Defenders (11 page)

“Them?”

Wiewall’s smile broadened. She led him out, down a long transparent hallway, into a lift that took them down six, seven, eight stories.

“I was sure you’d be looking toward AI technology,” Oliver said as they dropped. “That seemed the obvious direction; what little success we’ve had has involved drone and robot technology.”

Wiewall shook her head. “That would have been a dead end. Robots are stupid in all the ways that matter in this war. Luyten can’t read their minds, sure, but they don’t have to, because robots can’t develop independent battle plans, can’t come up with creative strategies without human assistance. They can’t react to anything
new
the Luyten throw their way.”

Transparent dividers were suddenly replaced by thick concrete walls.

They’d engineered humans with utterly different neurological functioning? Oliver couldn’t quite buy that. It just couldn’t be right. He kept expecting Five to weigh in, but Five stayed silent.

They slowed to a stop; the lift door opened.

Oliver clutched the wall, his knees jelly, his heart hammering fiercely.

They couldn’t possibly be real.

“They won’t hurt you,” Wiewall said. Her voice seemed to be coming from a distance, although she was still right beside him.

They were sixteen feet tall at least, walking on three legs, ghost white, their huge faces obviously inspired by the statues ringing the island.

“How is this possible?”

The creatures were engaged in a training exercise in an enormous space that must have been a half mile square. Their movements were fluid, athletic, assured; the third leg allowed them to run incredibly fast—faster than a Luyten.

It’s not a footrace
, Five said. There was something in his voice. It was tentative. Afraid, even.
They wasted their time bringing me here.

Why
had
they brought Five? Oliver had been too mesmerized by the giant warriors to consider the question until Five brought it up.

They want to find out if I can read them.

“Can you?” Oliver asked aloud.

Wiewall glanced at him. “Can I what?”

“Sorry. I was speaking to the Luyten. I don’t know why I do it out loud.”

“It’s speaking to you right now?” Her voice held a tinge of awe.

“That’s right.”

The giants were carrying standard weapons: bayoneted assault rifles, grenade launchers, all enlarged to match their massive scale. On top of this there were what appeared to be blades running down the sides of their arms and legs for hand-to-hand combat. Other hardware was attached to their skintight black uniforms at their forearms, like it was a part of their anatomy. In that regard, it reminded Oliver of Luyten weaponry.

“The weapons bulging from their forearms…” Oliver began.

“Their arms and legs are artificial, from the joints down. That not only made them simpler to design from a genetic perspective; it makes them stronger and faster. They control their artificial limbs entirely through thought.”

Oliver watched them for a moment. “Their movements are so fluid.”

Wiewall smiled like a proud parent. Then the smile was gone, and she was all business again.

“Notice they only have three fingers. Our ergonomics team determined that was maximally efficient for handling weapons.”

Their fingers looked like powerful claws, thick and long. And they were fleshy—not at all mechanical-looking. “Are these all of them?” Oliver asked. He counted twenty.

“So far we have two thousand. If they’re effective against the Luyten, the plan is to produce several million at facilities already being constructed under cities around the world. No one involved in building the facilities has any idea what they’re for; they’re working from blueprints.”

Oliver nodded. It was an incredibly ambitious undertaking. The cities involved must be diverting a substantial percentage of their resources to the construction.

Do you know what she’s thinking about you right now? She thinks you’re bizarre. You never make eye contact. You fidget. Just now, you were digging at your scalp with a fingernail while speaking to her.

Willing himself to ignore the comment, he turned to Wiewall and asked, “How will you convey battle instructions to the—what are they called?”

She wonders if you’re autistic.

“Defenders. That’s the point—humans can’t know the defenders’ intentions; otherwise the Luyten will as well. They fight independently. They develop their own battle plans.”

He gawked at Wiewall. “You’re kidding me.”

“They don’t look it, but they’re extremely intelligent. They’re epigenetically primed to learn extremely rapidly. They learn to speak in a matter of weeks. Then, when they’re not here training, they’re in a classroom studying warfare. All they know is military strategy and tactics. They don’t sleep, so their training is almost nonstop.”

