The Indonesians looked at him askance again, but now it was as if he had pulled a rabbit out of a previously unseen top hat. “How you know that, bule?” Although no one raised their guns, Caine noticed their hands had grown more tense, stayed very near the trigger guards.
“Because I worked as a military analyst. And here’s what I know about that gun you’re holding. Indonesia never adopted the AK. Your country used—er, Pindad assault rifles. And I also know that no major power has used an AK for fifty, maybe sixty years. They’re still used by some backwater warlords, but most of them are just gathering dust in reserve armories for national militias.” He smiled. “Until now. When they just happened to be here to arm a resistance movement.” Thanks to Nolan Corcoran.
“Why you smilin’ like that, bule?”
“It’s not important. Not compared to what’s going on around here. About which I know nothing.”
Teguh swept a hand at the street. “Is like a crazy house, man. It was pretty bad before. Lots of rioting ever since the president was killed and that keparat Ruap took over and brought in these clones. More when these aliens showed up. Not a lot of them at first. Mostly the Roaches. But since yesterday, we been seeing these big Sloths, and they jus’ as bad as the clones. Maybe worse. If someone shoots at them, they kill everyone around. Unless you lie down in the road. An’ who stupid enough to do that? You run ’way! But when you run, that’s when they kill you. And if you do lay down in the road, a lot of times the clones kill you. It’s crazy, man, pure crazy.”
“Did the clones and, er, Sloths, just start killing people for no reason?”
“No,” said one of the younger ones. “That started after the power went out. Everything stopped working. They warned people not to use anything electric but, you know how it is: no one paid a lot of attention. And hey, everything is electric. So all ’a sudden, there are elevators falling down in buildings, cars going out of control. No phones, no computers, no way to buy anything.” He shook his head. “And after the massacres over the past few days, well—people had enough. They went a little crazy. That’s when the clones came out, along with their new friends. And the army just stood by while those tukang ngentots shot anyone who protested, anyone who got angry.”
The older man nodded. “Yeah—and then, the word started going ’round there were free guns being given out by soldiers who deserted when the real president was killed. Most just showed up on trucks. People took them, took ammunition.” He hung his head. “Not everyone shot the clones or the aliens. At first, a few held up stores for money. But then more and more started stealing food, ’cause there’s not much left. It was bad, very bad.”
The youngest one nodded his head. “Yeh, but mostly, people started attacking the clones and the aliens and any soldiers who helped them.”
“All that in just two or three hours?” Caine asked.
“Well,” said Teguh, “more like seven or eight hours.”
Caine found it hard to believe he’d been underground that long, but looking at the darkening sky, realized his error.
“And then, about an hour ago, they started bombing neighborhoods. Anyplace there was fighting they couldn’t control, they just—” Teguh shook his head. There were tears in his eyes. “I don’t know who’s left. My family, my neighbors, my friends, I know a lot are dead. But that’s all I know.”
Caine nodded slowly, spoke softly. “I’ve seen them bombing, even before the power went off.” He looked around the group. “But why are you here?”
Teguh looked even more distraught. “Because they trapped some of my friends—rebels, real rebels for a week already—in a building. We were looking for a way to help them, maybe get around behind the Roaches and draw them off—long enough for our friends to find a way out. But—” His voice failed.
The next oldest picked up the tale. “We had to hide in here. There were aerial ROVs—small ones—going up and down the street, looking for anyone with guns. Some people shot at them from the store across the road—”
Caine nodded. “So the ROVs backed off. And about twenty seconds later, a couple of rockets slammed down into the store and blew it to pieces.”
“Yeah. Like you say. Hey, you a soldier?”
Caine hoped he didn’t blush. What was the truth? Was he a soldier? A piece of paper, probably reduced to ashes now floating in orbit around Barney Deucy, said he was. But the real truth was that he wasn’t: that had just been a bit of legitimated theater to ensure that he’d have a rank if he needed one. “No, I’m not a soldier. I’ve just had a little bit of training,” Caine explained. “A very little bit.”
“Hey, dat’s better than us,” said Teguh, looking up eagerly. “Maybe you can figure something out, hey? Help my friends?”
If the day had been any less absurd, any less surreal, Caine might have demurred. But with a city burning down around his ears, and surrounded by five eager faces that were, for the first time since he had met them, illuminated with something like a faint glow of hope, he could only say, “Let’s go take a look.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Caine leaned the fragment of mirror around the dangling remains of the window frame, resolved to get a better look.
The Arat Kur ROV was a ground-pounder. It was far too heavy to go airborne, and improperly shaped to have a live operator inside. Its narrowest point was much thinner than an Arat Kur was wide.
“Is it a robot?” asked Teguh.
“No, I think it’s an ROV with an expert-system back up.”
“What’s that mean?” asked one of the younger Indonesians whose long, mellifluous name Caine had learned, and promptly forgotten, three times now.
Caine watched the slow, cautious advance of the Arat Kur unit, its two microturrets rotating protectively through rear- and flank-covering arcs. “Reporters like to call ground-drones like this ‘AIs,’ but there’s no intelligence involved. Just very sophisticated algorithms that allow the machine to operate independently for a short period of time.”
“Huh,” nodded Teguh. “Yeh. I can believe that.”
“Why?” Caine asked.
“Well, these, eh, expert systems don’t like to go into stone or concrete buildings. They won’t chase anyone inside. Which makes sense.”
Caine smiled at Teguh. “You’re right. Stone and other dense construction materials block signals. And the machine shouldn’t stay where it has to rely upon its own very limited expert system.”
Teguh shrugged. “Sounds like a weakness, to me.”
Caine smiled. “Me, too. Let’s go. I have a plan.”
“You sure this a good idea, bule?”
Caine wanted to answer hell, no! but instead said, “I’m pretty sure it will work, as long as you’re certain these expert systems don’t shoot at unarmed humans.”
“Haven’t seen them do it yet, and they’ve had plenty of opportunities since this afternoon.”
“And you’re sure they have a capture mode?”
“Yeah. Like I told you, we’ve seen these robo-Roaches come into areas where rebels or rioters have been making trouble. They find some older kids, do a spider-sprint, and grab them. Then they carry ’em back to the Roach Motel—”