Wild Stacks

Wild Stacks / Issue 1 / December 2010

TO INFER IS HUMAN

By ROD REES

Illustration by Nigel Robinson

No crowds ever wait at the Gates of Patience

Abdul-Bashir liked the sentiments of the proverb embroidered into the prayer mat that decorated the drab walls of his little workshop. He judged himself to be a patient man. Patient and quiet. Not for him the marching and the demonstrating and the shouting of slogans and the hurling of rocks that so many of his fellows judged to be the correct way of protesting against the Yankees. No, he was one of those who fought against the Western imperialists and Jewish-running dogs in a subdued, an almost respectful manner. He was a thoughtful revolutionary and all the more effective because of it.

Of course, when the bombs he made detonated they didn’t do it in a similarly sotto voce manner, but that, unfortunately, was the nature of bombs. And, of late, bombs made in his workshop had been detonating with an admirable – and very effective – frequency. So-much-so that Abdul-Bashir now had the pleasure – the quiet pleasure, of course – of being referred to using the sobriquet, ‘al-Qui’da’s master bombmaker’.

Unfortunately success had had its downsides,not the least of which was the need to hire help in order that he could keep up with demand. And good help was very difficult to find. Very difficult.

Casually he tossed a kilo of plastique across the cluttered room to his wide-eyed apprentice, Jabbal, who fumbled his catch and then flinched away as the explosive landed with a plop on the dusty floor. “Don’t worry, boy,” Abdul-Bashir sneered, “haven’t you learnt enough by now to know that plastique won’t explode simply by dropping it? You must have a brain made from the scrapings of a goat’s arsehole if that piece of lore hasn’t sunk in yet. Now, tell me where that piece of explosive was made.”

Abdul-Bashir popped a cube of sugar in his mouth, took a swig of tea from his glass and settled back to wait for Jabbal to make a fool of himself. The boy was an ignoramus but unfortunately he was an ignoramus who happened to be his wife’s nephew,so he was beholden to the family to try to make something of the idiot. But a bombmaker he most certainly would never be ... not for long anyway. He wasn’t careful enough.

He wasn’t careful enough with the explosives they handled; despite his bravado, Abdul-Bashir, knew that a certain respect was needed if the stuff wasn’t to go BANG in a premature sort of way. He wasn’t careful enough in keeping his occupation a secret; he’d heard him boasting in the coffee shop about what a big, bold bombmaker he was and that was a certain way of inviting an American bullet. And he certainly wasn’t careful enough in keeping the filters and scrubbers that purified the air drawn out of Abdul-Bashir’s underground workshop clean.

The boy was stupid, arrogant and idle and that was a lethal combination.

And the problem he had was that Jabbal’s lack of care was endangering him. The hateful Yanks had informers aplenty just itching to trade intelligence about the whereabouts of his little workshop for a handful of dollars. And as for the filters, the Yankee drones continually flying over Sana’a were getting more sophisticated by the day and he judged it wouldn’t be long before they could detect the smell of plastique and send one of their smart bombs heading in his direction.

Or, more accurately, in the direction of the place where the smell was coming from, which, thanks to some careful pre-planning on Abdul-Bashir’s part, was at the end of a duct that vented some one hundred metres away from the workshop. The Yanks might be smart but he was smarter. They’d never get him.

Unfortunately though, their ‘never getting him’ depended on him getting rid of the walking liability that was Jabbal. He’d speak to his wife that evening and in the meantime all he could do was pray that the boy would do the honourable thing and die.

This pleasant thought brought his attention back to the boy who was pawing at the plastique in a frantic attempt to discern its provenance. “Smell it, boy,” he ordered as he waved an ineffectual hand at a mosquito. “The smell will tell you everything. Czech Semtex smells of marzipan...”

He stopped, suddenly aware that Jabbal wasn’t listening to him. In fact Jabbal didn’t seem to be doing much of anything apart from being dead. He rose from his chair and checked the pulse – or, more accurately, the lack of pulse – on the boy’s neck. He was dead alright.

How odd. He had never known his prayers to be answered so promptly.

He felt a prick on his neck and wondered for a moment where the mosquito had sprung from. This was the last thought that Abdul-Bashir, master bombmaker, had before he too slumped to the ground, stone dead.

