The fence that surrounds the goat pasture is coming up. It’s made of wooden posts with four-foot-high field wire strung between them. She gets one hand on a post, climbs the wire in two steps, and drops on the other side—just as a blue-gray biomimetic hawk shoots across the pasture propelled by silent bird wings.
The hawk is on a path aimed to intercept the tiny surveillance device. The two mechs collide—they seem to collide—then the hawk wheels and streaks off toward distant trees while the leaf mech is simply gone.
“Shit,” True whispers, staring after the hawk. “What the fuck? That was fucking amazing.”
The interaction was too fast for her to follow. She’ll be able to analyze the video later, but she is sure the hawk collected the leaf mech out of the air and carried it away, extending its range, possibly by miles—which means the operator could be anywhere… even on the other side of the world?
No.
She rejects this thought as soon as it comes. She does not want to believe Shaw is behind the hawk or that his network is so sophisticated and widespread that he was able to detect their destination and deploy surveillance ahead of their arrival.
Rey has caught up with her. He is leaning over the fence, eyes wide as he searches the trees like he’s hoping the hawk will reappear. “What was that?” he asks.
She arches an eyebrow. “Not yours, huh?”
“Are you kidding?” He turns to look at her, and even though her eyes are hard to see past her MARC’s tinted half-visor, he can read her expression well enough that he looks chagrined. “Yeah, you are kidding,” he concludes. “But hey, I didn’t know bots could do that. That thing moved like a real bird.”
True nods agreement, except she has seen similar raptors before—videos of them, anyway. Both Lincoln and Miles recorded biomimetic hawks turning in gyres outside their apartments—but those videos did not show the model’s full capabilities. The quality of its engineering calls to mind the deer mimetic.
Rey says, “You can see why Mr. Ocampo is touchy. Always someone trying to know his business.”
True would like to believe Rey is right, that the leaf mech was here as part of a regular surveillance operation targeting Daniel Ocampo—but she doesn’t believe it.
She looks out across the pasture. She still needs to recover whatever is left of the blue gull. So she gets her shirt back on and with Rey helping, she starts to look—though she feels vulnerable out in the open among the white goats. The MARC detects no threats but she can’t see far and she feels like a target. The animals are friendly and curious, nibbling at her clothes, but beyond the trees is an unknown enemy.
Brooke’s words come back to her: The Chinese wanted that village erased along with everyone in it.
Why? Just because they wanted to keep the secret of a killer robot?
True can’t believe it. Even given a desire to save face, it doesn’t make sense. Friendly fire incidents happen. They’re an unfortunate fact of war. An inquiry might have led to punishment for those individuals held responsible, but no one would have considered such an incident a breach of the alliance or an act of war. The reaction—providing misinformation on the location of the surviving soldiers, allowing Diego’s death, and ultimately destroying Nungsan—it’s all out of proportion to what happened… at least as Daniel recounted it.
There is more going on.
The presence of the biomimetic hawk suggests that someone besides herself is still very concerned about the incident at Nungsan. As she wanders the pasture, True feels the intensity of that concern like crosshairs on the back of her neck.
Rey startles her with a shout from the pasture’s back corner. “Here it is! Some of the wrecked parts anyway. I think maybe the goats have taken the rest.”
True goes to see what he has found.
Ramping Up
Quickly, quietly, in a huddle beside the black SUV, Lincoln and Miles listen as True describes what she saw. “I don’t think it’s Shaw who fielded that hawk,” she concludes as she packs her MARC away. “It’s like we were told. The Chinese have a concern.”
Her face is flushed, there’s a sheen of sweat on her cheeks, and her eyes are bright—almost fever bright. Lincoln watches that intense gaze shift to Miles. “Some branch of their intelligence network is probably monitoring chatter on Nungsan.”
Miles leans in, speaks sharp words at low volume. “I drew their attention. I get that. But I can’t do my work anonymously—”
“It’s not the time to debate it,” Lincoln interrupts, eyeing the porch where Rey and Alex still talk quietly with Daniel.
Their host’s burst of temper over the blue gull was mostly soothed when Lincoln explained his concern about outsiders following them here and eavesdropping. Daniel’s answer was bitter: “You’ve heard of my troubles, then. The government is always watching me. They won’t leave me alone.”
It wasn’t the government watching today. Lincoln is sure of that.
He crooks a mechanical finger at Alex. Now that True has reported on what she saw, it’s time to go.
Alex acknowledges the signal with a nod. A few more words, handshakes exchanged on the porch, and then Alex and Rey cross the lawn.
Lincoln murmurs, “No mention of a Chinese connection in front of Rey, understood?”
Miles nods. True whispers, “You got it.” She adds, “I can’t wait to get out of here.”
Lincoln is in full agreement. “We need to move,” he tells Rey, speaking louder now. “It’s late. I want to get to the hotel so we can eat and get some sleep before tomorrow’s flight.”
It’s late afternoon. The sun has broken out past rainclouds to shine on the towering, glistening green vegetation hemming in the narrow road. Occasionally visible beyond that living barricade are rice fields and coconut plantations. Miles stares out the window, watching the countryside roll past—but his thoughts are turned inward.
He is uneasy, uncertain, and unhappy. Coming here, he decides, was a mistake. They intruded on the peace and privacy of a man who has already suffered too much in life, and for what? They knew already that Shaw Walker is alive. All they’ve really learned is that Rogue Lightning may have fallen to “killer robots” and for that fragment of knowledge, they may have exposed Daniel Ocampo to an uncompromising enemy.
True put it delicately: The Chinese have a concern.
That scares the fuck out of Miles. The village of Nungsan was incinerated to eliminate witnesses and, eight years on, someone is still on guard, monitoring interest in the Nungsan incident.
Miles woke up a monster when he went digging for long-buried rumors—and he’s deeply worried there could be blowback against Daniel, even though the man knows nothing dangerous, nothing that could compromise anyone. All he really remembers is a fever-hazed image of Shaw Walker, and maybe Walker never really said those words, killer robots. Daniel might have misheard or misremembered or dreamed it as he lay dying in the mud.
Daniel is no threat to anyone.
For fuck’s sake, Miles prays, let the enemy understand that.
A new idea occurs to him. Maybe it’s not Daniel they’ve endangered by coming here. Maybe what they’ve done is to shine a light on Shaw Walker. If so? If this enemy decides to finish what should have been finished eight years ago?