Swarm (5 page)

“Alamo, you are aboard this vessel, do you consider yourself to be alive?”

“Unclear.”

I nodded to myself. I might have smiled, but I was in a grim mood, so my mouth formed a tight line instead. I had learned something. The ship was indeed artificially intelligent. Was a thing like that alive? Not in my book, but who knew how it thought about itself. I decided not to get into a pointless philosophical argument with the ship over this issue. I would skip administering the Turing Test. It really didn’t matter.

“Alamo, is this portion of the ship the bridge?”

Another hesitation. Were a vast number of recursive routines firing off in this thing’s mind causing the delay?

“This is the goal room for the command mission. It has capabilities the other chambers don’t have.”

I nodded. That made it the bridge. “Can I fly the ship from this room?”

“Yes.”

“Can I...” I tried to think of some other command function. “Can I communicate with other ships from this room?”

“Yes.”

I sucked in a breath. For the very first time, it occurred to me that there might be other ships like this one. Were they all over the Earth? It made my stomach flutter, as if I’d dropped off the high dive.

“How many ships like this one are there, Alamo?” I asked quietly.

“Unknown.”

Precision
, I told myself. I had to ask for specifics. “How many ships like this one are within—ten miles of the Earth’s surface?”

“Seven hundred and forty-six.”

I put my hand over my mouth. This was an invasion. Up until now, I’d believed myself to be special, to be one of those people they put on TV who said they’d been abducted and probed by aliens. I had to take all those people out of the crazy zone in my mind now. They had been telling the truth all along.

“Are they all searching for command personnel, the way you were?”

“No.”

“How many have found command personnel and aborted the searching mission, as this ship has?”

“Forty-one.”

So, the majority of them were still on the hunt. How many people had been killed by these ships—
were
being killed—even as I talked calmly to the
Alamo
? I couldn’t believe the world’s armed forces would take this invasion lightly. Were jets coming to engage me now, and possibly blow me out of the sky?

“Alamo, are there—planes attacking these ships?”

“Unknown.”

“You aren’t communicating with them?”

“Ships with command personnel are communicating. Other ships are seeking command personnel.”

My mind raced. Some of the ships had given the humans the tests. Some people had survived and were in command, the way I was. I wasn’t alone.

“Can I communicate with—” I began, then just gave the order. “Alamo, put me in communication with the other ships. I want to broadcast to them.”

“Channel open.”

I cleared my throat. “Hello? Hello out there? Can anyone hear me?”

There was silence for several seconds, then a gruff voice spoke up. The voice had an accent that sounded British, or maybe Australian. “Who’s there, then? Get off the public channel, this is reserved.”

The voice seemed to come from the walls, from all of them at once, just as the voice of the ship did.  I looked around me, almost expecting to see a face appear. I thought about telling the ship to show me a face, but decided against it. The last time I’d requested such a thing I’d nearly been killed.

“I don’t understand what you mean, about the public channel. I’ve only just made it to the bridge of my ship and I don’t have a clue about what’s going on. Is this some kind of military thing?”

“Have you named your ship yet? If not, do so. Then open a private channel to the
Snapper
. Now, shut up and get off the public channel.
Snapper
out.”

I took a deep breath and told my ship to open a connection between the
Alamo
and the
Snapper
.

The gruff, accented voice came back on. “Ship name?”

“The
Alamo
,” I said.

Laughter. “Good one. You are a Yank, I take it? Congratulations on surviving your first hours aboard a murder-machine. Now, listen carefully greenie. There are some things you have to do right away. Tell your ship to stop picking up people and killing them, that’s number one. If it picks up a winner, it will guide them to you and they will kill you. Or you will have to kill them. Either way, it won’t be pleasant.”

“I’ve already done that.”

“Really? Good. I had to kill two poor Indian bastards who made it to me before I figured it out. They were trying to do the leadership test. I knew one of us had to drop out. It wasn’t fair, really, since I’d already passed the test once. Poor wallies. I still think of the looks on their faces as I watched them tumble down over Bangalore.”

We exchanged names. My sole contact with humanity was an Aussie who called himself Captain Jack Crow. He’d spent a lot of time in the states, but still had an identifiable accent. I briefly told him my story—about my kids and the deadly tests. He made sympathetic noises. I figured he’d heard it all before. After a minimum of pleasantries we got down to the business of survival.

“Kyle Riggs,” said Crow. “Right, I wrote that down.”

“Where did you get the pen and paper?”

“I foraged for it. You’ll learn to do the same.”

“What do you mean?”

“Start stealing things. You’ll need them. There isn’t a whole lot aboard these ships. No food. No electronics that we can figure out. No toilets, either. Not even a bed. But you can tell the ship to fly to your local shops and steal what you need. If you tell it to, it can make a power outlet you can plug things into. You’ll need that.”

“Won’t stealing items upset the populace?”

The gruff laughter again. There was something harsh in that laughter, something that made me think I might or might not like this man if I ever met him in person. He didn’t sound kind or easy-going. But he sounded capable. What kind of person would typically make it through such deadly tests, I wondered. Probably not the nicest guy in the world.

“It does upset people, but they can’t really do anything about it.”

“What about jets? Won’t these ships come under attack?”

“They do, off and on. But I think the ships shoot down anything that comes close.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know, like fighters, missiles, police helicopters. Anything that gets too close is taken out automatically.”

