Free The Colonel by Peter Watts Page A

bodies, contortionist poses: how would those shapes profile at ground level? What would the security cameras see, looking out across—
    â€œWildlife. They’re impersonating wildlife .” Jaguars and guerillas, my ass …
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œIt’s a legacy loophole, don’t you—” But of course she doesn’t. Too young to remember Ecuador’s once-proud tradition of protecting its charismatic megafauna. Not even born when that herd of peccaries and Greenpeacers got mowed down by an overeager pillbox programmed to defend the local airstrip. Wouldn’t know about the safeguards since legislated into every automated targeting system in the country, long-since forgotten for want of any wildlife left to protect.
    So much for on-site security. The insurgents will be smart enough to hold off on coalescing until they’re beyond any local firing solution. “How long before the drones arrive?”
    The Lieutenant dips into her own head, checks a feed. “Seventeen minutes.”
    â€œWe have to assume they’ll have completed their mission before then.”
    â€œYes sir, but— what mission? What are they gonna do, scratch the paint with their fingernails?”
    He doesn’t know. His source didn’t know. The insurgents themselves probably don’t know, won’t know until they network; you could snatch one off the ground this very instant, read the voxels right off her brain, get no joy at all.
    That’s the scary thing about hive minds. Their plans are too big to fit into any one piece.
    He shakes his head. “So we can’t access the guns. What about normal station operations?”
    â€œSure. Stations have to talk to each other to keep the injection rates balanced.”
    The insurgents are halfway to the scrubbers. It’s astonishing that such quick headway could emerge from such graceless convulsion.
    â€œGet us in.”
    A wave of stars ignites across the schematic, right to left: switches, valves, a myriad of interfaces coming online. The Colonel points to a cluster of sparks in the southwest quadrant. “Can we vent those tanks?”
    â€œNot happily.” She frowns. “A free dump would be catastrophic. Only way the system would go along with that is if it thought it was preventing something even worse.”
    â€œSuch as?”
    â€œTank explosion, I guess.”
    â€œSet it up.”
    She starts whispering sweet nothings to distant gatekeepers, but she doesn’t look pleased. “Sir, isn’t this technically—I mean, use of poison gas—”
    â€œSulfate precursor. Geoengineering stockpile. Not a weapon of war.” Technically.
    â€œYes sir,” she says unhappily.
    â€œCountermeasures have to be in place before they link up, Lieutenant. If there’s any exploit—any at all—the hive will see it. There’s no way to outthink the damn thing once it’s engaged.”
    â€œYes sir. Ready.”
    â€œThat was fast.”
    â€œYou said it had to be, sir.” She extends a finger toward a fresh crimson icon pulsing on the board. “Should I—”
    â€œNot yet.” The Colonel stares down from vicarious orbit, tries to make sense of the tableaux. What the hell are they doing? What can even a hive mind accomplish with reed mats and a few kilograms of mu—
    Wait a second…
    He picks an intruder at random, zooms in. The mud sheathing that body has an almost golden glint to it, now that he looks closely. Something not-quite-mineral, something—
    He calls up an archive, searches the microbial index for any weaponized synthetics that might eat heterocyclics. Scores.
    â€œThey’re going after the umbilical.”
    The Lieutenant glances up. “Sir?”
    â€œThe mud. It’s not just a disguise it’s a payload , it’s—”
    â€œA biopaste.” The Lieutenant whistles, returns her attention to the board with renewed