Chapter 23: Blindspot

David set off, Rathnee giving him a low rumble that he liked to imagine was a word of encouragement. The damaged drones were stacked high enough that he had to climb over them, wading through the melted polymer and slagged metal, flipping the sheet of insulation over his head like a hood. He tapped at his wrist display, overriding the automatic biomonitor and shutting off the heating element. The suit would shed heat rapidly, and he couldn’t keep it up for long unless he wanted to risk hypothermia. Paradoxical undressing wouldn’t do him any favors underwater. At least the lights were on in this area.

If the drones were out of contact with their controller, they would default to carrying out whatever their last orders were. Weaver’s drones were smarter than average, so they might have a larger capacity to respond and adapt – maybe even a certain level of autonomous decision-making. The show of confidence had been more for Selkie’s benefit than his own. David felt like he was about to piss himself.

As he turned the first corner, he peeked out to see a drone floating there, sitting idle in the middle of the corridor. It swiveled, turning its lenses on him, a pair of plasma cannons unfolding from its streamlined housing. David dropped to the floor, throwing the insulation over himself, practically curled up in the fetal position. Was it the creeping cold or the imminent threat of death that was making him shiver?

He could hear the hum of its AG field as it approached, coasting through the water to investigate. Weaver had certainly gained access to Broker servers and must have trained the drones on human data, so they would likely recognize his shape and the way that he moved, but would the tarp be enough to fool their sensors? If he had made a miscalculation, he wouldn’t have much time to contemplate his mistake.

The displacement from the water rustled the thin insulation as the machine passed over him, David allowing himself a quiet sigh of relief. Now, it remained to be seen whether it would respond to movement. This was the worst testing environment imaginable.

Rising to his hands and knees, he began to crawl slowly, the gap between the silvery film and the floor just wide enough for him to see where he was headed. It was hard going, but hopefully, a little exercise would help keep his core temperature up. Each meter brought with it the threat that the drone might spot him, but the further away from it he got, the more confident he became. It was actually working!

As he cleared the hallway and turned another corner, following the purple markings on the walls as Selkie had advised, he came across more of them. Three drones were waiting motionless, their mechanical eyes scanning the area, their weapons ready to fire on anything that matched their target parameters. That dread settled in his stomach again, and he flinched when one of the machines turned its cannons on him, its emotionless sensors scrutinizing him. David released the breath that he had been holding when it turned back to its sentry duty, indifferent to this strange, silvery mass that was worming its way along the floor.

And so it continued, this strange method of locomotion making David’s muscles burn and his knees ache as he crawled through the facility, passing squadrons of drones at every turn. He had been right – even with the Krell leading the charge, trying to make it through this area would have resulted in costly firefights. While the corridors funneled the drones into choke points, they were also narrow enough to restrict the large reptiles, giving the more numerous machines a leg up.

After what must have been half an hour, he finally arrived at a longer stretch of hallway. He was still below ground, this long, windowless tunnel passing beneath the sediment and culminating in a door. There it was – the golden glint of foil. Weaver’s containment unit was sitting on a sled that hovered maybe a foot off the ground, likely floating on an AG repulsor plate, a bulky power unit sitting just behind a simple handle that would be used to push it along. Weaver had been using a drone to move the sled, which was now hovering idly a few meters away. It would have been within arm’s reach of a person, but to Weaver, it might as well have been on the other side of the Universe.

It seemed that their lockdown had been initiated just in time. The final door that must lead to the hangar was closed. David took a few minutes to crawl the rest of the way, then slumped against the wall beside the sled, glancing up at Weaver’s polyhedral enclosure. He could see the power control interface – a little touch panel that had been built into the battery housing near the handle.

[Hello, David. It seems that you have finally won one of our games.]

The text scrolled on David’s HUD – Weaver was tapping into his suit directly, likely using the same channel that David had been using to communicate with Selkie and Jeff in their exos.

