Theories of Flight

22

Petrovitch opened first one eye, then the other. He stood swaying slightly for a moment, then tried to walk forward a couple of steps.

They were tentative, a questioning toe pressed against the sharp ballast before he committed his whole weight.

“Weird,” he said, and even as he said it, it felt like he was writing a line of code and sending it to his vocal cords.

Miyamoto had his sword in his hand, watching him from a safe distance, poised to strike him down.

When Petrovitch turned his head, he could feel the cable drag: an unnatural connection from skull to computer was one thing, but it was more than that. He felt full to bursting. Ripe.

He focused on the samurai, and was aware of the embedded electronics in the man’s clothing—nothing more complicated than a phone searching for a signal, but he could see it as an icon he could touch, open, alter and activate if he knew the right commands.

“This is going to take some getting used to.”

“You should not have done this,” said Miyamoto. “There are too many unknowns involved.”

Petrovitch looked over the top of his glasses. The shine off the sword blurred, then sharpened as the rat processed the raw data and fed it back. The resulting image wasn’t perfect, but it was close. “We can argue about it later. Right now, I’m looking for a bus.”

He slid one sleeve of his coat off, and threaded the rat over his shoulder, then back around to his front. He slipped the rat into his inside coat pocket, coiling up the excess cable, and put his arm back in. The connector was mostly hidden by his hair. When he turned his collar up, it was all but invisible.

His simultaneous search of the satellite images found him several buses, which he matched with a picture gallery to discard all the ones without automatic navigation. He could have used cars, of which there were many more, and closer—but a big modern coach with tall sides would offer more protection to its occupants.

There were two that fitted his requirements, both in the depot of a private hire firm up at Highgate, near the cemetery. He was going to have to free them from behind the locked gates.

“Are you ready?”

“For what?”

“Revolution. I suppose they all start like this, with one person thinking that things could be different. Then it grows. They persuade others to join in, and it gains a momentum all of its own. It either overwhelms the old order, or gets crushed.” Petrovitch pushed his glasses back up his nose, and felt his eyesight compensate again. He took the info shades off and pocketed them: he’d probably never need them again. “This is my revolution. This is where we sweep away the past and the future breaks in. This is what the New Machine Jihad should have been.”

“The Jihad killed hundreds of thousands,” said Miyamoto.

“It’s going to do it again, too. Back then, when it was stupid, ignorant, and no more than an urge, it attacked us. But now it’s got smarts. It knows everything. It’s guided. It can make amends for the wrong things it did. It’s going to take back the city for us.”

“It is a weapon, and it is in your hands alone.” Miyamoto flexed his fingers around his sword hilt. “No one man should have so much power.”

“Before you try and stop me, why don’t you talk to Miss Sonja? I have and, despite her misgivings, she’s with me. Which reminds me.”

Petrovitch turned away from Miyamoto, and searched for Valentina. As well as talk to her, he could see her, see all around her: her phone pinpointed her location on the approaches to Tower Bridge.

The EDF had done the smart thing, the thing they should have done much earlier: they’d stopped the traffic, and made people get out and walk with only what they could carry. Cars were crushed in all around her, abandoned, some still with their motors running. She was with a gaggle of Olgas, pushing ahead through the slowly moving crowds with Marchenkho in their wake. He didn’t look happy.

“I see you,” he said in Valentina’s ear.

“Petrovitch. Where are you?” Her neck craned and tried to spot him.

“Look up, to your left. There’s a lamp-post with a camera.” He waggled the camera’s housing to attract her attention. “Though I’m pretty much everywhere now.”

“We did not find Daniels,” she said. “Is madness here, and Outies are not far behind.”

“I know. I can see them, too. Listen: when you said you would help me, did you mean it? Rather, how much did you mean it?”

Without hesitating, she replied, “What is it you need me to do?”

“I need Waterloo Bridge. I need it clear for northbound traffic. I can help, but I’m not there.”

He zoomed in so he could try and read her face. She nodded. “Hmm. Is done,” she said. “Should I talk to Marchenkho?”

“I’ve delegated this to you. If you want him, fine. If not, fine. I need to make one thing clear, though. He works for you, and you work for me. If he can’t handle that, then cut him loose.”

