ABC - Penance

Police Auxiliary Post, Unity Townsite, Labour Camp One

It was a short ride to the Post, situated near the entrance to the Camp main gates. The streets were modestly busy for a Friday morning, big auto-trucks already lining up at the Camp gates with deliveries. I could see a trickle of Wardens and support staff entering through a side gate, each being scanned and Idented by armed Wardens in grey armour.

The nearby Post was a modest affair, one small office and a lockup at the back with a barracks on the upper floor. A garage was attached on the side and as I rode up the big shutter door was open. Within I could see a young Officer, maybe early twenties, seated at a workbench with a partially dismantled Sentinel held in a wheeled frame.

I parked my bike in the otherwise empty lot that fronted the building and dismounted. The Officer glanced in my direction, noted my uniform, then went back to poking around inside the mechanical.

“Morning, Sir” he called out unhurriedly, eyes focussed on the task at hand. I walked into the shade of the garage, seeing two more Sentinels at the back in charging stands. There were two additional stands, currently empty, as well as a pair of electric patrol bikes hooked up to rechargers.

“Morning, Officer” I replied. “Having a bit of bother with your mechanical?” I hunkered next to him and gazed into the electronic guts of the machine. I should point out I have trashed a few Sentinels in my time but I have no idea how to fix one.

“Yeah” he agreed. “Bastard won’t hold a charge. I think the battery pack is faulty” There was a hiss and pop and blue smoke wafted from the mechanical innards. The officer pulled out his hand, waving it angrily in the air to alleviate the pain.

“Fuck” he added succinctly, then noticed the rank insignia on my uniform collar. “I mean, fuck, Sir!”

There is an old belief among military organisations that you can say anything you like to a superior officer, as long as you add “Sir” on the end. That is not true, especially with my previous superior, Captain Zoranis.

“What’s your name, Officer?” I asked as I stood to my full height. The kid jumped to his feet and sketched a hasty salute. The guy was easily a foot taller than me and I gave him my best glare.

“Ah, Milovich, Sir” he rushed out. “Officer Anton Milovich”

I returned his salute and told him to stand easy. He slumped instead as if the weight of the world was crushing him down.

“Don’t sweat about the battery pack, Milovich” I assured him blithely. “Just get another one from your stores and switch it out”

He gave me a look and shook his head like a sad hound.

“Can’t Sir” he admitted. “There aren’t any left. That’s why I was trying to fix this one”

I knew for a fact that there were thousands of those exact same battery packs held in Pan City and Spitfield supply depots, waiting to be requisitioned. My previous case had involved rogue Sentinels so I had done a lot of research on what was held in stock.

“Why haven’t you ordered more from Headquarters, Milovich?”

The officer was going to reply when he was interrupted by a voice that came from the garage doorway. A Sergeant stood there, his uniform crisp and clean

“Inspector Alvarez, I am sorry I wasn’t waiting to greet you” said the Sergeant. He saluted me and I returned his salute, each of us sizing up the other.

“You must be Sergeant Lincoln, senior officer at this post” I ventured cordially. “I’m glad to meet you”

“Likewise, Inspector” he replied. He extended his arm towards the main building, so I stepped past him and headed for the front door. Over my shoulder, I called out a parting comment to young Milovich.

“The battery packs in the Sentinels are the same ones they use on the electric bikes. You’ll need two of the four packs, so the bike won’t run as long but you’ll have a working Sentinel”

“Really? Thanks Inspector!” Milovich gushed as I left him to his work.

The Police Auxiliary Post was pleasantly cool inside, the soft hum of air-conditioning permeating the otherwise silent office. Sergeant Lincoln lead me past the front counter, a solid looking affair with a Ceramiglass screen running from the top of the counter to the ceiling. Speaking grilles were inset in the screen at head height and I saw cameras set in the corners to watch over everything.

Once I was through the key coded door, he closed it behind us. The inner section of the office had four work stations, a chiller box and two big metal cabinets with mesh fronts. Inside of those I could see the Post’s selection of assault rifles, shotguns and pistols, all ready and waiting to be used.

“Cosy” I commented to the Sergeant and he nodded solemnly in agreement.

“There are only four of us at the Post” Lincoln explained. “That means two of us on duty at any one time. The other officers are Simmonds and Lembayo and I would introduce you but they are currently asleep”

“Upstairs in the barracks room?” I asked, pointing my chin at the ceiling.

“Yes, Sir” he answered. “They finished their shift at six AM. Luckily for them it was a quiet Thursday night”

“So it gets rowdy on the weekend?” I enquired.

“Quite. Fridays are paydays for the Wardens and the support staff from the Camp, so they like to blow off steam. That’s why I’ve got Milovich trying to get the Sentinel back on duty. With only three of them operational it leaves us short handed”

“Uh-huh” I responded. “I notice there are no Guards deployed at the Camp. Isn’t that unusual?”

Sergeant Lincoln gave me a perplexed look.

“There have never been any Guards deployed at Camp One” he answered. “Maybe in the early days, but I have been here for four years now and the only support units are the Sentinels”

That caught me by surprise. The Guards are in reality a scarce resource, spread far thinner across the Zone that most citizens realise. Regardless, I would have thought a secure Labour Camp would have warranted a squad at least.

