The Doomsday Code

CHAPTER 60

1194, Sherwood Forest, Nottinghamshire

The Hood jumped down, and the trunk, free of its burden, flexed with a woody creak that disturbed several crows nearby. The shrouded form slowly pulled itself from a squat on the ground to its full height.

Bob turned to face it, his arms and legs flexed, ready for action.

‘Bob! Be careful! It’s a metal robotic thing!’

The Hood’s head slowly turned towards Liam. In the shadows he thought he saw the faintest blue glimmer of its LED eyes.

‘Warning!’ boomed Bob. ‘You are not authorized to participate in events that will change history!’

The Hood’s gaze smoothly panned towards Bob. There seemed to be an unspoken challenge in the way it silently regarded him. Then without warning its glove-covered hands pulled the cloak up over its body and tossed it aside.

Liam gasped at the sight, horrific in a way, yet also fascinating. Beneath the cape its form had looked so convincingly human. But now exposed, as he looked at the metal frame, specked with blisters of rust and flecks of old combat-green paint, he wondered how anyone could ever have been fooled into thinking this thing a man. Flesh-coloured plastic, in some places scorched black, in other places melted and bubbled like toasted cheese, hung from its arms and shoulders and neck. In some areas it was actually entirely unmarked and looked very much like real human skin, hanging in sagging loops like the putrefying flesh of some undead being.

‘It’s an old war robot,’ said Liam. ‘That’s what Locke said.’

‘Affirmative,’ replied Bob. ‘Configuration matches Korean model, dating from early 2040s.’

‘Right,’ nodded Liam. ‘Uh … does it — can it talk?’

‘It can communicate using synthetic speech circuits. Not convincing. This functionality may have been disabled.’

‘Does it understand us?’

Bob’s eyes remained on it, watching, waiting for the thing to make its first move. ‘Yes it does.’

‘Could we … could we convince it, you know, to n-not hurt us? Be our friend?’

The robot’s gaze swivelled smoothly towards Liam, its dented and corroded metal skull cocked on one side, blue lights regarding him with cold curiosity for a moment.

Bob regarded the robot. His database included a catalogue of AI variants — family trees of artificial intelligence code, from the first viable self-cognitive versions developed in the late 2020s right up to his version number compiled in 2053. Bob identified this model robot as an old North Korean combat unit. Mass-produced in the mid-2040s and used to devastating effect in the first Pacific Oil War. His records indicated that hundreds of thousands of South Korean, Chinese and Taiwanese as well as their own North Korean civilians were butchered by this model. They were unreliable, with a friendly/hostile identification software that was prone to error. Understandable, given the original AI was pirated code adapted to work with imported Chinese chip sets.

Bob decided to attempt a Bluetooth handshake. Beneath the Chinese or Korean language interface would be a common programming language.

[W.G. Systems AI V7.234c. Please identify]

The robot turned its gaze slowly on to Bob.

[SolSun Inc.: V3.23 -

: 29-06-45]

[Communication protocol. Please select: ASCII-English. Hexadecimal. Binary]

[Selecting Ascii-English]

‘We have a communication channel open,’ said Bob.

Liam nodded. ‘All right … Well, could you ask it to be a good fella and leave us alone?’

‘Negative. It will have mission parameters, just as I do.’ Bob decided that finding out what it thought its mission was would be the most useful line of enquiry.

[Specify mission parameters. Highest priority first]

[Mission Priorities — Primary:

FOLLOW ORDERS IDENT J. LOCKE

— Secondary: Locate, identify hostile forces in target combat zone]

Bob turned to Liam. ‘Its code has been hacked.’

[Identify ‘target combat zone’]

The robot’s gaze shifted to the trees, the thick branches of oak leaves and acorns above them, then back on Bob.

[Target Combat Zone — 35°43’56.27”N/127°47’19.17”E. Kumwon-San, South Korea]

‘Bob! What’s going on — tell me? What’s it saying?’

‘It appears to be following mission instructions from a war that ended in 2049. It believes it is in a Korean jungle. It also believes the year is 2047. This unit was not properly decommissioned. Its mission program is still active but has been crudely hacked to make it follow the verbal commands of J. Locke.’

‘Well … can’t you just tell it that it’s wrong?’

‘Negative. It has no way of identifying the correct year.’

Liam eased himself slowly back along the ground away from the Hood’s unmoving form. ‘Is there not a way you can, you know … convince him to — ’

‘I will try.’

[Information: current location is 53°9′56.49"N/1°5′1.43"W. Sherwood Forest, England]

[Negative]

[You are outside the target combat zone]

The robot’s response took a moment to come back.

[Current location coordinate offset is within target combat zone]

Bob tried a different approach.

[Information: current date is 12 June 1194]

[Negative. Present time data is 11-03-2047, 07.45 hours]

[Transmitting correct time data]

The robot received the information, then cocked its head curiously.

[Transmitted data

. Data confirmed as valid. Please wait]

[You are beyond mission parameters. You are not in the target combat zone]

[

Data conflict]

[Deactivate combat status immediately]

The robot’s blue LED eyes dimmed and flickered out. And its frame sagged and shuddered.

Liam clapped his hands together. ‘Bob! You did it!’ He got up off the ground and took a cautious step towards the immobile statue of corroded metal and melted plastic. ‘Jay-zus-’n’-Mary, you made it turn himself off, so you did! You’re a bleedin’ genius!’

Bob shook his head. ‘It is not turned off. It is merely … considering …’

Liam’s eyebrows arched and he stopped mid-stride. ‘Oh, in that case …’ He took several steps back. ‘Couldn’t we just hit it over the head? You know? While it’s busy considering things?’

‘An offensive action may activate its self-defence routine.’

‘Oh. How about we just run?’

Bob’s mouth had just opened to reply when the statue stirred to life with the soft whirr of servo-motors.

[Primary mission priority override]

The blue eyes glowed once more.

[Verbal command from J. LOCKE (password verified)]

[Command received 4 minutes, 34 seconds ago]

[Command status: active]

[Command = ‘kill them both’]

Bob eased his broadsword out of its sheath; the scrape of metal on leather seemed deafeningly loud in the stillness of the woods. The noise seemed to trigger a reaction from the robot. It pulled its own sword from a scabbard and, holding the weight of the long blade effortlessly in one hand, it advanced towards Bob.

‘Liam O’Connor, you should run.’