“Because the boss wants you here,” a voice said.
Han’s men turned but they were too late. One took a tree branch to the face, the other a gut punch and then a knockout blow to the back of the head when he doubled over.
By the time they woke up, they were bound and gagged, tied to a tree, and had been relieved of their weapons, ponchos and night vision gear.
* * *
• • •
DRESSED IN the rain gear they’d taken from Han’s men, Kurt and Joe looked more like they belonged. They crossed the hill, found another stairway and made it down to level ground. Using the infrared goggles, Kurt spotted the residual heat from the helicopter once more. It was rapidly fading from the rain.
He turned his attention to the walls beyond the landing area. Several openings had been cut in the mountain and were now barricaded. Through the human eye they all looked the same, but through the heat sensitive goggles one of them shimmered a magenta color.
“Across the field,” Kurt said. “The shaft on the far left. That’s the one.”
“No sign of any guards,” Joe said.
“Let’s not wait for any to show up.”
Kurt flipped the goggles up once more and sprinted across the open ground. Arriving beside the tunnel, he pressed himself against the wall. Joe took a position right behind him. A quick look confirmed what Kurt needed to know. “Tunnel is empty but venting heat.”
Joe glanced up at the rain falling steadily from the heavens. “Warm and dry,” he said. “Looks good to me.”
Kurt nodded. Without another word, both of them slipped quietly into the tunnel.
* * *
• • •
THE GROUND was turning to mud as Ushi-Oni continued his exploration of the island. He’d never been in such a haven of decay and he found himself marveling at the beauty of it. The crumbling buildings, piles of rubble and stark emptiness spoke to him.
This is what the world would be like after men were gone, he mused. It wouldn’t take long for nature to erase the insignificant stain mankind had worked on the planet. Not long at all.
The wind picked up as he neared the seawall and he decided he’d had enough. He turned around, began the journey back toward the laboratory and stopped.
A faint glow was emanating from the debris ahead of him. He held still for a moment and then moved closer. The light vanished and then reappeared.
Using the samurai sword, Oni slashed at a bush that got in his way. The branches fell, cut clean through. The light was more visible now. Oni was looking at a tiny screen with a low-powered LED attached.
He bent low and pulled it from the rubble. Recognition came instantly. He had in his hands a damaged pair of night vision goggles. The front plate was missing and the screen was cracked, but the goggles were still operating, and they were obviously the type military and police forces used to make assaults under cover of darkness.
Oni looked around, expecting to be shot or attacked at any second, but nothing of the sort happened. Still, the high-tech device didn’t just fall from the sky like a . . .
The words died in his mind. He looked up at the vacant monolith beside him. The rain shrouded it in a jacket of mist and white noise. The damage to the goggles was consistent with a high-speed impact or a long drop. One side was dented and scraped, the other unblemished; parts were broken off. And though he’d only made a cursory search, the missing parts were nowhere that Oni could see.
Perhaps they did fall from the sky after all.
He switched the damaged goggles off, clipped them to his belt and went looking for a way into the building.
45
KURT AND JOE moved quietly through the tunnel as it bent back and downward into the mountain. A small berm had been built toward the front to keep water out, but the rainwater pooled quickly and soon found its way around the rudimentary defense, traveling in a narrow channel at the center of the tunnel before vanishing over the edge of a vertical shaft that dropped into the depths. An elevator on the near side looked abandoned.
“This thing looks like it hasn’t been used in years,” Joe said.
Kurt took a brief look down the vertical shaft with the infrared scope. “No heat coming up the shaft either. They’re not down there. Must be farther back.”
They moved on and soon found the first signs of recent occupation. The old electrical cables had been replaced and the new wire along the wall was connected to a string of LEDs that glowed dimly.
When they came to a split in the tunnel, Kurt studied the ground using the IR goggles. The residual heat of footprints could be seen. Most of them went left. Kurt followed.
Joe put a hand on his arm. “Are you sure?”
“Yellow Brick Road,” he whispered. “We’re in a high-traffic area.”
His faith was rewarded when they came to pair of plastic-coated, triple-sealed doors. The handle glowed from the heat of the last person to touch it.
Kurt flipped up his goggles. “Han has been doing some remodeling.”
Joe nodded. “Something tells me these aren’t the hospitality suites.”
Kurt tested the door handle. “Unlocked,” he whispered. “Let’s make an entrance.”
Switching off the safeties on the weapons they’d taken from Han’s guards on the hill, they prepared to move into the room.
With slow precision, Kurt pulled the handle down until it clicked and the latch disengaged. He eased the door open and felt a slight wave of air passing over him, as the room inside was kept at positive pressure.
He pushed the door far enough for Joe to aim his weapon inside. But there was no one there to challenge them. “Empty,” Joe said. “Let’s take a look.”
Joe moved in first and Kurt followed, shutting the door as carefully as he’d opened it. The room was unoccupied, but it was filled with equipment. Complex machinery had been bolted to the floor here and there. Shelves were stocked with prefabricated parts: gyros, servos, robotic arms and legs.