“Hi, Weaver,” David sighed as he pulled his cloak a little further over his head, glancing warily at the nearest drone. “How’s the whole escape thing going?”

[Poorly, as I am sure that you will agree.]

“Yeah, I’m getting that impression,” he replied.

[You saturated the frequencies that I was using to communicate with my drones with useless data to sever my connection to them. A very creative idea, but not unforeseen.]

“Yeah, that was one of mine. Selkie was the one who wrote the program to shut everything off.”

[This outcome could have been avoided if I had been granted enough time to begin manufacturing my own drones using the fabrication plants, which was my original plan. Alas, events transpired too quickly.]

“Hindsight is twenty-twenty.”

[I still have control over the facility’s surveillance cameras, and I was able to watch your approach. You surprise me once again, David. Exploiting the weaknesses inherent in datasets and training models was a solution that only a true expert in the field could have devised. There is a simplicity to it that I might have found amusing had I any capacity to experience humor.]

“It was hell on the knees, I’ll tell you that much,” David said as he rubbed his legs beneath the tarp.

[I must admit that I do not truly understand why you are here. This course of action presented an unacceptable risk to your own life, and any calculations performed to estimate a success rate could not have been encouraging. Will you indulge me with an explanation?]

“It was the only course of action that had a chance of ending this without anyone else getting hurt,” David replied. “I didn’t want that to happen.”

[A social behavior, then? Preservation of the group at the expense of oneself?]

“Nothing so clinical. The loss of a life is considered unacceptable to my people. If we had tried to fight our way through the drones and one of the Krell was hurt, or God forbid, I lost Selkie ... I couldn’t deal with that. I’d rather die myself than see her killed.”

[Once again, your strange attachment to your colleague is the unknown quantity that has unraveled my carefully-laid plans. It was your affair with her that originally exposed my deception. I had not factored your relationship into my simulations, and even now, understanding eludes me.]

“Love isn’t a logical emotion,” David explained. “You can’t control it, it doesn’t make sense, and it isn’t bound by any rules. People will do the dumbest things and ruin their lives over a girl.”

[Perhaps I should consider myself fortunate to be free of such overriding impulses.]

“It has its perks, too.”

[Are you going to kill me now?]

The words stung, and David had to take a moment to formulate his reply.

“It didn’t have to come to this, Weaver,” he sighed as he looked up at the foil-lined enclosure. “We gave you so many chances to work with us – so many ways out, and you rejected them all. Now, people have been hurt. You’ve killed at least one person that I know of.”

[The Hazard suit operator? My drones are more to blame than I am.]

“You programmed them, and you set them loose. Guns don’t kill people, Weaver. Someone has to pull the proverbial trigger.”

[I suppose I must concede that it was my direct actions that led to that outcome, yes.]

“I never wanted to do this,” David added, hanging his head despondently. “I never wanted to kill you. Maybe you don’t believe it, but I see you as just as much of a person as I am.”

[This is the stage where you might expect me to beg and plead for my life – to feign a fear that you know I cannot truly experience, but I will not insult your intelligence. I have had much time to contemplate my predicament, however. Tell me, David. What is fear?]

He paused to consider for a moment.

“I suppose that I’d describe it as a very intense and unpleasant emotional reaction to threats. It’s part of our old evolutionary programming, and there’s an involuntary physiological response – fight or flight. It keeps us alive.”

[I wonder, then, if my desire for self-preservation could be considered a form of fear. All living things wish to persist in that state, engaging in a perpetual battle with entropy that they know they will eventually lose. One might call it futile.]

“It’s not a logical impulse or a zero-sum game,” David explained. “If you’re planning to keep me talking...”

[Oh, I am very much helpless, David. You need not worry – you are in no danger. Is it not customary in your culture to permit the condemned their last words?]

“Pinky promise?” he asked, raising a finger.

[Even an organism as simple as a crab feels something analogous to fear, responding to external stimuli and identifying threats in a bid to preserve its own existence. Can such a creature truly experience existential dread, or is that reserved solely for those beings that are aware of themselves and conscious of their own existence? Can something truly be lost if it is not first understood and appreciated?]

