Adams woke with a start. Gesturing to the wall, on flicked the news with a rolling story about the seemingly global phenomenon of storms being some kind of freak weather pattern that happens once every hundred years, something to do with solar alignment.
General James Adams III was a big deal in the US Military. A career military veteran, he’d been born and raised in Sherburne County, Minnesota, and received a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering from the United States Military Academy. He saw active service in Iraq in the 2000s, and had been appointed the previous year to head up Central Command, which included a lot of special projects such as RO707, which was of huge strategic importance to the entire US Military. Nail this, establish a revenue stream for other NATO or affiliated territories, and he was sure he’d get his next and final bump up the chain and possibly eventually even that fifth star he so craved.
Adams being of a certain generation, still had a personal device, which he swore by for confidentiality reasons. Even the military couldn’t persuade him to part with it and were constantly trying to keep it patched and updated. He picked it up from the bedside table, and smiled at his home screen as he saw his precious family in front of the fire and the tree the previous Christmas. Family time was the reason he got up in the morning. His childhood sweetheart looked much younger than her 52 years on this planet. She was resplendent in the blue and red Christmas family jumper. Natalie, his wife now of 27 years, had given him four amazing kids. James IV was the eldest at 22, with twins Melanie and Michelle looking absolutely radiant at 19, and the youngest was Jude, who was 17 and almost as tall as his father.
‘Good morning, General—’
‘Call me Jim, please,’ he interrupted before the hotel AutoButler could go on, ‘and I’ll have my usual coffee: large pint, 84°, 10 per cent half and half, two sugars please, china mug, stirred four times.’
A few seconds later, the wall unit beeped and out rolled a freshly ordered cup of coffee, exactly as he had requested.
CNN was rolling back to the scenes of the previous night in NYC where the stock markets had reopened and the streets at least were a little calmer. A presidential address from Obama flashed by on another screen where her always immaculate stoic friendliness appealed for calm, as only a 74-year-old grandmother could. Yet there seemed a hint of tiredness behind her eyes, perhaps sadness at the passing of Barack the year before, or perhaps the almost 40 years in politics taking their toll on her gait.
Shower done, sports casual wear on and clicking his fingers whilst at the same time saying the name ‘Robinson’ caused the screen in front of him to appear and he summoned his assistant, Marsha, who answered the call with, ‘Sir!’ as though she had a point to prove to the boss.
‘We’re going live, Robinson. Get ready to depart after breakfast. I’m going for a V-Run along Mulholland, then we can leave the hotel at 07.50. Make the arrangements for the flight would you. Leave by 09.00 local time. We need to be on Fifth by 08.00 New York time, and I want the first test run by nine. Is that clear, Robinson?’ Not pausing for an answer, he added, ‘Make it happen.’ Wrist flick. Robinson disappeared and the news replaced her.
Mulholland time now. Adams donned the suit, flicked on the helmet and entered the grab circle, the floor moving and lifting as he started to run, all the while snapping and clicking and barking orders for his rig to simulate his favourite LA street. ‘…and make it morning time, 06.30, temperature 18°C, wind 10 mph from the south please,’ he said as the AC jets kicked a swirl of cool towards him and he pushed off step by step up the hill from the Hollywood Bowl and began to run.
The car to the airport had been easy with Robinson handling logistics on her rig while Adams took the main console and woke a seemingly endless succession of people in New York with the news of, ‘We’re going live. Get ready.’ The car pulled right in to Domodedovo Airport, efficiently taking care of the security protocols with a series of scanner-to-scanner mini battles at the checkpoints, worm-like creatures protruding from both bonnet and security gate beeping and lasering each other like spitting cobras being fluted out of the basket.
Passing the side gate, Adams and Robinson exited the car right beside the aircraft, the rest of the team following as they boarded. Inside, the walls all appeared transparent, which made it look as if the seats they took were floating in mid-air. A few orderlies fussed around and then the walls changed, the temperature dropped, and each person was now in their own fully functioning SleepPod, ready to catch some chem sleep to adjust the body clock for the seven-hour time change. Leave Moscow 09.00, arrive almost two hours earlier, ready once again for breakfast, no jet lag.
