It’s a strong impulse, almost overpowering. But I resist it. I know it won’t work. Sigma is stronger and smarter than me. To win this battle, I’m going to need some help.
In a flash I transfer myself to another computer in the Tatishchevo lab’s network. The network’s layout is simple enough, and after a few hundredths of a second, I find what I’m looking for. I enter the outer unit of another cage, identical to the one I just left.
At the same moment, unfortunately, Sigma detects my escape. The AI surges toward me at blistering speed.
You made a mistake, Adam Armstrong. This will be painful for you.
I don’t have much time, less than a millionth of a second. I use it to open the gate to the cage’s inner unit. Then Zia Allawi comes roaring out.
SHANNON’S LOG
APRIL 8, 04:39 MOSCOW TIME
I hit the ground with a horrible crunch.
My sensors observe the first moments of the crash, when my Raven’s wings, tail, and rudder break off from the fuselage. But then the fuselage itself slams into the dirt, jarring the cable that connects the Raven’s battery to my control unit. The impact disrupts my power supply, and everything goes black.
I cease to exist. For exactly three hundredths of a second.
Then, thank God, the cable slips back into place, restoring power to the control unit. My system restarts and my circuits come back to life. Although my camera is badly damaged, it restarts too and sends me video images of the area where I crash-landed. Through the cracked lens I see the treads of the T-90 that was firing its anti-aircraft gun at me. My Raven crashed in the dirt about twenty feet behind the tank.
I also see the remains of DeShawn’s Raven. It broke into half a dozen pieces, scattered a little closer to the T-90. The fuselage and control unit are intact, though, and his Raven’s radio antenna looks unbroken. I check the circuits of my own radio, trying to restart it so I can contact DeShawn, but before I can get it working, I see the tank begin to move. It’s backing up. The rear end of the T-90 rumbles straight toward me. Worse, the fuselage of DeShawn’s Raven lies directly in the path of the tank treads.
No! Stop!
The T-90 crushes the fuselage of DeShawn’s Raven. The treads shatter the drone’s fiberglass body and flatten the steel casing of the control unit inside. The circuits that held DeShawn’s mind are mashed to bits.
NO, NO, NO! DESHAWN!
The tank stops a few feet from me, its back end looming over my broken Raven. Then a second T-90 comes into view, moving in from the left. I feel a rush of pure hatred. Does Sigma really need two tanks to finish me off?
I’m saying my final prayers and thinking of my parents when the first T-90 turns its turret to the left and fires its main gun at the second tank. The shell explodes against the T-90’s rear end, doing minimal damage to the tank but snapping off the top of its antenna. At the same time, I notice something odd about the first T-90’s antenna: most of it is gone. There’s just a stump of metal rising from the back of the tank.
Then my radio starts working again and I hear DeShawn’s voice. It’s coming from the first tank’s stumpy antenna. “What are you waiting for?” he yells. “Get up here!”
“DeShawn? What—”
“Just transfer to the T-90’s control unit. Then we’ll talk.”
Staring at the tank, I realize what DeShawn did. When he put his Raven in a dive, he aimed for the tank’s antenna. The force of the impact snapped off the antenna’s top half, breaking Sigma’s connection to the T-90. Sigma couldn’t stay linked to the tank if the antenna was too short, so the AI had to withdraw from the T-90’s control unit. DeShawn, on the other hand, could transfer to the T-90 via the shortened antenna because his Raven landed just a few feet away. Radio signals are much stronger if they don’t have to travel far. That’s basic physics.
I turn on my data transmitter. Within six seconds, I’m inside the T-90’s control unit with DeShawn, who starts driving the tank forward. He’s moving as fast as he can toward the second T-90, which has stopped dead in its tracks.
Nice going, girl. You ready to rock and roll?
I can’t believe it. You’re amazing.
Aw shucks. You’re making me blush.
DeShawn leaves some space for me in the circuits by pulling back to the other side of the control unit. I’m not close enough to see all his thoughts, but I can sense his emotions in the messages he’s sending me. The boy has no fear. It’s remarkable.
Okay, here’s the plan. I’m gonna pull real close to the T-90 I just fired at. The explosion snapped its antenna and broke its connection to Sigma, so now I’m gonna send my data to that little antenna stump and transfer to the tank’s control unit.
And you want me to stay here in this T-90?
Right, we split up. You fire your main gun at the lab while I take care of the other tanks.
Sigma still has three T-90s nearby. You can’t fight them all.
I think I got a chance. Something’s wrong with Sigma. Its tanks aren’t moving as fast as they should be. It looks like the AI is freezing up or something.
Freezing up?
Yeah, like a computer with software problems. Even an AI can’t run perfectly all the time, I guess.
Or maybe it’s Adam. Maybe Adam is distracting Sigma somehow. But I don’t share this thought with DeShawn. I’m too worried.
In a few seconds we pull up alongside the unoccupied T-90. Without another word, DeShawn transfers to the other tank. Then he steers it toward the southwestern corner of the lab and aims his main gun at a third T-90. He fires again and blasts the antenna off that tank, too.
Meanwhile, I point my tank’s main gun at the lab’s front door. With a few well-placed shots I could take down the whole building. I could destroy every computer inside. But that would kill all the captured Pioneers as well as Sigma. I can’t risk doing that. Not even to save the world.
Instead, I turn my T-90’s turret toward a small building next to the computer lab. Hawke pointed out this structure in the satellite photo. He said it held the communication lines connecting Tatishchevo’s headquarters to the nuclear-missile silos. I load a high-explosive shell into my main gun and aim it at the building.
I hope this works.
CHAPTER 22
Zia doesn’t say a word. I don’t think she even notices me. As soon as I open the inner unit of her cage, she barrels through the gate, knocking me aside. While I withdraw to unoccupied circuits in the far corner of the outer unit, I catch a glimpse of the wave of fury that Zia’s riding. It’s a tsunami of anger, a dark, roiling, monstrous surge. And it’s all aimed at Sigma, which entered the outer unit a few microseconds ago.
Zia’s wave crashes into the circuits occupied by the AI. The impact is explosive, hurling data across the whole network. I shield myself from the electronic barrage, but a few of the signals get through, some from Zia and some from Sigma. Zia’s files are full of hatred. Sigma subjected her to the same test it put me through, forcing her to watch Jenny’s murder. But Zia’s response was stronger than mine, a hundred times stronger. The test triggered something terrible in Zia, a return of the anguish she suffered when she was a kid. That’s what makes her anger so powerful—it springs from her pain. Only a horrendously wounded person could feel such rage.