Chapter 22
AS THE TWO AGENTS EXITED the administrative building, Taylor said, “It keeps coming back to Bucky. And Greer. But I don’t understand it. We need the body-cam footage.”
“No, we don’t. We just need to grab Tom Greer by the nuts and get him to talk about what the hell happened in that room.”
“Are you grabbing his nuts before or after reading him his Article Thirty-One rights?”
Brodie noticed that the Ranger who had been guarding the door was gone. Then he heard a noise blaring in the distance. A siren.
They both ran toward the sound. Up ahead, three Rangers with EMP rifles sprinted across the parade ground.
They followed the Rangers, who were headed for the brig. The siren was blaring from pole-mounted speakers all around the camp’s perimeter and grew louder as they approached.
Brodie spotted an MP vehicle pulled up in front of the brig. Beside it stood Sergeant Mendez with his pistol drawn. He was looking down at something on the ground.
The three Rangers aimed their rifles at whatever it was and formed a perimeter around it.
As the agents got closer, they realized it was a D-17 unit, lying face down in the dirt, its arms splayed in front of it. Brodie spotted a set of broken manacles around its wrists. Bucky.
“Sergeant!” called Brodie as they jogged up. “What the hell happened?”
Mendez turned to them. He looked distraught. “He’s dead.”
Taylor asked, “Who’s dead?”
“Kemp,” replied Mendez. Kemp had been the MP guarding Bucky. “This… fucking… thing.” Mendez gestured with his pistol toward the inert bot, and Brodie saw now that Mendez’s weapon had its own mini EMP barrel attachment. “I was doing my rounds… saw it just walk out of the brig on its own…”
Bucky jerked one arm up, and all three Rangers fired their rifles point-blank into it. Shell casings ejected from the rifles, and the EMP barrels emitted brief, powerful punches of deep bass. Bucky’s arm collapsed again, lifeless.
Caroline Dixon jogged up to the Rangers. “Move.”
They made room for her, and she got on her knees and attempted to flip the heavy robot.
Two of the Rangers shouldered their rifles and helped her turn it over.
It landed, loose and lifeless, on its back, one arm splayed across its bucket head.
Brodie noticed blood spattered across its titanium chest.
Dixon straddled Bucky, grabbed the initiator key from its lower right abdomen, then twisted and pulled it out. She stood and shook the small orange device at the assembled men. “They are nothing without this. Nothing. Who the fuck turned it on?”
Mendez said, “We believe it was Kemp, Ms. Dixon.”
“Where is he?”
“Dead.”
Dixon looked down at Bucky and its blood-covered chest. “Jesus Christ.”
Mendez was staring at her. “He must have been trying to move the unit, but we don’t know why.”
She looked up at the senior MP. “I called the brig and asked him to bring Bucky to the lab for additional testing. I told him to get another hand and bring it over in a truck. He said the MP truck was broken down. I told him to borrow a vehicle, but he said, ‘I’ll just make the bastard walk.’ I cautioned him not to do that, but I guess he didn’t listen. ”
Taylor asked, “How strongly did you caution him?”
Dixon shot Taylor a look. “It’s a standing order issued by the camp commander, Maggie. Regardless of how emphatic I was, he never should have activated the unit without authorization.”
Brodie approached the bot, then crouched and looked at its right hand. Between the thin gaps in the segments of its articulated fingers were strands of brown human hair. He asked Mendez, “Is the body still inside?”
Mendez nodded. “Yes, sir. The coroner is on his way.”
Brodie and Taylor entered the brig and walked through the main room toward the holding cell. Another MP, a Corporal Nimitz, stood at the door. The man appeared shaken.
Brodie said, “Morning, Corporal.”
“Good morning, sir, ma’am.”
Taylor said, “We are so sorry.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
Nimitz stepped aside, and Brodie and Taylor entered the holding cell. It was a sparse room with a cot, a metal sink and toilet, and a single wooden chair.
Kemp’s body was on the ground, covered in a white sheet that was saturated in blood near the corpse’s head. On the wall about six feet above the floor were a cracked depression in the concrete and a large bloodstain.
Nimitz said, “We believe the thing broke its manacles and grabbed Specialist Kemp by his hair, and then thrust him into the wall.” He took a deep breath and added, “Partially shattering his skull.”
That sounded like Bucky all right. Brodie looked at the bloodstained sheet covering Kemp’s body.
They’d so far been speculating whether and how Major Ames might have provoked the thing.
But what could this poor MP have done? Unless the only sin that mattered to the tin men was being human, and breakable.
Brodie crouched and partly peeled back the sheet. The SPC’s head was caked in blood, and the upper left portion of his skull was essentially flattened by the impact against the wall. Brodie carefully replaced the sheet, and he and Taylor left the holding cell.
They lingered in the brig’s main room, out of earshot of anyone. Brodie said, “Your request to Dombroski has grown more urgent.”
“No shit.”
“We’re either dealing with a bad actor with the capacity to covertly reprogram these things—and that would be a very short list of people at this facility—or a faulty product that’s likely to kill again.
