The Darwin Project Read online

  He called the head of department for Cognitive Science Studies and explained he needed urgent personal leave because his uncle was missing. The head was unimpressed. Toby explained further and concluded by submitting his resignation while on the phone after the head decided he would take over Toby’s graduate students. That, Toby thought, means no reference from the faculty. He wondered if he’d ever have a need for one. He made a mental note to email his three graduate research students. He would try to meet with them before another week was out. He was confident two of them would enjoy some non-curricular based challenges.

  He selected the jazz stream again. He was concerned about his missing uncle, and the music might help.

  The trailing vehicle kept its distance. About halfway back to Los Angeles, the FBI escort caught up to the Tesla, and the black Suburban disappeared somewhere behind them in the continuous stream of traffic.

  oOo

  Chapter Four

  Lou Lasky, an ex-marine, checked the relayed image from the MAX weapon unit he’d earlier placed on a small hill overlooking the refinery tanks along Interstate 80, north of San Francisco. The refinery was ten miles south of his current location. The MAX, a US Army Military Automated Weapon System, mounted a .50 caliber machine gun, and he’d loaded it with a belt containing an alternating mix of explode-on-contact shells and violet-tipped dim tracers; the latter burned a mix of volatile chemicals when they were fired. He expected the hail of exploding shells would penetrate the metal storage tanks and the tracers would ignite their fuel and oil contents. He had programmed the MAX to fire a hundred rounds at each of the five tanks in turn.

  The weapon’s camera had an uninterrupted view of the targeted storage tanks, and it was relaying clear images back to his notepad. Lou checked his watch. Two a.m. Time to start. He activated the program, and the MAX commenced firing its five hundred rounds. The law enforcement-contracted ShotTracker system, listening stations for which were all along Interstate 80, would probably echo-locate the MAX before it completed its program. However, he expected the machine gun would fire off all the rounds before the police could reach the device.

  If he kept to his schedule, Lou reflected, he’d be on the northern side of Sacramento by the time the local law decided to expand their search for the weapon’s operator. He had booby-trapped the MAX, setting it to explode and burn out. That would happen within seconds after it fired the last round. He was confident the blast would destroy the equipment and possible DNA and fingerprint evidence.

  When the weapon began its programmed firing, he cracked his notepad case on the rocks where he’d been sitting, spilling the contents of the device. He battered the components with a medium size rock. It was a waste, Lou thought, but now no one could use the device to identify his involvement in the attack. He spat his tobacco wad into the dry dirt beside his right boot, oblivious to the DNA trail he had just created.

  He did not notice the AI-piloted highway patrol drone circling above, its attention attracted by the exploding gas storage tanks and directed by the ShotTracker software.

  Gus Albini struggled against the pull of the tide as he clambered into the small outboard-driven rigid inflatable. The water’s damn cold, Gus thought, even with a wetsuit. He preferred the warmer waters of the Gulf, where he had spent years working under water, welding oil pipelines.

  As a further challenge, the currents around the bases of the bridge towers had accelerated with the incoming tide, making his tasks even more difficult. The Golden Gate Bridge had been badly shaken by the ‘21 Quake, the tremors destroying some deck sections. The same earthquake with its shocks and aftershocks had also devastated areas of downtown San Francisco.

  Since then bridge engineers had stabilized the remaining structure, and contractors had worked all hours and days to replace the roadway. The bridge was due to reopen in a week, and the event was expected to help revitalize the city.

  Gus had managed to climb up to the foot of each of the two supporting towers in turn, although it had taken him far longer than planned. He was satisfied that the packs of C4, nestled in against the base of each of the towers, would cause the damage he wanted. Even if the explosive force didn’t breach the structures, the resulting mechanical flaws would be costly to repair. The risks of further failure would cause the authorities to cancel the reopening ceremony.

  With luck, he thought, the bridge would be out of action for months, perhaps for another year.