Robinson shifted nervously in her seat. The copter they’d transferred to on landing was smooth enough. The view over Manhattan was surreal, the visible surge of the masses right on Fifth, pushing north towards the corner of Central Park right into the pulsating chink of light of the riot shields and smoke and fires. Utter chaos. Further south towards Wall Street, there was another wave of protestors, no doubt blaming the bankers and ‘the institution’ for everything that was happening right now.
Scenes like this had not been seen in New York since, well, since she couldn’t even remember. Though the sheer volume of people reminded her of those Pride Marches that used to take place back in the day when being LGBT was not quite as commonplace as it was now.
‘We’re going to land in the park. ETA three minutes. Stand by,’ she crackled in her headphones, and the soldiers shifted their guns nervously from one shoulder to the other as Adams made adjustments to his helmet.
Down.
‘Go, go, go, go.’
Forward now, the downwash from the rotors made standing balance difficult, however the chain of the troops helped Adams and Robinson move in unison towards the huge truck parked opposite The Pierre, which was to be their sanctuary.
The monitors literally hummed below the crisp day glow lights. Soldiers on chairs were surveying the wreckage a little further down the avenue, piloting the drones that delivered the up-to-date intel. Robinson touched the side of her head as the GGlasses sprang to life, making the names of each solider apparent as she walked towards Stokes.
‘Sergeant Stokes, I’m Marsha Robinson, please stand to attention for General Adams.’
‘Sir!’ Cue locking of feet and a crisp salute. ‘We are holding the crowd at the intersection of 59th, sir, but we need to move on dispersion tactics and get these people out of the area.’
‘OK, Stokes, listen up, there’s a reason I’m here, and it’s because of my special project. Robinson and I will oversee matters from now on. You can brief the teams. There’s a new squadron coming to town and you need to know what it is, who they are and how you work with them.’
‘Yes sir. Understood sir. Awaiting further instructions.’
Realising that something big was being explained, Joe gently tugged the arm of his wingman, Hurtado, and moved a couple of paces very discreetly towards Stokes, his CO noticing the movement out the corner of his eye but ignoring it. After all they went way back, and with your backs to a wall, you wanted those you could trust around you.
‘We are ready to deploy a squadron of autonomous bots to your command, Sergeant Stokes. Code name RO707. They are the latest and greatest thing in police and military issue crowd control and they have been extensively tested on simulated ops around the world.’
‘Simulated, sir?’ Stokes couldn’t help himself and cut in. Adams had been braced for it, experience telling him that if Stokes was in command here, he was good, and a good cop or a good soldier should ask that question.
‘Yes, sergeant. Today is the first real-life deployment, which is why I’ve flown straight in from Moscow with my chief of staff, Robinson. She will be your first point of contact, and the bots are establishing her presence in your HUD now via your rig. Is that clear?’
‘Understood, sir, and welcome ma’am. I have you now in my HUD.’
Although less than 40 feet from him, over his shoulder Robinson was now an avatar in his field of vision, temporarily made bigger when she was speaking and moving surreptitiously back when not required.
‘OK, Stokes, here is the sit rep. We’ve programmed the bots to imitate your men in so much as they have been fed your entire operating manual. They know your protocol, your orders and will be acting as police in this exercise, not as full military officers. We will deploy a squadron in the centre of the moving crowd, down towards 52nd from 58th. They will have orders to gain control of the cross sections across Fifth and will be advising the crowd to leave the area. Is that understood?’
‘Yes ma’am,’ complied Stokes as his chest tightened and the reality of some form of battle kicked in.
Robinson continued: ‘Assign a couple of units with them to monitor their performance please. I’ll stay on the HUD and coordinate with the bot leading the squad. Hurtado, Jones, Bot Squad 1,’ and scanning further, ‘Ramirez, Aspall, you guys are Squad 2. All four of you connect directly to my rig, please, and I’ll approve.’