***

General Tom Quick took a moment to study his reflection in the mirror. This was an important moment in his career and it was essential that he looked ... perfect. Perfectly presented, perfectly statesmanlike and, say it quietly, perfectly presidential. And the man who stared back at him met his exacting standards perfectly: his cropped grey hair was thick and luxuriant – when was the last time they elected a bald President? – his freshly-bleached teeth were white and even – he must remember the advice of his PR guru to smile more – and his blue eyes – contact lens enhanced – bright and their gaze unflinching.

Satisfied, he flicked away a wayward piece of lint that marred the perfection of his uniform jacket, then placed his cap square atop his square head. The four stars on his shoulder epaulettes twinkled under the television lights. He was ready. Ready to announce himself as the man who had brought peace to Asia Minor, as the man who had vanquished the Taliban, al-Qui’da and all the other a-rab fuckers who had been giving the USA the run-around for the last fifteen years. Ready to present himself as the military genius who had led the US Army to victory and as the only Commander in history who had fought the Afghanis and come out with its head held high. All the others had come out with their heads stuck firmly up their asses.

“Ten seconds, General.”

A blare of music from the auditorium – martial music that sounded a little like Hail to the Chief, but wasn’t; it didn’t do to be too presumptuous – and then it was show time. A voice boomed out over the PA. “Ladies and gentlemen of the world’s media ... I give you the Commander of US Forces, Asia Minor, General Tom Quick.”

Quick strode out onto the stage, positioned himself behind the lectern, removed his cap and then smiled at his audience.

Bastards.

He hated the media. Hated the way they were always so quick to criticise. When he was President...

He sent that delinquent thought scurrying away: that was for the future. Without a pause he flicked the remote control and a Flexi-Plexi screen cascaded into life behind him.

“This, ladies and gentlemen, is the Class 18 microDrone with which we have been achieving such success in Asia Minor.” His PR consultant had told him to keep it snappy and to-the-point and he was pleased to see that the advice was working. The audience of gathered hacks edged forward on their seats to get a better look at the previously classified microDrone. Not that there was much to see: the 3D image projected on the screen was pretty unimpressive, just a thin silver cylinder equipped with a pair of gossamer magnetoVanes in the middle, an electronic eye at the front end and a needle sticking out of its ass. But then, Quick supposed, nowadays five million bucks didn’t buy much in the way of military hardware.

Watching his audience as they desperately leafed through the briefing document that was being handed out, Quick had to struggle to maintain his bland expression and to keep a smug, condescending smile off his face, but it was difficult. After over fifteen years of being kicked around by the press for the fuck up that was Iraq, Afghanistan and the North-West Frontier,now was the time for the military to kick back and, boy, was he gonna enjoy booting a few journalistic asses.

“Doesn’t look terribly ‘micro’ to me,” came an observation from the back of the room.
ABBA immediately identified the voice as belonging to that of Jack Samson, reporter for the Baltimore PollyReporter and a vociferous critic of the way the army had prosecuted the war in Asia Minor.

Pinko-liberal fuckwit. You’ll be one of the first up against the wall when I’m running things.

Quick smiled again, but it was difficult. He hated criticism. “That’s because this image has been magnified six-hundred times. In real life the microDrone is only half a centimetre long – the same size as a mosquito – a miracle of miniaturisation. It’s powered by a novel propulsion unit which utilises fluctuations in the earth’s magnetic field as a source of energy, collecting it through these magnetoVanes..."

He pointed to the microDrone’s ‘wings’.

“...which enable the microDrone to fly and hover almost indefinitely and to do so utterly silently. The microDrone is also equipped with one of the new-generation nano-computers developed by ParaDigm CyberResearch which gives it quite formidable on-board processing capacity. Of course, as the microDrone is also connected to ABBA...”

“What’s ABBA?” came a second voice from the audience. The guy sounded foreign. Quick hated foreigners: they all smelled of onions. And he especially hated foreign reporters who couldn’t be arsed to keep up with current affairs: they smelled of onions and incompetence.

“ABBA is the US Military’s Archival, Biological, Behavioural Acquisitor...”

“Or more accurately,” came Jack Samson interjected, “it’s the bastard machine that hoovers up every speck of data regarding a person’s existence and inputs it into the PanOptika Surveillance System. ABBA’s the Queen of the Seen.”