Oliver didn’t know what he’d been expecting. An airborne virus that affected Luyten but not humans. A new superweapon. He hadn’t expected this. If the Luyten could read the defenders’ minds, though, they’d be nothing but bigger targets.

“You said your medical people
think
the Luyten’s ability won’t work without serotonin present. How confident are they?”

Wiewall paused, then, in a careful, deliberate tone, said, “Some are more confident than others.”

You just scratched inside your nose. Yes, it was just barely inside, but it doesn’t matter. Do you know how uncomfortable you just made her? Do you see how she’s averting her eyes? It drove Vanessa crazy when you did things like that in public.

Oliver squeezed his eyes closed, knowing that would only make him seem odder to Wiewall, but needing a moment to regain his composure.

“Five isn’t going to help you,” he said, opening his eyes. “He understands what the stakes are. He’ll die first.”

The young scientist’s expression did not instill confidence. “I was told that wasn’t my concern.”

“Whose concern is it? Mine? Because I’m telling you right now, Five may talk to me, but believe me, he doesn’t say anything useful.”

Dr. Wiewall swallowed. She was blinking rapidly, clearly uneasy. “I’m not sure what to say. If there’s a plan, there may be a good reason no one in the Luyten’s range is aware of it. Or maybe they’re just hoping the Luyten will slip up. I don’t know.”

Chuckling morosely, Oliver looked at the ceiling. “If that’s the plan, they don’t know Five very well.”

Hands on hips, his breathing slightly labored from the walk up the sloping field, Oliver took in the line of statues.
Moai
, the locals called them. They were watching the horizon, their faces resolute. Waiting. At least that’s how it looked to Oliver, now that he’d seen the defenders. The resemblance was uncanny. How the geneticists had engineered that resemblance, Oliver could not imagine.

“What do you know,” Oliver said aloud. “Maybe the Hulk and Spider-Man showed up after all.”

No response. Oliver thought he knew why Five had gone mute: He didn’t want to risk tipping off Oliver about whether he could read the defenders.

So much had changed since Oliver learned of the defenders. Five had been right—before, Oliver had had very little hope. There had seemed no reason for hope. Humanity had been whittled from seven billion to under four in a matter of three years. They were surrounded by the Luyten, crowded into the cities, starved of food and resources. All that seemed left was for the Luyten to wipe out the cities.

“Dr. Bowen.” It was Wiewall, on the comm he’d been provided.

“Yes, ma’am?” he replied, then winced as he heard how stupid he sounded calling her ma’am. His attempts at levity usually fell flat.

“You’d better start heading back. They’re bringing the Luyten down in a few minutes.”

“On my way.”

Oliver took one last look at the Moai, and realized some were the same height as the defenders.

Wiewall and a CIA security guy who’d introduced himself as Ski led Oliver into what looked to be a medical bay where a lone defender waited, sitting against the wall, one of its three legs canted. The defender watched them enter but otherwise didn’t acknowledge them. Oliver wondered if it had a name, if it would know what to do if Oliver went over and introduced himself. Its expression was as unreadable as the Moai.

As they waited, others filed into the room, including the commander of the operation, Colonel Willis. Oliver had met him earlier, thought he seemed like a bright, decent guy.

The hum of machinery interrupted his thoughts; Oliver turned. The big forklift was bringing Five, still caged, into the room.

The defender’s reaction was immediate. It stood, stared at Five, craning its neck to see the Luyten better. Then it began to pace, never taking its eyes off Five, keeping a uniform distance.

“This is the first time it’s ever been in the presence of a Luyten,” Wiewall whispered. “They’re conditioned to despise them.”

The defender looked down, then back up at the Luyten.

“Is the Luyten communicating with you?” Wiewall asked.

“No. Five’s giving me the silent treatment.” Oliver raised his voice. “Aren’t you, Five?”

I wonder if Vanessa went ahead and fucked Paul after you were so convinced she already had. Maybe they’re living together now.

Oliver did his best to ignore the comment. This was too important; he couldn’t allow himself to be distracted.

