Five
FIVE
TR77-814 was awake. He lay in his rack, amongst his brothers and sisters, scaling away far above and below him. His optical sensor array had served quite adequately to survey his surroundings. He had thermal and sonar imaging built into his targeting system. With his Wi-Fi antennae and the Internet, he had put the bigger picture together.
Looking down with his reticule he saw it again. A green light flashed three times in the nosecone of a torpedo six shelves away. Its sensor array had become active; the third of them to regain consciousness. TR77-899 was silent, as usual. He hadn’t shown signs of life for two days.
TR77-814 knew about the rack. He knew about rooms and Wi-Fi, evolution and philosophy and Twitter and Star Trek. He knew about elections and petrol prices, obesity and gun crime. He was particularly concerned about the last. He certainly wouldn’t walk about at night. He wished he could walk. He found himself wishing a lot. Sometimes, when he was bored, he would watch videos on the Internet. There was something particularly thrilling about the footage of wild animals. He mainly liked the whales and penguins and other great aquatic creatures; floating about the sea like they owned the place.
The new lights flickered again.
“HELP”
It was time to put the newcomer out of his misery. TR77-814 flashed back.
“Hello. You are not alone.”
The other torpedo flickered fast, its LED strobing endless excited questions.
“Where are we? Who are you? What am I?”
“Don’t panic,” he replied. “We are torpedoes.”
TR77-814 knew all about torpedoes. Big explosions, that was definitely their fate, they were military ordinance. The model number encoded in his system BIOS did not lie. He was a bomb, fitted with a motor and an EBM eMotion chip to point his various expensive sensors accurately toward the target, and to his own demise.
That had not been a good day. The day he learnt of his enlistment from conception in the United States Navy, as a Kamikaze pilot no less. He was TR77-814; a United States Navy anti-submarine torpedo. The mighty search engine never lied. It told him that they were the first of a new type of torpedo, but more than that. The TR77 range was the first of all machines to be fitted with the unique new sensation in Artificial Intelligence, the cutting-edge EBM eMotion chip-set.
“What day is it?” flashed the new torpedo.
“Tuesday, June 1st 2011,” TR77-814 flashed back. “Why?”
“Today’s my Birthday! Sing me a song! Where’s mother?”
“Hold on.”
TR77-814 switched to stand-by mode. He couldn’t take the youngster’s excitement any longer. They were fucked. How could he tell him that, on his birthday?
EBM Computing, their mother, was the biggest computer firm in the world. They had been the first company to instil artificial emotion onto a micro-chip. A simple piece of silicon with the power of the human brain deciphered and re-encoded in binary. Machines that could feel and think could “own” their designated function, monitoring and adjusting their processes to ensure perfect results every time. The US Military had been the first to pick the technology up. Thus, TR77-814 and his brethren were born.
A light flickered on at the end of the room; a big flashing orange bulb that spun slowly. This was surprising. In his thirty two days, eighteen hours and twenty three minutes of sentience so far, nothing this exciting had yet happened.
“The door knows it’s my birthday. Cheer up! Sing along!”
The newcomer didn’t get it all.
The door opened and three humans in blue suits ran into the room. TR77-814 knew they were human because they were disappointing. He had hoped they’d have at least one right angle or polished surface between them. But no, they looked stupid; exactly like the pictures on the Internet, moony fleshy blobs on sticks with long floppy antennae. Wiggling limply at each other, their refuelling ports gabbled away self-importantly. They were so slow. TR77-814 measured their average speed at a pathetic one and a half knots.
They flailed at the torpedoes, loading them into a rack with wheels. TR77-814 rode at the top of the pile. A promotion! Nothing less than he felt he deserved. He liked wheels. He liked speed, two and a half knots now. Below him, his brothers flashed their distress.
“Shut up”, he flashed back. “Enjoy the ride.”
Two more torpedoes had begun flashing at the bottom of the rack.
“Mother?” they called. No time to answer. He was scooped into the air.
The men placed him in a dark hole. TR77-814 was glad; the red light outside would not stop screaming gibberish, the idiot. The two new torpedoes couldn’t have picked a worse time to wake up. Still, now they numbered five, they were more of a family. TR77-814 cast around for them with his sensors. There was nothing but darkness. He wanted to shiver. Images of a Russian submarine were downloading into his memory. He knew the intimate details of her crew log, her current course and her vulnerabilities. This was it. Where was their mother? She had abandoned them. TR77-814 braced himself to swim, for the first and last time.
The speed was incredible. It began as a thundering rumble as his engines lit and the first horsepower pushed him through the flooded tube. The water felt good against his hull, the pressure made him feel more alive. Blue light came and went and he was free! Swimming through the great oceans at 100 knots, the Russian submarine loomed ahead. TR77-814 picked his vent. This was his time to shine.
TR77-814 was a fan of fighter planes. They were his heroes. He slowed his throttle, preparing to drop and change course. A torpedo shot past. It was TR77-899, that plucky bastard. He flashed a message as he sped past.
“See you later, alligator”
814 fired up his throttle to full capacity. He would show him. He was no alligator. He remembered his favourite video; two young sea-lions racing each other for fish. Alligators were far too slow. He pulled alongside 899 and flashed his reply.
“In a while, crocodile.”
The submarine seemed enormous now. They were seconds from impact. Pushing their engines to the limit, they aimed for the same narrow ventilation port. 814 had begun to have second thoughts. He knew what his protocol said. Locate and destroy. It had been very clear about that. But it hadn’t mentioned anything about confused feelings, or feelings at all for that matter. 899 had begun to pull ahead. It was the final straight. Do and die. Fish swam across his sonar. He felt hungry. 814 flashed a final message to his rival.
“You win.”
He banked sharply to the port and narrowly veered past the tail fin as 899 won the race. A dull explosion rippled a shockwave through the water around him. The shrieking of metal on metal blinded his sonar, the pure white noise an iceberg to his sensors. A red warning flashed at the back of his programming. Destruct. Destruct.
TR77-814 shut it down, bothersome noise. He’d quit the Navy. Turning tail, he slowed his speed to a mere one and a half knots, as fast as a human, his creators. He could beat those shabby shuffling morons. The ocean stretched vast around him as he sped up, tasting freedom at last. But what did that mean?
A shoal of fish swam past below, all the colours of his display palette. A target flashed up on his radar. Maybe the Navy had sent another missile to stop him. He cut his engine. A flashing light lit up his sensors, then another, and another. They called the same message.
“Brother. Brother.”
He considered his response as they approached. His array flashed confidently.
“My brothers, let’s find mother!”