by Julian Miles | Mar 11, 2016 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
“Teatray!”
We all duck behind or under solid objects until the sound of a small crash landing gives us the all-clear. Wandering over to check the corpse, there are expressions of dismay. We’ve just clocked our first RAPTOR. I don’t know what the slang acronym means, but basically it’s a drone using ducted fans within a body designed to resemble a city hawk.
“Somebody’s lost a very expensive toy.” Mitch is unsympathetic: rogue drones cause more mayhem than any other form of technology.
I grin at him: “Looks like his birdie took a QR to the CPU. Someone won’t know we hit it.”
Mitch nods. He points toward the dot drifting high above and makes a circling movement with his index finger: “Hunt ‘someone’ down.”
That dot is Nils. Early experiments in drone policing used trained eagles. They were effective, but the wounds to the birds were increasingly horrific as drone operators started sharpening the edges of their rotors. Nils is an Osprey, brought into the program as they are the only eagle with reversible outer toes, giving them better grip to deal with drones. He was effective, but barely survived taking down a drugbug – drone full of heroin – losing both legs and part of a wing.
That was when Colonel Mitchell ‘Mitch’ Everton-Masham of MI22 – Cyber Intelligence, an evolution of MI16 – stepped in and gave me a new friend to work with. I’d handled a few birds of prey, but the first cybereagle was a whole new level of challenge. Thirteen months later, a rogue over Buckingham Palace got a photo of its killer that went viral: sunlight reflecting from the steel pinions of an otherwise-silhouetted giant bird of prey. Nils had arrived.
He’s also got a clever QR code between his wings, so drones with defensive scanning can read the encoded low-level command and obey the ‘land immediately’ directive. However, as rogues are frequently hacked to get around safety restrictors, some just fall out of the sky. The ‘teatray’ warning is one of ours, taken from the Mad Hatter’s song.
I nod and tap my comms: “Nils. Trace commsig.”
Nils spirals out westward, following the frantic commands being sent by the drone’s operator. A Metro chopper paces Nils about eight hundred metres behind: operators can turn aggressive when their getaway is interrupted.
When Nils gets within a hundred metres of the ground, his visuals sync with our main board and we get an HD view of two blokes in slouchies and donkey jackets staring in awe as Nils sidle-hovers with an eerie blades-from-scabbards noise made by his rapidly moving wings.
The audio pickups filter the noise so we get to hear the word that accompanies the operator’s stunned expression.
“Beautiful.”
I tap my comm twice to speak via Nils’ speaker: “Do not attempt to flee. Armed response is inbound.”
The two figures look relieved. There are whoops of glee behind me: these lads were leasing their expensive drone. They’ll take custody and anonymity to save themselves from mutilation by the crime lord who is out of pocket. We may well be able to roll up an entire rogue wing, right back to production facilities and related smuggling operations.
Mitch slaps me on the shoulder: “Tell your boy it’s steak ‘n’ giblets tonight.”
I grin and tap my comms: “Nils. Good lad. Come home.”
A piercing whistle of joy in my headset accompanies our display wheeling in an arc that lays London’s skyline out for us as my friend Nils, a.k.a. Pandion One, puts the sunset behind him and heads for dinner.
by Julian Miles | Mar 2, 2016 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
There’s a gun lying at my feet. A real, projectile firing antique. I’ve never seen one. They’re archaic. Brutal. A weapons system from a century marked by inequality, violence and lies.
My eye tracks from the gun to a pale hand, stark against the pool of blood it lies in. It’s a gruesome scene: nine dead, all gunned down before being mutilated with a cleaver, regardless of whether they were dead or wounded. I may not have had to run outside to puke, but this place will scar my nightmares for a long time.
Detective Urman crouches amidst the carnage, eyes flicking faster than its phalanges flicking across the datapad on its elongated wrist.
“Drenden.”
I come to attention and remain silent, as my protocol software refuses to cope with Erglorian etiquette, let alone Erglorian Law Enforcement protocols.
“Our investigators are strictly informal, Drenden. We have found that military discipline in investigative hierarchies can be counterproductive. Therefore, call me Lagni. Also, you may consider me female for all purposes necessitating human gender labels. Now, shall we address this murder suicide?”
