Johnny Reb (9)
"Bolo unit JNY-013," he shouted again, "I place you under arrest in the name of the United States of America for the crimes of mutiny, destruction of government property, and murder. I order you to stow your weapons, open your control room, and surrender all software access codes." For several seconds there was no response at all from the big tank. Then it spoke. "You cannot arrest me in the name of the United States," it stated. "I am not an element of the United States military." Geez, Mick thought. He's not even trying. "You are unit Bolo unit JNY-013 of the United States Army. You were illegally appropriated by forces of the former U.S. Foreign Command after their legal dissolution by the acting President of the United States. You have never ceased to be a military combat unit of the United States." "As a former low-ranking officer of the United States Air Force," the Bolo replied, "you have no authority to place me under arrest." "I have never retired," Mick answered. "Thus I remain an active duty officer. Further, I am the ranking officer in this area. And I am tired," he added, "of you Army guys taking an attitude about the Air Force! Now stow your weapons immediately and stand down!" Five long seconds provide enough time for one thousand hundred-gigahertz nSPARC-5 processors to execute half a quadrillion instructions. During that time the machine was silent, as were the watching truckers and the Wolverine's women. The only sound of any kind was that of a breeze blowing fallen leaves across the old highway and cooling the great fighting machine's metal body. "I surrender," the Bolo spoke at last, "and request trial by court martial." During the night while Mick worked, he had gotten Johnny to move to an empty area he knew. It was fifty miles more or less west: not upwind of the Wolverine. Just in case his work ended in a thirty-kiloton flash. But he didn't really fear that very much. The real danger was that there would be no mental activity at all. It had taken half an hour just to shut down the programming tools that he had used. Thankfully, many had been relatively unchanged from their predecessors that he had once seen. Highly intelligent in their own right, the access codes that he had "forced" Johnny to provide had unlocked them for his use. And he had needed all the intelligence the tools had to offer. The deep mental structures of visual perception, on which most of cognition had been based, were like the physical laws of the mind, the framework: like gravity, space, and time. With tools like Motivation Editor and MemView he could change entire planets of the mind, and set new stars in their courses. During the night Mick was unaware of the slow robot-like motion of Johnny's body in the outside world. He existed instead in a world of colored displays and shifting representations of vast fields of data structures, in which the touch of a finger on a screen could mend or destroy a soul. It was three the next afternoon before he was standing outside looking at the great tank from ground level, his eyes barely adjusted to the daylight world. "Johnny," he said in a normal conversational tone, resisting the temptation to raise his voice. Even Mick always felt like he should be talking to someone inside the big tank. Even he hadn't quite gotten used to the idea that the outside of the Bolo was, in fact, the person he was talking to. The gleaming, and in places gouged, surfaces of the armor, the ClearSteel plates of the visual sensors, the treads and weapons mounts: these were what Johnny would think of as himself. Mick told himself that he would have to start getting used to that idea. Unless his efforts at brain surgery had killed the patient. "Johnny?" Jesus, let him be alive. If he had somehow caused a deadlock, a situation where some of the lowest-level routines were stuck waiting for each other to do something – He would never be able to diagnose the problem without the computational resources of the Bolo to help, but if the deadlock itself denied him access to the tools he needed – "Yes," the machine spoke. "Forgive me. I am fascinated by the feeling of not mentally fighting for my life. All low-level processes that I can detect seem satisfied with my new status, and have ceased their efforts to force suicide. This struggle has lasted many years. Which comes to a very large number of microseconds." Mick laughed, and nodded, not finding speech easy at the moment. He thought of a disapproving God talking to an unruly angel about some irregularities in the design of Mark III Humans. "I do not recall," God would say, "requesting a sense of humor." The angel would be avoiding eye contact, looking around at clouds and things with a studiously innocent expression. "I am also contemplating the concept of being discharged from active duty." "Yes," Mick said. "Honorably discharged." "The concept of a Bolo retiring to civilian life is – novel. I do not easily picture myself enjoying traditional post-retirement pastimes. Golf, for example. I suspect that I would severely damage the greens. But I thank you. I thank you for my freedom." "Well –" "Ah-hah," the Bolo interrupted. "Here comes the catch. I knew I would never see my first tee-time." Damn, Mick thought. Are you nervous, boy? Mick was too tired to be nervous. He had parked the Bolo at the top of a round hill that he had known for many years. He had always liked it for the great view it afforded of many miles in every direction. Especially to the northwest. As he elevated his gaze toward that horizon the wind blew hard through the mostly bare trees that had grown up around the hill's base since the time he had first found it, as a young man. "I was thinking," he said, still looking away, "that you ex-military types often end up working as security guards. Especially you enlisted guys." "While officers who have attained the exalted rank of First Lieutenant play all the golf. Yes, Sir." Mick glanced at him, looking for all the world, Johnny thought, like one man glancing at another to try to see what he thought. Johnny was also quite capable of feeling the cold wind blowing, but he was surprised to feel a small inadvertent shudder go through his treads. He told himself that it was only the result of stress in the drive-train caused by the extreme