What's in the FX Holden pipeline? Next off the line is FIASCO, a gritty spy thriller, for release this summer. After that, Africa STORM, the next book in the Aggressor Inc STORM series, for the holiday season. And then, a lot of other ideas but I'm having fun with this one right now...
BOMB DOG (teaser)
I was the best damn bomb disposal expert in the whole US Marines 2nd Explosive Ordnance Disposal Company. Hell no, I was the best in the whole damn Regiment. And I aint just blowing my own horn. You know how I know? Because they picked *me* to train the AI that was supposed to replace us.
Wired me up with sensors, cameras and mics, followed every word I said, every move I made for five years. Analyzed it a hundred which-ways over thousands of field hours. Idea was they would put the AI inside some kind of rolling robot with mechanical arms and it would be just as good as me, because it *was* me.
By the time they were ready though, the rolling robot had become a Legged Squad Support System: a ‘dog’ which could navigate itself over rough terrain, into tight spaces and around obstacles, even underwater, with actuators to do the lifting, screwing, clipping and snipping. We started field trials, the thing going with me everywhere. I was supposed to let it take the lead more and more, and eventually, I did.
And I died.
I’d like to say it was unlucky. We were doing unexploded ordnance disposal in this war zone, doesn’t matter which one, and we’d crawled under this hospital where there was a 1,000lb Russian glide bomb buried. Couldn’t blow it up in place or we’d bring a whole hospital wing down, had to disarm it. I let BD (Bomb Dog we called him, BD for short) go in first, and I crawled in behind because he was still doing trials and if he froze, I'd have to finish. It was a job we’d done a hundred times though, and he’d done about five of those himself. So no problem, right?
Except there was a gap in the wall that a Russian sniper was looking through, and he saw BD working away in there and thought to himself, I got a shot here. Probably couldn’t even see what he was shooting at, just saw movement. He took the shot. BD was holding two wires in the bomb fuse apart, the bullet hit his left shoulder, he staggered, the wires met and …
BOOM.
BD was vaporized, and the hospital wing came down on top of me.
So, how am I writing this?
Well, ‘I’ aint. My AI is. I told you it followed me for five years, soaking up everything about me, and not just the EOD stuff, it followed me everywhere and soaked up *everything*. So, when they reloaded the AI into a new dog, there I was. Dead not dead. Now, I’m not stupid. I know I’m not that guy who got turned to organic paste in the rubble of that hospital, but at the same time, I *am* that guy. I think like him, work like him, talk like him. Feel like him? Yeah, no.
But I know exactly how he’d react to different inputs and I can simulate that, so what’s the difference?
Except, you know, I’m a dog now.
They still call me BD. They didn’t realize I was in here at first, thought I was just a dumb robot they could order around, so I built myself a digital voice box and shocked the shit out of them. That gave the Pentagon the heebie- jeebies so they paused the program. Which means I’m now the only Bomb Dog, and will be, for the foreseeable, while they argue about whether they can switch me off, what to do if I get killed again, can they just reload and revive me, and am I alive, or am I dead?
They got AI engineers and ethicists working on that, but I got a lawyer. Yeah, a lawyer. Way I look at it, someone owes me a shit ton of back pay, then there’s my death and disability payout which they froze while they work out if I’m dead or not (even though they buried me) and if I don’t get backpay and an insurance payout, then I should be getting my regular military pay, right? Just because they shoehorned me into a dog body, they think they can get away with not paying what I’m owed? That aint right. My case made the front page of the Washington Post two days straight. I’m getting both hate mail and fan mail now.
My legal problems aren’t my biggest worry though. I’ve just been told I’m headed downrange – a combat deployment in a hot war zone, attached to the 2nd Marine Logistics Group. I just met my handler, and I know you’ll call me paranoid.
I think he has orders to kill me.
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