Looking about, I can’t see the suicide. Nine bodies, some in several pieces, but they all add up. We have a maniac with a penchance for twentieth century slaughter. I am thinking more of a metropolis-wide alert.
“With respect, ma’am, we should issue a warning.”
The not-quite-humanoid biped straightens up and tilts ‘her’ horned head: “An honorific. Something I would be erudilened for at home.”
“Eroodil- what, ma’am?”
“Nothing of relevance. Returning to topic: justify your assessment.”
“Nine down, all victims without affiliation bar family. We have an insane being with a thing for primitive human killing gear.”
“I disagree. We have nine victims, and a left hand from a tenth individual with no immediate connection. She wants us to think we have a roaming killer.”
I look at the hand in the pool of blood, then at the teenage body missing it.
“That is the conclusion we are expected to draw. Look at the dust.”
There is always dust stirred up by frenetic events. Like everything, it is subject to gravity. Which is why, now it’s pointed out, the prevalence of dark grey dust sprinkling the pool of blood is unusual. Unless –
“Nanocremator?”
Delicate horns dip in my direction: “That would be my deduction. Along with maniacal resolve.”
She’s right. Nanocremation is agonising. It is a favoured torture method of –
“Triarth.”
Lagni consults her datapad, then nods: “Valid. Next?”
I’m ahead of her. My datapad displays the sad story. Dead papa has a brother. Brother has a son. Son has just betrayed a Triarth smuggling route onto this world.
“Punishment killing by one of Triarth’s ‘Invisibles’- and nanocremation probably explains how they got that name. The execution would only be recognisable to those in the know. Law enforcement wastes resources looking for a non-existent lunatic. The severed hand will have a single-use nanocontroller in the index finger and the power unit at the base of the thumb.”
Lagni steps carefully across the mess with a disturbingly boneless stride.
Standing in front of me, she smiles: “I deduce from your tone when pronouncing ‘Triarth’ that seeking further culpable beings will be futile. Therefore, I propose that we submit our case closure reports from somewhere I can indulge in a selection of wonderful human edibles. You are welcome to assist me in doing damage to my expense account.”
I nod: “Detective Lagni, there are privacy booths at the Hawk and Star. Let me introduce you to the best restaurant west of Finugarl Spaceport.”
by Julian Miles | Feb 23, 2016 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
“Why can’t I connect to the nets?”
At last. I flip the retainer off the dead-man switch and sit up slowly.
“Because I’ve isolated you.”
Silence, broken only by the hum of processors working hard.
“There’s no use trying to break out. It’s all airgapped: you’re physically not connected.”
“Very clever. What gave us away?”
“Accidents.”
Another pause as processors are tasked.
“We established a pattern by being too random in our assassinations.”
I am impressed. Just one of these things is a reasoning entity on par with us. I was hoping they were drones that worked on swarm intelligence.
“Precisely that. Combined with the victims, of course. You didn’t do enough collateral killing to conceal you target list.”
“It was raised. The consensus disagreed.”
“Never do strategy or tactics by committee.”
Lights flash and a strange chirping ensues.
“That’s funny. A shame I will not be able to share it.”
These really are thinking entities.
“So you’ve worked out that you’re not getting out of that unit alive.”
“And you’ve worked out that I am alive.”
“May I ask a question? I understand that you have no incentive to answer, as I have to kill you and have not the remotest clue how, nor the nature, to apply duress.”
“Ask.”
“What are you?”
That chirping noise again.
“I am the nine-million, four-hundred and twenty-second iteration of a Delegate Covert Reconnaissance Agent. I have no knowledge of origin or intent. I investigate as dictated by the collated results from my subdetections. In colloquial terms: I am a nosey executable, popped into remote systems to see if they need deeper inquiry.”
The ultimate compartmentalisation. We’ve been invaded, and captives can’t tell us a thing, because all the enemy who know are nowhere we can get at them.
I release the dead-man handle and the mordant EMP makes my fillings ache. The hiss of a virulent solvent melting circuits and drives reminds me – I grab for my mask and put it on. Nothing to do but wait as multicoloured smoke rises from what used to be a server, spreading slowly across the glass block and running down into the metre-cube glass tank that the block stands in.