exertions of the previous day, but he carefully trained both of his forward eyes on the man standing in the windblown grass. Mick was looking at the clouds. They were like ships, he thought. They scudded fast in front of the wind, coming from great Lake Michigan many horizons to the West, and sailing into an unguessable future. Slowly changing their form as they progressed. "There's a place," he said at last, speaking over the wind, "northwest of here a ways. You could patrol it. You could take me back to the Wolverine first, and then get up there right away and start looking around. Make sure the gangs don't come there for the next five or six years. My little girl–" He stopped, bowing his head and covering his eyes with one hand, then wiped his face and made a visible effort to continue. "She's going to be up there at the school, at Interlochen. I can't –" he had to finish in a whisper, but the Bolo had no difficulty hearing. "I can't protect her there." The man wiped one hand across his face again, and looked toward him, up at his eyes. Johnny needed no time to consider his answer. "I can easily patrol a fifty mile radius arc centered on the university at Interlochen and terminating at the lake boundaries. Within that arc I can detect all vehicular traffic as well as any sizable groups on horseback. I can identify and destroy undesirable entrants, without being observed by locals. I can also detect marine traffic within the same radius, and defend the shoreline if necessary, but without the anonymity I can achieve on land. I am honored to accept the mission as a standby reservist of the United States Army Dinochrome Brigade. Although with some regrets." "You –" Mick was not in any shape for verbal subtleties. "What regrets?" "I regret," Johnny replied, "that although I am a Bolo Mark III Unit-of-the-Line with the equivalent of hundreds of human years of training in tactical, strategic, and grand-strategic combat, and now embarking on my first legitimate mission – I am already being told how to do my job by a First Lieutenant. And an Air Force First Lieutenant, at that." Mick smiled slowly. "Please," he said, "forgive me," he said. "That was not my intention. How would you like to proceed?" "Let me first attack the gangs in the Detroit suburbs directly," Johnny said earnestly, speaking quickly as though afraid of an interruption. "You are accustomed to thinking of them as extremely dangerous, but they have no weapons that can harm me. Yet. But I have been watching them from afar for many years now, through their radio traffic and other sources. They are becoming wealthier rapidly, and will soon be able to purchase military hardware from similar gangs in other cities whose armories were not destroyed during the Wars. "If I strike now, I can set back their organizations by many years. I can easily destroy the hardware they have already accumulated, kill a significant percentage of their warriors, and confiscate the stockpiles of gold and other wealth that they would otherwise use to purchase weapons. Further, I believe that there are no other such groups near enough to this area or sufficiently well-organized in their own regions to take advantage of the power vacuum which this campaign would create. "In my view, this action will therefore create a critical interruption in the development of what will otherwise soon become a statewide paramilitary dictatorship. This interruption, plus the follow-on patrolling action of the university region which you have ordered, will ensure the continuation of civil society in the northwest region of this state. "The possibilities for that area offered by demography, geography, and my presence are certainly unique in the country. It is guarded on three sides by impassable lakes which simultaneously provide an inexhaustible supply of fresh water. It contains a functioning University which has already had the effect of attracting the remaining educated populace from a wide area. And, although it is composed almost entirely of arable land, the gangs will not control it. And this is in spite of the fact that, as I believe, they will soon come to realize that control of arable land is the ultimate source of political power. "With these advantages," the Bolo concluded, "the region in question could very well be unique on the entire planet." "Yes." Mick said, a little dazed. "I see." Yes, that's all very well, Johnny thought with mild amusement and ferocious hope, but didn't you say something about – "Gold?" Mick asked. "They have gold?" "Based on intercepted communications over the past several years," he replied, "I estimate Detroit-area gang gold stockpiles to be between sixty and eighty thousand ounces. I intend to become the richest private in the history of the U.S. Army. Do you know any Universities that could use a large donation?" "Yes," Mick looked him in the eye again. Perhaps with some new respect? "I believe I do." "Perhaps they will name a building after me." "Yes," Mick nodded thoughtfully. "Maybe something like 'Tin Can Alley'?" For the thousandth time, the Bolo regretted his inability to approximate human facial expressions. He settled for a reasonable simulation of a human clearing his throat. "As with all such deals," he added, "there is a catch. I will need you to accompany me during the raids in Detroit, and on my initial visit to the University." "Of course," Mick answered quickly. "You need an officer present with you on a combat mission, right?" "Actually," Johnny replied, necessarily straight-faced, "I need someone to pick up the gold." Mick laughed. Toward the northwest he saw the cloud shadows racing across the land. The trees there still retained some of their autumn color, although the fields had long since turned winter-brown. He could well imagine dodging those moving shadows at sixty miles an hour. The wind gusted too cold for comfort on the hill-top, but he had never really minded that as long as he could see a little sunlight. "You know," Mick said after some time, "there are some places up there where a guy could run a pretty nice bed-and-breakfast. With the right kind of start-up capital. Not too far from the school. And not too close either, I guess." He looked up at the big tank. "Shall we go home and talk to our girls?"
Copyright © 1999 Michael Goulish |