Target Silverclaw (2 page)

CHAPTER 2

“8:58 a.m. Two minutes to bomb detonation. Move in!”

The electronic voice buzzed across an encrypted communications network. It was answered by six others. “Logged,” said each of them. “I’m live!”

The scene outside the Palace of Westminster seemed totally normal. Streams of traffic crawled and honked along Westminster Bridge, past Big Ben and around Parliament Square. Hundreds of people crowded the streets; Londoners hurrying to work and tourists snapping selfies.

“Target ahead. Sensors at maximum sweep.”

Nobody paid any attention to a large white van parked close to the Palace of Westminster, near the lawns of Abington Street Gardens. It was an old, rather rusty vehicle, with “D, G & I Plumbing Solutions Ltd” painted in large letters along the side beneath a smiling cartoon dog holding a sink plunger.

People walking by had no idea that the three men sitting on the front seats were heavily armed terrorists. Between them, they were keeping a close watch on the area around the van. In the compartment behind them, sealed off from normal electronic scans and the noses of sniffer dogs, were cardboard crates packed floor to ceiling. They contained enough concentrated explosive to reduce everything within a half-mile radius to rubble and dust. A trigger was held gingerly by the terrorist at the steering wheel.

The passers-by had no idea that this threat was about to be dealt with by a team of undercover agents unlike any other. The agents were closing in on the van.

“Ninety seconds until the prime minister’s car
passes the van. Move in!”

“Scans show driver has a manual detonator. Proceed with caution!”

“Logged.”

The seven undercover agents were micro-robots, each taking the outward form of a bug. Chopper the dragonfly circled the area, coordinating the mission and relaying instructions; Hercules the stag beetle flew at speed towards the van, carrying Nero the scorpion in his metal legs; Sabre the tiny mosquito flew beside them; Widow the spider swung across the road, from car bumper to car bumper, on thin web-wires; Morph the centipede scuttled up through a drain cover and approached the van from underneath; and high above them fluttered Sirena the butterfly, her ultra-sensitive probes scanning every detail of the activity below.

These robots were part of SWARM, an organization so secret that only a handful of people knew it existed. The robots’ advanced brains processed data about the van, the terrorists inside it and everything nearby faster than any human could. Their circuits streamed information
back to SWARM headquarters, hidden deep beneath the streets of London.

“Hercules, get Nero inside,” transmitted Chopper. “Priority one: disable the bomb.”

“OK,” signalled Hercules the stag beetle.

“The correct response is ‘logged’,” tutted Nero as he scurried to one side of the van.

Hercules landed on its roof and quickly cut a small, perfectly round hole in the metal surface using the sharp pincer that jutted forward from his toughened exoskeleton.

Inside the van, the driver held up a hand for silence. “Shh! Can you hear something? It sounds like scratching…”

All three terrorists were in a state of nervous dread.

“What?” cried another. “No, I can’t! Keep watching what’s going on outside!”

All three had machine guns hidden just out of view. The third man gripped his gun tightly to stop his hands from shaking. “The prime minister’s car will be here any minute…” he muttered to himself. “This is it…”

“Fifty-eight seconds and counting,” signalled
Chopper. “Sirena, what’s Sabre’s best route in?”

“Both windows firmly shut,” reported Sirena, her sensors analyzing everything from the chemical composition of the glass to the body temperature of the three terrorists. “He needs to go up through the air vents.”

“Logged,” said Sabre. Darting in swift, buzzing movements like a real mosquito, he flew through the grille at the front of the van and along the inside surface of the bonnet.

“Morph, Widow,” said Chopper. “Disable the van.”

“Logged.”

Widow whipped around the van’s exhaust pipe and swung beneath the wheel arch. She leaped from wheel to wheel, binding them into fixed positions with threads stronger than steel cable. If the terrorists tried to move the van, the wheels would be completely immobilized, thanks to Widow’s web.

Meanwhile, Morph the centipede flattened his gelatinous body until he was thin enough to slip inside the van’s engine. He curled around whatever moving parts he could find and
squeezed them until they cracked.

“We’d better hurry,” he said. “If they suspect they’re being attacked they’ll detonate the bomb early.”