  His companion held the boat steady as its outboard pushed back against the tidal flow; he even managed to give a helping hand to Gus as he collapsed onto the bottom boards of the RIB.

  “All set,” Gus said. “That’s the last pack; they’re all in position, at least as best I can manage. It’ll have to do. Let’s get out of here. Head west for a couple of miles and then north as planned. I’ll contact the pickup boat and let ’em know we’re on our way.”

  He intended to sink this smaller boat, together with his gloves and wetsuit, after they boarded the larger boat. That way, there’d be no trace of the explosives on him or his clothing, if for any reason law enforcement decided to check.

  “Okay. Sit down low and hang on,” instructed his companion.

  The nose of the little boat lifted with the surge of speed and thumped into the short waves, and cold seawater sprayed back into the faces of the helmsman and his passenger.

  They had about five miles to travel to meet with the larger boat, which would take them further north for another thirty miles along the coast. Their destination was the small harbor where their vehicles were parked. They would complain, if anyone was around, about a fruitless night of fishing.

  Gus didn’t expect to encounter many locals.

  The few coastal villages and beach residential areas, which had been located between the Pacific and the mountains, had been washed out to sea by the tsunami following the earthquake. The loss of life had been high, and few people were now prepared to settle on the narrow strip of coastal lowland.

  When they were on the highway heading north, Gus intended to trigger the remote detonators to fire the packs of C4 that he had emplaced. It was a pity he wouldn’t be near the bridge—the explosions would be spectacular.

  Maybe then the politicians would realize Northern California was serious about the demands for a separate state. That would remove the interfering Californian government, which was always telling the people what to do. And the northern California-based chapter of the brownshirts had the president’s support.

  He could hope.

  And destroy.

  Lasky stood quietly as the deputy sheriff handcuffed him. He hadn’t expected to be pulled over, and the shock of his arrest hadn’t worn off. The deputy had explained how the drone had first followed his vehicle from where he had set up the MAX, and the tracking software had linked him to the weapon when it commenced firing at the oil tanks.

  “You’re a traitor,” Lasky said. “You know this state gubmint is makin’ slaves of us all. Northern Cal will be a free state.”

  “So you’re one of these brownshirts?”

  “Shore thing. Sworn in, all official like. Even got a badge an’ diploma from the president. We’re makin’ ‘Murica great again.”

  “It’s a con, you know. Who told you to destroy the gas tanks?” The deputy opened the rear door of his patrol car.

  “I ain’t responsible for that. I was jus’ drivin’ through.”

  “We’ll see. Our crime team’s heading to the site. We’ll find something to link you to it. Now you make a mess of my vehicle, and I’ll stop somewhere quiet and make a mess of you.”

  Lasky spat out his wad of tobacco, just missing the deputy’s boot. The deputy smiled.

  “I bet you were chewing there, as well. I’ll let them know.” He pushed his prisoner onto the back seat and slammed the door closed.

  Chapter Five

  “Jayzuz.” The curse was drawled out. “Will ya look at that?”

  Rick Steynes was a freelance video photo
grapher currently attached to ABZ Broadcasting in their San Francisco studio. He’d taken the assignment hoping to document the progressive deterioration of the city as the Silicon Valley exodus continued. Prior to the 2021 ‘Quake property values had dropped to 50 percent of their peak levels, and now, a year after the disaster, the rush of prices downwards was entering free fall as tech companies continued their push to the exit. There were no lifeboats. Europe, in particular Paris, had become the new growth center for technology.

  Rick pushed his hair back from his face, not moving his attention from the display from his camera drone. He was thirty years old, clean-shaven, stood just over six feet, and weighed about one hundred and eighty pounds. His use of camera and drone controls was almost automatic; his accuracy in guiding both made it appear he was sitting in the small aircraft.

  “What’s your problem?” Karla Tunstall asked.

