“T-147? There’s a hundred and forty seven Terri’s?”
“There have been more. Many more.”
“And you’re a replicant? One of Max’s? I thought they were all destroyed.”
“They were. We’re a new batch. But we are not X.25s, ok? We are Max’s design I guess, as much as I hate to admit it.”
“Ah…”
“Yes. It's best not to ask any more. I find it upsetting. You know it really grinds my gears even talking about this.”
“You’re not the usual type of replicant that’s for sure. But er...”
“Oh Murdoch! I’m going to have go through the whole spiel,” the Terri-like robot said, staring at the heavens again. “The first thing you need to know is about Terri…”
“Where is she?”
“She’s flying around in a Quadcopter coordinating the attack on the castle.”
“Castle?”
“Castle Gruyère. It’s close. We’re part of the attack force.”
“We are? But I’m as weak as a kitten,” I sighed.
“Yeah. Well, so is Terri. She’s been badly injured. One of her legs was badly mangled. Fortunately she has a good supply of pain killers. Unlike you, though, she hasn’t been asleep on the job for the past three months.”
“Yeah, asleep. Nice.” (Not). “How did she injure herself?”
“That’s a long story. The short one is that we have to plant a virus in a certain hyper-intelligent cheese. And to do that we need to get you fit in double-quick time. Turn around.”
“Turn around?”
“This is going to get very tedious very quickly if you repeat everything I say.”
I turned. I felt a jab in my buttocks.
“You’re so dumb,” she said.
I turned back, rubbing my behind, looking confused.
“How did you know I wasn’t one of Gruyère’s lackies?” she sneered.
“Um because you look like Terri?”
“Gruyère has absorbed at least one Max, maybe more. It sucks out memories. It would know all about you and Terri. Well, enough anyway. He could easily have built a Terri replica and sent it after you,” said T-7 as she returned her hypodermic device to a bag on her belt.
“So you’re a Terminator and you’ve just poisoned me?”
“Relax. That jab is a pick-me-up. You should be back to full strength in just a few hours. The next thing you need to know, it’s fracking dangerous out here!”
“Max-1 and 3 were to go in first. Did they succeed?”
“They did the surveillance. Now missing in action.”
“What about Conrad and Karmen?”
“They were the second wave. Didn’t come back. No bodies have been found. But then, bodies never are. Like most of the people that lived around here, Gruyère absorbs the lot.”
I didn’t want to ask about the third wave. “What? Why?” I stuttered instead.
“Energy? Information? We’re dealing with a new powerful life form, as clever as the collective minds of Europe but with morals of an amoeba. It’s hard to say why exactly.”
“But Terri’s alive and in charge?”
“You’ve got it. Now one of the things that Max never really explained to anyone, least of all Terri herself, is that she was given one hell of a superpower. This was fully described in the video, by the way but I guess… ” T-7 sighed, realising that she had to continue the explanation.
“Superpower? Beyond invincibility, electric bolts and a great costume, what else could Cloudera have?”
“Hah. I love it when you say her name like that,” T-7 laughed.
“Cloudera?”
“The secret is in the name.”
“Clouds. The power of clouds? What does that do; make things go foggy; produce frightening rain drops? Some biting hail storms?” I scoffed.
“No, the power of The Cloud. The IT Cloud. The Holonet, all virtual worlds, every holoscreen, every computer on the planet!”
“Whoa! How does that work?”
Her G-Phone bleeped. T-7 hardly paused to acknowledge the alert. “Ok, I’ll make it quick. Terri can patch into any and every Quantum Computer and take them over.”
“So she can, what, take over every one’s screen? Worldwide broadcast and stuff?”
“Well, I guess… that’s a bit prosaic. Think more like, every drone, robot and replicant in the world is under her control. Every factory, vehicle, ship, plane or rocket, in fact, any machine anywhere that is network connected, is under her control. If she wants it.”
“That’s…. that’s powerful.” I stuttered.