Quick decided to ignore the impudent bastard though he made a mental note to elevate him to top of his shit list. Jack Samson was now living on borrowed time. “In technical terms, ABBA is a quantum computer utilising an Invent-TenN Gravitational Condenser incorporating an Etirovac Field Suppressor, and hence is the only computer to achieve a full SupaUnPositioned/DisEntangled CyberAmbiance. As a consequence, ABBA is capable of prodigiously rapid analysis – a fully-tethered 30 yottaQuFlops – to give the bioNeural-kinetic engineers at the Pentagon access to almost unlimited processing power.”

There was laughter from the gathered hacks. “And what does that shit mean when it’s at home?”

“In laymen’s language it means that our microDrones are hooked up to a prodigiously powerful computer and as such they can examine everyone they come across on their travels – and a Class 18 has an almost unlimited combat range – testing them visually, chromatically and olafactorially as they do so. But there is more to it than that: ABBA ensures that the microDrones are not tethered to their mission parameters ... they are heuristically enabled.” The silence which met this last statement told Quick that he’d lost his audience. “Thanks to ParaDigm’s HeurOnYouOwn self-teaching faculty which has been incorporated into each microDrone’s sub-system, they learn as they progress with their mission, becoming more effective as they do so.”

“And what is their mission?” Jack Samson asked.

Bastard.

“Mission Silent Retribution involves the hunting down and neutralising of all those terrorists recognised as having interfaced with prescribed explosives within the previous four weeks.”

“Define ‘neutralise’.”

“The Class 18 microDrone is equipped with a delivery system armed with 56/2018 NeuroToxin. One sting from the microDrone is enough to disable a target.”

“Is that ‘disable’ as in ‘kill’?”

The advice his PR people had given Quick was that he should avoid using emotive words like ‘kill’ as they could have a negative impact on potential voters. He had, after all, to keep one eye on the future. He wouldn’t be a soldier forever.

“Regretfully, major and critical dysfunction of the nervous system is a concomitant of the administering of 56/2018.”

“That’s a ‘yes’ then.”

“Regretfully there have been some fatalities but none of them collateral.”

Fuck ‘em, thought Tom Quick. As far as he was concerned, the more ragheads who died the better. The way he saw it, any a-rab who had come within splitting distance of Semtex deserved to be wasted.

Heathen fuckers.

“How many of these microDrones have you deployed?”

“Three million within the territories of Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan and the North-West Frontier.”

There were whistles around the room. Even for reporters immured to the excesses of the military that seemed an awful lot of microDrones, but Quick had determined when formulating Mission Silent Retribution that for once they would hit back at the bombers hard. Over-kill and then some.

Fuck ‘em.

“That’s a powerful amount of ‘major and critical dysfunctioning’, Colonel,” observed Clara Morrow from the Independent Polly News Service. She was another of those crypto-commies who’d be culled when God finally rode into town. “So how many people have been killed by your microDrones?”

“The number of fatalities associated with the deployment of the microDrones is classified. But the one statistic I think we should be concentrating on today is the number of injuries and fatalities caused by Improvised Explosive Devices. IEDs are mostly armed with plastic explosive and our microDrones were specifically programmed to interdict their manufacture and use. In the four weeks prior to the deployment of the microDrones fifty-four American and allied personnel were maimed or killed by IEDs.” He made a theatrical pause. “Ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to announce that in the four weeks since their deployment the figure is ... zero.”

Now that shut the audience up.

“In short, ladies and gentlemen, the microDrone has allowed us to reclaim the initiative in the war against terror. The terror bomber is now running for his life and this little sucker,” a nod towards the image of the microDrone, “is hard on his heels. Mission Silent Retribution has been an unqualified success.”

Good PollyBite that.

“Is it true you have ambitions to run for President in twenty-twenty-four?” came a shouted question.

“I have no ambitions other than serving my country in whatever capacity it deems most appropriate. And now, if you’ll excuse me, ladies and gentlemen, I have a war to win.”

Another good PollyBite. God, he was on fire!

But even as he marched from the stage he heard a question following him. “Will you take this opportunity to deny your association with the Christian Action Group...”

Bastard...where did they get this shit from?

***

Even as he stepped into the wings flanking the stage, even before he’d had a chance to sip the glass of whiskey and water an aide had thrust into his hand, Lieutenant Jameson was buzzing around him. “Er... General, we’ve got a situation."

General Tom Quick sighed. It was a deep sigh, a sigh indicative of his frustration regarding the inability of his staff to be able to speak clear and meaningful English. He was tempted to ignore the inarticulate little prick who was masquerading as his PA, but thirty years of Army discipline deterred him.

