I am fifty-three meters away from the gates when the entire scrollwork fence sways and goes down, pushed over by the panic-stricken crowd trying to escape. A massive wave of people spills across the Presidential Residence’s lawn. Within two point zero-three seconds, the crowd engulfs the Residence. A substantial portion of the mob simply spills around it, intent on running as far and as fast as possible now that they have gained a space in which to run. Others, however, enter the Residence, intent on retribution. I cannot penetrate the walls deeply enough, even using ground-penetrating radar, to track their progress inside the Residency walls. I can, however, monitor the windows and do so, focusing on the massive round window of the president’s office and smaller windows to either side, that reveal the interiors of adjacent rooms and the corridors beyond.
Gifre Zeloc has barricaded himself in his office, which overlooks the war-torn gardens. I do not know the location of the vice president. A mob of battle-enraged Grangers, clearly visible through adjacent windows, storms the corridor outside the president’s office. I take immediate action. Snapping to full Battle Reflex Alert, I target through the Residency’s outer stone shell, allowing for proper lead-time on a moving target, and fire 30cm cannons. The rounds punch through the walls and windows with satisfactory ease. I rake the mob inside the Residence with short bursts, taking down those in the leading edge first. This serves to create a barricade that others must either jump across or retreat from — or join, should they continue to exhibit hostile action.
The Grangers near the back of the mob inside the Residence hit the floor. Most of them drop their weapons as I send more live rounds through their ranks. They attempt to crawl back the way they came, leaving their weapons behind. I allow this, as their retreat does not endanger the president. I judge him to be safe from further assault—
Gifre Zeloc picks up a heavy chair and throws it through the window behind his desk. Glass shatters and falls to the garden below, where the mob from Darconi Street is still pouring across the downed fence and surging into the lawn ahead of my treads. Evidently panicked by the gunfire seven meters south of his office, he commits the most breathtakingly stupid act I have ever witnessed. Gifre Zeloc actually jumps out the window. He lands in the midst of a tight-packed mob of Grangers. I cannot fire without hitting him.
Seven point two seconds later, there is no longer a reason to fire. Gifre Zeloc has been reduced to a pulpy red mass under the clubs and feet of people pushed past break-point. A fire begins to blaze inside the Residence. The streets are too choked with debris and fleeing rioters for fire and rescue squads to reach the Residence, which begins to burn fiercely. I halt in stunned disbelief, with my treads zero point eight meters from the downed gates of the Presidential Residence.
He jumped.
He actually jumped into the middle of a blood-crazed mob of people with excellent reason to hate him. I see no further point in shooting into the crowd, which is a hopelessly tangled mixture of Grangers and urban counterprotestors, all of them intent on one goaclass="underline" escape. Without a lawfully elected president to issue directives, I am left to make my own decisions, rendering me temporarily immobilized. I have, for the moment, full access to my Battle Reflex Alert logic processors, but even fully awake, I do not know what to do.
If this were a battle against Deng Yavacs or even the Quern, my duty would be clear. I would fight the enemy with every weapon I carry until the enemy was destroyed or I was. But I do not know what action to take in the aftermath of a riot that has claimed the life of the only civilian authorized to issue instructions to me. Perhaps, if I were human, my task would be clearer? I might mobilize the remnants of Jefferson’s military forces. I might seek to impose a martial-law curfew after clearing the streets. I might order the Senate and House of Law cleared and the Assembly members escorted to a safe shelter.
I am a Bolo. I do not have the authority to do any of these things. I cannot even instruct the city’s psychotronic system to turn off the power grid. A scan of the city behind my stern shows rising columns of smoke where fires have broken out in the wake of my passage. This is a dreadful situation. I have no idea what to do. I consider contacting the Brigade for help, but am unsure Sector Command would be able to offer any useful — let alone timely — advice on how to resolve a volatile situation on a world that is no longer of concern to most of the Brigade’s command structure.
I am on my own.
And I do not like the choices facing me.
It finally occurs to me to review Jefferson’s constitution to discover the chain of command regarding who is in line for the presidency. I must at least discover who is constitutionally authorized to make decisions in the event of a president’s untimely departure from office. I do not know the whereabouts of Vice President Culver. She normally maintains an office in the Residence, but I do not know if she was in that office, which is now fiercely ablaze despite internal fire-suppression systems, which seem to have malfunctioned.
I put through a call to the vice presidential residence, attempting to ascertain her location, but no one responds to my signal. I theorize that they are too busy watching the fire consuming the Presidential Residence to answer something as relatively trivial as a transmission from a fthirteen-thousand-ton Bolo parked across the street. The next official in line for command is the Speaker of the House of Law, the most senior position in the Assembly, with the President of the Senate coming next in the list. I check security-camera feed from the Joint Chamber, where the Assembly watches a five-meter-tall datascreen in stunned silence. The images on that datascreen show the burning Residence and my own warhull, parked atop an unknown number of dead rioters.
I tap the datafeed and address the Assembly, much of which jumps in shock at the sound of my voice issuing from the speakers. “President Zeloc has been killed. I do not know the whereabouts of Vice President Culver. There are fires burning at the Presidential Residence and in the city, where downed power cables have sparked electrical fires consuming damaged buildings. It would be advisable for the Speaker of the House of Law to assume temporary command until the whereabouts of the vice president can be established. Madame Speaker, I require instructions.”
The shaken woman who has held the post of speaker for eleven years — a span of time she has enjoyed thanks to the revocation of term limits, enacted by POPPA jurists appointed to the High Court — stares at the datascreen for twelve point three seconds, speechless and pale to the roots of her carefully colored hair. She finally regains the use of her wits and her voice.
“What am I supposed to do? Who is this? Who’s talking?”
“I am Unit SOL-0045 of the Jeffersonian Defense Forces. I require instructions.”
“About what?”
“I am a machine of war. This situation is not the type of combat I was designed to conduct. I do not know what to do. I require instructions.”
Avelaine La Roux apparently has no idea what to do, either. She stares at the gavel in her hand, stares at the stunned faces of her colleagues, swallows convulsively several times. She finally finds something to say.
“We have to find Madeline. That’s the important thing, we have to find Madeline. She’s the president, now. You’re sure Gifre is dead?”