“Da,” she said. “How long before you need bridge?”

“Fifteen minutes.”

She raised her sculpted eyebrows.

Petrovitch shrugged to no one in particular. “Yeah. I didn’t say it was going to be easy.”

“Then I had better hurry. Good hunting.” She cut the connection, and he followed her for a few moments more as she glanced at her watch and made a little head-jiggle as she weighed up matters in her mind. Then she started to climb on top of a car.

Waterloo Bridge was as good as his, so he returned his attention to where his body was. He’d walked to the end of the tunnel on automatic: he’d have to watch for that by writing some sort of script, though he barely knew where to start. He could hack into his own heart if he wanted to.

The avatar was again waiting for him, but he was looking out over a landscape that had been strangely changed. The layers of information he’d seen on Miyamoto were replicated everywhere. Most of the electronics was locked, rendered inert by the Outies destroying the power grid as they advanced.

But some were not. Battery-powered devices glowed green, almost begging to be used. Discarded phones on standby, handheld computers, solar-powered street furniture, and best of all, the cars.

One of the Jihad’s first manifestations had been the processions of automated cars, used as a child’s playthings. Petrovitch could do so much more with them. The station on the far side of the tunnel was formed either of solid brick or transparent glass, but it mattered little which. He could stretch out beyond the reach of his hand.

[I have done as you asked,] said the AI. [EDF command in Brussels is being fed an alterable, delayed feed. How do you want your forces deployed?]

“I need to give Sonja time to gather her nikkeijin. Put a third of them on the Marylebone flyover, another third at the far end of Euston Road. Send the rest of them to Primrose Hill. There are tanks there already, but they need infantry support. Divide them up with a mix of units, and keep them concentrated. Standard military doctrine is that they should spread out, so if they show signs of that, yell at them.”

[Do you want to know what we have?]

“No. Either it’s enough and they’ll hold, or it isn’t and I’m sending them to their deaths. How’s the network holding up?”

[Bandwidth is a problem. I am making great demands on it, even with outsourcing many of my routine processing functions.] He looked sulky. [The NSA is aware of the unusual activity, but the United States has the highest density of computer resources on the planet. I have no choice but to use them.]

“They’ll use their giant axe at some point and try to isolate their network. We’re going to have to think of something else you can run on.” Petrovitch flexed his arms. “How are you?”

[Busy. I have never felt stretched before.]

“That’s very human.” Petrovitch smiled. He patted the avatar on its back. He could feel it. He could feel the cloth, and the body under it. “It’s hard for both of us.”

[Will we win?]

“We haven’t lost yet.”

He walked on, and hauled himself up onto a platform, with Miyamoto springing up behind him. The access to the outside was through a deactivated screen and a set of turnstiles. Petrovitch thought he should be able to just stroll through the wall.

“Madeleine’s mother’s around here somewhere. Or was earlier on this week. She’s an Outie now.”

“You know this how?” Miyamoto sheathed his sword and slid across the top of the turnstiles.

“She shot Maddy. Not something either of them are likely to be mistaken about.” Petrovitch followed him over and dropped to the tiled floor. “We’ll stick to the roads from now on.”

“We would be less obvious crossing the parkland to the north of here.”

“Yeah. That doesn’t matter anymore. Let them notice us.” He walked out of the station entrance to the curb, to the new registration white Ford. He didn’t have to, but he laid the palm of his hand on its roof.

He disabled the security measures with one algorithm, and terrified the on-board computer with another. “Who’s my suka now?” He started its engine and plotted a route for it.

Miyamoto jumped back. “You did that.”

“Yeah. I can do this, too.” He dispatched his agents to every car and van in the neighborhood. They broke their way in, kicked their engines into life, and pulled out in a synchronized wave into the middle of whichever road they were on.

There were hundreds of them, and when they had all passed, when they had filled the surrounding streets with their noise, Petrovitch stepped out after them. He drew his gun and practiced sighting down his arm. There were crosshairs in his vision. The targeting moved to where he pointed. Then he looked at a stray dog that had come out to investigate the sudden commotion.