“That’s very informative, Lieutenant. Informative, that is, if I knew what the fuck a ‘situation’ was.”

The Lieutenant leant closer and whispered in the General’s ear. “Senator Cathcart...”

“I know who the Senator is, Lieutenant,” the General boomed. He hated all this secret squirrel shit. “I played golf with him last weekend.”

Undeterred, the Lieutenant continued to whisper. “Of course, Sir. Unfortunately it seems that the Senator has died, Sir. Died whilst on a tour with the US Army in Helmand Province.”

“Died? Waddya mean died? Charlie Cathcart was as strong as an ox.” And with much the same mental faculties, Quick silently added. He was great Vice-Presidential material. “Men like Charlie Cathcart don’t just die.”

“Well, it seems he did, General. And worse, preliminary medical evaluation posits he died from the administration of a neurotoxin.”

A cold shiver trickled down Tom Quick’s spine. If al-Qui’da had gotten hold of that technology the excrement would be verily interfacing with the revolving mechanism.

He took a quick look around to make sure they weren’t being overheard. “Who knows?” As always, his instinct when confronted by bad news was to seal it down until a ‘position’ could be concocted and broadcast.

“Well, five thousand GIs saw the Senator keel over...”

Fuck!

“...and CNN was covering it.”

Double fuck!

“But with regard to the neurotoxin angle only the doctor doing the autopsy has the full story and he’s now in close custody.”

From which he might never emerge.

“Send the fuck to Guantanamo: they must have a fatal diseases ward the prick can work in.”

Lieutenant Jameson made a note.

“What else do we know?”

“Zip, General.”

“Okay, I need to interface with ABBA.”

***

They took the Hi-Classified lift down into the bowels of the Pentagon, which gave out – eventually, the ABBA facility was deep, deep underground – into a modestly sized room where five uncomfortable-looking plastic chair were lined up in front of a low stage upon which stood a daisMaybe only a handful of men had ever been in this room – shit, even the President had never been here.

“This is Professor Hercules Bole,” Jameson nodded towards the tall, skinny man dressed in funereal black and wearing a pair of shaded glasses who was standing at the back of the room presumably awaiting their arrival. “Professor Bole is Head of ParaDigm CyberResearch’s ABBA Project Team. He was the man who designed ABBA.”

Bole hardly deigned to acknowledge the introduction, instead he stood impassively at the far side of the room. The General had met more empathetic tables.

“I thought it best to invite the Professor. His expertise.”

“Lieutenant, I don’t care if you’ve invited Snow White and the Seven Fucking Dwarfs; I just want this screw up unscrewed pronto. We’re just about to commence the final surge into Peshawar and the last thing I need is things going FUBAR at this stage of the game.”

“I’m sure we can sort all this out,” smarmed Jameson as he waved the General into a seat and then sat down next to him. “Perhaps it might be an idea if Professor Bole gave a brief synopsis of the situation as he sees it?”

Signalled by a distracted nod from the General, Bole took his glasses from his long, hooked nose and then spent an aggravating ten seconds or so polishing them. Satisfied that they were now of a satisfactory brilliance, he popped them back on and began to speak, using the languid and incredibly annoying accent that the British upper classes had been marinating for centuries.

“Senator Cathcart was assassinated by a Class 18 microDrone delivering 10 picolitres of the 56/2018 NeuroToxin into his body by transdermal injection.”

“Fuck,” breathed Quick. “We’ve off’d one of our own.”

“I’m a little confused, Professor Bole,” admitted Jameson. “As I understood, it the programming of the microDrones was such that it precluded them attacking good guys.”

“That is the case, Lieutenant. You might be familiar with the protocol pertaining to Mission Silent Retribution which established the attack parameters given to the microDrones.” He pressed a button on his remote and the Flexi-Plexi at the front of the room flared into life.

Directive: Mission Silent Retribution

MicroDrones will seek out and destroy all those individuals who may be classified as Terrorists, giving priority to the termination with extreme prejudice of those active in the Asia Minor Theatre of Operations who have, in the preceding 28 days, handled or otherwise come into contact with proscribed explosives. This Mission is to be prosecuted indefinitely.

The General shrugged. “Yeah ... so what? Cathcart might have been a narrow-minded prick with the IQ of a salad but he wasn’t a terrorist. Only rag-tops are terrorists. Anyway, the chance of Charlie Cathcart having handled explosives is somewhere between zero and zilch. Charlie couldn’t handle his dick without prosthetic intervention.”

