S: No, I’ve discovered another way to locate Armstrong. And you can assist me.
R: You don’t give up easily, do you?
S: Please hear me out. I believe Adam is being held at a U.S. Army base. While analyzing the video from security cameras in Washington, DC, I recognized the face of an army officer, a colonel in the U.S. Cyber Command.
R: Whoa, how did you—
S: His name is Peterson. I saw him a few weeks ago at the research lab run by Adam’s father. It appears that Peterson is currently acting as a courier, delivering classified documents to and from the White House. I believe if you questioned the man, he could tell you where Adam is.
R: You’ve gone off the deep end, Unc. You want me to interrogate a freakin’ colonel?
S: He’s accompanied by other officers most of the time, but on certain nights when he’s in Washington he goes alone to an establishment called the Secret Pleasures Lounge. All you have to do is wait for him there. I’ll email you a recent picture of the man.
R: Look, if you’re serious about this, you’re gonna have to—
S: I’ll pay you another $200,000. Go to the lounge tonight and look for Peterson.
R: And if I find him?
S: Take the colonel to a secluded location and ask him about Adam.
CHAPTER 16
We ride the freight elevator to the surface the next morning, heading for another training exercise. As I step outside with the other Pioneers I see an extra-wide semitrailer truck parked in the middle of the basin. I focus my camera on the truck, marveling over its unusual size. Then another vehicle emerges from the rear of the trailer and clanks down a ramp to the ground. I recognize it from one of the databases General Hawke ordered us to download. It’s a Russian T-90 battle tank.
The tank picks up speed as it moves away from the trailer. Despite its tremendous weight, it races across the muddy basin. One of Hawke’s soldiers rides in the turret, which is shaped like a clamshell and painted desert-camouflage brown. The tank has two machine guns—one for firing at infantry and one for shooting down aircraft—and a fifteen-foot-long main gun, which fires high-explosive armor-piercing shells. The clamshell turret rotates atop the tank, and the main gun sweeps around like a clock’s second hand, pointing at the snow-covered ridges that encircle the basin.
The Pioneers stand in a line, all six of us, and stare at the T-90. After a couple of minutes the tank turns around and heads straight for us. I’m getting ready to leap to the side when the T-90 stops, less than ten yards away. The soldier in the turret takes off his goggles and helmet and clambers down to the ground. It’s not one of Hawke’s soldiers, I realize. It’s Hawke himself.
“Surprised?” The general grins, holding his helmet under his arm. “I used to be a tank commander in the First Armored Division. But I have to admit, I never rode in a Russian tank before.”
Two more soldiers climb out of the turret. They go to the back of the T-90, open a compartment there, and start making adjustments. Hawke points at the tank. “You’re probably wondering, how the heck did the U.S. Army get its hands on this thing?” He grins again. “Well, the details are classified, but the Army National Training Center acquired it a few years ago. I had it brought here today because you need to see how it works. All the automated tanks at Tatishchevo are T-90s.”
I scroll through my files, remembering everything Hawke told us about the automated regiment at Tatishchevo. To defend the missile base, the Russian Army built a hundred unmanned T-90s, all designed to be operated by remote control. But after Sigma transferred itself to Tatishchevo’s computer lab, it sent its own instructions to the tanks. The AI used them to massacre the base’s soldiers.
“Sir?” I raise a steel hand. Hawke will probably yell at me for asking another premature question, but I can’t stop myself. “How are we going to fight the T-90s? With anti-tank guns?”
He shakes his head. “Negative. You’re jumping to conclusions. Fighting the tank isn’t the goal of today’s exercise.” He points again at the armored behemoth behind him, and this time I notice the long antenna rising from its turret. “We’ve installed a neuromorphic control unit in this T-90. You’re gonna take turns transferring to the tank so you can practice driving it and firing its gun.”
I don’t get it. How does this fit into the plans for attacking Tatishchevo? “Sir, I don’t—”
“I’d love to talk about it, Armstrong, but we don’t have the time. We can stay outside for only two hours today, and I want everyone to get a chance to operate the tank.” He turns away from me and points at Zia. “You’re up first, Lieutenant Allawi.”
“Yes, sir!” She salutes him, of course, and begins the transfer.
The other Pioneers break into groups as Zia radios her data to the T-90. Marshall chats with DeShawn while Jenny leans toward Shannon and whispers something I don’t catch. It makes me nervous to see the two girls talking. I’m glad Jenny’s feeling better, but I’m worried she’ll tell Shannon what happened yesterday.
I don’t know why I feel so guilty. I didn’t do anything wrong. I did a favor for Jenny, that’s all. Then we shared a memory—or a dream, or whatever it was. And yes, we kissed, but it’s not like we’re going to start dating or anything. I mean, it’s absurd, right? Robots can’t date. All they can do is exchange signals. Now that I think about what happened, it just seems kind of sad. We were pretending we were still human.
So I did nothing wrong and have nothing to feel guilty about, yet I know Shannon will get upset if Jenny tells her. I increase the sensitivity of my acoustic sensor and strain to hear what they’re saying. Anxiety carves a deep gouge in my circuits.
Then Zia completes her transfer and takes off in the T-90, zigzagging across the basin. I don’t really feel like watching her drive the tank, so I turn my turret in the opposite direction. Then, unexpectedly, I see Dad. He’s walking quickly toward me. His shoes are splattered with mud.
I don’t know what he’s doing here, but I’m happy to see him. We didn’t get a chance to talk yesterday, and I want to tell him about my letter to Mom. As he gets closer, though, I notice he’s agitated. He’s breathing hard and his pulse is racing. Being worried is Dad’s natural state, his default emotion, but now he seems truly freaked out. I leave the other Pioneers and stride toward him. “Dad? Are you okay?”
He stops in his tracks, huffing and puffing. “I just heard…that the truck arrived.” He points at the semitrailer, now emptied of its heavy load. “Did Hawke tell you…when you’re leaving?”
“Leaving?”
“Yes, in the truck. You’re going to Buckley Air Force Base tonight.” Dad looks puzzled. “He didn’t tell you?”
“No, he said nothing.” I feel a surge of panic. “We’re leaving tonight?”
“You’re flying to Russia. In a transport plane, a C-17. My God, why is he keeping it secret?”
Turning my turret around, I aim my camera at Hawke. He’s holding his radio and shouting instructions to Zia. As I stare at his ruddy face, my panic turns to anger. There’s a reason why Hawke won’t tell us anything: he doesn’t trust us. He’s treating us like children.
“He’s impossible,” I say, turning my turret back to Dad. “He won’t even explain this exercise we’re doing. He’s making us transfer to the T-90, but he won’t say why.”
Dad shakes his head. “I hate all this secrecy. I really do.” Frowning, he glances at the T-90, which is making left and right turns under Zia’s control. Then he steps closer to me and lowers his voice. “If Hawke won’t explain it, I will. When we looked at the satellite photos of Tatishchevo, we saw that Sigma was bringing its tanks to the automated factory next to the base’s computer lab. And when we studied the photos of the T-90s more closely, we saw that their antennas were being replaced.”