Whistling Past the Graveyard (13 page)

The minigun was finally silent.

“Clear!” bellowed a deep bass voice.

Flint and Scarlett rose up together from their hiding places and their laser swept over the hulking form of Monster―who held a combat shotgun with over and under grenade launchers. Water from the sprinklers danced along the gnarled lumps of his massive arms and shoulders. He was not a handsome man, but at that moment both Scarlett and Flint could have kissed him.

“Clear!” called another voice as Teacher’s Pet skidded into the room from the far side. He had his M5 in his hands and whipped it back and forth as he checked the corners and behind obstacles. “Clear!” he yelled again.

Suddenly then the lights came on, flooding the room.

The sprinklers shut off with a hiss.

The red emergency lights dimmed.

Silence settled around them.

As if everything was normal.

-9-

Teacher’s Pet lowered his shotgun. “Flint, Scarlett…what the bloody hell happened here?”

Flint got carefully to his feet and scanned the room. His ears still rang with the thunder of the gunfire. Amid the phantom echoes he heard Law and Flint yell at him.

“Dial it down,” he growled. “No casualties here. Anyone else taking fire?”

“No, but it sounded like you were in a war zone,” said Law. “What the hell—”

“Unknown,” cut in Flint. “We have zero intel and that’s got to change. I want everyone to hold tight until I give the word. Stay on line.”

“Look,” said Scarlett as she carefully crossed the room. Flint joined her, and Pet gave a long whistle.

The minigun was a tangled mess of twisted metal that sagged from its pedestal. The vehicle on which it had been mounted looked like a golf cart except that there was no seat for a driver.

Monster hurried over to it, his shotgun ready to finish what his grenades had started…but there was no need.

There were also no bodies.

He looked up in puzzlement.

“Zero hostiles,” grunted Monster. He was six feet ten and built like a Bradley. His bulk filled the corridor and he looked around irritably as if annoyed there was no one with a pulse he could shoot. “Where the hell’d they go?”

“I don’t think they went anywhere,” Scarlett said as she poked at the rubble with the toe of her boot. The floor was carpeted with spent shell casings. Thousands of them. Huge drum magazines anchored each side of the cart.

“Huh?”

She didn’t answer right away. “Never saw a minigun like this. Dual belts leading to a central firing chamber that feeds into the same set of rotating barrels.”

“Worse than that,” said Flint. He tapped a scorched metal box that hung from the pedestal on a tangle of wires. “Look at this.”

Teacher’s Pet bent forward and peered at it. “Is that a CPU?”

“Ah,” Scarlett said as if she was expecting that.

Pet looked at the others, his eyes filling with anger as he realized what it all meant. “Ah…c’mon, man, you frigging kidding me here?”

Scarlett studied the wiring. “There’s an antenna array, too.” She straightened. “This is—”

“What in God’s name is happening here?” interrupted a fierce voice and they turned to see Dr. Prospero come sweeping into the room. He wore trousers and an undershirt. Doc was right on his heels and it was clear they had just run there from the medical suite. Professor Miranda was a half step behind them. She had a small .25 automatic in her hands, but she held it with professional competence. As soon as they saw the ruined desks and the mangled remains of the mini-gun they stopped in their tracks.

Prospero’s face went purple with rage and he wheeled on Flint. “You maniac! You destroyed a four hundred thousand dollar prototype and—”

“Hold it right there, Doctor,” interrupted Flint with steel in his voice. Prospero paused. Flint kicked at the shell casings and sent a score of them skittering toward the scientist. “In case you’ve suddenly gone blind, that prototype of yours just tried to kill us.”

“Nonsense. The Kobold 118 is incapable of—”

“If Monster hadn’t taken it out Scarlett and I would be dog food.”

“Impossible.”

Flint felt his control slipping. “I’m sorry…did you say ‘impossible’?”

Prospero was not one for backing down. He stepped close so that he and Flint were almost nose to nose. “Yes,
Chief
,” he said in a way that suggested that Flint’s rank was of less consequence than a used Kleenex. “Kobold is a drone system. It can’t ‘try’ to do anything.
Trying
is an act of deliberate will.”

“No kidding,” said Flint icily. “So what does
that
tell us about what just happened?”

