It’s a little disorienting: I’m inside the helicopter that’s carrying my Pioneer, but I’m also inside the robot. I’m viewing the runway from two perspectives—the sensors in the Black Hawk’s nose and the camera in my Pioneer’s turret—and it’s a challenge to keep my balance. While lowering my arms to rest Dad on the compartment’s floor, I rev up the helicopter’s engines. Then we rise from the runway and leap toward the sky.
This is way different from flying the Raven. The Black Hawk’s main rotor provides both the upward lift and forward thrust. I can climb and dive and accelerate by varying the tilt of the rotor blades, and I can change course by adjusting the tail rotor, which turns the helicopter to the left and right. I swoop and soar over the basin, familiarizing myself with the controls.
Then I race toward the ridge on the basin’s northern edge, where another shell from the T-90 has just detonated. The tank is about fifty yards from the foot of the ridge, pointing its main gun at the south-facing slope. Although I have no Hellfires left, the Black Hawk also has a fifty-caliber Gatling gun. The bullets won’t penetrate the T-90’s armor, but maybe I can shred the tank’s antenna and break its link to Sigma.
I fly in a wide arc, keeping my distance from the T-90. The ridge’s south-facing slope is pocked with impact craters from the tank shells, but I see no trace of Zia. It’s as if she vanished. I fly a little closer to the ridge, scanning the slope with the Black Hawk’s infrared camera. Then I open a radio channel to Zia’s Pioneer. I encrypt my communications so Sigma can’t eavesdrop.
“Zia, can you hear me? I’m in the Black Hawk.”
While I’m waiting for a response, a barrage of bullets strikes the helicopter. The T-90 is firing its anti-aircraft machine gun at me. I return fire with the Gatling gun, aiming at the tank’s antenna, but I quickly realize how futile this is. Without the Hellfires, I’m a much more vulnerable target than the T-90. The tank will blow me out of the sky long before I can damage its antenna. Then, to make matters worse, the T-90 swings its main gun in my direction.
Zia’s voice suddenly comes over the radio. “Don’t be an idiot, Armstrong! Get out of here!”
“Where are you? I don’t see you anywhere.”
“Watch it, the tank’s about to fire! Get behind the ridgeline, now!”
Her warning comes too late. I’m still a hundred yards from the top of the ridge when the T-90 fires a shell straight at me. For a moment I’m frozen in terror. If the shell hits the helicopter, my Pioneer might survive the explosion and crash landing, but Dad definitely won’t make it. Although he’s still lying unconscious on the floor of the crew compartment, there’s a grimace on his face now, as if he can somehow sense the fast-approaching projectile.
No! I won’t let you die!
The fury in my circuits overcomes my fear. I roll the Black Hawk to the left, banking away from the shell. Fortunately, the projectile has no guidance system, so it can’t adjust its course in midflight. The shell whizzes past the helicopter’s tail and slams into the ridge, spraying snow and dirt into the air. Two seconds later I swoop over the ridgeline and dive for cover. I descend behind the ridge’s north-facing slope, putting the mountain between me and the T-90.
“Now go!” Zia shouts over the radio. “Get out of here and call for help. That’s an order, Armstrong!”
I’m not going anywhere. She should know by now that I’m not good at following orders. Instead I analyze her radio signal to figure out where she’s hiding. As I suspected, she’s crouched behind an outcrop on the south-facing slope, concealed so well she didn’t show up on my infrared scans. But Sigma knows where she is. The T-90’s shells have already gouged the outcrop, blasting holes in the wall of rock that’s protecting Zia. I can’t leave her behind. Sooner or later the tank will destroy her.
“Zia, I have an idea.”
“I told you, Armstrong, get—”
“For once in your life, will you listen? Right now I’m in two machines, the Black Hawk and Pioneer 3A, but I’m going to take myself out of the robot so you can transfer to it.”
“No, I can’t transfer. You’re too far away. And the ridge is between us.”
Unbelievable. She’s so stubborn she’d rather die than admit she’s wrong. “Trust me, you can do it. Just wait for my signal, then start transmitting, okay?”
Before pulling out of Pioneer 3A, I bend over Dad and squeeze his shoulder. Then I begin to remove my data from the robot, consolidating all my files in the Black Hawk’s control unit. Another shell from the T-90 explodes against the outcrop that Zia is hiding behind, but she shouts, “Don’t worry, I’m okay!” over the radio. In just a few seconds Pioneer 3A will be vacant and she’ll be able to transfer. This is going to work!
Then I hear another shout over the Black Hawk’s radio, but it’s not Zia. It’s a signal from Globus-1, a Russian communications satellite that’s 22,000 miles overhead. The signal originated from the other side of the world, then bounced off the satellite and returned to earth, but the voice I hear is achingly familiar. It’s a voice from my past, its memory etched into my circuits and linked to thousands of other memories. It’s so powerful that even a whisper would be enough to make me tremble. But Brittany is screaming.
“Adam! Adam!”
All my systems freeze. My wireless data transmissions stop in midair, leaving me suspended between Pioneer 3A and the Black Hawk. I’m so shocked and confused that I can barely keep the helicopter flying. “Brittany?”
“Oh, God, you have to help me! He’s hurting me! He’s—”
She lets out a horrible shriek of pain. At the same time, I feel a sudden jerk upward, but the Black Hawk isn’t climbing. The movement I sense is inside my mind. I feel as if someone is trying to yank me out of both the helicopter and the Pioneer.
“Brittany? Brittany?”
The thing that’s pulling me upward grows stronger. I try to hold on to Pioneer 3A and the Black Hawk, but an implacable force has invaded my electronics. It’s prying my thoughts and memories from my circuits and transferring the data elsewhere. My files are shooting upward at the speed of light, streaking toward the communications satellite.
It’s Sigma. The AI carefully prepared its attack, disrupting my thoughts before taking over my circuits. For the first time I sense the full strength of its intelligence. Sigma was designed for this kind of battle, programmed to win at all costs, and it defeated me without much trouble. Now I’m at its mercy. I’ve already lost control of the Pioneer, and my grip on the Black Hawk is weakening.
Terrified, I concentrate on protecting Dad. I slow the Black Hawk and hover over a snowbank on the north-facing slope. I don’t have enough time to land the helicopter, but I turn on its emergency rescue beacon. I don’t know if Dad will survive the crash. And if he does, I have no idea whether the rescuers will reach him before he dies of exposure. But there’s nothing else I can do.
Then I lose contact with the helicopter and the Pioneer. My mind is funneled into a narrow beam of radio waves, which Sigma hurls above the atmosphere and into the emptiness of space.
SHANNON’S LOG
APRIL 8, 01:41 MOSCOW TIME