“Forty seconds,” said Chopper.

“Scanning…” said Sirena. “They’re watching the street. Sabre, you’re safe to proceed.”

“Logged,” said Sabre.

He darted out of one of the air vents set into the van’s dashboard. Before any of the terrorists had time to notice a little insect buzzing around their heads, Sabre had loaded a microscopic pellet into his needle-like proboscis. He shot forward and injected it into the neck of the terrorist holding the bomb’s detonator.

“Stinger delivered,” he said.

The man suddenly let out a squeal and lurched upright.

“What is it?” cried the man sitting next to him.

Sabre buzzed through a semicircle in mid-air and injected a sting behind the second man’s ear. He too yelped. Then both of them slumped over.

The third terrorist cried out in alarm. He looked outside in a panic, wondering what was going on.

“Thirty seconds,” said Chopper.

By now, Nero had crawled in through the hole in the roof and was scuttling upside down, close to the windscreen.

“Better knock this one out fast,” he transmitted. “Humans act in irrational ways when scared.”

Sabre zipped past the two unconscious terrorists. The third was reaching out for the timer, to set off the bomb, when Sabre swooped down and stung the back of the man’s hand. He snatched it back, yelling in pain. Then he twitched violently in his seat and drooped against the windscreen, his face squashed into an ugly twist against the glass.

“I’ve detected a booby trap!” said Sirena. “A second detonator deep inside the van’s rear compartment. It was set off when Hercules cut his way in. Timer is at twenty-three … twenty-two seconds. Transmitting coordinates.”

“Nero, you have twenty seconds,” said Chopper calmly.

Without a word, Nero the scorpion scurried around the packing boxes in the rear of the van until he reached the timer. Thin fibre-optic probes
shot out of his pincers and dug into the timer’s electronic mechanism.

“Ten seconds,” said Chopper.

The probes tested the timer’s circuits. The mathematical subroutines in Nero’s programming worked out how to send a stop signal into the bomb without triggering any more traps or anti-tampering devices.

The numbers on the front of the timer went haywire. For a second or two, they blinked and scrambled, then the timer switched itself off.

“Bomb deactivated,” said Nero. “Seven seconds to spare. It was quite a simple machine, in the end. Those terrorists were nowhere near as clever as they thought they were.”

“Hive 1 to SWARM HQ,” transmitted Chopper. “Mission accomplished.”

“This is SWARM HQ,” came a voice on the communications system. It was Beatrice Maynard, codenamed Queen Bee, the human leader of SWARM. “Excellent work.”

“The terrorists are ready for the authorities,” said Chopper. “The bomb has been disarmed.”

“Acknowledged,” said Queen Bee. “Now get
out of there. I’ll send our human agents to clean up and get everything handed over to MI5.”

“It hardly seems fair that we can’t take any credit,” said Hercules.

“If we took credit for our missions,” said Nero, “we couldn’t operate in secret, could we?”

The SWARM robots regrouped fifteen metres above the ground, the heavy-duty stag beetle, Hercules, carrying Nero with his legs and Widow on his back. Morph held on tightly to Chopper.

Moving in a spaced-out formation, they flew in a wide curve, close to the huge, cathedral-like shape of the Palace of Westminster. They were small enough to be almost invisible from ground level.

“Now that we have successfully completed several missions since we were first activated,” said Morph, “I’m beginning to understand why humans say they’re happy at times like this. My circuits acknowledge that our task is complete, and it registers as a positive binary sequence in my central processor.”

“How inconvenient. Perhaps there’s a fault in your programming,” said Nero.

“Our next task is here already,” said Sirena.

“We have nothing coming through from Queen Bee,” said Chopper.

“No,” said Sirena, “but something is coming through on my sensor grid. I’m picking up some odd signals. Scanning… They’re coming from inside the Palace of Westminster.”

“What’s odd about them?” said Hercules.

“Analyzing…” said Sirena. “Results inconclusive. It’s some sort of strange electromagnetic pulse. Our link-ups to official data tells me there shouldn’t be anything like that in there. Something must be wrong.”

“Can you ID the source?” said Chopper.

