Chapter 25
CHARRED AND TWISTED SHARDS OF metal plating littered the asphalt. Nests of insulated wiring steamed and blistered from the heat, creating an acrid stench. Bucky’s head, deformed beyond recognition from the blast, lay on its side, smoldering.
No one moved. Even the Rangers, who should have been the most thrilled to see one of their robotic tormentors blown apart, looked shocked.
Colonel Howe glared at the general. “There’s no coming back from this, sir.”
Morgan stared back. “No. There isn’t.”
Then Colonel Howe, taking on her new self-declared role as camp commander, said, “Sergeant Mendez, take General Morgan to his quarters and post a twenty-four-hour guard.”
Mendez replied, “Yes, ma’am.”
He looked at Morgan, who glared back at him a moment, then turned and walked slowly off the parade ground toward Mendez’s MP vehicle. Mendez quickly followed.
Captain Pickman, who, as Sergeant Miller had put it, followed whichever way the wind was blowing, kept his mouth shut as he watched Mendez drive off with the general. The captain must have been sensing a distinct change in the weather.
Howe turned to another MP, Corporal Nimitz. “Corporal, take Sergeant Miller to the brig.”
Nimitz hesitated. He looked at Sergeant Miller, who was still holding his M4 and grenade launcher and was flanked by four other armed Rangers. The corporal replied, “Yes, ma’am.” He walked slowly toward Miller.
Miller said to Howe, “I obeyed a direct order issued by the camp commander.”
“It was an unlawful order,” replied Howe. “And it was issued after I had relieved the general of command.”
Miller stared at the colonel. “I didn’t go to Officer Candidate School, ma’am, but even I know a colonel can’t remove a general without authorization from higher up the chain.
As General Morgan said, this is a mutiny.
And if you had any sense at all, you’d repeat what I just did fifty-nine more times. ”
Major Klasky said to Miller, “You’re out of line, Sergeant.”
The Rangers around Miller looked extremely pissed off, and as Corporal Nimitz approached them, everyone was on edge.
Then Miller handed his M4 and his sidearm to his fellow Rangers and said to them, “Staff Sergeant O’Connor is your platoon leader while I take a nap in the brig, boys.
This will sort itself out.” Turning to Nimitz, he said, “Let’s take a walk, Corporal,” and headed toward the brig, with Nimitz rushing to catch up.
Colonel Howe and Major Klasky approached Brodie and Taylor. Howe said, “I apologize for the unprofessionalism and chaos displayed here today. The truth is, I’ve had my concerns about the general for a while, but I didn’t think he’d go this far.”
Brodie looked again at the charred debris scattered across the parade ground. “We need to get the D-17s out of this facility to be examined by a neutral party.”
Colonel Howe said, “I agree,” which surprised Brodie.
“I am going to my office now to put in a call to Major General Ramsay, the head of Army Futures Command, who will officially authorize my dismissal of General Morgan. I will also relay your wishes, and he or I will contact your superiors at CID to arrange a transfer of custody.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” said Taylor.
Brodie spotted Caroline Dixon walking across the parade grounds toward the remnants of Bucky.
Colonel Howe said, “Ms. Dixon, what are you doing?”
“Treasure hunting.” She began kicking away debris with her boots.
“The fragments are hot,” said the colonel.
“No shit, ma’am,” said Dixon without looking up, as she continued spreading the debris around with her feet, looking for something salvageable.
Well, if Brodie didn’t already know these two had some sort of history, he could sense it now.
Brodie said to Dixon, “Do not remove anything from the premises. This material needs to be boxed up and shipped out along with the rest of the units.”
Dixon stopped her sifting and looked at him. “Shipped where?”
“Anywhere but here.”
“Don’t do that. Not yet.”
“Why?”
Dixon said to Howe and Klasky, “This is a private conversation.”
Colonel Howe looked across the parade ground, where Captain Pickman was speaking with the Rangers. She called out, “Captain, send the Rangers back to their barracks and then return to your quarters. The lockdown order has not been lifted.”
Pickman nodded. “Yes, ma’am.” Even from fifty yards away, Brodie could see that the captain was irritated.
