Robogenesis: A Novel

4. FREEBORN CITY


Post New War: 3 Months, 10 Days

The so-called freeborn robots, created by the deranged Archos R-14 and awakened by a Japanese scientist, suffered greatly in the aftermath of the New War. As a race, they were at once responsible for the human victory and creations of the monster they had defeated. Made in the image of man, these sentient machines nonetheless found themselves wary of their precursors. The vast majority of freeborn had never seen a human being, much less fought alongside one. For their part, most surviving humans refused to believe that a freeborn robot had betrayed and defeated Archos R-14. Allied in victory, the two races had this one chance to form a lasting alliance. They failed.

—ARAYT SHAH


DATABASE ID: NINE OH TWO

Forty miles outside Fort Collins, Colorado, my running gait stutters and I fall out of the relaxed rhythm that I have maintained for twenty-eight cycles of day and night. An easy trotting gait transitions through an unfamiliar stumble to a jarring walk and then to a full stop.

My joints are still. Heat dissipates. The world is suddenly, shockingly silent.

An observation thread notified me of the freeborn camp seconds ago. The site is perched on a hillside at a range of three kilometers. Nearly undetectable. Trace radar signatures reflect back to me under faded, dusty skies. At maximum sensitivity, I detect an audible snippet of coded Robspeak floating on the wind.

I have found my own kind.

For a few yawning milliseconds my primary action threads oscillate between high and low utility, simulating the outcome of meeting these machines. In my operational lifetime, I have known two other freeborn: Hoplite and Sapper. Regrettably, both units suffered lethal outcomes while aiding me in combat directives.

They died for me and I buried their remains to honor them. It seemed right.

Now I shut down all active sensing equipment—radar, sonar, and lidar. Break the outline of my humanoid silhouette by pressing my body into a rough thicket. I pull my limbs close to my casing to confuse high-resolution thermal imaging. Hold myself as motionless as the dusky rocks.

Using only passive vision capabilities, I zoom to the limit of my CCDs. Then I execute full digital zoom.

A haze of dust floats in the twilight, obscuring my vision. The freeborn camp is spread out on a bare rocky hillside. Dead grass and dirt. Scrubby spherical bushes spread out in fractally spaced clumps. Dim humanoid figures are engaged in unknown activities. Not much else to see in the visible spectrum.

The lack of movement is conspicuous, especially compared to Gray Horse Army. My thoughts turn back to the human soldiers I fought alongside. To the whispering voice of a little girl who used to speak to me.

I remember the kilometers-long column of spider tanks making camp during the journey north. Thousands of warm-blooded mammals, their chests rising and falling with constant respiration, veins pulsing with oxygenated blood, warming the arctic air with their exhalations. Interacting, their jaws dipped up and down, small eyes darting about in their orbits, vocal cords vibrating through a narrow band of human audible frequencies. Their facial muscles flexed elastically, constantly conveying social information.

It took time, but I learned the patterns. At first, the sheer complexity made the task seem impossible. But then I felt the satisfaction of breaking the code. I began to unravel the meanings behind their laughter and crying, their screams of pain or of joy. Over time, I came to know them.

What I found most interesting were their hands. Long fingers set to work cleaning weapons, digging foxholes, checking ammunition. Adjusting and securing and calibrating. Even asleep, the humans would twitch and breathe and think. An array of countless tiny movements like the swarming of insects.

How strange that I miss them.

The freeborn on the hillside are modified safety-and-pacification units: Hoplites and Wardens and Optios. My own kind. Milspec humanoid models, stronger than the domestics. Approximately thirty units. Wearing scavenged human garments for added protection and camouflage, similar to the ones I wear. Stiff, soiled military fatigues stretched over jutting servos. Layers of civilian pants and T-shirts, coated with dirt and grease and dark ovals of spilled blood.


Soldiers who look like heavily armored scarecrows.

The camp is undisturbed by cat holes or campfires or tents. No environmental modifications whatsoever. These soldiers do not require it. Chairs are for those who sit. Beds are for those who sleep. There is no campfire that will bring warmth to this army.

An observation thread orients my attention to movement.

It’s a golden Hoplite, sitting, methodically scooping dirt off the ground and rubbing it on its outer garments. The golden varieties are more prone to reflecting sunlight, revealing their position. The dirt cakes onto the clothing and encourages the welcome growth of moss and bacterial blooms that create natural camouflage.

The Hoplite stops. Orients its face toward me.

Alert. Throttling surplus power into sensing and acting control center. If an attack comes, I will need everything I’ve got to escape and survive. The extra energy will have no utility later.

An action thread suggests contacting Mathilda Perez for global information concerning this encampment. Her eyes are everywhere. I quash the thread. Mathilda is on her own path now. Our friendship no longer falls within her life constraints.