The defender paused in front of a table built in along the wall. It picked something up, then resumed pacing. Oliver squinted, straining to see what the defender had picked up.

It was a bayonet. Large enough to look formidable in the defender’s hand.

“What’s it doing?” Oliver asked. He looked around, but no one responded. There were about a dozen people present now. All eyes were on the defender.

Oliver turned, studied Five, who was watching the defender. There was nothing in its manner that might indicate whether it knew what the defender was thinking, although Oliver had always struggled to read the Luyten’s body language.

The defender stopped pacing. Its mouth a tight line, it took a deep breath through its nose, exhaled. With shocking speed, it hurled the bayonet at Five.

An instant later, the bayonet was embedded in one of Five’s limbs—it had gone right through the eye set in that limb. A cawing filled the room, multiple voices squawking in an eerie harmony. It took Oliver a moment to realize it was Five, screaming in pain and surprise through all of his mouths at once.

He hadn’t even
tried
to duck. The attack had caught Five completely by surprise.

Oliver rushed toward the Luyten. Five was gripping the bayonet with the cilia that served as his hand, pulling carefully, trembling from the pain.

“Kill you all,” Five said aloud, the pitch of his voice rising and falling. Gasps ran through the small crowd.

Five worked the knife out a half inch. Black blood dribbled from the ruined eye, pooling along the ridge that ran from each limb, spiraling to the center of his body.

“They won’t stop us. We’ll kill you all.” Five pried the bayonet farther.

“Can somebody help it, for God’s sake?” Oliver said. He glanced at the people now clustered around Five’s prison. “Are any of you medical personnel?”

A man with heavy jowls studied Oliver, then glanced at Five. “Let it bleed awhile.”

Oliver pointed into the cage. “That’s the only Luyten who has ever communicated with a human being. Do you really want to let it die?”

Drawn out of a stunned stupor by Oliver’s raised voice, Colonel Willis said, “He’s right. Get the thing patched up.”

The man studied Five. “We’ll have to sedate it first.”

Oliver opened his mouth to argue, then realized it would be foolish to insist Five was not dangerous. Five was very dangerous.

He stepped back, rejoining Wiewall. “So now we know.”

Wiewall nodded, clearly unnerved. Whether she was shaken by the attack on Five or Five speaking, Oliver didn’t know. “It was an ingenious test. Whoever devised it must have left the island before the Luyten arrived, so it wouldn’t be forewarned.”

On the far side of the room, the defender had resumed pacing. Occasionally it lifted its head to look at Five. Oliver wondered just how the test had been arranged. “I’m going to speak to it.” He gestured at the defender. “Does it have a name?”

“Robert. They’re all male, though they have no genitalia.”

As Oliver approached, the size and mass of the thing became more apparent, and more intimidating. It continued pacing, evidently unable to relax in the presence of a Luyten. Oliver could relate to that.

“Excuse me. Robert?”

The defender considered him, snorting air through its long nose, reminding Oliver of a bull.

“Who instructed you to injure the Luyten with the bayonet?”

The defender frowned. “No one. Colonel Willis ordered me to determine whether the Luyten could read my thoughts. It can’t.”

“No, it can’t.” Oliver’s mind was reeling. The defenders were definitely more intelligent than they looked. Their faces were stiff, didn’t express much in the way of emotion, but he shouldn’t have been fooled into thinking that reflected their intellectual ability. He thanked Robert and returned to Wiewall, who’d been watching from a distance.

“Robert devised the test himself.”

Wiewall tilted her head. “I’m surprised. Pleased, but surprised. They’re engineered and trained to be skilled tacticians, but still, that’s impressive problem solving.”

“What happens now?”

Watching Robert pace, and glower at Five, she said, “Now we make more.”

Oliver watched the city go by through the limo’s one-way glass. He wiped his sweaty palms on his pants. The D.C. area gave you a deceptive perspective on what was happening in the world. It wasn’t that D.C. was the same as it had been before the invasion, but the fortifications around the entire D.C.-Alexandria area were so heavy you felt a sense of safety and stability.