And if it’s a system-wide issue, there’s fifty-nine more murder machines currently taking a nap. ”
Taylor nodded. “What about Caroline?”
“What about her?”
“Who knows what she told Kemp on that phone call? We’re taking her word for it. Maybe she told him to activate Bucky and walk him over, knowing something like this might happen or would happen?”
“It’s possible. Anything is. We now have another body and no more answers.”
“We have Greer. And maybe Miller. Whatever happened in that training exercise, in that room, it was important to Ames.”
They heard a vehicle roar down the road and screech to a halt outside.
They exited the brig to see General Morgan emerge from the passenger side of his Jeep, clouds of dust swirling around him.
He wore camo, aviator sunglasses, and a sidearm.
His driver turned off the Jeep and stepped out. It was Captain Pickman.
Everyone saluted the general, who approached Sergeant Mendez. He removed his sunglasses, gently placed his hand on Mendez’s shoulder, and said, “I’m so sorry, Hector.”
“Thank you, sir.”
The general put his sunglasses back on, then walked toward the lifeless robot. He stared down at Bucky and asked, “Who has the key?”
Dixon said, “I do.”
He looked up at her, then extended his hand. “Give it to me.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m asking for it.”
Caroline stared at the man. “I am not a member of the United States Army, General. So you need to do better than that.”
Morgan kept his eyes on her and his arm outstretched. “Captain.”
Captain Pickman strode up to Dixon with that weird eager walk of his, and as he did so, one of the Rangers grabbed Dixon from behind and restrained her.
“Hey! Get your fucking hands off me!”
Pickman put his hand over hers and wordlessly pried her fingers open.
She tried to wrest herself out of the Ranger’s hold as she hurled expletives, but it was futile.
The key fell to the ground, and Pickman retrieved it.
As he stepped away the Ranger released his hold on Dixon, who offered a few more choice words and looked like she was ready to slug someone.
Brodie said to General Morgan, “General, that is no way to treat a civilian.”
Morgan turned to him, as if just noticing he was there. “A civilian? She’s the mother of these titanium golems, Mr. Brodie. Conceived by her brilliance and her arrogance.” He eyed Dixon. “Now two innocent men are dead. Not one more. I will not allow it.”
Dixon stared at the general and did not reply.
“We agree, sir,” said Brodie. “These weapons are a continued threat to everyone at this camp, and Ms. Taylor and I have lost confidence in the scientific personnel at Camp Hayden to adequately answer our questions about these devices’ origins, design, purpose, and susceptibility to sabotage.
Therefore our commanding officer, Brigadier General Dombroski, is coordinating with the Provost Marshal General and Major General Ramsay of Army Futures Command to take custody of all sixty units to be tested and evaluated by a neutral party at an off-site location.
The order should be coming down shortly, if you have not already received it. ”
General Morgan gave Brodie an odd look—incredulous, mildly amused, and extremely pissed off.
“I have received no such orders, Mr. Brodie. And if I did, I’d question the sanity of whoever issued them.
Do you think I’m going to allow these things to fall into some dark recess of the Army bureaucracy, where who the hell knows what will become of them, who will gain knowledge of their existence and capabilities?
Absolutely not.” His eyes moved to Taylor.
“You want answers. So do I. You don’t trust the science personnel at this facility.
Nor do I. Let’s run our own tests and solve our own problems.” He kept his eyes on the two agents as he called out, “Get me Sergeant Miller on the phone.”
Captain Pickman grabbed a satellite phone from inside the Jeep, dialed a number, and waited for Miller to pick up. Then he said, “I have General Morgan,” and handed the general the phone.
Morgan said, “Sergeant, meet me at the parade ground with a few trustworthy Rangers, a plasma cutter, and a grenade launcher. ASAP.” He hung up the phone, then said to Sergeant Mendez, “Release Mr. Saltsberg from his house arrest and bring him to the parade grounds. He should see this. Ms. Dixon, go retrieve your DEVCOM colleagues.”
“Eat a dick, General.”
“I already had breakfast, thank you.”
Brodie said to Morgan, “Sir, I need to use that phone.”
Morgan looked at Brodie. “You’re getting a little ahead of your skis, Mr. Brodie. Futures Command wouldn’t make a move without communicating with me first. Not to mention looping in DARPA. CID is far down the food chain.”
Taylor said, “You’d be surprised how quickly that changes, sir.”
Brodie asked Mendez, “Sergeant, do you have a phone handy?”
Mendez looked nervously between Brodie and Morgan. “Yes, sir.”
Morgan said, “Stop being so dramatic, Brodie. You are not a prisoner here, and no one is denying you a phone call. In fact, you are free to go back to your quarters right now to call whoever you want. Or you can borrow a vehicle and leave the base, for all I care. But you might see something interesting in the next few minutes if you stick around. You might even get some answers.” Morgan looked at the blood-smeared robot lying in the dust. “Training time is over.”