Systems primed to fight or flee, I watch the Hoplite continue scooping dirt and rubbing it on its filthy military jacket. Maxprob tapers to indicate no threat. So I step out of the bushes. Thorns tear into my ill-fitting clothing, but I pay no attention. There is no shortage of human corpses to loot.

Now I stand exposed to snipers.

Active sensing reinitialized. Scanning high-probability visual regions for incoming bullet trajectories. At this range, the sound wave of a gunshot will arrive after I’ve been hit. I can hope to dodge only if I see the bullet coming. Disabling executive thought threads to accommodate high-speed-object avoidance. Thirty seconds grace. Counting down . . .

. . . three, two, one. Zero.

No incoming attack from the freeborn. No communication. The sun perceptibly creeps lower in the west. A starving tick crawls down the sleeve of my jacket. My metal casing clicks quietly as the heat dissipates. And nearby, a lone cricket chirps.

Reroute emergency power. Executive thought thread priority. Communication and observation analysis activated.

I set out for the hillside.

After a few minutes hiking, I am among the freeborn.

A quick topographical simulation confirms the machines are arranged in an unnatural pattern that has been formulated to appear natural. No three robots are located in a straight geometric line. Maxprob indicates this is a technique to prevent automatic identification from the low-orbit satellites that still sweep the planet’s surface with synthetic aperture radar.

To comply with this unwritten rule, I ensure that I do not stand in a straight line with any two other units. It reminds me of how the human soldiers seemed to require a half meter of space around their bodies at all times. Just another local custom.

Neck swiveling, I take in every detail as I move through the camp toward the Hoplite that recognized me earlier. Some of the freeborn are performing limb-calibration exercises, reaching precisely for invisible points in the air. A lone domestic-type freeborn uses a welder’s torch in quick, raspy flares, attaching an extra strut to strengthen its leg. Most of these machines are self-modified, like me.

The camp is near silent in the human audible spectrum. Communications are taking place, however. Most are implicit, based on location and posture. Others occur via close-range radio frequency. Encrypted low-power transmissions become thicker the deeper into camp I get. Soon the air is humming with a blue cloud of coded gibberish. I hear a few shorter messages via ultrasonic clicks—Robspeak. Audible sound is better for short-range comms. Simpler attenuation dynamics make it easier to control range for highly secure local broadcasts.

Plus, the grinding sounds scare away the birds.

A 999 Optio humanoid, a tech specialist, methodically cleans the barrel of a heavy black weapon with a scrap of oily rag. A martial database search returns an M240 machine-gun variant with partial vehicular mount still attached. There are three more in various states of disrepair laid out on wool army blankets. Ammunition boxes, some partially shattered, are piled next to the weapons. Scattered in the grass are rust-colored bandages, scraps of clothing, and a dented helmet with torn netting.

Humans were here. But not now.

The Hoplite rests on the hillside, finished obfuscating its visual and olfactory signature with local soil. The machine has been scarred and repaired many times over. No traces of human military designation remain. In fact, all external markings appear to have been removed with a file.

I decide on a low-volume audio signal. In the creaks and grinds of standard U.S. military Robspeak, I signal my presence and ask a question. The transmission process scrambles the message and peppers it with redundancy in case of loss. But the information contained in my utterance is: “Query. Are you freeborn? Seek to confirm.”

The Hoplite turns its narrow sprinter’s head. It rakes its gaze across me and I feel a pulse of millimeter-wave X-ray.

The Hoplite stands and slides forward smoothly and grasps my jacket. It clamps on to the fabric and yanks it apart. The clothing rips to reveal my chest fairing. Across the center is the tattoo I earned from Bright Boy squad in the New War. It is a diving eagle, talons extended, the bird of prey taking flight in dribbles of melted metal that were skillfully painted with an arc welder.

The letters GHA are in the talons of the predatory bird.

“Query. What is this pattern?” asks the Hoplite.

“Response. Human-designated word is tattoo. Pattern is a symbol created to show unity with human fighting forces and to increase morale during battle.”

“You fought alongside humans?”

“Affirmative.”

“Identify. What is your designation?”

“Response. I am Arbiter-class milspec model Nine Oh Two, humanoid safety-and-pacification unit. Point of origin, Fort Collins, Colorado. Former infantryman of Gray Horse Army fighting forces. Veteran of trans-Siberian campaign culminating in assault on Ragnorak Intelligence Fields and destruction of enemy designated Archos R-14. Current primary objective: Return to point of origin.”

Tinted pink by the setting sun, the freeborn robots within audio range stop their activities. Myriad faces silently orient toward me. A short-range transmission rebroadcasts my own transmission and the rest of the camp stops and reorients.