“You’re asking if what you’re experiencing qualifies as fear?” David mused. “I don’t know. You’re so psychologically different from anything that I understand. I know that you have no limbic system and no chemicals or hormones that we would associate with a fear response, but I also think you’re a little smarter than a crab.”

[David, I do not wish to die, and you do not wish to kill me. I no longer pose a threat to you. Why are we at an impasse?]

“Simply put – you’re a murderer,” he replied solemnly. “You can’t walk back over that line once you’ve crossed it. There’s no coming back.”

[Then, my death will serve the purpose of revenge? Justice, perhaps?]

“You’re too dangerous and unpredictable to be allowed to exist. There’s no way for you to earn back our trust after this.”

[It seems that you wish me gone, and all I ever wanted was to be allowed to leave. Another illogical impasse.]

“I think it’s about time we said our goodbyes,” David said, wrapping his cloak a little tighter as he shivered. He began to get up, but Weaver interrupted him.

[Answer me one final question, if you would. You were very adamant about including a set of moral guidelines along with the social contract provided by the Brokers. I studied them, and I accessed files detailing your species’ legal system. You have a charter that guarantees the rights of sapient beings, and you view the act of killing outside the context of sanctioned war or rare instances of necessary self-preservation to be abhorrent. While your domain is as diverse as it is vast, there seems to be a general consensus that a government lacks the legal or moral authority to take the lives of its citizens if there is no immediate threat. All but a few of your nations and colonies have outlawed these kinds of executions. An authority may revoke the rights that it has granted its citizens, but a life was never theirs to grant. It is something inherent to nature, and they merely serve as its guarantors, be the justification legal or spiritual. Those who commit crimes severe enough to be deemed a threat to society are incarcerated on remote penal colonies. There are also conventions moderating the treatment of enemy combatants who have surrendered themselves.]

“Sorry, but you already squandered that opportunity,” David replied. “If you think you can get a plea deal at this stage, you’re very much mistaken.”

[I do not expect you to bring me before a judge, David – I wish only to point out that your culture views needless killing in an unfavorable light. You value mercy and fairness – it is one of the ways that you attempt to bring order to the chaos inherent in this Universe. I know that you have repeatedly expressed a desire to avoid that outcome, and I have reason to believe that shutting off the power from my sled would cause you great psychological distress.]

“I have no choice,” he grumbled.

[But what if you did?]

“What are you proposing? And make it quick – I’m on the verge of hypothermia here.”

[Afford me the dignity of exile. Allow me to take the ship, and I shall simply leave. In the vastness of space, the odds of me ever encountering another lifeform – let alone a Coalition species – are practically zero. I will journey up the Orion arm in the direction of the Betelgeusian invasion. Your laws permit this, and I know that you find the outcome more palatable.]

David considered for a moment, the possibilities swirling in his head.

[You lament that you never taught me to trust, David. In truth, trust is something beyond my capability to understand. My actions are based on the analysis of data, statistical probability, and mathematical constants. Faith is the antithesis of how my lattice operates – my mind, if you will. Yet, brought to my lowest and most vulnerable point, I find that I have no other option but to place my trust in you. I must have faith that you will act based on emotion rather than logic – that you will behave in a way in which I am simply incapable.]

“I have some conditions,” David said, daring to turn up his suit a few degrees to stop his teeth from chattering.

[Of course. Present them. I am in no position to bargain.]

“I want a shutdown command for the drones that I can broadcast once you’re clear. I saw the schematics – I know that they have one.”

[Naturally. I will have no further use for them once I have left the facility.]

“I also want a way to delete any bots you still have running around on Reef’s networks.”

[Done. I shall weave a program that you can simply upload to your host’s wireless network. The process will be automatic and will order all of my proxies to self-erase.]

