Project Inferno by William King

Author:William King
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Emerald Books
Published: 2020-09-16T17:27:26+00:00

Chapter Twenty-six

After the first trial of twenty attacks, they met again in the General’s office and as usual the General appeared distracted, if not totally uninterested. This was a bit unnerving for Colonel X, because since he assumed that his project had much visibility above the General and could be important for his career. But he wrote it off as a quirk of the General’s personality. He also attributed it to the fact that higher-ups often acted uninterested as part of their power trip with underlings. Whatever the case, he decided he should jump right into summarizing the status of his project.

Colonel X explained the modifications they had made to the AI Robot Pal and the fact that production was ramping up to about 10,000 units per month. Apparently, he had belabored these points, because the General suddenly waved his hand dismissively and said, “Enough. I’ve heard all this before. What I really want to hear about are the results of your test attacks.”

Colonel X was chagrined. “My apologies, General. I was so focused on the technical achievements that I forgot to report on the initial tests.” He described the outcomes of the attacks, including damage, destroyed structures, and casualties. He made sure to mention that the attacks were 95 percent successful.

The General looked out the window for a moment. “Very impressive. If my math is correct, your attacks resulted in about 1.8 million Yuan damage per attack. And, as you said, that didn’t even include the costs of the medics and firefighters. That kind of financial damage is exactly what I had in mind. What do you propose next?”

Colonel X put a lot of thought into his answer. “We will start shipping the AI Robot Pals at our production rate of 2,300 per week. Of course, we don’t know how fast they will sell in America. But we will know when they reach a customer’s home because that’s when they will be charged for the first time and the GPS chip will be activated. We will be able to communicate with them and know their exact location so we can determine where to focus our attacks.” Colonel X wanted to formally close this discussion, so he was direct. “General, I assume that I have permission to proceed?”

The General simply nodded his approval, and the meeting was concluded.

Colonel X left without any further comments. But, for some reason, he still felt troubled. While he couldn’t pin down the precise reason, he had a nagging feeling that the General was hiding something. Especially when he had asked for permission to proceed. The General seemed a bit uneasy, almost as if he didn’t have permission himself. The General had spent a great deal of time during the meeting looking thoughtfully out the window, as if he was seeking some kind of feedback. It seemed that he often avoided looking directly at me during the meeting.

Was it possible that the General was acting independently? That was unlikely. Control in the MSS was very tight, and it was not typical for someone—even at the General’s level—to act on his own.

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