  Karla was an assistant news director, and in Rick’s opinion, the brightest of the current shift team. She was twenty-five, alert, wide-awake even though it was two a.m. A spider web tattoo decorated her right forearm up to her shoulder and beyond, the full extent of which Rick thought one day he would like to explore, and she wore rings on every finger. Her shoulder-length hair was black with white stripes—or white with black stripes; he was not certain which. He and Karla and the other members of the news crew were preparing for the early morning news program.

  “I’ve been following a stream of bots for the last fifteen minutes. Look.” Rick adjusted his camera focus, broadening the scope of the image displayed on the sixty-inch studio monitor.

  “Okay, I’m looking. What at?” She stood shoulder to shoulder, bumping his right arm.

  “Take care,” Rick cautioned, adjusting the position of the drone to improve the image display. “The drone’s carrying my RED 3 camera with one of the most expensive night-vision lenses I’ve ever owned. I can’t afford to lose any of my equipment.”

  Karla bumped him again, a gentler motion. She reached barely to his shoulder.

  The monitor displayed a view of Stockton Street in downtown San Francisco. The street ended in roadworks just before Geary Street; the city was still rebuilding the earthquake-collapsed tunnel. Hundreds, perhaps a thousand or more, street-cleaning, refuse-collecting, and other bots—task-specific, semi-intelligent, and self-directing robots—were moving slowly down the street, herded, it seemed, by people sheltering in the shadows of the night.

  As Rick and Karla watched, a bot was singled out by two men from the trailing crowd; they bashed it energetically with hammers until major portions of the mechanical equipment were smashed and broken. The bot was beyond immobile, at which point the crowd raised loud cheers.

  One of the men, a dark silhouette, pushed shattered components of the broken machine into the gutter. Another bot, a street cleaner, tried to collect the remnants and it, too, was attacked by members of the crowd. It was a larger construct, the size of an SUV, and half a dozen or more men threw themselves into the attack, wielding heavy sledgehammers. Within minutes, the victim was turning aimlessly in the one spot, its directional controls no longer functioning.

  The assault continued.

  The bot collapsed when both its tracks were destroyed. Its assailants, aggressively wielding their weapons, broke the bot’s body into unrecognizable bits of metal, plastic, and glass. One of the attackers found its processor, pulled it out of the control block, and beat on it with a sledgehammer until the constituent components were dust. He did an impromptu war dance around the debris.

  Rick zoomed out the camera lens to take in more of the street. Attacks were taking place for as far as he could see. People, perhaps upwards of two thousand, were surging forward from Union Square, obviously intent on destroying the captive collection of bots.

  “Where’s the law?” Karla asked.

  “None around. That’s why I had the drone out. I was trying to find them. Instead, I discovered this.” Rick indicated the image on the screen. “Somehow the bots were herded here. I backtracked, and streets have been blocked off with diversion signs with the intention, it seems, of funneling the night shift bots into this area.”

  He moved the drone to focus the camera on the crowds standing on the steps around Union Square.

  “These are some of the homeless people. They’re getting their revenge. They used to collect cans, bottles, anything recyclable or salable, from bins or which were left on the streets. The city introduced bots for street cleaning and rubbish collection, anything they could automate, even parking control. Wham—dispossessed homeless people plus more unemployed. Their plights have been exacerbated by the increasing shortage of jobs plus property price deflation.”

  Karla said, “It was part of the city’s scheme to save money after the ‘quake. Forcing the homeless to move out of the city wasn’t a part of the strategy, according to the mayor.”

  “That’s what he said. Look, look—two of the bots are fighting each other.”

  Rick stopped the forward movement of his drone and focused his camera on the robotic altercation. He zoomed in, to concentrate on the furious battle.

  “What’s that, a rubbish collector and a tow-away bot? This is marvelous stuff,” Karla said.

  They both watched the intense battle until men, and, Rick noticed, some women, rushed to help finalize the bout of bot self-destruction.

  “Their controls must be confused or shorting out or something,” Rick muttered, entranced by the mechanical carnage.

