The Cyclops Initiative by David Wellington

nothing better to do.”
    â€œAny second now they’ll make it do a donut,” another cop added, “and then it’ll say ‘Johnny Five is alive’ or just ‘Wall-­Eeee’ or something. Those guys are nuts.”
    The robot’s treads spun out over the loose gravel, sending up a billowing plume of gray dust in its wake. It did not stop or do a donut or say anything.
    â€œWhat’s that pole on its front?” Chapel asked. “The part that sticks out.”
    â€œRemote detonation arm,” one of the cops said. “Sometimes when you find a bomb, the best thing you can do is just clear the area and set it off where it is.”
    â€œAll right, that’s enough,” the sergeant said. “No talking to the prisoner.”
    Chapel shook his head. “Wait. Just wait a second. Remote detonation—­the way you do that—­” He’d seen bomb removal robots in Afghanistan. When you found an IED in the road out there, you had to call in the bomb ­people, and nine times out of ten they would send one of their robots. He remembered that they got rid of the IEDs by blowing them up there, too. And the way you did that was to detonate it by hitting it with a charge of explosives.
    He peered across the gravel at the approaching robot, at its remote detonation arm. There was something clamped to the end of the pole, a big wad of something white and shapeless.
    Semtex, Chapel thought. Plastic explosive. Maybe a pound of it, or maybe more.
    And the robot kept getting closer, headed right for them. No—­headed for the trailer—­
    â€œWilkes!” Chapel shouted. “Out of there now! Everybody scatter and get your heads down!”
    There was no time to stop the thing—­it was moving too fast. Still, some of the cops turned and faced it with their submachine guns, looks of confusion on their faces but they could feel it, feel that something very bad was about to happen. Chapel started to run. The sergeant shouted for him to freeze and lifted his weapon to his eye.
    Chapel figured he would just have to take his chances.
    He ran.
    QUEENS, NY: MARCH 21, 16:48
    It didn’t take long for the robot to cross the last stretch of gravel and ram into the side of the trailer. Chapel didn’t so much as turn his head to look back, so when a second later the shock wave lifted all the gravel under his feet and threw him to the ground, he wasn’t quite ready. He fell hard on his hands, scraping silicone skin off his artificial wrist, squinting his eyes shut as the dusty gravel pelted his face. It turned out to be a good thing he’d been knocked down. He heard debris whiz past him fast enough it would have taken his head off, felt hot pieces of metal bounce off his back. The noise of the explosion was loud enough that it deafened him, leaving his ears ringing and his chest burning as the air was ripped from his lungs.
    Down on his knees in the gravel he reached for the hard drive hidden in his tunic. It was fine—­his body had sheltered it from the blast.
    Only then did he look back.
    Part of the trailer remained intact, a jagged corner of aluminum sticking up at an angle. Debris was everywhere, some of it smoldering on the gravel—­green chipboards and shards of black plastic and twisted, unidentifiable pieces of metal. He didn’t see much blood. The cops in their body armor must have listened to him and gotten their heads down—­only the sergeant looked injured, a big gash running down one of his cheeks. He was staring at something only he could see.
    Chapel saw no sign of Wilkes. Had he made it out of the trailer? It didn’t look good.
    Poor bastard. Chapel might not have liked him much, but he was a fellow silent warrior. An intelligence operative. Even his family would never know how he died, the sacrifice he’d made to stop the hijacker.
    The sergeant turned and looked at Chapel. His eyes still