Prospero’s eyes cut back and forth between Flint and the drone. Doubt clouded his features. “I…” he began, but did not finish the sentence.

“Let me check the system,” said Professor Miranda quietly as she stepped forward at an angle that forced Flint and Prospero to step away from each other. It was a deliberate move calculated to dial down the tension, and everyone allowed it. A shouting match was not going to increase operational efficiency. She unclipped a small toolkit from her belt and selected a screwdriver. She quickly undid the four tiny screws that fastened the faceplate to the CPU casing. There was a small
pop
as she pulled it off.

“The security tapes were intact,” she announced. “I had to break them to take the faceplate off.” She showed the cover to the Joes. The security tapes were slowly turning color from beige to red. “Breaking the tapes releases chemicals that change the color. They were normal color when I opened it.”

“Always the same color?” asked Scarlett.

Miranda shook her head. “No. Beige was Monday’s color, which is when I last worked on this unit. I select a new color for every day.”

“How many people have authority to install the security tape?” asked Teacher’s Pet.

“Only Dr. Prospero and myself,” she answered. “And when either of us does that we’re under constant video surveillance. The digital files are stored in the security office.”

Flint tapped his ear mike. “Law, you get that?”

“Copy that. On it.”

Prospero scowled as he realized that others beside the Joes in the room were eavesdropping on the conversation. He said nothing, but his expression conveyed his displeasure.

Flint managed not to fall down and die.

He tapped his earbud again. “Yo, Joe! Headcount and location. Did anyone take any fire?”

Immediately the other Joes scattered in and around the Island sounded off.

“
Bruiser on deck―I’m outside with Flash. We’re checking the perimeter. Zero hostile contact.”

“Shock Jock here, Chief. Quiet as church out here. I’m running scans on the drones Dr. Prospero tore up. No one out here but us Joes.”

“Schoolgirl in the house. I’m down in Operations,”
Schoolgirl replied. “
No one home, everything shut down and locked.”

“Good,” said Flint. “Jukebox…where are you?”

“I’m in the generator shed, Flint,”
Jukebox said. “
Got a lot of boards fried down here. Halo never kicked in, so I’ve been putting out fires.
”

“Deliberate?”

“
Could be…but it’s hard to say. Looks like a mother of a power surge.”

“Okay, everyone stay on station and stay on the line.” He gave them a brief rundown of what happened. A lot of theories got thrown around but nobody came up with a reason to think that they were experiencing an actual attack.

“
Hope the Doc’s toys are still under warranty,”
quipped Flash.

Flint grunted and turned to Prospero. “I want a complete rundown of every single malfunction you’ve had that resulted in a weapons discharge.”

But the scientist was already shaking his head. “Malfunctions? No, no, no…there haven’t been any.”

“Not one?”

“No,” insisted Prospero, “and there
can’t
be because as I said, this system is a drone, it has no autonomous capabilities.”

“I know.” Flint smiled thinly at Prospero. “As you’ve heard, my team is on the line with us right now and a full-scale search is underway.”

“
Affirmative,”
said Flash in his ear.

“This is sabotage, Chief,” said Prospero. “Odd that it only happened after your team arrived.”

Flint took a challenging step forward. “You want to explain that comment—?”

“Wait…” said Professor Miranda in such an urgent tone that everyone turned toward her. She held a penlight and was using it to examine the inside of the CPU. “Oh my God! Doctor…look at this.”

Prospero and Flint gave each other two seconds of the Alpha Dog glare and then they turned to see what the professor had found.

“What is it?” demanded Prospero.

Miranda handed the unit to the senior scientist, who immediately frowned as he laid eyes on the inner workings. “This isn’t right,” he said softly.

“What isn’t?” asked Flint.

Prospero ignored him and instead directed his comments to Professor Miranda. “This is one of Kong’s devices. The AI256?”

“I think it’s the 257,” said Miranda. “Look, it has a smaller microprocessor unit and—”

“Whoa―stop right there,” ordered Flint. “What is an AI256, and why do you two look like you just swallowed scorpions?”

Prospero plucked a plastic-coated unit the size of a button from the CPU and held it up between his thumb and forefinger. He waved it in Flint’s face. “This is your villain, Chief.”

“What is it?”

“It’s an artificial intelligence module designed for the next generation of unmanned tactical combat vehicles.”

