The Rising Sea

34

“It’s a trap,” Joe said. “You know that, right?”

“Of course it’s a trap. But that’s a good sign. It means we’ve shaken Han more than I thought. And it’s worth the risk for a good look at the inside of that factory.”

“He’s not going to show you anything incriminating,” Joe pointed out. “But he might teach you a painful lesson once he has you behind closed doors.”

“That’s a risk I’ll have to take,” Kurt said. “Besides, it would be rude to turn down his invitation after I pressed him for a meeting and insisted it would need to happen tonight.”

“Rude, yes. But also wise. Some might even say prudent.”

Kurt laughed. “Since when has prudence been our strong suit?”

Joe smiled at that, but Akiko looked on with concern. “I can’t believe you two are joking like this. He’ll probably try to kill you.”

Kurt shook his head. “He can hardly invite me to his brand-new factory and then bump me off during the tour. At worst, I’d expect thinly veiled threats, some form of intimidation and perhaps undercooked food. If he likes to catch flies with honey instead of vinegar, maybe he’ll try to bribe me.”

“Accidents can happen,” she insisted.

“Which is why you and Joe are staying behind.”

“Now you’ve really lost it,” Joe said. “I’m not letting you walk into a trap by yourself.”

“I need someone out here to call for help if I get in trouble,” Kurt said. “There’s a spot on the hillside that overlooks the factory grounds. You won’t be able to see inside, but you can watch for trouble and dial nine-one-one if I miss my curfew.”

Joe frowned. “So I sit around while you have all the fun.”

“I should go with you,” Akiko said. “My job was to protect Kenzo. Now I feel a duty toward you.”

Kurt smiled. “I appreciate the offer, but I think I can handle this alone.”

“Really?” she said. “What if they start talking in Japanese or Chinese instead of English? Wouldn’t you like to know what they’re saying? They may be plotting against you or whispering secrets you’d never be able to decipher. I could listen to them and watch your back at the same time.”

“The lady has a point,” Joe said.

Akiko continued her lobbying. “I’m very good at distracting men, should you need me to. And if it comes to a fight, you know I can hold my own.”

Kurt nodded. “Of that, I have no doubt.” He didn’t expect combat, but the language barrier was undeniable. At the very least, bringing Akiko along would give Han one more thing to think about. “You’ve convinced me. But we’re going to need proper attire.”

After a trip to one of Nagasaki’s designer shops, Kurt and Akiko were properly dressed and NUMA’s bank account several thousand dollars lighter.

Kurt wore a double-breasted dinner jacket and an ivory-colored shirt with French cuffs. Akiko sat beside him in a shimmering gray dress, intricately embroidered with a beaded flower pattern. Her neckline continued off both shoulders with sleeves falling gracefully past her wrists.

“I’ve never owned a dress like this,” Akiko said.

“You look stunning,” Kurt noted.

“It’s rather uncomfortable.”

Kurt laughed to himself. “Something tells me comfort isn’t the guiding principle.”

Leaving the Skyline GT-R behind with Joe, they traveled to the factory in a rented sedan. They pulled onto the grounds and parked beneath an overhead light seventy feet from the front door. With the crowds gone and the parking lot empty, the place felt abandoned.

Just before getting out of the car, Akiko took a thin knife made of carbon fiber from her purse. It looked like a letter opener with a serrated edge. She slid it carefully up one of the sleeves.

“I like to be prepared,” she said. “You should carry something as well.”

Kurt held up a metallic writing utensil. “I’ve always believed the pen was mightier than the sword.”

“You were misinformed,” she insisted.

“All I have to do is twist the top, and this one will transmit everything they say and do back to Joe.”

“A secret gadget from your government?”

“Actually, I picked this up from an electronics shop down the street while your dress was being altered. Two thousand yen. Less than twenty dollars, at the current exchange rate.”

Kurt twisted the top. “We’re on-site, amigo. You reading us?”

Joe’s reply came through the car speakers. “I have an unobstructed view,” he said. “I’ll keep an eye on the car while you two are inside. Try not to have too much fun without me.”

“Do our best,” Kurt said.

Kurt twisted the pen’s top and the link was broken. He and Akiko got out of the car, locked it and walked toward the front door. A security guard met them and led them into the building. Han met them on the factory floor.

“I’m so glad you could find the time to meet us,” Kurt said. “This is Akiko, NUMA’s Japanese liaison officer.”

