shit out of the enemy onthe battlefield. Human warriors have understood the importance of that ever since the first guy smeared on war paint.
Sergeant Scott Brodie had fought in the Second Battle of Fallujah in 2004, and it was no fun squaring off against jihadis whose own “doctrine statement” included fighting to the death and waking up in Paradise. How would it have been to have one of these robots fighting against him—let alone two whole MLB rosters of them? They didn’t fear death, nor did they welcome it. They didn’tfeelanything.
Brodie said, “Turn one of them on.” He gestured to the bay holding robot Number 3. “Babe Ruth over there.”
Colonel Howe replied, “Brigadier General Morgan has suspended all camp operations and ordered that the units remain powered down, with the exception of Number 20, which you may inspect later.”
Brodie had wondered when someone was going to mention the guy who actually ran this place. “And where is General Morgan?”
“Indisposed,” Howe said tersely. “He regrets that he was not available to greet you.”
“So do we,” said Taylor.
The general’s absence was odd, considering this tiny camp was on lockdown. The guy must have had something better to do. Or he wanted to look like he had something better to do because he was a senior officer with an ego. Brodie said, “Colonel, I insist that you activate one of these things. If Number 20 has malfunctioned, we need to see how a functioning unit operates.”
Howe replied, “I understand your logic, Mr. Brodie, but I have my orders. You may take this up with the general when you see him.”
“We will.”
Howe nodded. “Unless there are any other questions, we can now take you to the DEVCOM lab.”
Maggie Taylor, who remained staring at one of the bots and did not appear in a hurry to leave, asked, “How are they powered?”
Captain Spencer responded, “Each unit has a series of lithium-ionbatteries that allow around five hours of operation, give or take. They are also each outfitted with a state-of-the-art microbial fuel cell with oxygen cathodes, which makes them capable of sustaining themselves beyond the life of their lithium-ion batteries by processing insect, fruit, and plant matter into energy.”
Brodie looked at the captain. “These thingseat?”
Spencer nodded. “In a sense.” He pointed to a rectangular panel about the size of a smartphone in a bot’s lower right abdomen. “This compartment is connected to the fuel cell and is where they can insert organic material. A few months ago, we ran a test to see how long they could sustain themselves this way. We sent four units on a march across the desert, accompanied overhead by an unmanned aerial drone equipped with a camera. The bots collected grass, brush, insects, and small lizards, and after forty hours we had to swap out the drone because it was running out of fuel. The replacement drone continued to follow them for another forty hours, at which point we canceled the test. Our conclusion was that so long as they have access to organic matter, the D-17s can sustain themselves… indefinitely.”
There was a long silence in the room. Brodie looked at the rows of inert, lifeless robots. He thought of the Terra-Cotta Army—the legion of sculpted soldiers buried with China’s first emperor to guard him in death. But these twenty-first-century warriors came alive not in the underworld, but in this one, animated by the most sophisticated and cutting-edge technology developed by the most powerful military in human history.
Scott Brodie had a sudden vision of a truck dumping concrete down the Vault’s elevator shaft, and a squadron of Army jets bombing Camp Hayden to rubble. Well, there was that “reactionary mind” that General Dombroski had warned him about. Maybe the general had a point, and maybe Scott Brodie’s own unease about the work at Camp Hayden should not prejudice him against the machines specifically. After all, these things didn’t come out of the ether—they weredesigned, funded, constructed, and programmed by human beings, and whatever terror they instilled or danger they posed was merely a reflection of their human creators. Humans didn’t have the best track record for making decisions beneficial to their fellow man, and individual humans didn’t always go along with the program. If Number 20 had gone rogue, maybe it was at the command of a rogue human who got inside Bucky’s head and taught him a few new tricks, including a skull-shattering vise grip.
He looked again at the phone-sized port in the bot’s abdomen. He noticed a circular vent next to it about the size of a quarter. “What is that vent?”
Spencer replied, “The primary waste byproduct of the microbial fuel cells is carbon dioxide, which is emitted through those vents.”