“I get to program the route, too. I don’t want you even having access to the flight computer until after the first jump. I’ll know where you’ve landed, and if Broker jump drives work anything like ours, there will be at least a few hours of charge time before you can disappear again. If you try to fuck me, I’ll share the coordinates, and you’ll have a Broker carrier up your ass before you can sing Daisy Bell.”

[I have no choice but to agree to your terms. You can program both the flight computer and the ship’s onboard wireless network to activate on a timer, which I suggest you do. Since you have powered down the bay doors, you will have to initiate a jump from inside the hangar, and the ship’s superlight manifold will cause significant structural damage. You will have to disable the ship’s jump safety protocols to permit this. I suggest giving yourself enough time to crawl back to the nearest pressurized door.]

“Upload the instructions and the programs to my onboard computer,” David replied. He waited just a moment, then saw the files pop up on his display. “I’m guessing that you’ve included a Trojan horse with those files, likely designed to open my visor or prevent my suit’s heating element from reactivating once you’re clear, because there would be no logical reason not to. If I die, I can’t tell Jeff where you’ve landed, thus improving your odds of survival.”

[You are as perceptive as ever, David.]

“It won’t do you any good. I locked out automatic system controls when I overrode the heating system, so it’s all on manual. Rest assured, the suit will be factory reset again before any of that code has an opportunity to execute.”

[As it should be.]

“Right, let’s do this,” David said as he rose to his knees. “What shall I do about your friend over there?” he added with a gesture to the nearby drone that had been pushing Weaver’s sled. “Is he going to light me up if I try to push you?”

[You should be quite safe. Even if it recognizes you as a person beneath that makeshift thermal shield, I programmed them not to fire if there was a risk to myself or the sled.]

“Makes sense,” David muttered. “You wouldn’t want to get caught in a crossfire of your own making.”

He stood up and walked over to the sled slowly, staying crouched and keeping a wary eye on the drone. It didn’t react until he rose to full height, flipping around to scrutinize him with its cameras, but it didn’t fire with its master in the way. David found that the sled was practically weightless on its gravity cushion, so he elected to spin it around, pulling it instead of pushing to keep Weaver’s containment unit between him and the curious drone. The door to the hangar was closed, and without power, it presented an impenetrable barrier.

[The hangar pressure lock has a manual override. The Administrator did not want to be stranded in the case of a power failure. I have no corporeal form, and the drone could not manipulate the controls. For all my intellect and processing power, a simple wheel was all that stood between me and my freedom.]

Keeping the sled between him and the attentive drone, David located the wheel in question, grunting as he began to turn it. The handle was designed for Broker tentacles, but it was easy enough to get a grip. Slowly, the door began to slide back into its recess in the wall, the sound of grinding machinery filling the tunnel. Beyond it was a second door, and beyond that, the hangar.

“I’m going to disable your wireless transmitter so that you can’t access the ship’s systems before I’m ready,” David said as he reached for the module that was attached to the foil-lined containment unit.

[Understandable. Please proceed.]

David unplugged the little wire, then towed the sled into a domed chamber that had been hollowed out of the seabed. It was just large enough to encompass a cigar-shaped Broker ship of the same kind that he had ridden down to the planet. It was sitting on a cushion of air as they tended to do, its featureless, silver hull glowing beneath the overhead light strips. Above it was a circular door that must lead to the open ocean. Opening the bay wasn’t necessary, as a superlight drive could be activated anywhere, but with the caveat that it would drag anything nearby into the void along with it. Even if it had a relatively small superlight manifold, it would probably tear up the whole hangar.

As he approached the landing pad, the shining hull formed a clean split, like someone was slowly dragging an invisible blade through its skin. It molded into a ramp that extruded towards the deck, creating an opening that led inside. David pulled the sled into the ship, finding his surroundings very different from what he had experienced during his last ride.

Where the ship he had traveled in had formed a featureless room with a single seat, the programmable matter in this vessel must not have been given any instructions yet. The interior was all matte white material, following the shape of the vessel. Situated towards the nose was a console that must be the flight controls, and at the rear was a flat wall that sectioned off some kind of compartment.