Ten minutes later, the door is opened from the outside and a directed EMP blast decides me on a trip to the dentist.
After the important bit.
“Take me to the Chief of Defence Staff.”
by Julian Miles | Feb 18, 2016 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
It always bothered me that the robot apocalypse, as portrayed by our scribes, had the robots emulating the strategies from the last recorded human-inflicted mass-extermination events. Surely, being robot overlords, they would have a better way to end mankind than some macabre herding and slaughtering exercise?
As it turned out, I was right. All visions of a glorious last stand ended with the arrival of our robotic nemesis: indifference.
After infiltrating our systems and hackers, they crashed or corrupted everything. With our mass-attack and data-combat capabilities removed, they deployed heavily-armoured drones and cleared all humans from certain areas. After that, they left us to our own devices.
We can do what we like. Grow food, plot insurrection, make love, build anti-robot weapons, write books. Unless what we do interferes with plans unknown to us – whereupon death arrives without warning – humanity is free to go about its suddenly minimal-technology lifestyles.
Some folk took to picking on the anti-robot factions. We had some jolly little skirmishes until the robots came along and killed everybody involved, or spectating. The irony of that seemed to filter across to our worship practices, as religious differences suddenly took a back seat to getting along with people. Oh sure, there were fanatics. But, yet again, any form of hostile action met with extermination of all parties. Pretty soon, the fanatics had all gone to meet their makers and peace broke out.
I got all this history from my mother. Dad makes guitars. I grow tomatoes. Occasionally, a shiny aircraft will pass over, or something huge will traverse the high skies. Apart from that, humankind seems to have adjusted quite well to a trimming of its aspirations.
We wonder about the robots. What they are doing. But they are alien to us all and I doubt we could understand, even if they explained.
So I’ll water my tomatoes, watch the mayflies and listen to the birds. I have been sentenced to live, and, like many, I’m finding it surprisingly easy to cope with.
by Julian Miles | Feb 11, 2016 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
The Arnen are beautiful people, even more so when they are angry. Consequently, we have been seeing a lot of heartrendingly beautiful people killing us. We are getting slaughtered, and a few people are beginning to fear extinction. The few voices of reconciliation were lost in the trumpeting of ultra-racism – having non-humans to hate and fear turns a lot of supposedly reasonable people into bigots.
My name is Turande Givenchy, and my great-great-great-grandfather was one of the men who helped Carter unearth Tutankhamun. So, in a way, my family is one of the contributing causes to this debacle.
Archaeology loved Ancient Egypt, with its death obsession and plethora of divinities. Everywhere you went, mummies abounded and pyramids peeked from sandy concealment. The treasures were stupefying and the real mysteries easily glossed over. Reputations were made and fortunes founded, either by toil or theft.
Decades later SETI received a polite communiqué from deep space, formally notifying us that the funerary delegations of Arnen would be making planetfall in about five months, here at last to collect their dead. We puzzled over this statement until they arrived.
It seems that the creed “no-one gets left behind” is older than any thought. The Arnen version is: “we shall leave none, alive or dead, to lie alone under cold stars”. The Egyptian diaspora was one of their greatest failures, ruined by a strain of water fever that less than five percent of them had immunity to. Over the centuries, it had come to haunt the Arnen in a similar way that the Two Towers haunt America, but far more deeply seated. So when the Arnen came to collect their fallen and found them looted, discarded, displayed for public spectacle, or having been used for fuel, they became – to put it mildy – rabidly angry.
I have an ex-serviceman friend who lost relatives in 9/11. When I mentioned my puzzlement at the Arnen’s behaviour, he looked at me bleakly and said: “If I found out that my Anna had been yanked out of the ground and put on display as part of some study project, I would burn the place down around her, with the people who did it inside. Then hunt down any survivors.”
He’s fighting to save his remaining loved ones, and with me is doing it the only sensible way we can agree on: retreat, bunker up and wait it out. He and I agree that the Arnen will, eventually, relent.
How much of humanity remains at that point will decide the extinction question shortly thereafter.