“Artificial intelligence?” Flint’s heart sank. In his earjack he heard Flash curse.

“Yes, Chief,” said Prospero.

“One of your toys?”

“I don’t
do
AI,” he said as if that field of science was akin to selling crack in middle school playgrounds.

“Who does? AI was on last year’s budget report. You signed off on it.”

“Dr. Kong’s team did all of…that.” Prospero still looked like he was sucking a lemon. “Kong was working on full automation systems. It was a small department and I had no plans to include it in this year’s budget request.”

“And yet it just
happens
to be in the CPU of one of
your
combat drones?” asked Scarlett, one eyebrow arched.

“I obviously had nothing to do with that,” said the scientist, dismissing even the possibility of such a thing. “I said Dr. Kong’s team
was
working on this. Kong had a stroke five months ago. He’s in a coma in Las Vegas and is not expected to recover. I believe that is in the same report from last year.”

In his ear, Law said,
“Yep, it’s there. Blink and you miss it, though.”

Flint said, “Who’s continuing Kong’s project?”

“There were only three people on his team,” explained Prospero. “None of them is advanced enough to lead the project. They’re all a half-step up from lab monkeys. Kong never used top people. He didn’t like to share the byline on any potential patent, so most of his team are graduate assistants with low level clearance. They only worked on peripheral aspects of the hardware. None of them wrote code for the operational systems. Besides…I shut the whole project down until a suitable replacement could be found.”

“And—?”

“I haven’t spent a lot of time looking. As I said, AI is not the primary goal of this project. The Island is a drone shop.”

Flint digested this. “Who has access to their research and materials?”

“I do.”

Flint gave Miranda a hard look. “Who else?”

She shook her head. “Only Dr. Prospero. We certainly didn’t plant the AI unit.”

That served up a moment of silence as the Joes and the scientists processed the implications.

“Swell,” said Doc with a sigh.

Flint touched his earbud. “Law…it’s confirmed that we have zips in the wire. Lock this place down. Bruiser, you stay outside with Flash. Seal the perimeter. Nothing gets in or out. Shock Jock, I want you inside with Schoolgirl. I want all staff locked into their rooms. Personally check all doors. Law―initiate J-94 security redirects. Blank all keycards and replace them with our team code.”

“You can’t do that—” began Miranda furious.

“Shut up,” barked Flint. “Jukebox…lock yourself into the power shed. I don’t want another lights out.”

“On it.”

Immediately red lights mounted high on the walls flashed with crimson urgency. A recorded female voice spoke from speakers mounted below the lights:

“THE ISLAND IS GOING INTO LOCKDOWN. ALL STAFF WILL OBSERVE SECURITY PROTOCOL ALPHA 1. REPEAT…”

To Monster and Teacher’s Pet Flint said, “Coordinate with Law. Everyone is on two-man patrol. You find anyone―
anyone
―from senior staff to pot-washer third class that’s not locked in their assigned quarters and obeying all of the Alpha Security protocols, you bag ’em and drag ’em. I will want to have a talk with them.”

They saluted and headed out.

“You copy all that, Law?”

“
On it. I’m downloading the fingerprint and retina scans of the whole staff to team PDAs. Everyone should verify the identities of every single staff member. Anyone can wear a nametag
.”

“Good call.”

Flint eyed Prospero and Miranda. He debated locking them in their rooms, too, until his team had a chance to sweep the entire facility. The Island was a big place. He also wanted to get out of there and think it through alone. He was still jumpy from all the adrenaline that had been dumped into his bloodstream during the brief but harrowing firefight. It made it hard to maintain the air of detachment that he preferred to show, especially in front a of touchy high-maintenance jackass like Prospero.

He took the device and held it up.

“So what does it mean, doctor? If this thing had an AI predecessor then there isn’t a need for an operator, correct?”

“Correct,” said Prospero. “Under normal circumstances the drone would have an operator uplinked to a satellite or a plane, or perhaps a ground spotter. As the operator received intel he would direct the flight-plan or drive-plan of the drone. Our latest generation has better optical systems, including the Ariel series of airborne cameras. They’re too agile to be hit by most conventional weaponry and too small to appear on radar.” He paused. “I released twenty of them when I went out into the desert for our test.”