Pickman exchanged a few final words with the Rangers, who then piled into their vehicles and drove off.
Pickman took one more look at his two superior officers standing with Dixon and the CID agents, probably wondering why he wasn’t being invited to the confab, then got into the general’s Jeep and drove off.
Howe turned her attention to Captain Spencer, Lieutenant Lehner, and Eric Saltsberg, who were standing off to the side in urgent conversation.
“Gentlemen, the same goes for you. Mr. Saltsberg, your home confinement is hereby lifted. I would request you remain here another twenty-four hours to address any questions that CID might have for you, but you are free to do as you wish.”
Saltsberg nodded. “Thank you, Colonel. I’ll inform my employer that I am now a voluntary guest at Camp Hayden, which will hopefully mitigate some of the fallout caused by your superior. Happy to be of help how I can.” He clarified, “For twenty-four hours.”
Brodie said, “Thank you.”
The three men departed together toward their houses.
Colonel Howe watched them go, then said to Dixon, “Now you have as much privacy as you’re going to get.”
Dixon looked extremely annoyed at Colonel Howe, more so than was warranted in the moment.
But, of course, these ladies were screwing, so that changed all the rules.
Dixon said in a low voice, “The reason I had asked Kemp to bring me Number 20 is that I was going through the D-17’s code—we have copies of the software on our lab computers—and I found something.
It’s hard to explain in laymen’s terms…”
“Taylor’s smart,” said Brodie. “Explain it to her and she’ll draw me pictures.”
Dixon gave him a deadpan look, not amused.
“As I’ve said before, the code running these bots is simple, at least relative to the kinds of deep-learning software being developed now for more advanced AI.
The D-17s follow a set of rules, and if two rules contradict each other, well, there’s a rule for that too.
They have powerful CPUs so that they can process all these branching decision trees instantaneously.
They were built to make tactical choices.
Who to shoot, when to shoot them, how best to outmaneuver and overtake the enemy.
They cannot and do not do anything unexpected and inexplicable.
At least they hadn’t, until now. So, I was digging in the code, looking for something I missed. And I found a hidden program.”
“What does that mean?” asked Taylor. “How could it be hidden?”
“Well… it’s complicated. But the main point is that it is software that is siloed from the main algorithm.
So this program, whatever it is, should have no bearing on the bots’ behavior because nothing else in the source code points to it, or even suggests it’s possible for this program to be executed.
The program itself is encrypted using a very sophisticated key I can’t yet crack. All I can read is the program’s name.”
“What is the name?” asked Major Klasky.
“Praetorian,” replied Dixon.
“Praetorian,” repeated Taylor.
Dixon nodded. “The only reference I have for that word is the Praetorian Guard. Ancient Rome.”
Brodie considered that. The Praetorian Guard served as personal bodyguards for the Roman emperors.
Were the tin men designed to be elite bodyguards, or was some dormant code installed in them to allow them to serve that function at a future date?
And if so, how did that relate to one of them killing Major Ames and Specialist Kemp?
And what was Bucky doing inside that room with Miller and Greer during that one particular training exercise that Major Ames was so interested in?
Ms. Dixon had opened another chamber in this mystery box, but it was as dark and impenetrable as the rest. There was also still the possibility that she was making all this up, or if Praetorian was real, she herself was responsible for this rogue software and wanted to deflect blame before it was discovered by someone else.
“So,” said Howe, “what is the next step?”
“I will continue to work on the encryption,” said Dixon. “I have yet to exhaust my skills.”
Taylor asked, “Could such a day ever come?”
Dixon looked at her. “I know you think I am arrogant, Maggie. But I am responsible for a lot of the code that drives these bots, and I find it personally alarming and in fact offensive that someone, or some group, has meddled with my work and gone to extreme lengths to keep it secret.” She added, “I also need to go to the Vault and see if I can find this encrypted program on any of the remaining units.”
Howe said to Major Klasky, “Accompany Ms. Dixon to the Vault when she goes.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Brodie asked Dixon, “Can we assume you do not plan to tell your lab colleagues about your discovery?”
