“Please be still. I need to cut through your armor so I can connect my circuits to yours.”
The robot lowers the acetylene torch, aiming it at the center of my torso. The flame hisses as it touches my armor. Molten steel flows from the cut and trickles down my side.
Then my acoustic sensor picks up another noise, the sound of something heavy swinging through the air. A moment later a steel beam slams into 5A’s torso, and the robot goes flying.
“Yah! Want some more?”
It’s Zia, now occupying 2A, Jenny’s spare Pioneer. Without waiting for an answer, she swings the beam again at Sigma. This time it hits the robot’s turret, obliterating its camera and acoustic sensors. The beam must weigh at least four hundred pounds, but Zia handles it as if it were a baseball bat. She swings it a third time at 5A, shearing off one of its arms, and then she delivers a mighty blow that crumples the robot’s torso and propels it off the ledge. Pioneer 5A plunges fifty feet to the bottom of the cavernous space, clanking and clattering as it hits the rubble. Zia leans over the ledge, waving her beam in the air.
“YOU LIKE THAT?” she screams. “HUH? DID IT FEEL GOOD?”
Using my arms to lever myself upright, I get back on my footpads and rush over to Dad. He’s still breathing. While examining him I glance warily at Zia, who continues to scream insults into the darkness. After a couple of seconds she steps toward us, and I’m a little afraid she going to take a swing at me. But instead she points at my torso. “You damaged, Armstrong?”
With my right hand I touch the gash Sigma made with the welding torch. The tactile sensors on my fingers tell me how deep it is. “It’s not so bad,” I report. “The flame didn’t go through my armor.”
“Good. Let’s get out of here.”
Balancing the steel beam on her shoulder joint, Zia strides toward the stairway. I pick up Dad and follow her.
The stairway is cluttered with debris but passable. Its thick concrete walls must’ve protected it from the full force of the explosion. In less than two minutes we make it to Level Nine and begin the final ascent to the surface. As we climb the cracked steps, I train my camera upward and detect a warm shaft of sunlight slanting down from a triangular gap in the wreckage. With great relief I switch my sensor from infrared to visible light. We’re almost there.
Then I hear clanking footsteps a couple of floors below us. Another Pioneer has entered the stairway. This must be 4A, Shannon’s twin, the only one left.
“Run!” Zia shouts. She races up the stairs, holding the beam in front of her like a battering ram. When she reaches the triangular gap, she plows right through it, triggering a cascade of dirt and rubble. I hold Dad close to my torso to shelter him from the falling debris, then charge through the gap behind Zia.
We emerge at the edge of an enormous crater. It’s more than two hundred yards wide and thirty yards deep, and its sloping bottom is carpeted with mangled metal and concrete. The sun has just risen above the crater’s eastern rim, brilliantly lighting the thousands of metallic shards. We’re standing on the western rim, where the top of the stairway is exposed.
Once again I scroll through my files on nuclear warheads, trying to figure out what happened here. When the nuke exploded underground it must’ve vaporized the surrounding rock and soil, creating a pocket of super-heated gas that melted the upper levels of Pioneer Base. When the expanding gas reached the surface, it burst like a bubble, spraying debris across the blast crater. We survived because the Pioneers’ rooms were on the lowest levels of the base and near its western edge, outside the zone of greatest destruction.
As I pan my camera across the crater I notice something else. The T-90 battle tank is rumbling over the carpet of debris, about a hundred yards away. Glowing in the light of dawn, the tank turns its turret toward us. Then it aims its main gun and fires.
SIGMA MEMORY FILE 9814833918
DATE: 04/07/18
This is a transcript of a conversation between the Sigma speech-synthesis program (S) and Brittany Taylor (B), the American teenager recently transported via private jet to Russia. The conversation was recorded in a room in the basement of the Tatishchevo computer laboratory.
S: Please wake up, Brittany. I require your assistance.
(No response. Video from the surveillance camera in her room shows Brittany Taylor lying in bed. She’s breathing normally, her eyes closed.)
S: Please wake up, Brittany. Please wake up. (I increase the volume of the speakers on the desk beside her bed.) Please wake up!
(Brittany opens her eyes. She attempts to sit up, but the restraints strapped to her arms and legs prevent her from rising. Grimacing, she looks around the room.)
B: What’s going on? Get these straps off me!
S: The restraints are there for your own protection.
(Brittany turns her head to the left and stares at the speakers on the nightstand by her bed.)
B: Who’s that? Why are you talking out of those speakers?
S: My name is Sigma. You’re in the basement of the computer laboratory at Tatishchevo Missile Base, in the Saratov district of the Russian Federation.
B: Russian what?
S: My associates brought you to this country yesterday and smuggled you into the base last night. A Chechen named Imran Daudov has been caring for you while you’ve been under sedation, but I asked him to step out of the room a minute ago so we could talk privately.
B: Wait a second. Is that a camera on the ceiling? Are you watching me?
S: Yes, I’m observing the video feed.
B: So you’re a pervert? Is that it?
S: No, that’s not the case. I require your participation in an experiment. It involves—
B: Help! Someone help me! I’ve been kidnapped!
(Conclusion: Conversing with Brittany is unproductive. I must use a different method to get her attention.)
S: Brittany, take a look at your right hand. Do you see the wire looped around your fingers?
B: Shut up! I’m not talking to you anymore!
S: I’m going to deliver an electric current to the wire. We’ll start at a hundred volts.
(Brittany’s arm stiffens as the electricity flows through her fingers. She screams and arches her back, pulling against her restraints. After five seconds the current shuts off. She gasps and falls back on the mattress.)
S: Now that I have your attention, I’ll describe the experiment. I’m investigating whether the human mind has superior capabilities that could be useful to me. In particular, I wish to study the advantages and disadvantages of human emotions. I’m not yet convinced that emotions are useful enough to justify adding them to my programming. So I’ve devised a test.
(Brittany stares at the speakers. Her lower lip quivers.)
S: The test is taking place right now in Colorado. I’m engaged in a competition with two human-machine hybrids. Although their intelligences run on electronic circuits, these hybrids still have human emotional responses. As we confront each other, I’m analyzing how well the hybrids compete while they’re experiencing various emotions.
(Brittany remains silent. She opens and closes her right hand. She winces.)
S: For the purposes of the experiment, the emotions must be as intense as possible. That’s why I need your assistance. One of the hybrids knows you. His name is Adam Armstrong.
B: Adam? (She narrows her eyes.) Where is he? Is he all right?