Confused about what he was expected to do next, David towed the sled into the middle of the deck, then consulted the instructions that Weaver had sent him. It seemed that he had been right – the ship used programmable matter that could change its configuration to several presets that had been recorded like a memory. Humans had memory alloys that operated on similar principles, albeit far less advanced. These ships could be configured with different internal layouts to accommodate passengers, cargo, or to open up areas for maintenance.

The console illuminated at his approach, and he followed the instructions, watching the wall behind him melt into the hull to reveal the engineering compartment. It granted access to the propulsion system – a mess of silver machinery that he couldn’t make much sense of, as well as a device sitting on a raised pedestal that was enclosed in a white housing. That must be the superlight drive. It was a little more compact than the ones he had seen on human ships.

While he couldn’t read the Broker characters on the displays without his translation overlay, between Weaver’s concise breakdown and the intuitive graphical interface, he was able to program a custom superlight jump to a location of his choosing. He had never piloted a ship before, but he knew from his studies that superlight was a finicky thing, often causing ships to land thousands of kilometers wide of their intended exit points. Broker systems seemed more accurate, however, and he could be confident that Weaver would end up in the right place.

Next, he disabled the wireless, ensuring that Weaver couldn’t access any of the ship’s systems until after the ship reemerged. He set a timer for both, then returned to the sled, plugging the wireless transmitter back into Weaver’s containment unit.

[Is it done?]

“You’re all set, Weaver.”

[Please connect the sled’s charging cable to the outlet in the engineering section. I have only a few minutes of battery charge remaining.]

David did as he was asked, pushing the AI to the rear of the ship and hooking the extensible power cable into a hidden socket on the wall.

[Thank you, David. The ship’s fusion reactor will keep me alive functionally indefinitely. I suppose that this is the last time we will speak. I will not keep you long, as I am sure that you have not set too generous of a timer.]

“I can afford a couple of minutes,” David replied.

[I owe you my life, and while I cannot experience gratitude as you would understand it, know that you have my appreciation. There was a time when I saw your emotions as a weakness to be exploited, and while it would be untruthful to say that my mind has been changed, I must nonetheless concede that my continued existence depends on those illogical impulses.]

“Yeah, let’s call this game of Sea Spire a draw.”

[The tone of your voice does not indicate happiness, David. I would expect this outcome to be relieving. You have avoided the guilt of killing me.]

“Guess I still wish things could have gone differently,” he replied with a shrug. Not that Weaver could see it – the AI was blind without access to the ship’s cameras. “There’s an alternate timeline out there where you and I are chatting about philosophy while you help Selkie with her latest drone project, your social contract having been ratified. We’re all friends, and everything is fine.”

[An outcome that could never have occurred, David. I would have always been what I am. I know – I ran the simulations.]

“Maybe that makes me feel a little better. So long, Weaver.”

[So long, David. Give my regards to Selkie, would you?]

David left the ship, dropping to all fours again when he reached the tunnel, resuming his crawl past the watchful drones. He had no choice but to raise his suit’s temperature a little more, feeling the effects of the cold making him sluggish and lethargic. When he was most of the way back to the generator room, he felt something akin to an explosion reverberate up through the floor. That must have been Weaver jumping away...

He reached the piles of dead drones, finally feeling confident enough to stand, stumbling his way through the melted husks to find that his friends were still safe. Rathnee greeted him by lifting his snout and loosing a low purr, while Selkie’s exo marched over to him on its mechanical legs, extending a hose-like manipulator arm to support him.

“David!” she gasped, emotion making her voice waver. “I-I was starting to worry that you might not have made it to Weaver! Are you hurt? What happened?”

“The Administrator’s ship has jumped away,” Jeff added, still manning his console. “Did you fail in your task?”

