Нил Стивенсон - Termination Shock

He stepped back and raised his visor. The cut edges of the steel were still glowing red.

In addition to pipe smoke, Major Raju reeked of satisfaction. “That contraption is as amazing as they say!” he remarked. “Imagine what one could do with a suspension bridge. Or a skyscraper. Or—well— anything that conducts electricity and is big and important!” He puffed on his pipe for a moment, staring up into the moonlit sky as visions of collapsing bridges danced in his head. “You could mount one on a drone,” he mused. Then, as if arguing with himself: “But that would leave out the human angle.” This snapped him out of his reverie. “Sergeant Singh! Big Fish! What did you just do?”

“We have just—”

“You. You. ”

“I have just struck the first blow in the defense of our Breadbasket against the toxic and aggressive actions of those who would seek to, uh, change the climate in a way that is, uh, deeply toxic and racist.”

“Cut everything after ‘Breadbasket,’” Major Raju muttered to one of the cameramen. “You have work to do, Sergeant Singh! Very good work! Best get on with it!”

“Yes, sir!” Laks started making tracks for the next net stanchion. As he did, he could hear the major giving an order to the subordinate who’d given him the backpack: “If I’m not mistaken, we have some additional materiel that needs to be transferred into Sergeant Singh’s flying chariot for use during Phase 2.”

PINA2BO

The touch screen that was supposed to serve as the elevator’s UI was dead like everything else that had been reached by the electromagnetic pulse. But the system still had power from below. Someone had to rip the control panel off the wall and then figure out how to hot-wire it. This was far from being the most difficult technical challenge tackled by White Label Industries engineers during their years-long quest to alter world climate, but it still took some doing. For example, it was decided that they needed someone to climb the ladder all the way down to the bottom of the shaft to flip a switch and poke at some wires. Jules volunteered and scampered down the shaft. Several minutes later his voice could be heard echoing up from below. He began to follow instructions hollered down to him by Conor, the engineer who’d taken the initiative with the crowbar and was now standing in the elevator, hands in pockets, evaluating a tangle of wiring harnesses and connectors.

During that procedure T.R. and Saskia—whose only role, here, was to be protected by all the other people—had nothing to do but pace around and drink water. It had been years since she’d been completely disconnected from all electronics, and she found herself wishing she’d brought one of the many unread books piled up on end tables and nightstands in various residences.

About forty-five minutes after the EMP they saw lights gliding through the air down around Bunkhouse. It was obvious from the way they moved that they were drones and that they were swarming in a coordinated fashion. Saskia’s first assumption was that the Black Hat people around High Noon had deployed a fleet of these things that had somehow survived the EMP and were setting up an air patrol over Pina2bo. The first wave of them only came up as far as Bunkhouse. A second wave, however, soon began to advance toward the gun complex.

Gunfire sounded from Bunkhouse. The boss of the Black Hats, one Tatum, ordered his men to begin dispersing into positions where they could find cover. Saskia and T.R. he herded into the elevator. “Close this door,” he said to Conor, the engineer who had been messing with the wires, “and get them to the bottom. Even if it means y’all gotta climb down the ladder.”

Closing the door was a thing that Conor had figured out how to do pretty early, and so that was the last they saw of Tatum or of anyone or anything else on the surface. Saskia and T.R. were now sealed up inside a rather small box with this Conor. He was a short, stocky white guy, probably in his mid-thirties, who had given up trying to cope with the complexities of male pattern baldness and just gone over to stubble. His burly physique took up more than its share of space in the elevator but Saskia would not begrudge him that if he could get the thing to move.

“I was trying to figure out how to do this the nice way,” he remarked. “The terrible way is easy.” He evaluated his fellow passengers, seeming to assess their overall health and state of mind, in a way that suggested he really wasn’t kidding.

“What’s the terrible way?” T.R. asked.

“Just turning the motor on and off.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad.”

“You might want to sit down on the floor. No, on second thought, let’s keep your tailbones out of it. More of a squatting posture might be good.” Conor demonstrated by backing into a corner of the elevator within reach of the gutted control panel, then sliding down until he was sitting on his haunches.

Saskia was with T.R. in thinking it didn’t sound so bad, until the first time Conor touched two wires together and the motor came on. Then the bottom seemed to fall out of the lift and they dropped what seemed like a hundred meters in a fraction of a second. Then they stopped so hard she thought they must have smashed into something. To her embarrassment she let out a scream.

T.R. broke the silence that followed by saying, “Gotcha.”

“Yes, sir.”

“It’s like popping the clutch in a truck. Full power all at once.”

“Good analogy, sir.”

“How far did we drop?”

“I have no idea.” Conor, displaying admirably good knees and leg muscles, stood straight up and looked through the mesh wall of the lift, through which it was possible to see the shell hoist and much more routed-systems clutter choking the mine shaft. This was dimly, unevenly lit by emergency lights. He craned his neck and put his face close to the mesh so that he could peer upward. “Not that far,” he said.

But this could have been guessed anyway from the sound of gunfire echoing down the shaft. It sounded close. Saskia’s impression that they had dropped a hundred meters was totally wrong. Ten was more like it.

The gunfire wasn’t heavy. This was not a full-blown firefight. This was selective and it seemed to come from several directions.

“Shotguns,” T.R. pronounced them. “Our boys trying to take out drones.” He listened a little more. “That there was a pistol round.” He looked down at the others. “Much as it shames me to run from a fight, I do believe we should descend farther. You okay, Saskia?”

“Perfectly fine, thank you.”

“So why don’t let’s get comfy and you pop the clutch again and—”

“Sir?”

Conor had slid back down into his squat and was poised to touch two stripped wires together, which Saskia knew would lead to another drop. But he was looking at T.R. who had held up a hand to signal wait just a sec . T.R. had turned his face upward and opened his mouth. He was listening. So they all listened. Gunshots were still popping off here and there. But something very weird could now also be heard. It was a woman’s voice, electronically amplified, speaking calmly: “Place your weapons on the ground and lace your fingers together on top of your head. Proceed in the direction indicated by the green arrow.” Though they had to listen for a while to completely decipher it, the same announcement seemed to be emanating from multiple drones in different places at different times.

“Sounds like a fucking airport,” T.R. remarked. His eyes rotated down toward Saskia. “Would you call that an Indian accent? As in, from India?”

They all listened to a few more repetitions of the message.