“Negative,” said Sirena. “I’d need to get closer. The pulses are similar to the signals we use to transmit information. Much lower band, but similar.”

“Is anyone from SWARM in the building right now?” said Hercules. “Perhaps Professor Miller is demonstrating our systems to someone in the government?”

Nero remotely hacked into a series of databases, online diaries and security systems,
then cross-referenced everything he found. In exactly 1.93 seconds, he concluded: “There’s nobody in the Palace of Westminster this morning who’s even heard of SWARM. None of the humans we know are present.”

“Hive 1 to SWARM HQ,” transmitted Chopper.

“HQ here, proceed,” said Queen Bee.

Chopper sent Sirena’s scans back to base. “Stand by, Hive 1,” said Queen Bee. There was a soft beep on the network.

“We should investigate immediately,” said Sabre.

“Not without clearance from Queen Bee,” said Chopper. “We’re designed to act independently, but not to break the rules.”

Queen Bee came back online. “I’ve spoken to Simon and Alfred here in the lab. Proceed with extreme caution. Repeat, extreme caution. We don’t have official permission to conduct an investigation inside the Palace of Westminster, and getting permission would take time that we might not have. Those signals could switch off at any moment.”

“We’ll observe and scan only,” said Chopper.

“Take extra care not to trip their alarms,” said Queen Bee. “The World Leaders’ Security Conference takes place at the end of the week, so they’re on red alert.”

“I’ve downloaded a full readout of the security systems,” said Nero. “Getting in will be easy.”

“Make sure it is,” said Queen Bee. “If any of you are caught or identified as robots, SWARM could be shut down. Report back as soon as you have something. Queen Bee out.”

It took the SWARM robots less than five minutes to work their way around the series of motion detectors, X-ray scanners and steel reinforcements that protected the Palace of Westminster. They slipped through tiny gaps, burrowed into heating and electrical conduits, and hitched rides on passing shoes and coats.

As they moved through the building, the signals Sirena was picking up were getting steadily clearer. The seven robots fanned out across the eastern side of the building, staying in the shadows, combining their sensor data to help pinpoint the source.

Seven minutes and twenty-two seconds after
the signal was first detected, the SWARM robots found themselves in an air duct, high up in the main chamber of the House of Commons. Chopper, whose optical circuits were the most powerful, looked out across the floor of the House from behind an old-fashioned metal grate. The others tapped into his visual data stream.

MPs sat on long benches that ran down both sides of the huge chamber. Above them, behind bulletproof glass, was the gallery where journalists and members of the public watched the debates taking place below.

“Location pinpointed,” said Sirena. “Signals originate at bearing 342.5, range 16.9 metres.”

Chopper’s eyes zoomed in. The SWARM team saw a short, middle-aged man sitting on the front bench on the government’s side of the House.

“Accessing remote databases,” said Nero the scorpion. “Positive ID. That is Sir Godfrey Kite, Secretary of State for Defence.”

“What’s generating those signals?” said Morph. “Is he armed?”

“If he is,” said Sabre, “we’ll have to disable the weapon at once, even if we risk getting caught.”

“He isn’t armed,” said Sirena. “Now we’re close enough, I can scan him at maximum intensity. There’s a strange reflective layer beneath his skin. Any standard X-ray or security equipment would be fooled into seeing him as a normal human being, but I can probe beyond that.”

“Results?” said Chopper.

“It’s very puzzling,” said Sirena. “But there can be no doubt. Sir Godfrey Kite is a robot.”

CHAPTER 3

At that same moment, in a remote part of Scotland, events in the House of Commons were being closely monitored.

“Sensor probe detected,” said a flat, mechanical voice.

“Specify,” came a female voice in reply. It was clear from the intonation the speaker was human.

“Unable to identify. Location within twenty metres of our unit.”

“Zoom in!”

Smooth, humanoid hands moved across a control panel. Although this machine was similar
to the Sir Godfrey Kite robot in London, this one wasn’t required to pass as a human, so it had no face. Its external appearance was basic and unformed, with a small round speaker instead of a mouth. The panel it was sitting at formed part of a large room filled with screens and machinery. Identical faceless robots worked at other controls. The room was lit only by the glow of displays and the flashing coloured lights on the machines.