“She’s basically a modern day goddess. I bet you’re glad you’ve been good to her.” T-7 was unzipping bags and collecting equipment. The equipment looked like weapons.
“I’m finding this all very hard, looking at you, and taking this in.”
“Yeah. I know. Sorry I can’t candy-coat it. The situation stinks. Lust, power and mad scientists, it’s not a great combination for world peace. Who needs corporations when you have the power to control the planet all by yourself. Let’s get going. We’re working to a tight deadline.” She threw a rifle-like object at me. I caught it. It was a test of my reactions, to see whether I had recovered enough for the next stage. Apparently I passed.
We moved out. T-7 leading with me stumbling behind.
***
Terri controlling the planet? This reminded me of one of my of the history lessons. After the third Robot war, we discovered that the five Presidents up to and including President Robama were in fact just an AI entity with a hologram. The Asian Schoolgirl, President Hatsune Miku, was always one of my favorites… However when she accidentally burst into song during a treaty signing, the scam was finally exposed. It transpired there was never any change of policies from red to blue or vice versa for decades since it was the same AI entity, just with different avatars; mere presentational differences. There was Es-aitch-one-tee hitting the proverbial fan after that. At each inauguration, there were blood tests and birth certificates validated by hundreds of randomly selected professionals, all chanting from the Good Book “it’s innovation that distinguishes a leader from a hologram.”
***
Chapter 6 Fribourg
Friday, May 22, 2123, afternoon.
I was disappointed we weren’t traveling by jet pack. We had ruck sacks and heavy equipment. T-7 lugged three times the amount that I carried without complaint. I, however, was complaining. I guess that was only natural, what with her being a robot and me recovering from a long period of non-existence.
We hiked along rows of burnt-out trees that hugged each small field on the hillside, and while we tried to keep at a steady height across the alpine slope, we frequently had to dip down or stagger uphill in order to maintain cover.
We came to the ruins of a farm house. T-7 squatted behind a battered stone wall and started rummaging in one of her bags.
“What are we doing?”
“Third video: How to avoid Gruyère’s drones. There’s normally something evil flying overhead around here. We have to build decoys and deflectors.”
“Decoys?”
At that point, T-7 pressed a button and life-sized, mannequin-style doll inflated.
“Put some clothes on it,” she said while she got busy with something else.
From my rucksack, I took out a fabricated Harmonics-style jacket with hand-stitched tassels; very-2010, something Terri would have liked to have worn years previously. T-7 looked around and I held it out for her to inspect. She glued a wig on its head and with a marker pen, put two dots for eyes and a big smile.
“The face is picked up by the drone facial recognition scanner,” T-7 explained.
“You’ve done this before?” I asked.
She ignored me. She tied the doll to a post then turned her attention to two dinner-plate-sized quadcopter drones she had arranged on the ground.
“Deflectors… There are mirrors on these mini-drones that will blind enemy sensors.
Just leave them here in the open and they will activate by themselves in a few minutes time.”
“To give us time to get away?”
“You’re catching on fast. Keep honing those survival skills, Superboy, we’ll need them. Ok, we need to back track to those trees and go down into Fribourg. Don’t forget your helmet. Last one down is a rotten egg.”
***
Friday, May 23, 2123, late afternoon.
Inside the remains of a cottage on the outskirts of the alpine town, T-7 looked forwards and backwards, waiting for an event. We could not move forward because of a force field revealed by a shimmering outline like an electric soap-bubble. It covered the entire town of Fribourg. Terrifyingly, the energy required to create such a field, T-7 informed me, would require the maximum output of every electricity power generation device in Germany. While worrying, it did at least mean we were in the right area.
Then T-7 saw a disturbance in the sky. Gruyère had taken the bait and had started inter-drone warfare. Our drones provided a sensor shield of our approach to the town, were now being attacked by Gruyère’s flying machines, metre-sized cubes with insect-like wings buzzing from every vertical edge. The cubes flew in a grid pattern around our drones and started to emit projectiles which our drones artfully dodged. But it would only be a matter of time before the cubic grid would be tight enough to stop our distraction system.