Han bowed. His eyes lingered on her for a moment and then he introduced his assistant. “This is Mr. Gao, my chief engineer.”

Gao had a shaven head that reflected the lights in the ceiling. He wore plain slacks, a white button-down shirt and bulky glasses on which Kurt saw tiny green icons flickering and vanishing. A wire led from the frame of his glasses to an earbud and then to a power pack on his belt. The glasses were obviously a wearable computer. The flickering icons part of a heads-up display that only Gao could see and interpret.

Dangling on a cord around his neck was a heavy medallion-type badge. It had several small buttons on either side, two blinking LEDs and a meshed indentation that held a microphone and speaker. In his breast pocket were several pens, a flashlight and a laser pointer. Strapped to his upper arm was another electronic device, perhaps a fitness monitor, Kurt couldn’t be sure.

Akiko stared at him like he had the plague. “He’s almost an android,” she whispered.

“By the way he looked at you, he’d toss the electronics into a lake for a single kiss. Perhaps the lure of human touch is stronger than you think.”

With that said, Akiko’s demeanor changed. She feigned interest in Gao with such expertise that it almost convinced Kurt.

For the moment, they all made small talk. “Dinner is being prepared in our executive dining room,” Han said. “Perhaps you’d like a tour of the facility first?”

“I’d enjoy that very much,” Kurt said.

With Han leading the way, they walked across an expansive factory floor. Even though it was after normal working hours, dozens of machines were busy at work. Some were free to roam the factory floor, transporting parts from one section of the facility to another. Others were busy on a production line, welding and assembling components.

“What, exactly, do you build here?” Kurt asked.

“Robotics for other factories.”

“Machines building other machines,” Kurt said. “Automated procreation.”

“Not quite,” Han said. “The design and production work are done by human employees. But that will be automated one day, too.”

“Human employees?” Akiko asked. “Does that mean you consider the robots employees also?”

“It’s a figure of speech,” Han insisted. “The truth is, robots liberate humanity from the most mundane and dangerous professions. Most tasks performed by machines are ones you wouldn’t want to do. Turning the same five screws and making the same ten welds a hundred times a day, every day of your life; chiseling rock from the walls of dark tunnels in dangerous subterranean mines, where temperatures border on the limits of human tolerance and fatal accidents are common. I even have machines that will take a bullet instead of requiring a brave policeman or soldier to enter the line of fire.”

“Robotic soldiers?” Kurt asked.

“Of a sort,” Han replied.

“Show me.”

He took them across the factory floor to an even larger open space that spread out below them like the floor of a massive convention hall. Walking onto a bridge that crossed the entire length of the room, they observed mock-ups and testing areas.

The vast amount of high-tech equipment was staggering. There were flickering screens everywhere; machines, small and large, performing various tasks.

Stopping above one walled-in area, they looked down on the mock-up of an apartment building, sans roof. “Begin the demonstration,” Han said.

Gao pulled the device from his armband and tapped the screen a few times. Lights came up and the situation below was illuminated. A dozen mannequins were placed here and there. Some hiding, others out in the open. A human employee stood in the middle of it. “A standard hostage situation,” Han said. “Eight terrorists, seven hostages.”

The front door to the building was smashed down by a small battering ram machine on tracks. It pushed its way inside, taking fire from several of the armed terrorist mannequins. Sparks flew as bullets hit the armor plating.

“Live ammo?” Kurt said.

“Of course,” Han said. “Limited powder, at this point. We don’t want ricochets killing anyone.”

“What about your employee down there?” Kurt asked. “How do the machines know not to shoot him?”

“He’s wearing an identifier around his neck,” Han said. “It tells the robots not to shoot him. Similar tools can be used on joint human and robotic assaults. Use of robotics will reduce friendly fire deaths by ninety-five percent.”

“Impressive,” Kurt said.

Down below, other machines with weapons pushed in behind the battering ram robot. Instead of wheels, they had six legs and they clambered up and over every obstacle with ease. They rapidly targeted and silenced the first wave of terrorists and pushed deeper into the building.

“They find their targets using a combination of heat sensors, sound waves and cameras,” Han said. “They communicate with one another as well. What one of them knows, all of them know.”

The advancing machines paused, scanned the thermal output through the walls of the next room and broke into it. A quick gunfight ended moments later.

