Simon Morden - Theories of Flight

“Before you try and stop me, why don’t you talk to Miss Sonja? I have and, despite her misgivings, she’s with me. Which reminds me.”

Petrovitch turned away from Miyamoto, and searched for Valentina. As well as talk to her, he could see her, see all around her: her phone pinpointed her location on the approaches to Tower Bridge.

The EDF had done the smart thing, the thing they should have done much earlier: they’d stopped the traffic, and made people get out and walk with only what they could carry. Cars were crushed in all around her, abandoned, some still with their motors running. She was with a gaggle of Olgas, pushing ahead through the slowly moving crowds with Marchenkho in their wake. He didn’t look happy.

“I see you,” he said in Valentina’s ear.

“Petrovitch. Where are you?” Her neck craned and tried to spot him.

“Look up, to your left. There’s a lamp-post with a camera.” He waggled the camera’s housing to attract her attention. “Though I’m pretty much everywhere now.”

“We did not find Daniels,” she said. “Is madness here, and Outies are not far behind.”

“I know. I can see them, too. Listen: when you said you would help me, did you mean it? Rather, how much did you mean it?”

Without hesitating, she replied, “What is it you need me to do?”

“I need Waterloo Bridge. I need it clear for northbound traffic. I can help, but I’m not there.”

He zoomed in so he could try and read her face. She nodded. “Hmm. Is done,” she said. “Should I talk to Marchenkho?”

“I’ve delegated this to you. If you want him, fine. If not, fine. I need to make one thing clear, though. He works for you, and you work for me. If he can’t handle that, then cut him loose.”

“ Da, ” she said. “How long before you need bridge?”

“Fifteen minutes.”

She raised her sculpted eyebrows.

Petrovitch shrugged to no one in particular. “Yeah. I didn’t say it was going to be easy.”

“Then I had better hurry. Good hunting.” She cut the connection, and he followed her for a few moments more as she glanced at her watch and made a little head-jiggle as she weighed up matters in her mind. Then she started to climb on top of a car.

Waterloo Bridge was as good as his, so he returned his attention to where his body was. He’d walked to the end of the tunnel on automatic: he’d have to watch for that by writing some sort of script, though he barely knew where to start. He could hack into his own heart if he wanted to.

The avatar was again waiting for him, but he was looking out over a landscape that had been strangely changed. The layers of information he’d seen on Miyamoto were replicated everywhere. Most of the electronics was locked, rendered inert by the Outies destroying the power grid as they advanced.

But some were not. Battery-powered devices glowed green, almost begging to be used. Discarded phones on standby, handheld computers, solar-powered street furniture, and best of all, the cars.

One of the Jihad’s first manifestations had been the processions of automated cars, used as a child’s playthings. Petrovitch could do so much more with them. The station on the far side of the tunnel was formed either of solid brick or transparent glass, but it mattered little which. He could stretch out beyond the reach of his hand.

[I have done as you asked,] said the AI. [EDF command in Brussels is being fed an alterable, delayed feed. How do you want your forces deployed?]

“I need to give Sonja time to gather her nikkeijin. Put a third of them on the Marylebone flyover, another third at the far end of Euston Road. Send the rest of them to Primrose Hill. There are tanks there already, but they need infantry support. Divide them up with a mix of units, and keep them concentrated. Standard military doctrine is that they should spread out, so if they show signs of that, yell at them.”

[Do you want to know what we have?]

“No. Either it’s enough and they’ll hold, or it isn’t and I’m sending them to their deaths. How’s the network holding up?”

[Bandwidth is a problem. I am making great demands on it, even with outsourcing many of my routine processing functions.] He looked sulky. [The NSA is aware of the unusual activity, but the United States has the highest density of computer resources on the planet. I have no choice but to use them.]

“They’ll use their giant axe at some point and try to isolate their network. We’re going to have to think of something else you can run on.” Petrovitch flexed his arms. “How are you?”

[Busy. I have never felt stretched before.]

“That’s very human.” Petrovitch smiled. He patted the avatar on its back. He could feel it. He could feel the cloth, and the body under it. “It’s hard for both of us.”

[Will we win?]

“We haven’t lost yet.”

He walked on, and hauled himself up onto a platform, with Miyamoto springing up behind him. The access to the outside was through a deactivated screen and a set of turnstiles. Petrovitch thought he should be able to just stroll through the wall.

“Madeleine’s mother’s around here somewhere. Or was earlier on this week. She’s an Outie now.”

“You know this how?” Miyamoto sheathed his sword and slid across the top of the turnstiles.

“She shot Maddy. Not something either of them are likely to be mistaken about.” Petrovitch followed him over and dropped to the tiled floor. “We’ll stick to the roads from now on.”

“We would be less obvious crossing the parkland to the north of here.”

“Yeah. That doesn’t matter anymore. Let them notice us.” He walked out of the station entrance to the curb, to the new registration white Ford. He didn’t have to, but he laid the palm of his hand on its roof.

He disabled the security measures with one algorithm, and terrified the on-board computer with another. “Who’s my suka now?” He started its engine and plotted a route for it.

Miyamoto jumped back. “You did that.”

“Yeah. I can do this, too.” He dispatched his agents to every car and van in the neighborhood. They broke their way in, kicked their engines into life, and pulled out in a synchronized wave into the middle of whichever road they were on.

There were hundreds of them, and when they had all passed, when they had filled the surrounding streets with their noise, Petrovitch stepped out after them. He drew his gun and practiced sighting down his arm. There were crosshairs in his vision. The targeting moved to where he pointed. Then he looked at a stray dog that had come out to investigate the sudden commotion.

The muscles in his arm twitched, and guided the gun around until it was aiming at the fat black Labrador.

He glanced at a street sign, a front door, then a passing bird. His arm snapped right, left, up and tracked, fast enough to make it ache.

“This. This is what I signed up for.”

“What are you doing?” asked Miyamoto.

“I’m being awesome. Don’t interrupt.”

Sporadic gunfire rattled the air from some distance ahead, echoing off the walls. The first of the cars had met the first of the Outies. He sent another command to them, and gave them access to his map. The Outies were the red dots, the cars were blue.

Run them down, he said.

How to kill a car? Petrovitch knew—put a bullet in its tiny electronic brain. The Outies had no way of finding it under the bodywork. A lucky shot here and there, but for the most part they’d have to reduce them to piles of scrap metal to stop them. And this being the real world, they were going to run out of ammunition long before then.

He watched the red dots ripple and recoil. The cars worked crudely, without cooperating, crashing into dumb objects and reversing, coming back for another go. More intelligence was needed. They could hunt in packs, with ambushes laid in side streets, traps in alleyways. He wasn’t going to be able to coordinate that at that moment, and the AI had already said it was busy—which for a machine intelligence of unknown capabilities was a startling admission.