Linda Nagata: The Last Good Man

Today, they’re playing a defensive role. Under the autonomous control of an onboard AI, they swoop toward the intruder as it tumbles across the floor, firing bursts of green laser light to simulate bullets.

True joins in the defense. Bringing the rifle to her shoulder, she tracks the ARV’s erratic motion and shoots, each trigger pull releasing a pulse of laser light. Sensors around the room score the hits. An artificial voice speed talks in a machine-gun burst of syllables as it reports damage on a one-to-ten scale: “ zero zero one one two one zero …”

Every hit produces only minimal damage to Roach, while in actual combat, both ricochet and the kinetic force of the tumbling ARV are going to be serious hazards for civilian bystanders. This thought is evidently shared by Naomi, who backs rapidly away.

True holds her ground, and after Roach rolls over one more time, it unfolds. Six stout jointed legs snap out, abruptly arresting its motion. A 5.56 mm belt-fed machine gun rises on a swivel mount. A horizontal disc, smaller than True’s palm, sits on top of the gun. True targets the tiny lenses glittering around the disc’s periphery, glimpsing the reflected flash of green laser light—but the ARV’s targeting system has already responded. Roach doesn’t have to reposition itself; it doesn’t even take a step. In less than a second, its gun snaps up, down, over—firing three times, targeting the starburst copters first and then True. She sees the red flash of the enemy’s laser, and then Tamara calls out in triumph, “You’re dead!”

The copters retreat to their ceiling lairs while Roach scuttles back to the workbench, moving with startling speed, in a manner disturbingly reminiscent of its namesake.

The entire battle has taken less than six seconds.

“Come on,” True objects as she too, returns to the bench. “I hit Roach’s targeting lenses. They should have been modeled as broken. How—”

Tamara waves a dismissive hand. “Multiple lenses. The damage was recorded but it didn’t matter. You were killed, the copters were fatally disabled, and none of the civilians were hit.”

True scowls at the ARV, watching as it folds up again into an innocuous gray lozenge. Roach worked well. That should be a cause for celebration, but still, it’s annoying to be so easily beaten by a machine. “If I had a grenade launcher, the result would have been different.”

“If you had a grenade launcher, you would have blown up your buddies in the compound, which, aside from the theoretical civilian losses, would have been an acceptable result too.”

Robotics are an integral part of Requisite Operations’ activities. Devices in inventory range in size from mosquito drones to jet-powered UAVs, and in cost from a few dollars to millions. Most are unarmed, used for surveillance, tracking, communications, or transportation—and many are off-the-shelf products, bought on the commercial market.

But ReqOps has a homegrown inventory too, one that True has contributed to. Like Tamara, she’s interested in so-called “biomimetics”—devices designed for autonomous and semiautonomous operation, many of them small-scale, that mimic traits of biological life-forms. The insect-legged ARV is only the most recent, and one of the deadlier, examples. Several are based on insects or other arthropods, a few draw on traits of birds, one takes the form of a snake. Many are cheap to print and easy to assemble. True calls them the origami army; she carries a selection with her whenever she deploys, versatile tools that she can adapt to changing situations.

She thinks of it as embracing the enemy. Like most career military personnel, she’s ambivalent about the rapid evolution and adaptation of robotic systems. Her decision to retire from the army was made as autonomous helicopters were steadily replacing piloted aircraft. And it wasn’t just the helicopter pilots feeling the pressure. Ships, planes, tanks, missiles—all were being retrofitted to run under the control of remote pilots or of artificial intelligences.

It isn’t hard for her to imagine a future in which programmers set up battles conducted between machine armies without immediate oversight, not a single soldier on the field—though vulnerable civilians will still be there. Or a future in which a narcissistic leader orders a machine invasion of a weaker nation, with no risk of creating grieving parents on the home front. Or one in which a military option in the form of a PMC powered by robotics is available to anyone with the money.

These are scenarios that offend her martial heritage. She imagines the consternation of bow masters when guns first appeared on battlefields. Like those bow masters, she has adapted.

Technology changes.

War is eternal.

Tamara pours coffee, hands a mug to True, then sits behind a desk cluttered with tiny sensors, wires, circuit boards, and insect limbs made of steel and plastic. She asks, “So what’s the new task?”

“We want to find Hussam El-Hashem.”

Tamara’s eyebrows rise. “The Al-Furat Coalition, right?”

“That’s our bad guy.”

“Bold,” Tamara says, nodding in approval.

True continues, “Our initial assumption is that he’s somewhere in the ungoverned territories of the TEZ. It’s possible the State Department already has him in their sights, so I’ve submitted an inquiry on current operations and potential closed areas. In the meantime, we initiate our own search. I’ve opened a research contract. The team will be looking at news, social media, curated databases, but that’s a long shot. Our best hope’s going to be on the ground, so I’m developing contracts for three freelance operators in the area, intelligence specialists. If we get any decent leads, I want to be able to supply them with printer files for data collection devices.”

“You’re assuming they’ll have access to secure printer facilities,” Tamara says. “My suggestion is we do the printing in Tel Aviv. Fly in the finished devices.”

“That’ll extend the time horizon significantly, and time’s a factor.”

Tamara sticks out her lower lip, considering. Then she says, “I’ll investigate regional alternatives, but I do not want to send our manufacturing patterns to pirate facilities.”

“Understood.” True sips her coffee, then looks at Tamara with a wistful half smile. “We need to find him, Tamara. We need to make this work.”

Tamara laughs. “Look at you. You can’t wait, can you? Come on, True. Didn’t anyone ever tell you this is serious work?”

True’s smile fades. She finishes her coffee. “It’s a hostage rescue,” she explains. “El-Hashem is a secondary target.”

“Ah, I see.” Tamara is somber now. She takes a few seconds to reevaluate both True and the context of this mission. Then she promises, “We’ll make it work.”

True stands, ready to leave.

“Oh, hey,” Tamara says, perking up again. “I saw Li Guiying copied you on that video she sent.”

True feels a prickle of irritation. Li Guiying is a specialist in behavioral algorithms, with many positive contributions to robotics, from agricultural applications to search and rescue swarms. True met her by chance, several years ago at a seminar in London, and Guiying has striven ever since to maintain the connection. True isn’t sure why and she isn’t looking to be friends. She finds Guiying too cloying, too precious, too persistent. She’s deliberately kept her distance. But Tamara likes her; they are colleagues.

“Did you look at it?” Tamara asks.

“I did. Flight algorithms.” And then True adds, grudgingly, “It was nice work.”

“Don’t be stingy. It was really nice work.”