“And, just like that,” Han said, “the terrorists are dead and the hostages are rescued. Not one of them has been hit.”

Kurt was impressed. “How do the machines differentiate between terrorists and hostages?”

“We call it a discriminator function,” Han said. “A combination of facial recognition patterns conforming to the known captives, heat sensors and a weapon recognition program that allows the processor to determine which humans are holding guns and which aren’t.”

“Ingenious.”

“And the ones that are damaged can be repaired or replaced. No one has to cry over a ruined machine.”

A terminal beside them printed out a battle report. Han interpreted it. “Twenty-one shell hits on various robots. Two machines sustained minor damage. A comparable effort using human policemen or soldiers would have resulted in the death of several personnel and at least half the hostages. The facts are unassailable.”

“Unlike the terrorist stronghold,” Kurt joked.

“Warbots like these will spare soldiers the most dangerous tasks in the field,” Han said.

“Warbots?”

“A catchy name, is it not?”

“But this is a police demonstration,” Kurt pointed out.

“Yes,” Han said, “but ultimately armies of machines will take the fight to the world’s most dangerous areas. They’re more rugged, more lethal and more dependable. They can fight twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, without the need for sleep, food or medical attention. They will reduce human death and collateral damage, eliminate decades of post-combat suffering by wounded and traumatized soldiers and their families.”

“They will cause death on the other side, of course.”

“Not true,” Han said. “Not only are robots more accurate, thus limiting collateral damage, they are more humane. A robot has no feelings. It won’t take revenge on captives that might have destroyed its comrades. It won’t lose its mind at the horror of war and start killing indiscriminately. A robot will not rape or torture its captives nor steal or plunder.”

Kurt nodded. He’d heard the arguments on both sides. Some were afraid that robotic soldiers would go out of control. Others pointed out that human soldiers were prone to emotion and strain and subject to losing control themselves. Like most things, no one would know the truth until it arrived.

They moved on, coming to an overlook. On the floor down below, a slew of machines were building a section of highway. One machine used a jackhammer to break up concrete. Another machine scooped it up and lifted it into a driverless truck, which, making a tight three-point turn without hitting anything, then hauled it away, disappearing through a door at the far end of the convention hall.

“While robotic armies might be decades off,” Han began, “self-driving vehicles are right around the corner.”

“We have them already,” Kurt said.

“A few,” Han admitted. “But the next wave goes far beyond what exists today. CNR has even developed a driverless race car. It will compete with the greatest racers in the world and outclass them with ease.”

“Remotely guided?” Kurt asked.

Han shook his head. “The vehicle is autonomous. It operates completely without assistance, making its own judgments and decisions.”

“Driving around city streets is fine,” Kurt said, “but navigating a track at high speeds to the limits of a car’s ability is another thing altogether. I’ve raced a few cars myself. Trust me, it’s a far more dangerous proposition.”

Han’s reply came quickly. “I assure you, Mr. Austin, despite your fervent desire to remain at the top of the food chain, robots with artificial intelligence are now becoming superior to humans in every task imaginable. They will soon fly our fighter jets, captain our ships, salvage wrecks from the bottom of the sea. And, yes, even race our cars. And they will do all things in superior fashion.”

Kurt listened politely, but he was more interested in watching Han. The reply had come so quickly and with it a slight edge. The man had been cool as ice until Kurt questioned his machines. The rapid-fire response, a slight flare of nostrils and a deepening of the crow’s-feet around Han’s eyes confirmed it for Kurt. He’d finally found a button to push. And he pushed it no end.

“I’m sure you’ll get there someday,” he said in a condescending tone, “but we’ll both be old men before a robot can beat a human on the racetrack. Machines can do many things, but they will always lack judgment.”

Han held his tongue for a second and then grinned. “Care to test that theory?”

“I’d love to,” Kurt said. “What are you suggesting?”

“We have a track here on the factory grounds,” Han said. “And in the garage we have the prototype of the robot car along with two others still fitted out for human drivers. If you’re willing to test yourself against it, we could even wager on the outcome to make it interesting.”

“I’d jump at the chance,” Kurt said, “but you’re a billionaire and I’m a humble government servant on a fixed income. We’d have to bet something other than money.”

Han grinned. “If you win, CNR will gladly provide whatever robotic vehicles you may find useful for your expedition.”

“And if I lose?”

“Simple,” Han said. “All you need to do is admit that the machine is better than the man.”