Shadow Tyrants Read online

  “Don’t get too excited,” Raven told them. “We still have to get you back to our ship.”

  David nodded. “The Norego. We were hoping you were coming for us. But if the submarine by the Colossus 5 is with you, you should warn them to hurry.”

  Eddie looked at MacD in shock, then back to David. “How do you know all that?”

  “We’ve been monitoring the AI since all of the ships linked up five minutes ago and went to full power. Colossus knows you’re here.”

  * * *

  —

  Carlton was sitting in his chair on the bridge waiting for an update from Chen on Colossus’s progress when he received a text on his phone. He eagerly checked it, hoping that it was Taylor finally confirming she’d somehow made it off his plane alive.

  But it wasn’t. He looked at the screen in confusion.

  Master, there is a 99.3 percent chance that there are intruders currently aboard the Colossus 5.

  There was no number or contact info.

  Who is this? Carlton texted back.

  Colossus.

  Carlton turned to Chen. “Chen, is this a joke?”

  Chen glanced up from his screen. “Is what a joke? I didn’t say anything.”

  “This.” Carlton shoved his phone at Chen, who read the messages in bewilderment.

  “I didn’t send them,” Chen said.

  Carlton texted again. How can I be sure this is Colossus?

  This is Colossus.

  Then all the screens on the bridge went dark and were replaced with the words This is Colossus.

  Carlton gaped as his head swiveled around the bridge.

  Then the screens changed to what looked like a three-dimensional simulation of the Colossus 5’s stern. It zoomed in on the port side to focus on something in the water.

  Master, this is the view from the lidar system of the ship behind Colossus 5, and that is a submarine designed for infiltration missions, the AI texted. No one has exited the submarine in the last four minutes. The logical conclusion is that its occupants are already on board Colossus 5. They and the ship Norego constitute a threat to Colossus. You must protect Colossus.

  Carlton was both elated and furious. Colossus had immediately displayed some self-awareness by expressing the most basic need of any living thing: self-preservation. The project had succeeded beyond his wildest dreams, but just when they had achieved the breakthrough he’d been waiting for, someone was trying to take it away.

  “Sound an intruder alert,” he commanded. “I want this ship scoured from top to bottom. And warn the Colossus 1 that they may have intruders as well.”

  Chen nodded and pressed a button on the panel.

  A klaxon sounded throughout the Colossus 5.

  * * *

  —

  Juan looked up as the sound of the horn blared through the suite where they were waiting to trigger the self-destruction sequence. Wind whistled through the window they’d cut open to get inside, blowing sand through the room. Murph was seated at the touchscreen, ready to type in the commands they’d acquired from Gupta’s files. Linc was at the door, watching through the peephole.

  “I don’t think that’s the fire alarm,” Murph said.

  “That must mean they know we’re here,” Juan said.

  “How?” Linc asked. “No way they spotted the Gator in this darkness.”

  “I’ve no idea,” Juan said, “but we’re out of time.” He called to Linda. “Have they evacuated the prisoners yet?”

  “Max said Eddie found them and they’re on the way out.”

  “Good. They know we’re here.”

  “Eddie also said that Colossus is now fully operational. It has been for the last five minutes.”

  “What?” said Juan, shocked. “They were supposed to be ten miles away from linking the biocomputers together.”

  “They must have increased the microwave power,” Murph said.

  “Then we’re going to initiate the autodestruct now. Linda, stand by to retrieve us.”

  “Aye, Chairman.”

  Juan nodded at Murph, who tapped on the screen.

  When he finished typing, the klaxon ceased. It was replaced by the soothing voice of a woman echoing through the ship.

  “Self-destruct sequence activated. Evacuate to lifeboats. You now have ten minutes to detonation.”

  FIFTY-EIGHT

  Carlton listened to the calm voice of the woman in disbelief.

  “How was the self-destruct activated?” he yelled, jumping out of his chair.

  “I don’t know,” Chen said as he frantically tapped his screen. “This shouldn’t be possible.”

  “Deactivate it immediately!”

  “I can’t. It has locked out the abort order. Gupta must have installed a secret command in the system.”

  “Can Colossus deactivate it?”

  Chen shook his head. “The system is designed to be completely separate from Colossus so that it couldn’t countermand the order.”

  Carlton was seething. “There must be some way to stop it.”

  His phone buzzed again. It was Colossus.

  It can be disabled manually.

  How? Carlton texted back.

  At the source in the hold. Lionel Gupta’s files revealed how to do it.

  Carlton showed the text to Chen. “Is that right?”

  Chen shrugged. “I was only involved in designing Colossus, not the self-destruct system.”

  Can you show us how to do it? Carlton texted.

  Yes, Master. Chen Min has the expertise required to follow my instructions.

  What about the other ships?

  If it is deactivated on this ship, it will send an abort code to the other ships.

  “Colossus says it can show you how to do it.”

  Chen frowned. “If we shut it down, there will be no way to trigger the self-destruct again.”

  “So?”