The muscles in his arm twitched, and guided the gun around until it was aiming at the fat black Labrador.

He glanced at a street sign, a front door, then a passing bird. His arm snapped right, left, up and tracked, fast enough to make it ache.

“This. This is what I signed up for.”

“What are you doing?” asked Miyamoto.

“I’m being awesome. Don’t interrupt.”

Sporadic gunfire rattled the air from some distance ahead, echoing off the walls. The first of the cars had met the first of the Outies. He sent another command to them, and gave them access to his map. The Outies were the red dots, the cars were blue.

Run them down, he said.

How to kill a car? Petrovitch knew—put a bullet in its tiny electronic brain. The Outies had no way of finding it under the bodywork. A lucky shot here and there, but for the most part they’d have to reduce them to piles of scrap metal to stop them. And this being the real world, they were going to run out of ammunition long before then.

He watched the red dots ripple and recoil. The cars worked crudely, without cooperating, crashing into dumb objects and reversing, coming back for another go. More intelligence was needed. They could hunt in packs, with ambushes laid in side streets, traps in alleyways. He wasn’t going to be able to coordinate that at that moment, and the AI had already said it was busy—which for a machine intelligence of unknown capabilities was a startling admission.

It would have to do for now.

Some of the red dots were spilling their way, undisciplined dribbles of color draining off the blocked artery of Highgate Road.

“Company.”

Petrovitch strode on, and suddenly, there were four—no, five—Outies coming down the street at him. They stopped when they saw him, though a couple of them looked around fearfully behind them to check for cars.

Miyamoto drew his sword, and Petrovitch had the opportunity to reflect on what a brilliant sound it made, a clear ringing like a bell.

One of the Outies had a gun, what looked like a shotgun: fat barrels side by side, and a half-empty bandolier of red shells. The others had crude spears, nothing more than pre-Armageddon blades grafted onto long poles. Effective, but hardly worth emptying a city for.

The Outies had been smart, too. They’d made sure their vanguard all had guns. Whenever MEA fought them, it had been bullet for bullet, shell for shell. It had given the illusion of a massive well-equipped army, an illusion they’d all fallen for.

It was kon govno, pure and simple. The speed of the advance, the crushing tidal wave of panic, the complete absence of information from beyond the front line, had served just one purpose.

Petrovitch stared at the man with the shotgun, who was feeding two cartridges into the cracked breach.

Crosshairs formed, and Petrovitch felt his arm come up, lock into place. It was extreme range for both of them, but it was closing every moment as they walked toward each other.

The shotgun snapped shut, and it was raised to a shoulder.

Miyamoto started to look left and right for cover. “You must get down.”

Petrovitch squeezed the trigger, smooth and certain. His aim was adjusted for everything: his motion, his target’s, air pressure, windspeed, bullet trajectory, but still there were variables. Imperfect aerodynamics, uneven powder burn, the barrel of the automatic being out of true by fractions of a millimeter.

He was aiming for his chest, and caught his upper arm instead. The man spun around, the shotgun pointing briefly at the sky before crashing down. One of the barrels boomed and spat smoke, and an Outie was thrown hard against the side of a parked van. He slid down and didn’t move.

Now it was three against two: one older woman, two younger men, all dressed in that uniform of dirty browns and blacks. They looked at each other, uncertain.

Petrovitch spread his arms out wide and kept on walking. “You seem to be in my city.”

The woman found her voice. “City ours,” she called out, even though she was of an age to have received a formal education in what had been England. “City burns.”

It struck him that these Outies were a family group: a tribe, a clan, at the very least a mother and her two sons, and the man dead would have been an uncle or a cousin. The other man on the ground had made it to his knees, and he was shuffling toward the fallen shotgun. There was one cartridge still loaded, and he seemed determined to show he could fire the thing one-handed.

“I always thought it was pillage first, then burn. But whatever,” said Petrovitch, “there’s been a change of plan. Prepare for the New Machine Jihad.”

Behind them, a car rolled around a corner, its red bonnet already badly dented, its windscreen punched through and roof warped. It was leaking radiator fluid, but it would last long enough for what he was going to use it for.

It gunned its engine and raced forward.