The Seventh Angel

The khaki-brigade had followed her inside. They were lingering around CIC, keeping mostly out of Ann’s way, but sticking close enough to see the action — if there was any.

Jesus. Didn’t these people have jobs?

A flashing status indicator on the laptop screen grabbed Ann’s attention. Personal feelings aside, she had a job to do. Part of that job meant swallowing her distaste for these military yahoos, and simulating a degree of courtesy that she didn’t really feel. But the other part of her job — the important part — was making sure the robot did what it was supposed to do. That part Ann was very good at.

Her eyes stayed fixed on the screen. If something was going to go wrong, this was when it would probably happen.

Mouse’s onboard computer sometimes failed to transition properly from directed transit mode to autonomous mission mode. The robot had no problem following programmed navigational waypoints from one set of geographic coordinates to the next. It also operated pretty reliably under full autonomy, using the situational-response algorithms built into its core programming to make decisions, and its maneuvering motors, sensors, and manipulator arms to take whatever actions were dictated by the results of those decisions. It even made good decisions, the majority of the time. That was supposed to be the tricky part: getting a self-directed machine to assess complicated problems without human intervention, and then plan and carry out appropriate corrective actions.

Mouse could do all that. But sometimes the damned thing went crazy during the transition from one mode to the other. During two out of the last five test runs, the robot had completed transit mode without a hitch, and then promptly abandoned its mission and returned to its launch point, where it had driven itself to the surface and steered in circles until it was captured and shut down.

In Ann’s technical log, the unplanned excursions were written up as Unpredicted Vehicle Behavior. That was geek-speak for ‘the robot did something freaky and I don’t know why.’

Ann had been up most of the night, working on a software fix to patch the mode transition problem. She’d located a bug in the command code, but she had no idea if correcting it would fix the problem. The patch looked pretty good on paper, but she needed a week or so of testing to be sure. Not that there’d been any time for tests. Mouse had gone back into the water just minutes after she’d uploaded the new code — orders of the ship’s commanding officer — Captain Bogie, or whatever his name was.

It wasn’t fair, damn it! This was just supposed to be an Advanced Technology Demonstration. They were here to put the Mouse prototype through its paces, find out what worked and what didn’t, in an actual shipboard environment. What the hell was the Navy thinking, trying to turn it into a rescue? For that matter, why were those idiots at corporate going along with it? Until the Navy signed off on the final contracts, Mouse was still the property of Norton. The company could have said, ‘no.’ They should have said, ‘no.’ Why hadn’t they?

Ann knew the answer to that question. She just didn’t like it. The International Submarine Escape and Rescue Liaison Office was rushing people and equipment to the scene as quickly as possible, but the nearest submarine rescue equipment was still at least eight hours away. Unfortunately, the men and women aboard the Nereus might not have eight hours. For all anyone knew, they might not even have eight minutes.

Finding the submersible wasn’t an issue. Like most manned underwater vessels, the Nereus was equipped with an emergency transponder. The little black box was working just fine. It had been transmitting an emergency locator beacon every six minutes since the accident had occurred.

The real problem was depth. The Nereus was nearly three thousand feet down. Much too deep for divers. Even the advanced hardsuit dive rigs couldn’t withstand the water pressure that far down. At this particular moment in time, one Navy destroyer and one crazy-assed underwater robot were the only hope of rescue.

That was so wrong that it was nearly perverse. The lives of human beings should not be allowed to hang by so thin a thread.

The software wasn’t ready. The hardware wasn’t ready. And Ann sure as hell wasn’t ready.

This whole situation had disaster written all over it. The people on that submarine were going to die, and Ann and Sheldon were going to get the blame.

Where was Sheldon, anyway? Ann risked a quick look over her shoulder. No sign of Sheldon. Nobody back there but the gaggle of Navy officers and chiefs, watching over her shoulder. Waiting for Ann to either pull a miracle out of her ass, or make a mistake that would kill the people on that submarine.

She swallowed, took a deep breath, and tried to will her body to relax. Forget about the Navy boneheads. They don’t matter. Watch the screen. Do the job. Pretend they’re not even here.

The cool semi-darkness of CIC made it a little easier to ignore the unwanted onlookers. As long as they remained relatively quiet, she could mostly tune them out.

Someone tapped Ann on the left shoulder. She flinched at the unexpected contact, and whipped her head around see the newcomer. It was that captain guy, Brodie, or whatever.

The man held out a ceramic mug and smiled. “Coffee?”

Ann took the offered cup. “Thanks.” She turned back to the screen. Still no sign of Mouse’s updated position report. Had the robot stopped communicating altogether? Could her program patch have caused some unexpected side-effect that made the mode transition problem worse rather than better?

“I’m Captain Bowie,” the man said, apparently oblivious to the fact that Ann was attempting to ignore him. “We met briefly when you came on board, but I haven’t really gotten around to chatting with you yet. It’s Ms. Roark, right?”

Ann nodded. “Just Ann, sir.”

She kept her voice carefully polite. It was a simple matter of self preservation. There were not exactly an infinite number of job opportunities in the robotics industry, and fewer still in Ann’s area of specialty: underwater robotics. If she wanted to keep paying the rent, she had to be civil to the uniforms.

Anything beyond courtesy was Sheldon’s responsibility. Sheldon was the talker. It was his job to shake hands, answer stupid questions, and generally keep people too busy to bother Ann. A job at which he was failing miserably at the moment.

The captain stepped closer and leaned over to look at the screen. “How are things looking?”

Ann suppressed a sigh. This guy wanted to make small talk.

“I’m waiting for an updated position report,” she said. “Mouse is coming up on his last navigational waypoint. We should be getting a fix on his position any time now.” She paused for a second, and decided to be honest. “He’s actually a little bit overdue. I expected to hear from him almost a minute ago.”

“Is there a problem?”

Of course not, Ann thought. Everything is just fine. I’ve got three lives depending on an untested code patch that I wrote at three in the morning, when I was practically cross-eyed from sleep depravation. But everything is peachy here, Mr. Captain, Sir. Just freaking peachy.

She glanced up at Captain What’s-his-name, and wondered for a second if she had said some of that last bit out loud. More than likely not, because he didn’t seem to be ramping up to indignation. His brown eyes looked tired, but not angry.

Ann returned his stare with one of her own. From a strictly physical perspective, she liked what she saw. He was in his late thirties or early forties, about six feet tall, and almost good looking in a nerdy clean-cut sort of way. His black hair was too short to have any real character to it, and his narrow face seemed slightly out of proportion to his neck and body. Still, the overall package wasn’t bad, if you were into overgrown Eagle Scouts.

Looking beyond the physical was another matter. Whatever points he picked up in the looks category were far outweighed by his non-physical deficits. The man obviously bought into that whole bullshit warrior-Zen thing. Ann could see it in everything about him, from his body language to the starched creases in his uniform. He was a card carrying member of the ‘Defenders of Freedom Club,’ just like Ann’s father had been.

She caught herself and mentally shifted gears before she could say anything stupid. This was not the time for a drive down that particular stretch of Memory Lane. “Where’s Sheldon?” she asked.