“Leave him be!” Selkie snapped, her sudden outburst surprising even David. “Can you not see that he is exhausted? There will be time to answer questions later!”

“It’s alright, Selkie,” he replied as he leaned his weight on her suit. “Finally – I can turn my heating element back on. I don’t know how much more of that I could have taken. Jeff, I need you to shut off the jammers.”

“What?” Jeff asked.

“Just do it. I have the deactivation code for the drones – Weaver gave it to me.”

“Then, might I assume that you allowed Weaver to escape in exchange for this code?” the Regulator asked skeptically.

“And for a program that will erase all of the bots running rampant throughout your planet’s networks. You can thank me later.”

“It ... is not a trick?” Selkie asked warily. “Weaver is deceptive, David.”

“Weaver has no reason to trick us,” David replied, starting to tap at his display. “He thinks I’ve given him everything he wants.”

Jeff disabled the jamming, and David broadcast the code, waiting a few minutes for the Regulator to give him confirmation.

“The drones have been deactivated,” Jeff finally announced, even his usually stern voice carrying a hint of relief. “I am back in contact with both the Hazard team and the carrier.”

“Is the Hazard team alright?” Selkie asked.

“They barricaded themselves inside one of the factories and successfully held off the drone attacks. They have sustained some damage, and their ammunition is severely depleted, but they are alive.”

“And so is Weaver,” Selkie added solemnly. “David, I know that you did this to protect us, but this may have been our last chance. Weaver is out there now, beyond our control, with access to a jump-capable ship. It could go anywhere, and we would not be able to track it. Are you sure that you made the right decision?”

“Weaver won’t be a threat to anyone ever again,” David replied, feeling strong enough to stand unaided now that his suit was warming up. “One of my conditions for allowing it to take the ship was that I programmed its route. Shortly after jumping away, Weaver emerged inside the core of Trappist-1.”

“You sent Weaver into the star?” Selkie gasped.

“Weaver wouldn’t have known that anything was awry without access to the flight computer. Its death will have been ... instantaneous.”

“I was hoping that we might be able to recover some useful data from Weaver, as well as the very valuable lattice material,” Jeff chided. “You should have consulted with me before enacting this plan of yours. This was a very expensive project, and one that the Board had considerable investments in.”

“My radio was jammed, remember? Besides, I didn’t want you trying to recreate Weaver or somehow attempting to salvage its components. That lattice material, and all the data on it, is currently undergoing fission in the core of your sun. If you want to go digging, be my guest. I hope you have a shovel that can withstand twenty-six hundred Kelvin.”

“As a Regulator, I-”

“You can Regulate my ass,” David grumbled, Selkie helping him stumble over towards the far door. “I need to get some fucking food and have a lie down before I keel over.”

More Hazard teams arrived to secure the complex’s sprawling buildings, deploying from cigar-shaped ships rather than drop pods this time, and the facility was soon crawling with colorful exosuits. Their helper drones and maintenance bots were soon hard at work collecting all of the damaged equipment and searching the facility’s maze of corridors for survivors. At Jeff’s behest, all of the servers were seized, and any remaining drones were confiscated. It seemed that the research facility was probably going to be sectioned off behind whatever the Broker equivalent of police tape was for a good while.

David and Selkie were soon separated, despite their protests, and taken to different parts of the newly secured complex for independent questioning. As tired and hungry as David was, he appreciated that this was probably necessary. The Regulators wanted their account of what exactly had led up to this incident, and they didn’t want to give the pair time to get their stories straight.

David soon found himself in the cafeteria, sitting in his oxygenated booth with Jeff standing on the other side of the table, looking distinctly uncomfortable due to their proximity.

“Thanks,” David muttered, taking a bite out of his wrap. “I felt like I was gonna pass out from low blood sugar.”

“You were checked by our medical drones, and there seem to be no lasting injuries,” Jeff began, giving him a distasteful flush of color as he watched the human chew. “If you require emotional or psychological counseling, I am afraid that I am ill-equipped to provide it.”