  Chen looked at the microphones and telephone receivers scattered throughout the bridge and motioned for Carlton to follow him into the office. He shut the door and unplugged the phone, then spoke in hushed tones.

  “Colossus has been listening to us. It’s only been running for a few minutes, and its progress is far beyond anything we predicted. Can’t you see? It’s taking the initiative to act without our input. As it keeps learning, it may outgrow our ability to control it, just like Mallik feared. Without the self-destruct to disable it, it may run amok.”

  Carlton scoffed at Chen’s worry. “You’re too cautious. Progress can be risky. Besides, you heard how it called me Master. It knows I’m the one in charge.”

  “It does now. How long will it continue to obey?”

  “Enough! We are not destroying Colossus . . . Bondarev!”

  His new bodyguard flung the door open from the bridge. The big Russian came in with pistol drawn.

  “We are escorting Mr. Chen down to the hold, and he is going to deactivate the self-destruct. If he refuses, shoot him in the knee. We need him alive.”

  Bondarev nodded and trained the pistol on the Chinese scientist’s leg.

  Chen sighed, then nodded and walked out to the bridge in front of Carlton and Bondarev.

  “Colossus,” Carlton said, “show us how to disable the autodestruct.”

  Another text.

  Go to the hold, Master. Colossus will show you.

  * * *

  —

  As Eddie and his team assembled all twenty-two of the prisoners in the workroom and briefed them on how the evacuation would occur, the woman’s voice said over the speakers, “Eight minutes to detonation.”

  Some of the prisoners were in ragged shape, and Raven and Hali were going to help two of the weakest make the journey while Eddie would lead the way and MacD took up the rear. They also gave pistols
to three of the prisoners who were veterans, including David, a former U.S. Army captain.

  “Before we go,” David said, “there’s something else you should know.”

  “Time is precious right now, David,” Eddie said. The security team could arrive any second.

  “That self-destruct can be switched off.” He pointed to the speakers overhead.

  “How?”

  “Before you arrived, I noticed Colossus assessing threats to its survival on my terminal. It came to the conclusion that the self-destruct could be disabled manually at the location of the explosives on Colossus 5.”

  Before Eddie could relay that information to Max, MacD, who was in the observation room, looked up from the camera feed showing the halls outside and shouted, “We need to go now!”

  Eddie went out the door and saw two guards racing down the corridor from the direction of the superstructure. They went down with two salvos from his P90.

  He motioned for David and the rest of the prisoners to follow him. If they could all get to the next fire door, they could jam it behind them. Then, the guards would have to go up to the deck to intercept them.

  The woman’s unemotional alert came again. “Warning. Evacuate to lifeboats. Seven minutes to detonation.”

  While they moved out, Eddie called Max and told him that Juan had a big problem.

  * * *

  —

  Linda had to submerge to avoid gunfire from the deck of the Colossus 5. Juan’s team was just about to move to a new exit position when Juan stopped at the cabin door. “Are you sure?”

  “That’s what Eddie said,” Max replied. “If Carlton is able to deactivate it, this whole mission has been for nothing.”

  Murph and Linc, who heard Max’s call, looked at him with grim determination.

  At least they had the layout of Colossus 5, which would show them the shortest route to the hold. He told Murph to bring up the deck plan on his tablet.

  “The odds are against us. There’s just three of us, no matter how we count,” Juan said. “We just have to delay them.” He pointed to a catwalk overlooking the cavernous hold. “We can take up our position there and keep them from reaching those red boxes holding the explosives.”

  “What about when the explosives go off?” Linc asked.

  “From our view of the Colossus 3, it looked like the force of the blast was directed horizontally, not vertically, to blow holes in the hull below the waterline.”

  “So you’re saying there’s a chance we can make it off the ship after the detonation,” Murph said with an appreciative nod. “I like those very unspecific odds.”

  “Just think of this as the world’s most exciting roulette table,” Juan said with a tight grin. “Let’s go.”

  “Six minutes to detonation,” the warning voice reminded them.

  Juan radioed to Linda that she should get ready to recover them when they went overboard, and they exited the suite in a tactical formation. The entrance to the catwalk in the hold was three decks down.

  They had to avoid some guards and got caught in two fights along the way, costing them precious time. Carlton had lost three men by the time they reached the door to the catwalk.

  “Three minutes to detonation.”

  They edged along the catwalk and spotted men huddled around the red box on the other side of the vast space. It was déjà vu seeing that this hold was identical to the one on the Colossus 3.

  Juan recognized Carlton, holding a gun on a Chinese man who was tinkering with the bomb. It had to be the chief scientist, Chen Min. Four guards stood behind them, holding their weapons on Chen.

  The tangle of large pipes and conduits made getting a clear shot on the group almost impossible, but at least they could disrupt their progress.

  Juan crouched down next to Linc and Murph on the suspended metal grating, took aim, and said, “Fire.”

  They let loose with their P90s, and the men in the group dove to the floor, out of sight, behind the large vat. One of the guards went down with a bullet in his chest. The others escaped injury.

