Solo by Robert Mason ALSO BY ROBERT MASON Weapon Chickenhawk G.P. Putnam & Sons 200 Madison Avenue New York, NY 10016 Copyright 1992 by Robert Mason All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission. Published simultaneously in Canada Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Mason, Robert, date. Solo I Robert Mason. p. cm. ISBN 0-399-13734-3 Printed in the United States of America 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I follow developments in technology closely, but I am not a scientist or engineer. I'd like to thank the following professionals for their helpful conversations: Marvin Minsky, head of MIT's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, encouraged me to keep writing about Solo; Ron Oliver, a satellite communications expert at California Polytechnic Institute, told me what Solo couldn't do-which I didn't necessarily heed; Larry Hunter, director of the National Library of Medicine's Machine Learning Project, encouraged me and led me to further readings in artificial intelligence. Conversations with three friends, Allen Papapetrou, a computer systems manager, author Joe Haldeman and astronomer Humberto Campins helped me greatly during the writing of this book. I thank my wife, Patience, for being my first reader and for giving me expert editorial advice. I thank Lisa Wager, my editor at Putnam , for winning our argument, convincing me to get rid of a troublesome character in the original manuscript, making this a much better book. In loving memory of my mother, Mary E. Mason. To my father, Jack C. Mason, who told stories so well I thought it was a natural thing to do. Chapter One Gravel and tar Manhattan rooftops crowded with air-conditioning equipment, ducts, and vents scrolled across the screen. A computer operator in the Naval Intelligence image-processing laboratory in Washington rolled the trackball controller next to his keyboard, adjusting the picture. The image stopped, centered on a penthouse garden. A woman was lying on a lounge sunning herself. "She's there every day. Told you." "She's naked? Can't quite tell," a technician said. "Watch," the operator said. The image zoomed closer until the woman, young and shapely, nearly filled the screen. "Wow," said the technician. "Nice tits." "I'll lock on her," said the operator. The sunbather rotated on the screen as the satellite tracked her a hundred and fifty miles above the city. The technician laughed. "Well, she's a natural blonde, that's for sure," he said, as the woman picked up a glass beside her. She leaned forward to drink, put the glass back. She looked up into the sky at the invisible camera. "Wow. It's almost like she sees us," the technician said. "Gorgeous." The view shifted steadily, becoming oblique. "We're about ready to lose her," said the operator. "Damn." "Don't worry; got it on tape." "This is what you guys do with billions of dollars worth of equipment?" a man said behind the technicians. "Collect beaver shots?" The operator quickly tapped a key and the image zoomed back, showing buildings moving slowly across the screen. He swiveled his chair around. "Just testing the tracking, sir," said the operator. "Right." Finch said. Tall, athletic, blond, Admiral Finch looked the part, except he was only thirty-four years old. The look on his face made the operator nervous. As head of Computer Operations at Naval Intelligence, Finch was his boss. "Think you can get me a shot of the Costa Rican site?" "Yessir," the technician said. "We have a Keyhole coming into position in a minute." "I know," Finch said. "That's why I'm here." Finch turned to his new assistant. "What'd you think, Brooks?" Shorter than Finch, dark, hard-faced, Brooks grinned. "Great body, sir." Finch eyed him a moment till Brooks got the point. "I meant the equipment, Brooks. The Keyhole satellites." "It's like watching from an invisible helicopter, sir. I didn't realize we could track an object like that." "We can aim the things now, actually read a license plate on a car. This one has active optics that correct for any distortion. It's about perfect. We just need more of them. Right now you have to wait sometimes until a Keyhole is in the right orbit before you can see what you want." A white sandy beach on the northwest coast of Costa Rica scrolled down the screen. Waves broke on the shore. A building came into view. The operator zoomed in until Finch could see individual tiles on the red terra-cotta roof of the CIA mansion on a knoll next to the beach. "That's the place," Finch said. "Zoom in. I want Brooks to see what the Soviets can see." Brooks saw a man walking from the rear of the mansion to a helicopter parked on the lawn from a hundred and fifty miles up. "That's