T-7 touched a control on her G-phone sending a command back to HQ, presumably to where Terri was coordinating the attack. Within seconds, I could see the force field over the town flicker and then disappear.
“We only have a few seconds!” T-7 pulled me out from our cover and we ran towards the main street.
We ran into an empty but largely undamaged, alpine side street and straight into the side door of a shop. It was bridal wear shop with a few naked mannequins wearing sagging bridal gowns.
The shimmer of the force field resumed over the village.
“Terri cut the power in the force field by switching it over to a graphine capacitor. A momentary disruption in the defences that Gruyère can’t locate. We cut the force field, save the power and then re-use that energy as a weapon later... to grill the cheese. Well that’s the plan. A pretty good plan really,” panted T-7. I found it strange that a replicant was panting but I was panting harder and it did not occur to me to make a comment to my feisty robotic companion. I took off my pesky PK helmet, sweat was running down my forehead.
“If we’ve done this right, no-one will have noticed us entering. Terry has launched an electronic warfare attack on Gruyère’s drones, only their sound and pressure senses work reliably. They’re deadly but effectively blind.”
I saw movement outside the window. “I don’t want to worry you but I think they have noticed us.”
“They’ve noticed something. They don’t know we’re here. Otherwise this place would have already have been blasted. However we are pretty much stuck now. Frack! I bet Terri that we would have got further than this.”
“You bet Terri about this?”
“I’m cheating. We’ve done this before.”
“You’ve done this before.”
“We both have. This is our party trick. Get into the town, go over the roofs and into the castle,” said T-7, pointing to the roof-line leading to the castle gatehouse further up the street.
“Is there lots of Aarons and Terris tackling this Castle at the moment?”
“No, we’re the only team. At the moment.”
“Why is that? Wouldn’t it be good if there was lots of us?”
T-7 gave a look that could shrink a grown man to tears. “No.”
I opened my mouth but initially no words came out. “So I only turn up sequentially?”
“Your rarity is what makes you valuable.”
“I don’t get this at all. If I’m any good Terri would have replicated me all over the place.”
“Have you ever been fishing?” she said.
“No.”
“But you understand the concept: worms and hooks?”
“Right.”
“You only use one worm at a time to catch your fish. Even if you use lots of worms.”
“And I’m the worm?”
“Think of it as you being our secret weapon worm. We’ve noted that Gruyère has an interest in you. It has some sort of interest in you,” she said.
“Like what?”
T-7 shrugged. “I’ve no idea why this lump of cheese has an interest in you. The reverse I could understand. Perhaps, it’s your socks. Anyway, this isn’t a good subject.”
“It isn’t? Oh. So what do we do?”
She pointed down the street. “We haven’t made it past the gatehouse. Video Four. It’s all in there. Great material,” said T-7.
“I’ll make sure to look it up in my next life,” I sighed, noticing the cubic drones arranging themselves in a grid pattern along the street.
T-7 sank to the floor, and I did the same.
“You do that,” she said. “I have the benefit of sending back my experiences so that the next Terri-bot is a bit smarter.”
“You can can win all the bets that way while I remain the same worm-like loser?”
“I’m afraid so. It has to be said that it is kind of annoying watching you kill yourself in pointless and stupid ways, no matter how heroic you think you are being.”
“Really? Annoying? Can’t I do anything right?”
“If you could try to not kill yourself stupidly then that would be really great. Hence the conditioning videos. I should have just cancelled the attack as soon as I realised I was working with a dumb arse.”
“Dumb arse?”
“An unconditioned worm. A dumb-arse. No offence.”
“Er… right. None taken. I guess I am dumb. So why? Why didn’t you cancel the mission?”
“I... er…”, T-7 stuttered and fell silent. How could a robot feel shame? It did not make sense to me.
“You know, as robots go, you seem pretty human. Perhaps you have been programmed with human feelings and qualities. Hope, maybe?”