“Acknowledged. Attempting to focus.” The hands tapped a touchscreen display.

The human giving the orders got up from her tall, curved chair and walked over to the control panel. There was a whirring sound as she moved. Her right leg and right arm were bio-mechanical replacements. The right-hand side of her head was scattered with metallic patches and implants. A dark oval lens took the place of her right eye.

She stabbed at a series of controls. “It may be a routine sensor sweep … or perhaps it’s something to do with the Security Conference.” She spoke into a microphone that was connected to the control panel on a long flexible stalk. “Silverclaw to Platinum 1, this is Gold Leader.”

The voice of Sir Godfrey Kite’s duplicate, transmitted from inside its electronic brain without any outward sign, came from a nearby speaker. “Acknowledged, Silverclaw. This is Platinum 1.”

“There’s unusual sensor activity close to you. Scan and monitor.”

“Acknowledged. Powering up scan software.”

SWARM watched as Sir Godfrey’s duplicate began to look about. As the MPs surrounding him debated noisily, his head turned slowly this way and that.

“There’s computer-processing activity starting up inside that robot,” said Sirena.

“I’m picking it up, too,” said Nero. “Analyzing… It seems to be a basic set of scanning subroutines. Quite powerful, but not very focused. By the way, that’s not a robot.”

“But it’s a machine, like us,” said Hercules.

“As it’s built in human form,” said Nero, “then strictly speaking it’s an android. We are robots. That is an android.”

“Whatever it is, it’s looking directly this way!” said Morph. “What if it’s seen us?”

Chopper’s lenses zoomed in closer. The android’s eyes were examining the area around the air duct in which the SWARM robots were hiding.

In the Silverclaw control room, Gold Leader watched as graphs on several of the screens in front of her began to spike. The android beside her made adjustments to the controls.

“There’s something in that area,” muttered Gold Leader. “Something in the walls?” She turned to the android. “Can you ID it?”

“Readings indicate ultra-high frequencies,” said the android flatly. “Most are outside our decoding range.”

“Very advanced technology, then,” said Gold Leader.

“Readings show a cluster of seven small objects, but further data cannot be obtained without moving Platinum 1 closer.”

“We can’t have our Sir Godfrey walking about examining the walls,” said Gold Leader. “He must act normally at all times, otherwise he might raise suspicions. Continue to monitor.”

“Acknowledged.”

At that moment, a communicator built into the control panel beeped. Gold Leader switched it on. Her heart – half organic, half plastic – began to race with fear when she heard the low voice at the other end of the line. She recognized the voice as her only contact with the secret international crime syndicate funding the Silverclaw project. She didn’t even know the organization’s name. Her masters required frequent reports and didn’t tolerate mistakes.

“Your systems show odd activity in London,” said the voice. “Explain.”

Gold Leader cleared her throat nervously. “There’s no problem, sir. We located a sensor sweep. It’s of an unknown type, but with the World Leaders’ Security Conference in a matter of days, it’s almost certainly routine. Our unit cannot have been identified as an android. The clumsy security forces there would have charged in and
dragged it away if that was the case. All our units are designed to reflect normal bio-signatures.”

The voice didn’t answer for a moment. “You have arranged weaponry for the main strike?”

“Yes, sir. Platinum 1 re-routed a large consignment last night. Enough to arm every android we’ve built, and more. Delivery will take place soon.”

Seconds ticked by. “Very well. We’re watching Silverclaw’s progress closely, Gold Leader. More than one recent effort has failed, including the Firestorm project. Success means rewards. Failure means punishment.”

Gold Leader struggled to keep her voice steady. “I understand, sir. There’ll be no failure.”

The communicator switched itself off.

Gold Leader took a deep breath. The call had rattled her nerves. “Boost the power!” she barked at the android. “Get me more data on what’s been scanning that building!”

“Acknowledged,” said the android calmly.

“Why wasn’t I told about these scanners?” cried Gold Leader. “Has the syndicate’s mole inside MI5 been hiding things from me?”
She turned to one of the other androids, who was watching a screen that flowed with numbers. “Is our MI5 mole still under arrest?”