Dixon nodded. “I’m not sure who to trust.” She made eye contact with Colonel Howe. “Though I suppose keeping this information from the camp commander would have been negligent.”
“You’re right,” said Howe.
Brodie thought of something else and asked Howe, “Who has the body-cam footage from the training exercises?”
“I do,” said Major Klasky. “I’m in charge of all aspects of the after-action review system.”
“There’s footage we need to look at,” said Brodie.
Klasky nodded. “That shouldn’t be a problem.”
“The date in question is March twelfth. Or possibly the thirteenth. I can’t remember which, but I assume there wasn’t an exercise on both of those days.”
“They are rarely conducted back-to-back,” said Klasky. “I’ll look into it.”
“Thank you, Major,” said Brodie. “In the meantime, we are headed back to our residence.” He gestured to the wreckage on the parade grounds. “And we’d like that in a to-go box.”
“I’ll see to it,” said Klasky.
“First I need to see if anything is salvageable from the CPU,” said Dixon.
Klasky said, “If the agents don’t object. I will maintain a log of anything you remove.”
“That’s fine,” said Brodie.
Colonel Howe said to Brodie and Taylor, “I will summon you to my office after I have received the proper authorizations to transfer the D-17s.” She added, “While the camp lockdown does not apply to you two, I would urge you to stay put for the time being. We are in a moment of uncertainty here.”
That was an understatement. Brodie said, “I regret that tragedy has struck Camp Hayden once more. Let’s all see to it that something like this never happens again.”
They all agreed that was a good idea and went their separate ways. Once they were out of earshot, Taylor said to Brodie, “You gave him the wrong date. Klasky.”
“I know,” said Brodie. “If there is anything incriminating in the March twenty-first footage, and Major Klasky has something to hide, he could wipe or censor that footage. Let him think we’re barking up the wrong tree until we’re in the room with him.”
Taylor nodded. “Everyone’s a suspect.”
“Except the hot scientist.”
“Especially the hot scientist. Who, by the way, is sleeping with the woman who just took control of this camp under a very dubious pretext.”
“Do you think Caroline’s bisexual?”
“I think you have more important things to ponder. Like whether we’re in the middle of a mutiny.”
“Right,” he said. “And Praetorian. What is it?”
“It’s software,” said Taylor. “Hidden software. Maybe like malware. Or a virus.”
“Maybe some coder at DARPA or DEVCOM or Synotec got a very attractive offer from a Nigerian prince, and clicked the wrong link, and now the tin men are going to steal everyone’s personal info and ruin their credit.”
Maggie Taylor, who had learned long ago when to tune out her partner’s stupid comments, said, “Viruses spread.”
Right. Brodie pictured those fifty-nine dormant titanium soldiers strapped into storage bays in their subterranean facility, all plugged into a hardwired data link. Could malicious code spread through something like that? Probably.
Brodie and Taylor headed west through the camp beneath the high midday sun.
They passed the barracks, where the Rangers from the parade ground were undoubtedly filling in their buddies on what had happened, including that their highly respected platoon sergeant had been thrown in the brig.
How would all those heavily armed and highly trained men take that news?
Probably not well. It was easy to see how things could quickly break down at Camp Hayden. In fact, they already had.
Brodie checked his watch. Thirty minutes past noon, and already an MP had been murdered, a brigadier general and a senior NCO had been arrested in a possible mutiny, and a homicidal piece of next-generation military hardware had been barbequed. What was next?
Taylor asked, “What are you thinking, partner?”
“That I’m glad you changed the code on our door, and that we’re both armed.”
She nodded. “I’m eager to get the rest of the bots out of here, but that won’t solve our case, and I’m not sure it will neutralize the danger at Camp Hayden either.”
For some reason, Morgan’s desperate question to Bucky popped back into Brodie’s mind:
Why don’t you resist?
It was for the same reason that Bucky allowed itself to get beaned in the head with a water bottle. No one had ordered it to resist. These things had no instinct for self-preservation… right?
Why don’t you resist?
There was something there, in that question, that was the key to this thing. But he couldn’t quite place it. Not yet.