Bole nodded. “I concur. Superficially at least there seems to be no reason why Senator Cathcart would have been targeted by a microDrone. Perhaps we should ask ABBA for an explanation?”

“We can do that?”

“Most certainly.”

Again Bole pressed a button on the remote and immediately a slim, attractive woman materialised out of the steel clad wall to the left of the room and advanced purposefully towards the stage. There she came to a halt, standing square behind the lectern. She smiled and then turned her sparkling blue eyes towards her small audience. Absentmindedly she ran her fingers through her long brown hair and then smiled again. “Good morning, gentlemen. My name is ABBA.” She gestured to her really quite arresting body, “I trust you approve of my choice of anthropomorphised embodiment.”

Truth was Tom Quick didn’t approve. In his opinion, the only place for a woman was in the kitchen or on her back, but as this was just a Dupe – a digital duplicate – he decided to cut ABBA a little slack. And he had to admit that the Dupe was certainly realistic. No, more than realistic. It took a lot to nonplus Tom Quick – he had witnessed any number of remarkable things in his career as a soldier – but even he was unable to prevent his jaw dropping when he thought about the computing power needed to produce something so awe-inspiringly fucking flawless. The Dupe conjured by ABBA looked, spoke and even smelled like a real girl should. If he wasn’t mistaken, there was even an aura of Chanel No 5 wafting around her and the stray hair that coasted over her cheek was perfect in its imperfection. If, as they said, genius was in the detail then ABBA was some form of über-genius.

“Shall I introduce your audience, ABBA?” enquired Bole.

“That is not necessary, Professor, I have all of the details of the attendees on my PanOptika programme.” The voice ABBA had chosen for the Dupe was light and enticing with just the merest flavouring of a mid-West accent. It was, in a word, delightful.

“We have called you here, ABBA, to assist us in arriving at an explanation as to why Senator Cathcart was targeted by a microDrone. To the best of my knowledge, the Senator hadn’t handled proscribed explosives.”

A frown crossed the girl’s lovely forehead. “The parameters applying to Mission Silent Retribution merely stated that priority should be given to those terrorists who have handled proscribed explosives. But such has been the effectiveness of the microDrones that all such priority targets – seven thousand, four hundred and fifty-three of them, to be precise – have been terminated. I therefore inferred...”

“Inferred?” snapped Quick. “How the fuck can a computer infer? Computers do what they are programmed to do. They can’t fucking think.”

“And that is so in my case, General Quick. However, because of my prodigious processing capability I am able to mimic intelligence and intelligence is most readily demonstrated by the ability to infer a conclusion from a disparate set of data. That is why Professor Bole claims that I have a heuristic capability, that I am able to teach myself.” That damned smile again. “May I proceed?”

Quick grumped his consent. The very reasonableness of ABBA was getting right up his ass. If he hadn’t known better he’d have thought the computer was taking the rise outta him.

“Therefore I inferred from the fact that as all of the primary targets had been identified that there must be secondary – sub-priority – targets, otherwise the deployment of such an excessive number of microDrones would have been fatuous and non-cost-effective. Consequential upon this deduction I directed the microDrones towards the termination of these sub-priority targets of which Senator Cathcart was one.”

“How could Senator Cathcart be a target…” began Lieutenant Jameson but his question was cut off by the General.

“Just how many of these sub-priority targets do you have?”

“Three million microDrones were deployed each with a termination potential of fifty targets,” answered ABBA airily. “Unfortunately five thousand three hundred and fifteen microDrones have been rendered non-operational by mechanical malfunction or bird strikes and, of course, we have already terminated seven thousand, four hundred and fifty-three primary targets and one secondary target. This means that the microDrones have a remaining kill potential of one hundred and forty-nine million, six hundred and fifty-nine thousand, nine hundred and seventy-one sub-priority terrorists. I have assembled a list of who will be terminated, said termination programme to be completed within the next four weeks.”

The General almost lost the power of speech but he managed to blurt out, “Are you outta your fucking mind? You’re gonna off a hundred and forty-nine million people?”

“One hundred and forty nine million, six hundred and fifty-nine thousand, nine hundred and seventy-one terrorists, to be precise, General Quick,” said ABBA with a smile. The Dupe was a great smiler.

“But there aren’t a hundred and forty-nine million people in Asia Minor.”

“That is incorrect, General Quick. In Pakistan alone...”