“I fired a gun at the ship when it took my kids. It didn’t do anything.”

“Then you were lucky. They seem to become more paranoid when they have us—‘command personnel’ aboard. I think they know they can’t be hurt by a bullet or a fist or a thrown rock. When they are roaming around killing people they seem to only shoot at incoming missiles and the like. But once they have a pilot, they get more protective and react to anything that could hurt you.”

“I did see a flash of light when I was over my house, but that’s all so far.”

“You probably won’t see it fire at aircraft. The officials have gotten smarter over the last few hours and they stay clear of our ships. When the invasion started it came in last night over Eastern Asia first and then swept toward Europe and Africa. The ships raided their way around the globe, heading west with the darkness of night. You Yanks are the last ones to join the party. By now, the military has figured out a few things.”

“How come I didn’t hear anything about last night’s invasion?”

“Did you watch the news last night?”

“No,” I said, thinking about my popcorn and movie night with the kids. It was a painful memory. I wondered if there would ever be another. I thought then about cutting this talk short and going into Medical to check on the kids. What were the robot arms doing to them? Did I really want to know? Did I really want to
see
it? I supposed I had to trust them. The kids were already dead. Those arms were the last slim hope I had.

“The news people have been talking about UFO sightings all day,” Crow said, “but as the night wore on and they got to the States, as best we can tell, the numbers grew. It was just a few ships at first over Asia. Now there are hundreds.”

“Seven hundred and forty-six, according to the Alamo.”

“That many? Well, we can’t do much about most of them. We can only communicate with people who finished the tests.”

“Why do these ships need us to tell them what to do? Did their old commanders all die or something?”

“No one knows. Personally, I think the goat-people most of us found on the ships were the old command personnel. Maybe they failed and we are the replacements. Doesn’t matter. What you need to do is set up the ship so you can see outside. Just a few webcams and some computers will do it. It’s not the best video, but it works.”

I shook my head, baffled. “If these are robot ships, why don’t they have equipment like that built in?”

“Nobody’s figured that out yet, either. Listen, are you with the military?”

“I was in the Army Reserve.”

“Reserves? An officer?” he asked quickly.

“Yeah, First Lieutenant. It was a way to pay for graduate school.”

“Did you see any action?”

“One tour in the Gulf… but that was a long time ago. I’m a college professor now.”

“A professor?” snorted Crow. “That’s a first. What do you teach, martial arts?”

“No, computer science.”

He made an appreciative, grunting noise. “Unusual, but I’m sure you will be useful. Most of the survivors are military, or crazy guys who sleep with guns under their pillows. You’re the first teacher I’ve heard of making it through the tests.”

“I own a farm,” I explained. “And I had a shotgun handy when they came.”

“Ah, good, I see,” Crow said.

I could tell that just being a farmer moved me up in his estimation. I thought about the type of person who was likely to survive the tests I’d been given. Logically, they would be physically tough, quick-minded, decisive people who were probably somewhat paranoid. That didn’t describe my colleagues at the University, I had to admit.

“Listen, Jack,” I said, “have any of us contacted our governments yet? Why don’t we fly these ships to our capitols and set them down and hand them over to the authorities?”

Crow snorted. “Rude, since the ships would shoot up anyone who threatened us. But it just doesn’t work that way, in any case. These ships chose
us
. They won’t let us do whatever we want.”

“So far, the ship has done everything I’ve asked.”

“Try landing and getting out. It won’t let you. Not unless you do some very nasty things to yourself—and maybe not even then. It won’t let other people around you either, now that you have established full control.”

“I opened up the floor by accident and could have killed myself.”

“It might have looked that way, but the ship wouldn’t have let you fall out.”

“You mean we are prisoners?”

“We can do what we want. But we have to stay in our ships. We are on our own, and setting up our own organization. That brings us to my next question.”

“What?”

“Will you, Kyle Riggs, join me—join us? I have over thirty ships in my fleet. I’m an ex-naval captain and I know what I’m doing to some extent. We need you, and I’ll give you the rank of Ensign to start with.”

I stopped talking for a moment, stunned. What was this man talking about? Was he forming some kind of political force outside his own government?

“What gives you the authority to do any of that?”

“These ships give us the authority. Nothing on Earth can stand up against them. We are the only ones who control them. To let someone else take control of them, we have to die. I’m not interested committing suicide for the benefit of any government. So, what do you say?”

“But why? Why are these ships here and what are they doing?”

Crow paused. “You don’t know yet?”

“I’m clueless.”

Another harsh laugh from my only contact with the world. I didn’t like his laugh; it was the laugh of the bully who tripped the skinny kid.

“You’ve got a lot more to learn, Kyle. And none of it is good.”

-6-

“Tell me everything. I’m listening.”

“So, you’re joining us?” asked Crow. I could hear the eagerness in his voice.

I hesitated. “Not yet. I need to think.”

“Don’t go rogue on me, Kyle. I need new people. Join the team.”

“I don’t know enough to make such a choice yet. I have to learn more about the situation. I’ll have to get back to you. I’m kind of shaken up right now.”

“I understand—your kids and everything, I’m sorry about that. But rogues are left outside the loop, you should know that much. They don’t get to join in our pool of information. That’s one of the benefits of joining my outfit.”

“Are there any other outfits?”