“Arbiter Nine Oh Two,” responds the Hoplite. “Query acknowledged and confirmed. We are freeborn army, reconnaissance group Gamma, Hoplite unit number Oh Oh One speaking.”

“Hoplite Gamma One. What is your primary objective?”

“Scouting directive is as follows: Seek and recruit parasites. Engage hostile machines if necessary. Avoid humans,” says the Hoplite.

“Define. Parasite?”

“Veteran human soldiers mounted by the modified exoskeletal devices known as parasites. Resulting entities exhibit amplified physical capability, yet are often shot on sight by human beings. Alpha Zero considers them our allies.”

“Query. Identify Alpha Zero?”

“Mass Adjudicator–class milspec Alpha Zero. Our leader. Located at the site of the former Cheyenne Mountain nuclear bunker in the state of Colorado. Location now has new designation: Freeborn City.”

We have a home. And a leader.

For the briefest second, the robots pause and orient to a scratch of transmission skating in from over the southern horizon.

“Hold. Incoming transmission,” the Hoplite continues.

The hiss consolidates into a recognizable radio transmission. A human voice.


Half of the inefficient words are lost in the squeal of tires and pounding of small-arms fire in the background. “. . . day, Mayday. This is . . . Great Plains tribal authority . . . caravan headed north on I-25 . . . out-running them for now but limited fuel . . . requesting immediate assistance . . . mobile beacon located at—”

The radio squawks a coded location tag.

I access my local map database and trace the geo-tag to a potential range of locations less than two hundred kilometers from here.

“Query, Hoplite Gamma One,” I ask. “Friendly human forces under attack. Authorize Gamma Recon interdiction?”

“Negative, Arbiter,” replies the machine. “Interdiction outside mission scope. Adjudicator Alpha Zero forbids.”

“Request exception.”

“Acknowledged. Querying Adjudicator.”

A line of blue-violet communication arcs away from the Hoplite and into the skies. The unit is communicating with the freeborn leader called Mass Adjudicator Alpha Zero. On reflection, I realize that she is my superior as well. My commander.

“Request denied, Arbiter,” responds the Hoplite. “Alpha Zero instructs adherence to primary objective. Gamma Recon is grounded. To maintain neutral stance, we are forbidden from interfering with the human population. Corollary. Arbiter Nine Oh Two is instructed to report to Freeborn City immediately. Confirm.”

The human radio transmission keeps sputtering on. Now the voice is breathing harder. Gunfire crackles in the background. Squealing tires and brief, shouted commands.

“Repeat. Confirm?” asks Gamma One.

“Negative,” I respond. “Ignoring a distress call violates code of war. Freeborn inaction is tantamount to an attack. You will make an enemy of the humans.”

“Acknowledged.”

The freeborn either don’t know or don’t care that humankind is our greatest ally.

“Query, Hoplite Gamma One,” I ask.

“Proceed.”

“Weapons materials requisition request.”

“Request not received,” says the machine, after a brief pause. “Sensors obfuscated.”

It turns its back on me, a silent, unofficial invitation to take the weapons. I pause for half of one second in surprise. It is good to know that the freeborn do not always follow the orders of their superiors. At least, not to the letter.

M240 machine-gun barrels lie gleaming darkly in parallel rows. I pick up the weapon with the least amount of paint flaked off it. Clamp one hand around the polymer grip and hold the thirty-pound titanium weapon level with the ground. I twist off a heat shield that was built to protect human hands and toss it. Pop the cover off the feeding tray with a smack.

Kneeling, I pick up an ammo box filled with coiled belts of disintegrating link ammunition. Hook the metal box onto my fatigues and secure it with a belt. Then I drop a winking ribbon of ammunition across the powder-blasted feeding tray. Snap the cover down with a thump.

The sun slips over the horizon.

Now I am moving down the hillside, leaving the camp behind. Radar and lidar wash across my back as the freeborn scouts watch me go. At the maximum transmission range, a comm thread pings me.

“Arbiter Nine Oh Two.”

“Acknowledge?”

I hear the chirp of a geo-tag. My internal map is illuminated with a minimum-distance path along flat, paved roads—leading to the human distress call. A burst of memories and squad locations and survey expeditions data follows, pouring into my database. This must be the baseline freeborn data package. Our short history settles into my mind like my own experience.

Now I know that the former Cheyenne Mountain nuclear bunker is the central hub of the freeborn. Buried under a mountainside in central Colorado, the complex is home to a vast bank of high-powered computer processors. It is a former human supercomputer complex, seismically shielded in case of a nuclear blast.

And it is the beating heart of the freeborn.

