Daniel Suarez - Kill Decision

A top-secret operation with a logo. She thought that was funny.

McKinney clicked on the word Ancile, and a definition popped up describing the Ancile as the legendary shield of the Roman god of war, Mars. The text said Rome would be master of the world as long as the shield was preserved.

Master of the world, eh?

Ruling the world wasn’t on her personal list of priorities. She back-clicked and surveyed the categories of information available on the main project page. There were various headings: Robotics, AI algorithms, Forensic analysis, and many more.

She clicked on a link entitled Attack Scenes. It brought her to a page with dozens of thumbnail images. Brief introductory text described them as videos uploaded to various offshore aggregation websites. They appeared to be video clips of actual attacks as they happened, presumably filmed by spotter drones-like the one that had hovered outside her cabin back in Tanzania.

McKinney clicked on the first video thumbnail. It expanded to a full-screen high-def digital video of several men playing golf on a lush green course somewhere. There was no sound. Even now the angle was changing subtly, as though being filmed from a moving object. The men stood around the manicured green watching one of their number getting ready to putt.

Suddenly an instantaneous blast ripped the scene apart. McKinney recoiled in horror as body parts rained down in every direction. Strangely, there was no crater in the grass, which was now smoking, yet slick with blood. It appeared that the bomb detonated above the ground, to devastating effect. She closed the window and just stared at the main page. There were at least a dozen more.

“Dear God.”

She didn’t want to see any more of that. How had the videos been discovered? And by whom? The comments section still seemed to be hashing out the answer. Logons with call-sign names she didn’t recognize, but also the occasional one she did-Expert Three, Hoov, Gumball.

She backtracked to the main wiki page and followed the link to a diagram of all the drone attacks. It showed a map of the United States overlaid by a couple of dozen red dots scattered mostly on the coasts-although some were deep in the Midwest. As she moved her mouse over the dots, basic details of each attack popped up: date, GPS coordinates, number of dead and injured, and a hyperlink for more information. She clicked on a link for a bombing in Urbana, Illinois. She remembered its having been reported as a terrorist bombing in a park months ago. Six dead. A dozen injured. A dedicated page popped up with the names and photos of victims, grisly high-res photos of the scene. She scrolled down to see vast amounts of information, and another bustling comments section.

Looking at all the death and suffering that had occurred, McKinney couldn’t help but feel she was being petty in having suspicions. But then, they’d made a special effort to get her to view this, hadn’t they? Her contribution to the effort was apparently going to be as cannon fodder.

She pushed away from the desk.

McKinney stared at the ceiling in the alarm clock’s blue LED light. The cold glow cast fantastical shadows on the acoustic tile above her. She heard the whoosh of air flowing through the HVAC system and the occasional mysterious sounds of far-off activity-heavy trucks, echoed shouting, and clanging metal. She tried to imagine what was going on elsewhere in this secret place. A place that didn’t officially exist and where no one she knew could find her. Isolation protocol.

It was 1:47 in the morning according to the blue digits on the nightstand. The sheets and blankets were crisp and smelled new. The mattress firm. She felt truly clean for the first time in months. No dust or humidity down here, and the bathroom was new. The hot water came down in torrents. Properly focused, it could probably quell a riot. Everything in the room had the cool precision of Scandinavia.

She sat up in bed. This whole place just felt wrong. She couldn’t quite put her finger on what was eating at her. Why she couldn’t sleep. Why she hadn’t slept since the attack. She grabbed the TV remote and switched on the television. The Weather Channel blinked into existence on the far wall. Soothing music played over a list of international cities and temperatures. After a few moments she changed channels to the first of several cable news networks in rotation.

More beating of war drums. People being warned to report suspicious activity. More details of yesterday’s bombing in D.C. Updated fatalities from the Karbala bombing-4,300 dead. She changed channels several more times. Nation-under-siege hysteria was everywhere. Even the commercials were for pepper spray and burglar alarm systems. She stopped on one channel where a congresswoman from Ohio was speaking on the floor. “… in a rush to make sweeping changes we’ll regret. We’ve been down this road before, and we’re no safer for it. Sixty-five billion dollars over the next four years for a fleet of autonomous drones to defend the homeland. Again, money that could be put toward education, health care, or infrastructure. Drones are not going to stop these bombings. In fact, our drones might be the root cause of these bombings…”

McKinney cast off the covers and sat on the edge of the bed. The news had moved on to another story, but she hadn’t. She turned it off.

Our drones might be the root cause of these bombings.

And sixty-five billion dollars for drones being pushed as an emergency defense. The ultimate automated cash machine-drones could be both the hero and the enemy, and who would ever know? Sixty-five billion dollars. And that was probably just the start.

McKinney got up and walked aimlessly around the room, feeling the cool stone on her feet. What reason did she have to believe what they’d told her?

She was a scientist, and science required evidence to sustain a hypothesis. The operative hypothesis being that this was a government-sanctioned top-secret military operation to defend against deadly drone attacks. But where was the proof to sustain that hypothesis? Over the past decade, half a dozen illegal black ops run by rogue elements in the military had been revealed-assassinations, torture… Maybe these people weren’t even with the military-maybe they were private operators, looking to influence government policy. Maybe they were agents of a foreign government. What did she really know?

She thought back over the past forty-eight hours. They had flown here in private aircraft, to a private air terminal at Kansas City-bypassing customs and Homeland Security entirely. Smugglers could have done the same. Did she really know she’d been at an army base back in Wiesbaden-or that it was even Germany? It was dark. She saw a couple of men outside in uniform. She saw offices and army insignias, but truthfully, how did she know that wasn’t just some airport office somewhere? She hadn’t seen any military cargo planes or fighter jets.

The attacks were real enough-they’d been in the news for months-but if these were the people behind them, they could easily have provided all this footage to her. But why would they need to deceive her? Could they be trying to trick her into helping them? The iterations of conjecture were stacking up fast.

What did she really know?

She felt confident she was in Kansas-the highway signs, the cars and businesses on the way in. She was in the United States. There was supposed to be rule of law here.

She padded over to the bathroom and ran some cold water in the sink. She leaned over and splashed her face. Was this just lack of sleep making her paranoid?

Why not be paranoid? She’d been kidnapped-and by people with a serious amount of resources who seemed focused on robotic war using her social insect algorithms. And getting ready to use her as bait for a drone attack-one they might be running as well, for all she knew.