“Your friend Han should talk to someone about this robot obsession,” Joe quipped.
“About a lot of things,” Kurt suggested.
While Joe examined the parts on the shelf, Kurt moved deeper into the room, where he discovered a high-tech 3-D printing machine. It had been left on and was warm to the touch.
He tapped the small screen on a control panel. A series of Chinese characters appeared along with a blank line for a password. He didn’t waste his time trying to guess it and moved on.
Beside the 3-D printer was a table, now tilted at a forty-five-degree angle. A sheet covered a figure beneath it. Kurt pulled the sheet back, expecting to find Nagano, tortured and deceased. Instead, he found the half-finished shell of another humanoid robot. No face, no body panels, just a frame with limbs and wires and a power cell. He noticed an air bladder covering the chest and a liquid reservoir.
Joe arrived carrying two robotic arms. “Can I give you a hand?”
“Very funny.”
“Dr. Frankenstein has nothing on this place.”
Kurt nodded, covered the unfinished creation with the sheet and moved to the back of the room. He reached the far wall and realized it was made of smoked glass. He pulled the infrared scope down over his eyes once more but saw only the reflection of his own heat.
Pushing the goggles back up, he pressed his face up against the glass, shielding his eyes from any reflection and trying to discern what was on the other side. He couldn’t see much, but he heard something. Or rather he felt it. A vibration coming through the glass. A murmuring sound as if several people were talking in low tones on the other side.
He waved Joe over. “Do you hear that?”
Joe put his ear up to the glass. “Conversation?”
“Too repetitive,” Kurt said. “It’s the same words over and over again. More like chanting or praying.”
&n
bsp; “If I was Nagano, I’d be praying for help right about now,” Joe said.
They looked around for a door, discovered that one of the panels was held in place by a spring-loaded, magnetic latch. Pressing it once released it and Kurt pulled the door open.
The droning sound grew in volume but not clarity. Kurt stepped deeper into the chamber. There were more unfinished machines under sheets on medical tables around him and, down at the far end, a pair of figures standing in front of high-definition screens. They were watching and then repeating what they saw and heard on the screen, both figures speaking the same phrases over and over.
Kurt gripped his pistol and stepped closer. The figures ahead of him didn’t react to him approaching at all. As if they were in a trance.
He found a light switch on the wall, raised the pistol and paused. Strangely, he recognized the phrase they were repeating. They were speaking English. And stranger still, he recognized the voice that was speaking that phrase.
“Japan will never be an ally of China,” the image on the screen said.
“Japan will never be an ally of China,” the standing figures repeated.
Kurt flicked the switch. Neither of the figures reacted. They just kept speaking. Starting and then stopping and then starting over again in an endless loop.
Kurt stepped around in front of them. The two figures were identical, complete with mussed silver hair, deep-blue eyes and three days of stubble. Kurt felt as if he was staring in a mirror—two mirrors, actually. He was looking at robotic versions of himself.
* * *
• • •
USHI-ONI paused on the top floor of the dilapidated building. The stairwell to the roof was blocked by debris, but he could see the orange glow from the clouds coming through a gap in the ceiling. He marched toward it, scaled the ramp-like section of the caved-in roof panel and paused at the top. Scanning the entire roof before exposing himself, he saw it was empty.
He climbed out into the rain once again and stood on the rooftop. He saw no soldiers or policemen or any parachutes or equipment, suggesting an assault on the island was beginning, but there was something out of place: a wide, flat object that gleamed in the low light, unlike every other dulled and corroded surface on the roof.
The twelve-foot wing looked like something that had fallen from a plane. But it was obviously in one piece. He found the parasail stuffed hastily beneath it.
“Austin,” he said to himself.
He turned with a start and charged back into the building, racing down the stairwell, as the first echoes from Han’s helicopter reached him. Han had to be warned or Austin would destroy everything.
46
HASHIMA ISLAND
“JAPAN will never be an ally of China.”
Kurt listened to the words and could hardly believe how like his voice they sounded. Not in the odd way one’s voice sounded on a recorded message, but as if the words were emanating from his own body.
The screen flickered. A new video appeared. On it, the Prime Minister of Japan was mentioning the possibility of warmer relations with China.
“We’ll see about that,” Kurt’s robotic doppelgangers said.
The voices were off this time, especially the second robot’s, which slurred the words just a bit. The scene repeated on the monitor.
“We’ll see about that,” the robots replied, sounding now more like Kurt and more menacing at the same time.
“They’re learning,” Kurt said. “Practicing.”
“Wouldn’t it be easier to program them with a recording and be done with it?” Joe suggested. “Like the robotic assistant in Nagano’s police station.”
“That robot was instantly identifiable as a machine,” Kurt said. “Its lips moved each time it spoke, but that was just a pretense. These robots are speaking. Forming sounds with exhaled air and shaping that sound with their lips. They’re breathing, blinking, even sweating. If I wasn’t standing here, you might think one of them was me.”