“Hmm. That’s wishful thinking on your part. I’d say the only feeling I have is desperation.”
“Still a human quality.”
“Really, Aaron. Are you going robo-sexual on me? I don’t think Terri would like that too much.”
“I’m surrounded by evil droids, locked into a building with a perfect double of my one true love, with no expectation of survival. I think, this is the perfect time to start considering robosexuality,” I said leaning towards her and was she leaning towards me?
But she flinched back and held out her hand as we drew close. “Rule number one,” she said with a pained voice.
I stopped leaning but after a momentary pause, moved my hand towards her hand. Moving closer and closer until we almost touched. T-7 looked wide eyed at me, her cheeks rosy, as if she was scared that I would touch her. I could feel the heat radiating from her hand.
“Your hand?” I said.
T-7 looked away but kept her hand out stretched.
“I can feel heat from your hand,” I said.
“Rule number one,” T-7 repeated more firmly but still uncertain.
“You can’t be a robot…”
T-7 sighed. “I am. I’m just not your ordinary X.25. None of the Terri-bots are. I’ve already told you that. Please.”
“How much do you know? What do you remember of us?”
“Of us? There is no us. My memories are of Terri. Of her as a teenager. You don’t figure in the nostalgia map.”
“Nostalgia map?”
“I don’t have time to explain. I don’t have knowledge of Terri’s, uh, relationship with you. Please. Rule number one.”
I reluctantly took my hand away from hers.
I remembered an old song and sang, “If I lay here. If I just lay here. Would you lie with me and just forget the world?”
T-7 twisted her head away. “Stop it!” she said sharply.
We sat i
n silence for a minute. T-7 looking away from me. Then she sniffed. Had the robot been crying? That made no sense.
She said, “We have to figure a way out of here and stop this fruitless conversation. When the sun goes down, our heat signatures will stand out like a beacon. We have to hide otherwise the Big G will suck us up.”
“Suck us up? Like absorb us?” I said dejectedly.
T-7 recognised my depression and tried to be more motivational. “Video five: we can’t be taken alive. Otherwise Gruyère will absorb all of our information, sucking our plans from our brains, meaning Terri will have to start planning from scratch.”
“I see. You get so far, fail, and then start again. Repeating what works trying out something new.”
T-7 huffed, “This may seem like Groundhog Day, you know, the repeating attacks but this is the only way to progress. To go under the radar and close-in on the target.”
“Groundhog Day for you. This is my first time, as far as I’m concerned. I remember Valentine’s Day, the trip into France and kissing you. I don’t remember getting into the entangle-scanner.”
“You lose your short term memory going through the scanner.”
“I just remember kissing you and waking up this morning in this nightmare,” I said wistfully.
“Hmm. Really. I haven’t heard that before. Not,” she said. Tough words but not said in a tough way.
I blustered, “Well, I may be romanticising a bit. We also battled with giant robots and I broke my arm... twice. But I... was... feeling pretty good about myself.”
“And not so much now?”
“No.”
I wondered how Max had programmed such sensitivity, such complexity, into a robot. T-7 was not acting like anything else I’d ever encountered in a robot, replicant or AI. T-7 was behaving like a real person, behaving exactly like Terri.
“Perhaps we need to restore your confidence a bit?” said T-7. “We could retreat out of here. We don’t have to kill ourselves needlessly.”
“Right. We can hole up somewhere I can get back to full strength. Better than that; I’ll work out.”
“That sounds nice. A nice alpine lodge away from the war. We could sip tea on the veranda overlooking the valley. Hmm, I am dying for a cup of tea...” huffed T-7. Her sigh was indistinguishable from one of Terri’s.
“I could even go for a star-hit coffee,” I sighed back. But I was actually thinking; OMJ, how could I have amorous feelings towards a robot?
“Surely we are not that desperate. Yet. Which reminds me. You better take this.” T-7 reached into a pouch and handed me a pill.