“What about getting spares for your mechanicals then?” I wondered. “Surely this Camp would warrant a full inventory to maintain public order?”

Lincoln was looking decidedly uncomfortable now and the guy wouldn’t meet my eyes.

“You need to ask Mister Campbell about that” he said evasively.

“The Town Liaison Officer?” I countered. “Since when does the local TLO decide how the Police Auxiliary will be run?”

“Look, Inspector, I don’t know how you run things back in Spitfield, but out here the Warden calls the shots. He runs the Camp and the town the way he wants. How I feel about it doesn’t matter so long as the Camp AI is under the Hoffman Bridge”

“They bridged the AI?” I said in shock. “That’s pretty serious”

The Sergeant looked at his hands and nodded agreement. He had slumped into a chair and finally lifted his gaze to my face, his expression the same as Milovich. Beaten down by circumstances they could not control.

“After the raid in October, I guess you know about that, the Camp AI was compromised” Lincoln explained. “The Warden implemented a shutdown of the AI’s higher functions, using a Hoffman Bridge to restrict its processing power”

“Fuck me” I breathed out and sat in a chair too, stunned by the revelation. Using a bridge on an AI, even a limited AI like at Camp One, was pretty much a lobotomy. It took away all the so-called higher brain functions that defined the Artificial Intelligences, making them little more than a glorified computer.

“How did the Board of Governors approve that?” I asked him. “More importantly, why hasn’t Archimedes intervened? The Camp AI is part of him, it uses a Quantum Processor to run the mind construct”

“I guess they know. My commander in Pan City told me it was all approved and to follow the Warden’s commands until ordered otherwise” He shrugged his shoulders, bound to obey the instructions he had been given.

I was staggered by this news. To create a Limited AI takes a lot of processing power, so they require a lot of conventional processors to function properly. Before the advent of the Quantum Processors, the best AIs in the world barely passed the Turing Test. They could mimic human emotions and thought processes, but nobody really considered them to be truly self-aware.

Quantum Processors changed that completely. It took a minimum of six Quantum Processors in series to make a true AI, such as the original Archimedes. This was referred to as the Rackman Limit, named after the guy who built the first processors and then from that the first iteration of his greatest achievement, the renowned Archimedes.

However, a single Quantum Processor was streets ahead of conventional processors. A Limited AI could operate easily using one of these powerful devices. Most were single manufacture processors, unable to make a Quantum Network with other processors. For the majority of commercial and military uses that was fine, but the Camp AI was meant to be part of the Archimedes Network.

It had autonomy of operation, much like the Guard clones who also used Quantum Processors, yet when needed Archimedes could assume direct control. Allowing the Hoffman Bridge to remain on the Camp AI effectively took it out of his Network.

With Archimedes unable to take control of Camp One, it truly was under the sole guidance of the Warden. He was bound to follow the edicts of the Board, yet if they let him run the place how he wanted, no-one here could say otherwise.

“Thanks for your insights, Sergeant” I said slowly and deliberately. “I have a meeting with the Warden right after this. Anything you want me to bring to his attention?”

“No, Sir” he responded. “And thank you for your suggestion about the battery packs. I should have remembered that myself”

I was going to take my leave when thinking about the bikes reminded me of a question I wanted to ask.

“Sergeant, you’ve been here a while you said. Do you know of any facilities that sit out to the west of Unity?”

“Facilities?” he answered. “Not out to the west. There are a couple of private farms out there but nothing major. Even our crop fields are mostly here in the valley or to the east”

He pondered for a bit more and I thought my question was a bust.

“Unless you mean the old Camp buildings” he continued.

“The old Camp? Isn’t this the original Camp One?” I asked.

“No, this is the second place they built. The original Labour Camp was in the next valley over but after the first few years they needed a bigger facility. It was easier to build this new Camp and they relocated the town as well”

“Is the old Camp still in use?” I demanded more urgently than I had intended.

“Not for a long time, Sir” he said. “There was talk of using it as a research lab for some company down south, but I never heard if that went ahead. As far as I know the whole place is empty”

I got Sergeant Lincoln to show me where the old Camp was located on a map. It was about fifteen klicks due west, sitting at the end of the original access road. Lincoln told me that the old location had been removed from all the mapping data to avoid confusion. Only the local people knew that the old buildings existed or where they were.

That had to be the place Ghost was investigating.

“Thank you so much, Sergeant” I told him gratefully. “I won’t be in town for long, but if you need anything just give me the word”

I held out my hand and he shook it, his grip firm and solid. There and then I decided I liked Sergeant Lincoln.

“Good luck, Inspector”

“Thanks” I said and he showed me out of the Post. As we exited I could see Officer Milovich busy extracting a battery pack from one of their bikes. He saw me and gave a salute, knocking himself in the head with the hefty power unit.

I saluted him back with a smile and left them to it.

Whatever else might be wrong with this town, the Police Auxiliaries seemed legit. I settled myself on my bike, adjusted my cap, and keyed the engines to life.

Sergeant Lincoln gave me a wave and then I rode off. I had some answers that I wanted and as I approached the Camp Gates, I pondered the new ones that had arisen.