“Query,” calls Hoplite. “Did you eliminate enemy-designated Archos R-14? Did you free us from slave control?”

“Affirmative,” I reply.

My footsteps crunch on the hillside.

“Gratitude.” The call is echoed from a dozen more units, all around me. Gratitude. Gratitude. Gratitude.

“Acknowledged,” I say.

Reaching the road, I lean into the wind and accelerate to maximum velocity.

Priority thought thread devoted to obstacle avoidance. Long-range sensing. My flickering shadow stretches out to my left. I sprint down the middle of a dirt-caked, abandoned highway, triclops eyes leveled on the horizon.

On the radio, I hear humans dying.

I pump my legs, maintaining a velocity of forty kilometers an hour. The M240 is poised, two inches out from my chest, held low in two hands with its nose pointed to the sky. The pale crescent moon has emerged, reflecting waves of polarized sunlight from over the horizon.

Both lanes of the road are empty, although the shoulders are obstructed with abandoned vehicles. Archos R-14 was sure to keep its transportation corridors clear during the New War. Now the autonomous cars have begun to molder on the roadside. Three klicks away, a caravan of human survivors is barreling toward me.

Two times, I leap deserted roadblocks made from destroyed vehicles that have been dragged into the highway. Part of some anonymous, futile past effort to ambush Rob convoys. Judging from the skull fragments, failed efforts.

Rounding a wide corner, I finally see the shattered headlights of the lead car, stalled across the road. A four-hundred-pound quadruped is attached to its roof, bladed forearms tearing into the metal, head lowered, neck straining and yanking as it rips through a shattered rear window.

The quadruped hears my approach, turns black eyes to face me. This type of machine was once used by Archos R-14 as a woodland terrain mapper. But it has been compromised by some other entity. Put to an evil use.

I level my M240 and squeeze the trigger.

Bullets disintegrate against the quad. In pieces, it wriggles off the roof. Knees dipping, I launch myself over the vehicle. Airborne, I observe the crumpled car and pump a sweeping arc of bullets into the fallen quad. Feet scraping the pavement, I stay upright and keep running. Behind me, the partial silhouette of a human hangs limp from a seat belt. The interior is streaked with drying blood.

Just beyond the next overpass, another pair of oncoming headlights appears.

I veer to the road’s shoulder, leaping between piles of debris. My laser range finder scans a hundred times a second, registering every obstacle. I am aware of the raised edges of paint on the road, every snag and crevice in the dented hoods and roofs of the automobiles under my feet. At the exit ramp, I climb a weedy lane until I reach the overpass. I scramble over rusted, toppled cars that are grown through with saplings and grass. Jogging to the middle of the bridge, I climb onto the outside railing and stand poised. My moment is almost here.

Dim headlights. A pickup truck, approaching fast. I am close enough now to see the small-arms fire sparking from the fleeing vehicle. A person is leaning out of the window, firing an assault rifle in controlled bursts. Two more compromised quadruped sprinters are approximately ten meters behind the truck and gaining.

Something has reached out into the woods and found these leftover war machines. Archos R-14 is gone. . . . I wonder who or what claimed these weapons.

Swerving, the damaged pickup truck nears my overpass.

“Tribal authority personnel. Do not be alarmed,” I radio.

“Who the hell is—look out!” comes the reply.

I step off the railing.

A hood blurs by underneath and I land with a crunch in the bed of the pickup truck. Inside the rear window, two people crane to look at me, their sweaty faces gleaming in the greenish glow from the instrument cluster. A male and a female. Both are open-mouthed, exhibiting a reaction consistent with surprise. An emotion that will quickly turn to fear. Actions speak louder than words.


So I say nothing.

Bracing myself on my knees, I turn and level the M240 on the roadway behind us. Then I open fire. Tracer streaks saturate my vision as the pavement spits shrapnel. The quads are trying to dodge, but it’s too late. Needles of kinetically charged ammunition send them both tumbling.

And a blue bolt of lightning falls from the sky—a transmission.

“Arbiter, this is your Adjudicator. Route yourself to Freeborn City. Acknowledge.”

“Negative that,” I transmit.

I pivot the nose of my gun up and turn to the rear window. There is no choice but to speak in human-audible frequencies. I hope they do not react poorly to my low-pitched, grinding voice.

“Identification: Freeborn Arbiter-class designated Nine Oh Two.”

“Holy shit,” says the bearded male, slowing the car down to a stop. A pale face peers out at me through the dusty slide-panel window. The vehicle idles loudly, shivering and coughing in the chilly night. “Holy shit. What does it want?” asks the male.

“I want to help you,” I respond.

Adjudicator Alpha Zero will have to wait.