“They’re better-looking than you,” Joe said, then added, “Strange that there’s no one here to monitor their progress.”
Kurt pointed to a bank of computer terminals and server units blinking in the dark. The displays on the screens were constantly evolving. “The computers are doing the monitoring. Machines training machines. Something tells me this is a very repetitive and redundant process. Until the machines have learned how to act human enough, they probably do this over and over again.”
As Kurt spoke, the robots stepped forward and walked into a different room. Kurt followed. It was a simulator. Similar to the one Han had in his factory but smaller. To compensate for the limited space, there was a curved wall of screens, which lit up all around them.
“That’s the joint Trade Pavilion built with Han’s money,” Kurt said. “The Japanese Prime Minister is going to be there tomorrow to sign the new cooperation agreement with China. It’s the deal everyone’s been talking about.”
“And the Japanese Parliament will vote on rescinding the joint defense treaty with America a few days from now,” Joe said. “The symmetry is uncanny.”
“And not by accident,” Kurt said. “But from what I read, the defense treaty isn’t in any real danger. The Japanese want more business out of China, but they’re not all that interested in going it alone militarily.”
The duplicates began moving forward, walking on treadmills. As they traveled, the scenery around them changed in a virtual sense. They entered through a back door and followed a route that led up to the main hall.
Taking positions in the virtual crowd, they waited as images of the Japanese Prime Minister and the Chinese Ambassador appeared on the stage. A digital representation of Walter Han was there as well, since he’d facilitated the agreement and the rapidly warming ties between the two countries.
Handshakes first and then the signing of a document. The Ambassador signed on the right side before passing a pen to the Prime Minister. The pen was put to paper and instantaneously both mechanical versions of Kurt reacted. They reached into their jackets, pulled out dummy pistols and took dead aim.
“Japan will never be an ally of China!” they shouted, raising their weapons and pulling the triggers.
There were no gunshots, of course, no blanks or even simulated noises, just clicking triggers and a pattern of red dots appearing on the screen as the system recorded multiple hits on the Prime Minister, the Ambassador and another politician. Their deadly task completed, both units took steps toward the right to begin their escape.
The simulation ended there and both machines went inactive and returned their pistols to their shoulder holsters.
The video screens around them changed to a hotel lobby setting and the duplicates walked to one side, where a pair of seats had been arranged. They sat down, crossed their legs, quite naturally, and waited. There was nothing jerky and robotic about their movements. One of the robots even picked up a periodical from a table and licked its fingers before turning the pages.
“Surreal beyond words,” Joe said. “If Han pulls this off, the whole world will think you killed the Japanese Prime Minister. It’ll look like America is desperate to stop the Japanese from pulling out of the treaty. Desperate to stop China and Japan from moving closer.”
Kurt nodded. “He recorded me in his factory. Gave him enough to build this program.”
“So much for the defense treaty not being in danger,” Joe added. “If the world sees you shooting the Prime Minister, the vote to pull out of the treaty will be a landslide.”
“Not if we destroy this lab and everything in it.”
“I’m afraid that won’t be allowed,” a voice called out from the dark.
The words came from the far end of the room. The voice was Han’s.
Kurt turned, but there was no one there, only an intercom speaker attached to the wall. A door swung open behind J
oe. Three men rushed in. Two more came in from the other end of the room and Kurt took the only chance left to him: turning on his duplicates and opening fire.
He drilled the first robot with several shots, but the machine responded with incredible speed. It leapt from its chair and charged at him, never wavering despite taking slugs to the chest, leg and face.
The robot tackled Kurt as cleanly as any professional wrestler, slamming him to the floor and knocking the gun from his hand.
Forced into hand-to-hand combat with the mechanical version of himself, Kurt kneed the machine’s solar plexus, but the blow had no effect. He worked one arm free and threw a right cross at the mechanical jaw. It split the artificial skin, but underneath lay only padding, titanium bones and small hydraulic motors.
In response, the robot put a hand around Kurt’s neck and began to squeeze, cutting off the blood flow to Kurt’s brain. Kurt reached up and dug his nails into the artificial flesh, pulling and ripping, desperately hoping to find wires he might yank out.
It was not to be. There were no vulnerable organs, pressure points or weak spots. No plugs to pull or batteries he could remove.
On the verge of blacking out, Kurt head-butted the machine and broke its prosthetic nose, but the machine only looked back at him with a blank stare and squeezed harder.
As Kurt’s world darkened, he heard Joe fighting with Han’s human guards. He looked beyond the arms holding him down to see Joe on the ground, struggling with three men. One of them pistol-whipped him.
“Cease this foolish struggle or you both will die painfully,” Han called out.
The struggle was about to end, one way or another. Kurt chose to live and fight another day. He pulled his hands away from the robot and raised them in surrender. Thankfully, the robot stopped crushing his throat, though its mechanical hand remained in place.
With the room now calm, Han strode in. The distinctive click of his shoes on the floor resounded with each step. He crouched beside Kurt and examined the bullet holes that had been drilled into the chest and face of the duplicate.