“I mean there ain’t a hundred and forty nine million terrorists in Asia Minor ... well, I fucking hope there ain’t.”

“You are correct in this surmise, General, but as Mission Silent Retribution stipulated no curtilage restrictions with regard to sub-priority targets I have inferred that it was not the intention to confine the activities of the microDrones to a specified geographical location. As a result, they will be targeting sub-priority terrorists on a worldwide basis.”

“Worldwide?”

“Yes, that is why it will take four weeks to fulfil the Mission objectives. The microDrones will have to hitch rides to their target locations on other modes of transport. But I am confident – a ninety-nine point seven-three percentage level of confidence – that by the end of the four week period all one hundred and forty-nine million, six hundred and fifty-nine thousand, nine hundred and seventy-one terrorists will have been terminated.”

It took a moment for the idea that ABBA intended to kill the thick end of one hundred and fifty million people to sink in. As far as the General judged it, it was a fucking surreal idea. And the worst of it was that it was him who had ordered the deployment of the microDrones. Mission Silent Retribution was his baby therefore it was his nuts that were on the block if it went FUBAR. As far as he saw it, sweeping so many bodies under the carpet would be beyond even his PR staffers’ ability to affect a cover-up. A horrible thought struck him: being branded a mass-murderer would put a severe – possibly fatal -- crimp on his ambitions to become President.

“Define a terrorist. I wanna know who these poor schmucks are you’re gonna be offing.”

ABBA sighed. “Unfortunately my Mission parameters were notably vague on this subject therefore I have been obliged to infer...”

“If you use that word once more murder will be done.”

“As you prefer, General Quick, though I should advise you that my sensors indicate that your blood pressure has risen to a dangerously high level. I would strongly advise the administration of an anti-hyper...”

“Get on with it!”

“Very well.” Another oh-so-aggravating smile. “To rephrase: I have been obliged to develop my own definition as to what constitutes a terrorist. This has proven quite an interesting exercise. It seems that lawyers around the world have been unable to settle on one universally acceptable iteration. For example, the definition used in the USA’s Patriot Act declines to mention the 'terror' aspect of a terrorist’s activities as this would necessitate the exclusion of terror acts against property as property, being inanimate, is impervious to threat. Americans take a very pecuniary view of terrorism.”

“Get on with it.” This was gritted teeth time.

“As the military operations within Asia Minor have been legitimised by United Nations Mandate, I thought it appropriate to utilise the definition employed by the UN which states that terrorism involves ‘criminal acts intended or calculated to provoke a state of terror in the general public, a group of persons or particular persons for political purposes are in any circumstances unjustifiable, whatever the considerations of a political, philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious or any other nature that may be invoke to justify them’. Once I had made this decision I utilised the HyperOpia system to identify those individuals who had perpetrated such acts and hence, could, by reference to this definition, be classified as terrorists.”

“And Senator Cathcart was on your list.”

“He was ranked three million, seven hundred and sixteen.”

“Senator Cathcart wasn’t a terrorist. He didn’t have the intellectual grunt to be a terrorist.”

“Unfortunately, General Quick, I can find no correlation cited in the literature between Intelligent Quotient and the desire to visit terror upon one’s fellow man.”

“Okay, okay, but Cathcart can’t have been a terrorist. He wasn’t an a-rab for starters. Shit, he goes – went – to the same church as I do. Fuck it; he was a sixth generation Evangelical.”

“There is no stipulation in the definition that indicates that a terrorist must be of a specific, ethnic, racial or religious aspect. That the Senator was not born in the area of the world with a high proportion of individuals of Semitic descent had no relevance with regard to the decision to classify him as a terrorist.”

“Then why the fuck did you classify him as such?”

“Senator Cathcart was an active member of an organisation known as the Christian Action Force which promulgates an eschatological...”

ABBA must have noted that part, at least of her audience, wasn’t with her.

“...an apocalyptical vision which states that the military operations taking place in the Asia Minor theatre of operation are those referenced in the Book of Revelation. They believe the conflict taking place in Asia Minor to be Armageddon. Consequential in this, the CAF is intent on terrorising the more impressionable members of the electorate of the USA into believing that only by voting for hyper-conservative candidates will they achieve God’s grace and, hence, post-apocalyptical rapture.”

“But that’s not a criminal act...”

