I know. I’ve screamed like that before.
Maybe I will again. The day’s still young.
And they’re coming.
I ran as hard as I could. Ran as smart as I could, holding the laptop case as if it was the most precious thing on earth, because maybe it was. Looking for a way out. Rudy and Ghost were somewhere out here, too. Both of them running, if they were still able to run. I needed to get Schellinger’s laptop to a Wi-Fi connection or a satellite uplink. I had adapters of every kind — that was part of my standard field kit. I could plug this into a cell phone, hack it into any landline, or beam it wirelessly. All of that was possible, but not way the hell out in the middle of nowhere. They’d picked this spot well.
There was a rustle above me, a flap of wings, and I risked a look to see if it was one of the pigeon drones Bird Dog had launched. There was nothing, though; whatever had made the noise was already gone. Probably an owl or a starling frightened by the commotion.
Was Schellinger telling me the truth? Could the codes in the laptop stop this? And, if so, did that mean it would stop all of it or just control the dogs and maybe the chipped soldiers? There was no way to know. Not until I made that one call. Maybe the most important call anyone’s ever had to make.
Just one call.
All around me the woods suddenly went quiet. Just like that. The birds gasped themselves into stillness, the insects stopped pulsing. Even the wind seemed to hold its breath.
They found me.
God Almighty, they found me.
One of the WarDogs broke from cover and ran toward me, a machine gun rising from a concealed bay in its back. I was moving, the light was questionable, and I had maybe half a second left, so I took the shot.
The dog jerked sideways, sparks leaping from the side of its neck, its gun firing high and wide and missing me by twenty yards. Son of a bitch. I didn’t know whether to call it luck or the maliciousness of a perverse god who wanted more drama, but my shot had hit something important. So I ran at the thing and damn well shot it again, aiming for the shadows under the shoulder cowling. My second round whanged off and did nothing. Maybe it hit a heavy steel joint. Didn’t know, didn’t care. I fired again, and this time the bullet punched all the way in. The red lights in the dog’s eyes snapped off in an instant and it simply collapsed.
Note to self: remember that spot. Hard as hell to hit, but it’s a winner.
As I turned to go, though, I heard a high-pitched burst of squelch. Not the hunting cry but like the sound burst transmitters make. Deeper inside the forest, I heard new sounds. Hunting cries, for sure.
Had the dying machine sent a message to its fellows? If so, what was it? A warning? A locator?
Impossible to know at that moment.
I ran.
Behind me I could hear them chasing me. Closing in for the kill.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-ONE
The WarDog ran forward, steel nails clicking on the linoleum hallway floor. The woman doctor lay slumped in the doorway of the child’s room, and the dog’s tracking software had zeroed on that spot. Tactical order was to terminate all organic targets inside and to eliminate any armed or unarmed resistance. Only the six chipped soldiers who ran behind it were exempt. The dog had Bruiser painted on its shoulder.
The soldiers fanned out around the WarDog as it slowed by the doorway to assess the threat level with thermal sensors. The team leader had the same display on a small screen strapped to his left wrist. There was a single heat signature inside the room.
“Bruiser,” he said, “kill.”
The WarDog crouched and sprang, clearing the corpse and landing on the floor inside. It opened up with its automatic weapon and the heat signature on the soldier’s display flew apart and diminished.
“In,” he snapped, and the soldiers surged forward to verify the kill. The image showed a hospital bed ripped to tatters. But as the soldier closed in on the entrance he suddenly realized that something was wrong. There was no blood.
There was no body.
On the bed, shattered and scattered, were the pieces of some kind of machine. He stood there, his own gun aimed, as understanding caught up with him. The machine was a space heater.
Realization came one second too late, as did his awareness that the dead doctor on the floor was moving. There was something wrong with that, too, he knew. Her lab coat should have been covered in blood. It wasn’t. Her eyes should have been glazed and dead. They weren’t. And she absolutely should not have been smiling.
But she was.
The blade stabbed upward through his groin and then all the soldier could do was die.
Violin released the handle of the knife and rolled to one side to bring up the gun she had fallen atop. She hosed the soldiers, aiming face-high. They wore the same kind of Kevlar she did, but her shots were to the face and throat, not the chest. They staggered backward, bone and teeth and blood spattering the wall.
Then Violin twisted around as Bruiser pivoted, its sensors recording the deaths of its human team. Before it could bring its guns to bear, Violin came up off the floor in one fluid surge, moving with incredible speed, swinging her barrel toward its head, firing, firing. Aiming at sensors, at the weaker areas where joints had to be allowed range of movement. Not fighting it the way she would have fought a real dog. Fighting a machine the way it needed to be fought.
Killing it the way it needed to be killed.
Two floors above, Sean Ledger stood peering through the partly opened door of the room where his son lay. He was dressed in full ballistic combat gear and held a shotgun in his hands.
Outside, the three soldiers left with the crashed ambulance heard the wrong kind of screams over their team mics.
“Something’s wrong,” growled the driver.
It was all he said, because his head snapped back and he fell against the truck, most of his face blown away. The other soldiers spun, looking for the shooter.
And they died.
Three shots fired, three hostiles down.
Across the parking lot, atop a parking garage, Sam Imura looked up from the sniper scope, nodded to himself, and tapped his earbud.
“Clear,” he said.
“Clear,” said Violin.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-TWO
Bug tried to swallow, but his throat was too dry.
Aunt Sallie stood there, immobile, frozen in a rare moment of doubt, unsure what to do to help. They both knew and understood that Good Sister was Calpurnia, the proprietary AI system developed by Zephyr Bain.
Save me!
Save me!
Save me!
The words scrolled up the screen.
“Talk to me, Bug,” said Auntie, forcing the words out in a frightened whisper. “Are we losing MindReader again?”
“No,” he croaked. “No… God, no… I think something else is happening.”
“What? Don’t make me pull the plug on you, boy.”
“Don’t! Wait… just wait, okay? That’s not MindReader. It’s Calpurnia. She’s… she’s… God, I think she’s scared.”
“She’s a fucking computer.”
Bug shook his head. “I don’t think so. She’s the most advanced artificial intelligence ever designed. That’s what made Zephyr Bain so famous. Calpurnia is a learning AI that was supposed to mimic human behavior and learn from people.”