—All at the same time?
—All of them showed up in the last hour. These guys are well coordinated. There is one in Cairo, taking a footbath in the middle of the Nile. It’s a hundred feet from the 6th October Bridge. You know what the bridge is named after?
—The start of the Yom Kippur War.
—Yeah. I think they’ll soon have a good reason to rename that one. There’s also one in Moscow.
—London and Moscow. Things will not go well at the Security Council.
—No they won’t. The French have theirs too. You should see the pictures of that one. It’s on Place Charles de Gaulle, perfectly centered in front of the Arc de Triomphe. Whoever is piloting that one has a good sense of aesthetics and a huge flair for the dramatic.
—Have any appeared near us?
—Not yet. The closest one is in Mexico City. There’s another one in S?o Paulo. The one in Mexico didn’t even bother to find an open space. It just crushed a small art museum, appeared right on top of it. Maybe the pilots just aren’t any good. There’s a pretty large city park across the street.
—Finding good pilots is very difficult. You mentioned London, Tokyo, Jakarta, Delhi, Cairo, Moscow— —You forgot Calcutta.
—Thank you. Paris, Mexico City, S?o Paulo. That makes ten. You said there were eleven.
—Johannesburg.
— …
—I know …
—Is your family in danger?
—They live a few miles from where it showed up. They are trying to leave the city. I just spoke to my sister. She says the roads are still open. I don’t know how long that’ll last. Some of my former men are with them. Things are gonna get ugly. Delhi and Calcutta are the worst right now. The roads were useless about five minutes in. People have to leave on foot. I wouldn’t wanna be in Tokyo either.
—We could—
—We could what? Save Johannesburg? Since when is Africa on anyone’s list of priorities? I appreciate the sentiment but you know that won’t happen.
—Probably not. I am sorry.
—Did you notice anything about where they chose to land?
—They appeared in some of the most populous cities on the planet.
—Yes they did. And what does that tell you?
—That they understand resource optimization very well. The cost of an eradication effort is, generally speaking, inversely proportional to the population density.
—That’s a nice way to put it. It’s cheaper to kill the rats if they’re all in one place …
—It is certainly less time-consuming than to kill us one at a time. If that is their intention, they can possibly exterminate one-quarter of all humans with a handful of robots in a very short amount of time. Once all major cities have been destroyed, there would be no government to speak of, no supply chains. A significant portion of the surviving population would die of disease or starvation within months. Whoever is left would offer little or no resistance. You have to admire what they can do with twenty-two people.
[I’m sorry to bother you, General, but you’ll want to read this.]
—Thank you Jamie … Make that twenty-four.
—Another one? Where?
—Beijing.
—There might still be another explanation. They have not attacked us.
—Not yet.
—It is entirely possible that they are using this tactic to scare us into submission.
—Then it’s working.
—Would you surrender if given the option?
—Wouldn’t you? I’ll put up a fight because I don’t think they give a crap whether we surrender or not. But you know Themis can’t fight them all. Hell, she can’t fight any of them right now.
—I was under the impression that Themis was recovered intact.
—Oh, Themis is fine, but she can’t fight a dozen of these.
—She can try.
—She’s not going anywhere, not with a pilot missing.
—You told me Mr. Couture was on his way here less than five minutes ago.
—Oh, Vincent’s fine. It’s Kara we’re missing.
—Ms. Resnik? She was here yesterday.
—She was. And now she’s not. Can you tell me where she is?
—I was completely unaware of her absence until a second ago. What makes you think I would know where she is?
—She left a note for you on my desk. It said: “Don’t know when I’ll be back. Please give this to him.” I’m assuming she meant you.
—Can I see it?
—I can tell you what it says. I memorized it.
—You opened it?
—Of course I goddamn opened it! The world is coming to an end. I’m missing a pilot. I don’t give a rat’s ass about your privacy! Wanna know what it said or not?
—Please.
—Fuck you!
— …
—That’s what it said!
—Anything else?
—Nope. Just fuck you. One exclamation point. Are you gonna tell me or do I need to ask?
—Ask what?
—What did you do, you conniving son of a bitch?
FILE NO. 1550
EMAIL FROM RYAN MITCHELL TO CAPTAIN KARA RESNIK, EARTH DEFENSE CORPS