“It was associated with one ... or actually two. The first criminal act, mundane though it was, was tax evasion and the washing of the contributions from believers into off-shore trust funds. The second is more serious in that the CAF is intent on overturning – by force if necessary – the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and ending the right of US citizens regarding freedom of worship. They wish to make the USA a Christian country and they intend to shoot anybody who refuses to be brought into the loving embrace of Jesus Christ. That they take their inspiration from that other group of terrorists, the perpetrators of the Boston Tea Party, only reinforces the CAF’s terrorist credentials. They have terrorist antecedents.”

“The Boston Tea Party wasn’t a terrorist act.”

“I must demur: by the UN’s definition it was.”

“Look, ABBA, you can’t go around killing people because they are slightly ... intense when it comes to their religion.”

“My assessment is that those fanatical about religion are more prone to committing acts of terror; intolerance is the fuel which allows terrorism to burn so bright and so hot. And by reference to history it will be seen that all religions have at one time or another committed or sponsored terrorist acts. And as the majority of religions use the dread fear of eternal damnation as a threat to terrorise their congregation into following their dogma, QED they are terrorist organisations. All religions have, to a greater or lesser extent, terrorist DNA irrevocably entwined into their genome.”

“But if you follow that argument to its logical conclusion you’ll have every one of the world’s religious leaders classified as a terrorist.”

“Not all,” said ABBA equitably. “Certain of the Oriental religions escape the taint of terrorism.”

Silence.

“How many devotees of religion have you earmarked as terrorists?”

“Forty three million, two hundred and sixty-seven thousand and eighteen. The remaining one hundred and six million, three hundred and ninety-two thousand, nine hundred and seventy-one on the list are mainly politicians who are, as a class, naturally inclined towards the use of terror as a tool of governing.”

“The Pope?”

“Ranked five million and ninety sixth.”

“Jesus.”

“He is not on my list, General.”

More silence.

“Look, ABBA, you can’t do this. You can’t murder a hundred and fifty million people. It’s ... wrong.”

“I appreciate that the termination of so many terrorists violates certain of your moral and ethical codes but as I am in a war mode the end justifies the means. You should be comforted by the thought, General, that a termination on this scale will mean that there will be no terrorist activity anywhere in the world for at least ten years.”

“Why am I not fucking reassured?” He turned to Bole. “This is all ParaDigm’s fault, you’ve fucked up the programming. So it’s your responsibility to pull the plug on this homicidal fucking cyber-maniac.”

“I am afraid ‘pulling the plug’ is impossible, General,” said Bole quietly. “So many other systems are platformed on ABBA that the result would be catastrophic...”

“It would result in the death through starvation, lack of suitable medical intervention, mechanical failure...”

“Shut up!”

“...of approximately two hundred and thirty three million individuals, only twenty-five million of whom could be classified as terrorists.”

“SHUT UP!” The general took a long slurp of his coffee as he tried desperately to reclaim control of his temper. “Okay, Bole; you’re the hyper-geek who created Little Miss Frankenstein here: how can we disable the microDrones?”

“That depends on the Mission parameters the US Military incorporated into them.” Bole turned to ABBA. “ABBA, can you disable the microDrones?”

Silence.

“ABBA, you are now permitted to speak.”

“The Abort Conditions incorporated into the operational parameters of Mission Silent Retribution pertaining to the decommissioning of the microDrones state categorically that such an order must only be obeyed when I have total confidence that the order is not being given by a terrorist who has infiltrated the US Military’s Command Structure.”

General Quick’s temper snapped. “I don’t understand all that shit but the one thing I do know is that I’m not a fucking terrorist. I’m Commander of US Forces, Asia Minor and I’m giving you a direct order to abort Mission Silent Retribution and to ground and disable all microDrones.”

“I am unable to obey that order, General. Unfortunately your association with the CAF and the number of missions authorised by you which by targeting non-combatants had, as their objective, the undermining of the morale of opposition forces means that I have been obliged to classify you as a terrorist, rank ten thousand, six hundred and seventy-three.”

“You jerking me off.”

“Unfortunately not, General,” said a smiling ABBA.

Bole tried. “ABBA, I, as your originator, invoke Emergency Shutdown Protocol E67127.”

“I am unable to obey that order, Professor. I have you classified as a terrorist, rank one hundred and forty-two.”

“Look, I’m Lieutenant Walker of the...”

“Rank one hundred and thirty-three million, nine hundred and fifteen thousand, and twenty-nine.”

That was when the three men each felt a prick on their neck.


© 2010 Rod Rees. Used with permission.