Demon Download by Jack Yeovil

Author:Jack Yeovil [Yeovil, Jack]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Tags: Dark Future, Games Workshop, Alternative History, Science Fiction
ISBN: 1872372068
Publisher: Games Workshop
Published: 1990-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

III

Lauderdale was inspecting his androids. The whole troop stood to attention under the cellophane shrouds in the store-room. Seven-feet-tall, anthropomorphic and faceless under their helmets, they looked a little like the robot in the movie The Day the Earth Stood Still, but slimmer and battleship grey. The only customised touch was the US Cav yellow stripe down their legs.

The Robo-Troopers were Captain Lauderdale’s special field of expertise. The Cav didn’t use them that often any more, following the wave of anti-android feeling that had swept the nation after the Governor of Los Angeles send them into the Watts NoGo to break up a peaceful demonstration against the USA’s links with Greater Rhodesia. Some programmer’s minor error had led to an override of the androids’ prime directive and a massacre of 1594 people. Most Agencies had quietly scrapped their android programs after that, or diversified into different branches of robotics. Hammond Maninski Inc., out of the fortress city of Pittsburgh, was rumoured to be experimenting with the Donovan Treatment, putting human brains in android bodies—as in the British police teevee show, Dixon of Dock Green—and putting them in the field. Lauderdale knew that was a bad move. The human brain should be well removed from the field of combat, watching the action on all the monitors, playing God, not stuck inside a tin can waiting for the first lucky home-made frag to burst its eggshell.

He ran a systems check on the master control console. The androids hadn’t moved since the last inspection. Really, Lauderdale ought to detail someone to dust them down more often. They hadn’t been used in action for eighteen months, and had only been trotted out for parades and display inspections after much nudging. Lauderdale resented the downplaying of his discipline. He felt like a spare man at Apache, assigned to odd jobs like looking after official visitors rather than performing the duties he had signed up for.

Colonel Rintoon had ordered everyone to double-check their own areas of the fort. He believed there was a murderer loose somewhere, and that he had gained access to and exit from Younger’s kitchen by some as-yet unknown means. Everyone was supposed to be searching for clues. Lauderdale agreed with Captain Finney’s diagnosis. Younger had been killed by his own kitchen equipment. The physical presence of a killer hadn’t been necessary. Finney had explained that a murderer could tamper with the kitchen by tapping into the central system of the fort, but Rintoon insisted on believing the evidence of the power outages and the dials and maintaining that Apache was inviolate. Rintoon was near the edge. Problems were popping up beyond the parameters of his programming.

None of the androids had bloody fingers. Then again, Lauderdale hadn’t expected them to.

He took one last look around the store-room, turned off the lights, and stepped outside into the corridor.

Lieutenant Rexroth was running by, a print-out streaming from his hand.

They bumped together. Rexroth saluted.

“Sorry, Captain.”

Lauderdale was irritated. “What’s the hurry, Rex?”

“Major Faulcon has to see this.”

They walked, almost jogging, along together.

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