Daniel Suarez - Kill Decision

“We were breathing fast. Keyed up. We must have seemed like glowing neon signs to these things.”

McKinney was already looking more closely at the drone’s innards.

The drone had an aluminum tube frame, in the center of which was a wire box acting as ribs protecting the core. There was a stack of computer boards there, vision sensors all around, thin antennas-both leading and trailing-and wiring. Then along both sides were what looked to be steel cylinders-four in all.

Odin tapped them. “Zip guns. These were thirty-eights. They slide in on tracks, so it looks like they can have various weapon loads. The other one had. 410 shotgun shells.”

“They’re flying hand guns.”

“Dirt-cheap, highly inaccurate guns-but effective enough in close quarters.”

She examined what looked to be ports in the back. Charging sockets? There were also LED lights, all dead, but curious nonetheless. “If these run on my model, an appropriate number of workers would be ‘feeding’ the others. With weavers they pass along nectar-liquid food. Here, they probably pass along electricity, battery power. There seem to be electromechanical analogs for all the inputs and outputs of weaver swarm intelligence manifested in these things.”

She tossed it back onto the table in disgust. “But it looks like a toy. An evil toy designed by some sick, twisted-”

“Those ‘toys’ nearly killed all of us, and if we hadn’t fled, they would have. Lalenia pulled ten bullets out of our team, and that’s with body armor on.” He rewrapped the drone in its burlap shroud. “These things could be churned out of just about any contract factory in the industrialized world. Shipped anywhere by the thousands-just like toys.”

She looked up at him. “Oh, it’s worse than that. Those inputs and outputs-the stimuli and the response-they can take just about any morphology. These zip guns could just as easily be missiles. Those tiny rotors just as easily jet turbines.”

He narrowed his eyes at her.

“Ants are what’s called a ‘polymorphic’ species-they have various caste groups that can differ widely in size. For example, Pheidologeton diversus — the marauder ant-has supermajor warriors that are five hundred times the mass of one of their minor workers. And yet they are the same species and operate with the same brain-and belong to the same colony.”

“You’re saying these things could be easily scaled up using the same software brain.”

She gestured to the dead drone on the table. “I’m saying this might just have been a low-cost test version. A prototype. They could easily be made bigger.”

He contemplated this news. “Which means they will be. And I’ll need to take action before that happens.”

“Take action?” she asked. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’re all in hiding. The entire military-industrial complex wants us dead.”

“Not the entire military-industrial complex.” He looked calm and sipped his coffee. “Just part of it.”

She threw up her hands. “Oh. Well, then it’s the part that can monitor the FBI, fake your satellite communications, launch killer drones, and manipulate the media.”

He nodded. “Most of the military’s logistics have been privatized. Its computer systems. Its networks. Satellites. But there are still people behind it all, and most people who work in defense are just plain folks trying to protect their country. That’s our advantage. We just need to uncover who’s behind this. And I’m guessing it’s not a large group. That’s the appeal of these machines. They seem like something that would save American lives, but once built, they can be quietly controlled by a small number of unaccountable people. No coffins coming home from their secret wars.” He nodded to himself again. “But finding a small number of unaccountable people is doable.”

She stared at the table. “I don’t share your optimism. Weaver ants have survived almost unchanged for a hundred million years because they dominate every environment. If someone’s supersized them, and that design is out there-then what’s to stop this from spreading? You remember what Ritter said: Everyone wants this.”

“We were able to come to an international agreement about nuclear and biological weapons. So we should be able to come to some agreement about robotic weapons too.”

“Odin!”

They both turned to see a group of young boys at the gate. The lead one rolled a soccer ball on the tips of his fingers. He wore a bright yellow soccer shirt with the number twelve on it, but the other boys were in a mishmash of clothing.

The lead boy called out, “Mira, todavia tengo la pelota que me diste, quieres patear?”

The other boys urged Odin on.

He turned to McKinney. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m being challenged to a contest of skill.” He stood and walked toward the gate. “Bueno, Pele, vamos a ver como las mueves…” He hopped the wall, and the knot of boys took off after him down the street, laughing as mangy dogs barked and ran alongside them.

McKinney grinned slightly, watching through the gate, as Odin kicked the ball around with a growing knot of boys. He leaned down and said something that made them all laugh uproariously. It was a side of Odin she’d never seen. He seemed a natural ringleader, and it was apparent these boys knew Odin. They were at ease around him. She found it hard to square this side of him with the elite warrior.

She nearly jumped out of her skin when another voice spoke right next to her. “Mind if I join you?”

McKinney turned to see Mouse standing in the doorway of the hacienda. “My God, you scared me; I didn’t hear you come up.”

Mouse sat where Odin had just been. “That’s how I got my nickname.” He looked at Odin directing the boys into teams in the quiet, dusty road. “Ah, soccer. My game has suffered a bit.”

“I wouldn’t have guessed he was good with kids.”

Mouse nodded in the group’s direction. “They look up to him. He understands what they’re going through.”

“What’s that?”

“They’re orphans.”

McKinney now looked with concern at the young boys.

“Lalenia runs an orphanage for the children of the disappeared. It’s a lot of kids.”

McKinney looked into the street. “I knew David was an orphan, but I had no idea about these children.”

Mouse observed her closely for several moments. “He told you his real name?” He turned to watch Odin playing referee of an impromptu soccer match. “That’s interesting.”

“He didn’t exactly tell me. Another man said it in front of me. Some guy named Ritter-the same man who mentioned you. But David said his own name wasn’t important-that ‘Shaw’ was just the street they found him on.”

“He told you that much? And he brought you here. Are you two…?”

She held up her hands. “Oh… no! No, we’re just… colleagues.”

“Didn’t mean to embarrass you. It’s just that he doesn’t usually share information about himself. David doesn’t trust people easily.” Mouse studied her with his remaining good eye.

Nonetheless it felt like he was looking right through her. She squirmed.

“I worry that he’s missing a big part of life.”

“I imagine in his line of work trust doesn’t come easily.”

“You forget: I’m in the same line of work. And he came to us like this. As a kid, pretty much everyone who should have taken care of him, didn’t. He had difficulties. Learning disabilities. Turns out instead of being stupid, he was just very, very smart. No one checked. He grew up in juvie halls.”

McKinney watched Odin holding the ball up, the kids screaming with laughter. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because that man is a brother to me. I love him like my own flesh and blood. David projects an image of invulnerability-like nothing can hurt him-but we both know that’s not true.”