Freedom TM

Huntley, Illinois.”
    “Panicky fuckers.” He let up on the MUTE button.
    The lieutenant was taking deep breaths.
“We are being engaged by unmanned elements of the Daemon.”
    “Razorbacks?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “How many?”
    “Unknown, sir. Our sentries were taken out by what appear to be radio-guided darts. If we had tactical radar to detect incoming—”
    “What do you want, a Phalanx cannon? You’re not a military base. You were supposed to lay low and wait for orders.”
    There was more mayhem and screaming in the background. The lieutenant on camera leaned out of frame and fired several bursts from a weapon.
“Somehow they found our location. We are being overrun, sir!”
    “Yeah, I can see that. Have the local police gotten involved?”
    “I don’t know!”
    The Major hit the MUTE button again and spoke to a nearby technician. “I need a mop-up crew down there, ASAP. Get them government credentials, and make sure they round up all the Daemon equipment they can find.”
    He switched off the MUTE button and spoke to the screen. “How effective were fifty-caliber rifles against these things?”
    “Sir?”
    “The Barrett rifles. Are they effective against razorbacks?”
    The guy tried to control his breathing.
“Yes. Yes, sir. But the snipers were quickly taken out by return fire. Deadly accurate return fire.”
    One of the technical advisers next to The Major leaned in. “Could have been acoustical triangulation or infrared muzzle-flash detection systems. They can track a projectile back to its source. It makes sense if Sobol was dipping into our research pipeline—we’ve got some prototypes in the field.”
    The lieutenant shouted.
“Sir! We need help. Now!”
    Several Weyburn Labs consultants were still scribbling notes.One of them leaned into The Major’s ear. “The inertial flywheel on the razorback that powers the blade arms is a problem in close quarters. Hundred thousand rpm rotation. If it gets cracked, it’ll turn into a shrapnel bomb. Ballistics tests show it’s safer to take them out at a hundred meters or more.”
    More note taking.
    “Sir! Can we get help?”
    “We just have a few more questions, son.…”
    “Goddamnit, sir! We are dying!”
    “Well, then. You’re dismissed.”
    Suddenly the lieutenant glared into the screen.
“You fucker!”
    There was nearby screaming, and the lieutenant turned to open fire offscreen. There were desperate shouts for help and the roar of engines. Then the lieutenant fled—a swift blur crossing the screen on his tail. After a few moments, of loud engine noise, there was suddenly comparative silence.
    The Weyburn Labs team in the control room also sat quietly for several moments, still jotting notes.
    “Have we determined yet whether these razorbacks are remotely piloted, autonomous, or semiautonomous?”
    One of the consultants responded. “Surveillance recordings show them vacillating between fight-or-flight behavior and advanced problem-solving.”
    “Which means?”
    “Which means razorbacks can apparently operate independently or under the remote control of a pilot or remote AI—perhaps a cloud-based logic. A single operator could conceivably shift his control from one razorback to another—like jumping between avatars in a game.”
    Another technician nodded. “They’re a promising concept. Razorbacks don’t require ammunition, and they terrify the populace. It’s the perfect crowd control weapon. Surgically precise.”
    The Major pondered this. “And electronic countermeasures to their remote control?”
    “The ultrawideband used by the Daemon makes ECM difficult, but not impossible. The trick is that we need EWOs in place with specialized equipment—but we don’t know where the Daemon is going to hit us next. And using the equipment jams our own communications.”
    One of the technicians butted in. “Excuse me. Major, there was a Mark V security blimp over Huntley, too. It disappeared minutes before they came under attack. Whatever got it came in under radar. We just examined the blimp video. Looks like drone aircraft. Small. Fast. Not very sophisticated. It might even have simply rammed the airship.”
    “So it’s got an air force now?”
    Another one of the Weyburn Labs guys responded, “The darknet philosophy seems to be large numbers of small things—swarms. In this case, microjets. We’ve found the wreckage of several near sites where our surveillance drones have