  Four more guards charged through a door onto another catwalk on the opposite side of the hold and opened fire. Juan took cover behind a pipe, while Linc and Murph ducked behind one in the other direction.

  Now they were pinned down with no effective sight line on Carlton, who shouted for Chen to get back to work.

  Juan had to create a distraction. He looked at the bank of computer servers at the far end of the hold. They had to be critical to the operation of Colossus. If he started taking potshots at it, that might get a reaction.

  He aimed for the first column of servers and unloaded a magazine at it.

  It seemed to get their attention.

  “Stop him!” Carlton cried out.

  The disembodied woman calmly announced, “Two minutes to detonation.”

  FIFTY-NINE

  Colossus is being damaged. Master must protect Colossus.

  Carlton looked up from his phone at Bondarev and said, “Make sure he finishes disabling the self-destruct mechanism.” He pointed at the other guards. “You two, come with me.”

  Chen finally showed some emotion and sneered at Carlton. Carlton didn’t care. Once this was done and Colossus was safe, Chen would get over it.

  Carlton led the guards across the hold carrying Bondarev’s assault rifle. Although he didn’t collect guns, he had always been fascinated by them and was an avid pheasant hunter. He was eager to try his hand at a human target.

  Using the vats as cover, they dashed from one to the next until they had a better angle on the intruder shooting at the server bays.

  “Kill him,” Carlton said, and they opened fire.

  The intruder stopped shooting and took cover behind a water pipe.

  “Evacuate to lifeboats immediately,” the infuriating computer voice placidly advised. “Ninety seconds to detonation.”

  To get a clear shot, Carlton climbed onto the service walkway connecting the tops of the vats to each other and took up a position behind the nutrient feed pipe.

  His assault rifle was equipped with a red dot sight. He put his eye to the scope and waited for the target to reemerge.

  “When he comes back out,” Carlton called down to the guards, “he’s mine.”

  * * *

  —

  “We’re about to come up on deck,” Eddie said, his voice coming through the op center’s speakers.

  “Hold where you are,” said Max, who was watching the Oregon’s lidar feed on the screen. “There are hostiles on deck waiting for you.” He counted ten figures with weapons approaching the hatch where Eddie’s caravan of prisoners was going to come out.

  “We don’t have much time before this ship starts going down.”

  “Understood.” Max looked at Eric. “Use the deck machine guns. Target anything that moves on the Colossus 1.”

  “Aye, sir,” Eric replied, and pushed the button for the automated .30 caliber machine guns to rise from their hiding places in the rusty barrels on deck.

  Eric identified the targets and fired.

  The guards on board the Colossus 1 never saw the weapons that mowed them down in the raging storm. They toppled like bowling pins.

  When they were all down, Max radioed Eddie. “You’re clear. Get out of there.”

  “On our way.”

  The hatch flew open, and people started pouring out. They held hands to keep the group together as they headed to the gangway and made it quickly over to the Oregon.

  “That’s all of us,” Eddie said.

  “Eric, raise the gangway and move us away from Colossus 1.” Even with the Oregon’s armored hull, an explosion large enough to tear a hole in the Colossus ship could cause significant damage.

  “Backing off,” Eric said.

  They would know in less tha
n thirty seconds whether Juan had succeeded.

  * * *

  —

  Linc was the Oregon’s best sniper. Even though his submachine gun wasn’t suited to that purpose, Juan knew that if he gave him the right moment Linc would make the shot.

  Juan shouted to Linc, “Now!”

  Juan slid out from behind the pipe and emptied his magazine at the men who were stalking him below. But he never raised his head above the floor of the catwalk. His fusillade was merely a diversion.

  Linc fired, but his target wasn’t either of the men by the red box encasing the explosives. It was the display Chen had been using to reprogram the self-destruct mechanism.

  The ghostly woman’s voice started counting down. “Ten . . . nine . . . eight . . . seven . . .”

  Juan peeked over the edge and saw that Linc’s aim had been true. The display was destroyed, as was any chance of Chen’s completing his task.

  “. . . six . . . five . . . four . . .”

  Seeing that their attempt to stop the explosion had been ended, Chen and the man watching him raced for cover.

  “. . . three . . . two . . . one—”

  They didn’t make it.

  Enormous twin blasts reverberated through the hold, tearing huge gaps in the hull. Chen and the guard disappeared in the fireball, which was instantly doused by the water flooding into the ship.

  Shrapnel flew through the hold, but Juan was protected by the water pipe. However, the catwalk was severed by a piece of flying metal. The section Juan was lying on tilted suddenly, and he slid down toward the churning mass of water below.

  * * *

  —

  Max watched as geysers of water erupted next to the Colossus 1. It immediately began to settle in the water. With the sandstorm still raging, he could only assume the same had occurred with the other ships.

  “Damage report?” he said to Eric.

  “No hull breaches reported,” Eric replied. They were already three hundred yards away from the sinking ships and accelerating.