one of our pilots," said Finch. "Get me a tail number." The vertical stabilizer of a Huey nearly filled the screen. The image wavered slightly as the optics corrected for atmospheric disturbances and the constantly changing viewing angle, but Brooks could read the black numbers painted on the dull green helicopter. "Damn," he said. "Correct," Finch said. "Wanted you to see why we're going to be so careful down there." Finch turned to the operator. "Thanks for the demonstration, men. Keep up the good work." Finch turned to leave. At the door, he stopped and said, "Keep an eye out for more of them naked spies." The technicians laughed, relieved to find he had a sense of humor. Brooks walked fast, following Finch down the hallway. Finch checked his watch. "We have twenty minutes," he said. "I'm sorry we didn't have more time to brief you, Commander. You've gone over the stuff I sent?" "Yessir. Incredible." "I know. And that's just what I could put on paper. I'll fill you in on the plane." He turned to Brooks. "I heard you got your job hacking into the damn Pentagon?" Brooks grinned. "Well, sir, hacking's a little strong. Experimenting?" "Pretty ballsy experiment. Could've gone to jail. Instead they make you a Navy commander right out of college. What a world, eh?" Brooks shrugged. "I figured they'd recognize real talent when they saw it," Brooks said. "So you say. This ain't MIT, Brooks." ****** A black mannequin jerked in the blue abyss, dangling from a cable like a hanged man. Arms and legs swayed gently as it rose and fell underwater. Bubbles from dark depths trickled past its empty face. The moan of an electric winch echoed in the underwater oblivion as the cable hauled it up. "I hate boats," Finch said, looking away from the television monitor in the wheelhouse. "I spend all my life in air-conditioned computer labs, and damn if it isn't a computer that gets me on this barf bucket." He sat cross-legged on the engine hatch of the Santa Elena as it rolled with the Pacific swells. Anchored a mile off the Costa Rican shore, he stared longingly at the mansion fixed on solid ground. Finch's normally healthy glow was gone. Beads of sweat dripped down his pale face. "It goes away after a while, sir. The sick feeling. Didn't you have something to do with the design of this computer?" Brooks had his hand casually wrapped around a stay that braced the gin crane hanging over the transom of the boat. He was tanned, dressed in a flowery shirt and khaki shorts, looking pleased to be here. Brooks, Finch decided, was an asshole. Finch and Brooks did not look Navy. Neither did their crew-four Naval Intelligence officers dressed in cut-off jeans and tee-shirts. Two of the crew were guiding the mannequin's cable as it wound around the winch. The other two were putting on wetsuits and tanks. Finch pushed back his straw hat, held his sunglasses in one hand, and wiped the sweat off his face with a handkerchief. He nodded, shrugged. "I was a consultant. Didn't build it. I was there when they were finishing it up. Until six months ago, I was military liaison at Electron Dynamics. Watched William Stewart-smartest fucker I know-create a robot he called Solo. This thing walked, talked, Brooks. It was so good, people, even Stewart, started thinking it was sentient, you know? Self-aware. Impressive. The CIA and the Defense Department got all excited, wanted to make Solo an autonomous, human-sized weapon system-a mechanical Arnold Schwarzenegger. It would be able to use any kind of weapon, drive any vehicle, fly any aircraft; a mechanical predator, designed to hunt and kill enemy soldiers-kill them with its bare hands if it had to. And they got it." "So, what happened?" Brooks said. "Goat fuck. Everything went wrong." Finch swallowed bile and took a few deep breaths. "Damn, is it hot or what?" The air was a salty, sopping blanket that weighed him down and made him want to puke. The smooth sea undulated with the swells of a dead storm, moving the boat with it. Finch grimaced. Brooks thought it was cool with a pleasant breeze, but decided against saying so. "Very hot, sir," he agreed. A speaker in the wheelhouse crackled. "Santa Elena, your catch is almost there." Finch walked over to the hydrophone and rogered. He felt better moving. Next to the hydrophone, the television monitor showed the mannequin dangling a hundred feet down. A fluorescent yellow twoman sub hovered behind it in the gloom, watching. Finch turned to his crewmen. "Divers overboard." Two divers rolled off the transom carrying a large canvas bag. Finch leaned over the gunwale and spit. The urgency of his nausea receded. He watched the divers swim down until the bag was ...
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