  “I’m going to check if anyone knows where the police are. I’ll update you. Keep recording; we’ll use some of this at six a.m.”

  Karla hurried off to find her news director. She returned after two or three minutes.

  “Apparently, there’s mayhem all around the city and beyond. Robberies, sniper attacks, three or four empty warehouses on fire—there’s a lot happening. Some brownshirts have been seen, skulking around. Keep recording here; it’s excellent stuff. My director’s trying to find out if there’s anything else in progress that we can capture.”

  The ABZ news director and her assistants were in conference. They had in excess of a hundred minutes of video from Rick’s camera of what they were calling the War of the Bots. Their challenge was how much to show at six a.m., how much to hold back for later news broadcasts, how much to release onto the Internet, and how much to offer to the East Coast and overseas television news outlets. Associated Pacific was eager, also they were negotiating with SkyV, and FoxC was interested. The day promised to be a blast.

  More news reports were coming in. Oil tanks were on fire along Interstate 80. Explosions had been heard near the Golden Gate Bridge. The city was in turmoil.

  oOo

  Chapter Six

  It was morning, very early, Toby was sure. He was using one of the guest rooms in his uncle’s house, and after a second or two of reflection, he jumped out of bed. He shuffled through the clothes Billie had helped him bring from his apartment and quickly changed. The way to start his day would be a quick breakfast, then the gym room, finishing with a swim. He’d be ready to deal with Billie’s protective approach when she and her boss arrived later in the morning.

  Senior Agent Raymond Reynolds had been waiting when Toby and Billie arrived at Nate’s Bel Air property the evening before. The senior agent had reported that the FBI had stopped the Suburban and arrested the occupants. Apparently, the two men had outstanding warrants, and the main FBI office in Washington was eager to get possession of them. The residual worry was that no one knew who the men were working for, and Reynolds had promised to inform Toby when this was determined. He was not confident the agent would have that information anytime soon.

  Toby stopped suddenly halfway through his intended swimming routine and climbed out of the pool. He grabbed his cell phone and hit a shortcut link. After fifteen seconds or so the call went to voice-mail. He redialed again and again. The call was answered after he had dialed five times.

  Toby said, “Listen, Rick, it�
�s Toby. I need you here as soon as possible. It’s urgent. Okay?”

  “I’ve been working all night; you’ve woken me up, interrupted my beauty sleep—”

  “Sleep won’t help you with that. Try plastic surgery. This is extreme. Listen, I need your help. I’ve got an assignment for you—I’ll pay your freelance rates.”

  “What? You’ve been drinking?”

  “No, dammit. Pack for travel. Get here. I’ll arrange for a car to collect you from LAX. Assume you’ll be on assignment for three months, minimum, maybe six, maybe a year. It could be longer.”

  “Are you sure? It’s gonna cost, man. If I walk on this contract, they won’t take me back.”

  “Who’s it with?”

  “ABZ Broadcasting. I’m contracted with their news team here in San Francisco.”

  “Hold on.” Toby had reached his bedroom where he had left the legal files. “I need to check something.” He looked down the list of names in the stock portfolio and found the company’s name. He read the line showing the number of shares and current value. He whistled silently. He said, “I’ll smooth over the client.”

  “I won’t even ask how. I’d like to bring someone—she’s an assistant production director.”

  “Girlfriend?”

  “Not yet. If you want me to do video work, she’ll help put it together.”

  Toby knew only that he needed his friend. If it meant an additional person, he could cope. “Bring her. Lock up your apartment. Catch a flight. If she wants to work, I’ll pay her rates, and I’ll reimburse all expenses. Text when you have an arrival time.”

  “Is this anything to do with your vblog with the false FBI guys?”

  “It might.”

  “That’s deep shit. I’ll get there before you can blink. I’ll talk to Karla—she might take some convincing.”

  “Over to you. As I said, I’ll have someone pick you up. Look for a black Tesla; it’s the latest model.”