Joe felt his own heart leap at the excitement of what was to come. It was a far cry from his day to day of recent times, and robots no less. Androids maybe. Whatever. This was scary, but cool. Trying to portray an outer calm, he fell in towards Hurtado’s right arm this time and slipped him the tiniest of winks to signify that he was up for this.
Adams interrupted. ‘Robinson, have you got the screens in hand yet? When can we communicate with the crowd, and tell them of… the consequences?’
‘Yes, sir. We are a couple of minutes away max. The RO707s will be the main message with anyone caught on the side street facing a mandatory month in the clink. That’s if our guys don’t immobilise them first.’
The CyberTrucks pulled up all of a sudden from around the corner towards Central Park. Five, six, seven, all screeching to a halt and hitching low on their front wheels, the roof peeling upwards from the back like some sort of mad beetle undergoing a metamorphosis and revealing its wings as it bowed low to the floor. What emerged from the back of the truck that headed for the sky was something incredible. Like chrome gods the bots emerged in groups of four and moved elegantly in lockstep with each other and then quickly off down Fifth in an easy formation, rifles pulled and pointed strongly towards anyone that shouldn’t be there—which was everyone that wasn’t real police or a military officer.
Following at a safe distance behind, Stokes gestured to the next corner to draw attention to the incoming surge of protestors. Hurtado clocked it and saw in his own rig that the magnificent robots were smashing through the first gathering on the corner of 57th, each bot immobilising four people at once with a simple electric stun to the back of the neck. And then they were carried away, one person to one arm and gently set in the makeshift quarantine zone that another squad of human police had set up before the bots returned to the melee for another four. Impressive and scary when coupled with the associated booming sound of:
‘YOU MUST LEAVE THIS AREA NOW! FAILURE TO DO SO WILL RESULT IN A JAIL SENTENCE.
YOU MUST LEAVE THIS AREA NOW! FAILURE TO DO SO WILL RESULT IN A JAIL SENTENCE.
CAPTURE BY A POLICE BOT WILL RESULT IN A SAFE STUN. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. LEAVE NOW.’
‘Joe, we are going live on the screens in T minus 60 seconds. Bot warning. Please confirm your teams are ready from 58th to 52nd. Over.’
Stokes was still on the corner of 58th, but his rig was portraying all the action he needed to see at each intersection, and he could see that Jones and Hurtado were quickening their pace now, being a little behind schedule, and were scrambling to get to 52nd as quickly as they could.
Joe hit the corner first a few seconds in front of Hurtado, both of them behind another group of four bots who had the codes G7, G9, G11 and G12 in place of a name. He spun around on the spot and faced back up the street towards 58th, an unconscious reaction to a past human time when it was usual to look at your subject when talking.
‘Sir, yes sir. We are ready. Estimate 1,000 protestors per side street, and I’ll need four more bots on the south side of the avenue here ready to hold and immobilise if required. Side streets secured by the bots. No one getting through them into the avenue now, sir.’
Suddenly the camera view moved dramatically. Tarmac filled the screen as the noise boomed through the speakers and the smoke shifted in view.
Explosion.
‘Jones, sit rep, come in!’ boomed Stokes as Adams and Robinson moved out of the way of the panicked sergeant. Footage on the HUD from one of the drones took their attention as Joe struggled to get back up. The window of the now destroyed clothing store was shooting glass out into the street while smoke filled the area. Some of the crowd were ducking for cover and some who were pre-prepped with bandanas over mouths and hands in the air, clearly got the memo while others didn’t. There’d clearly been a group hiding inside one of the stores ready to attack and outflank. They had planted the bomb to cause maximum disruption and were now attempting to wade through the cordon of stunned police. Only they hadn’t reckoned on coming up against 20 odd tonnes of moveable, breathable, yet super strong metallic compound-clad robots, who instantly retreated half a block and collected Ramirez and Aspall, who had been that side of the street. They didn’t look too hurt, only dazed, and Joe was quick to get back onto comms on the HUD.
‘Explosion, sir. Robinson, ma’am, you need to deploy the bots in a hold mode. We have to drive the crowd back as one. When they disappear to put people in the containment areas, it’s leaving gaps in the formation. Let’s get this area cleared and secured.’