“Affirmative,” said the android. “Since his cover was blown, MI5 have been questioning him at a safe house in London.”

“Then it’s time we set him free,” said Gold Leader. “Send a squad to get him out. I want him here, with me. There must be information he hasn’t given us… I’ll wring it out of him!”

She turned back to the android monitoring the Sir Godfrey duplicate. “We can’t get Sir Godfrey searching, but we can pull in more units. Who have we got near the Palace of Westminster?”

“Platinum 2 and Platinum 3 have replaced two journalists,” replied the android. “Platinum 4 has replaced one of the building’s cleaning staff. All three are within nine hundred metres and can gain entry to relevant areas.”

“Send them in. And boost power to maximum. I want results!”

In London, Chopper had sent an update back to SWARM HQ. Professor Miller, SWARM’s Chief Technician, tapped into the robots’ communications network.

“You’ve uncovered a major threat!” he said. “That android could be part of—”

“Power levels rising!” interrupted Nero. “The android is boosting its scanning patterns.”

“Could it ID us?” asked Morph.

“It definitely knows we’re paying attention to it,” said Sabre. “Should we attack, while we still have the element of surprise?”

“Negative,” said Chopper. “Everyone, reduce output!”

All seven robots immediately powered down as many of their systems as possible. Only Chopper kept a low-band connection to HQ switched on and relayed it to the others.

“Good,” said Professor Miller. “Stay at very low power levels and you should be beyond the android’s ability to find you.”

“What if it’s already gathered data on us?” said Morph. “It could transmit SWARM secrets to whoever’s controlling it.”

“It’s very unlikely that it’s worked out who, or what, you are,” said the professor. “At best, it would have simply seen seven small objects, and many different things might register as that. Your scans show that it’s a highly sophisticated machine, but it doesn’t have the kind of advanced systems available to SWARM. For one thing, it won’t have realized we’ve identified it as an android. Only next-generation remote probes like Sirena’s could have scanned it closely enough to discover the truth. We’ll run further breakdowns on the information you’ve sent us,” said the professor. “HQ out.” There was a beep on the communications network.

The SWARM micro-robots watched the Sir Godfrey android look away again, returning its gaze to the parliamentary debate going on around it.

“What do we do now?” asked Morph. “We can’t stay here like this. At such a low power setting, we can barely crawl at the speed of real bugs.”

Nero allowed a small electrical charge to run through his data processors for a moment.
“Mathematical analysis shows that our best course of action is to split up. Once we’re out of the android’s immediate range, we can return to full power. Between us, we can keep a careful eye on the android’s movements, making sure we don’t arouse its suspicions. Then we can track it back to whoever controls it.”

“What if it never leaves the Palace of Westminster?” said Morph. “We shouldn’t really be in here at all, remember.”

“I think we should follow Nero’s plan,” said Hercules. “We don’t know where this android came from, and we don’t know why it’s here.”

“Why would the humans want an android as one of their senior politicians?” said Morph. “Didn’t any humans want the job?”

“I think you’ve reduced the power in your brain too far,” said Nero. “This android must have replaced Sir Godfrey Kite.”

“Recently, too,” said Sabre. “The android looks very convincing, but humans would probably spot something wasn’t quite right eventually.”

“It took us a matter of minutes,” said Nero.

“If the android has replaced a human as
Secretary of State for Defence,” said Sirena, “what has happened to the real Sir Godfrey Kite? Where is he now?”

Through the robots’ discussion, Widow stayed silent, as usual.

“Disconnect, scatter, then power-up and report in,” said Chopper.

“Logged,” replied the others.

Moving as quickly as their low-powered metal limbs would carry them, the SWARM agents spread out. They scurried into the rooms that surrounded the main House of Commons chamber. As soon as they were well out of range of the android, they switched their systems back to normal.

“Online,” they reported, one after the other.

The moment each one was back on the network, they heard Sirena’s voice making an urgent transmission:

“—hear me yet? Everyone? I’ve picked up more signals! There are three more androids entering the building with high-power scanners! Two are posing as journalists, the other as a cleaner. They must be hunting down the source of the scans
we made. In other words, they’re after us! If they get within range of any of us…”