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I hung in a fetal position, relaxed into the supporting mesh of my pilot harness. The suspension isolated me from vibration with a gentle swaying, so I heard more than felt the thump of each footfall. The recycler tinged my air with volatiles, a blend of new plastics and old perspiration overlying the complex floral and rot scents of the jungle around me. I made a mental note to revisit the recycler's design, but more urgent business had called me out of my underground lab.
My encrypted radio crackled. "Mobile, Ranger Two. Over."
I keyed my mic. "Ranger Two, Mobile Actual. Sitrep? Over."
"Mobile, Ranger Two. Sensor net shows multiple intruders heading into the preserve. We are on their trail. Over."
I'd set aside the preserve for a troop of critically endangered western lowland gorillas. Even if the intruders were not poachers, humans could carry viruses lethal to the isolated primates. One sneeze from an infected visitor could wipe out the whole troop.
"Ranger Two, Mobile. On my way. Keep me posted. Over."
I'd discovered the gorilla troop, well outside the other preserves in the region, while surveying sites for a mass driver within my mining concession. My first view of the troop was overwhelming. The big silverback, the smaller adults, and wonder of wonders, the big-eyed infants and playful juveniles. I lost days (well, not lost, I consider them well-spent) following the troop at a distance until I was sure I had observed and logged all its members. Those recordings are still some of my most prized possessions.
My preceding decade in the region had made my concession a model for ethical development, with my solar monorail, sustainable extraction of forest fiber and chemicals, and zero-footprint mining, all using robot labor. Any risk of this species' extinction on my watch was simply not acceptable.
"Mobile, Ranger Two. Intruders acquired. Headcount six. No firearms, repeat, no firearms, machetes only. Interviews in progress. Your ETA? Over."
I had tried to duplicate the success of other wildlife sanctuaries in Africa, particularly the Akashinga rangers in Zimbabwe. Like them, I had recruited all-female teams, trained in de-escalation and community relations. The villages built under the solar canopy of my monorail had produced plenty of good candidates.
No firearms, so the intruders were definitely not poachers. The machetes or bush knives were simple necessities for traveling on foot through the Central African jungle, and not a sign of bad intent.
I had just completed construction of my mechanical walker, and was still running field tests. I didn't have conclusive results for its speed through the jungle, so I'd have to guesstimate.
"Ranger Two, Mobile. Check for LEGBA phones. My ETA your location five minutes."
The monorail my robots had built through the nearby jungle was run by an expert system called LEGBA, which also managed regional communications. LEGBA's voice-operated cell phones were useful and free, so nearly every villager living in the monorail's footprint carried one.
"Mobile, Ranger Two. Five LEGBA phones. Sixth subject a cousin from outside the villages. Over."
That sealed it. Any smart poacher would leave their phone at home to avoid tracking. LEGBA would have given me their locations as soon as I'd asked. I resisted slapping my forehead just in time, or the walker would have mimicked my action with unfortunately amplified results.
I thought for a moment, then keyed a different comm frequency. "LEGBA. New protocol. Notify rangers and myself if any LEGBA phone is carried into the gorilla's preserve. Paraphrase acknowledge."
LEGBA responded quickly. "When one of my phones pings inside the bounded location you set aside for the gorillas, I am to message Doctor Robin Goodwin and the rangers. Confirm new protocol?"
"Confirmed."
"Your LEGBA phone is in the gorilla preserve. The phones of Ranger Team Two and of five other villagers are inside the preserve. No other phones are within the preserve at this time. Details?"
"Thank you, LEGBA, that's all for now."
I keyed the radio again. "Ranger Two, Mobile. What is the last known location of the gorilla troop? Over."
"Mobile, Ranger Two. We were monitoring them early this morning, about three kilometers up the eastern slope. They should still be within a klick or two, there is good forage. Over."
"Ranger two, Mobile. Anything else on the sensor net? Over."
"Mobile, Ranger Two. Wait one... Nothing I can see. Over."
I saw, as clearly as a diagram drawn over a map, what had happened. I pulled up the walker's guidance interface and marked the gorilla troop's last known location, spun the walker in place, and set it off at a fast lope.
I might already be too late. My ranger team had been decoyed out of position. No one else could get to the gorillas in time.
I had thought I could protect the gorillas with the same technologies I used for the monorail. I thought the sensors and drones would detect trespassers. I thought I could build a reputation, one that would keep poachers and other criminals away, and keep the gorilla troop safe. Apparently, I thought wrong.
"Ranger Two, Mobile. Escort the villagers back to their homes. Get their stories. Find out who put them up to this. Mobile out."
It was clear that the poachers had more resources and more capable leadership than usual. They had managed to slip through the sensor net, somehow avoiding both the fixed instruments and the mobile drones. The system was not reporting any missing elements, so the poachers had not disabled or destroyed equipment. How had they avoided detection? Fooling all my sensors was a neat trick, and I was looking forward to questioning them about it.
Even though my walker was doing the physical labor, my nostrils stretched wide and my breath whistled in and out. My jaw clenched, and my pulse throbbed in my temples. I flexed my hands and made an effort to keep them loose, else my clenched fists would override the walker's most efficient gait.
I was angry at myself as much as I was furious with the poachers. I had gotten complacent. Delegating the gorillas' safety to my rangers had been a facile avoidance of my responsibilities. I had to make this right.
Fortunately, I had the right tools for the job. The walker was the result of my need for a fast, ground-based emergency response system. The jungles of the western Central African Republic stretched for many square kilometers, without paved roads, permanent bridges, or even cleared trails. Illicit logging left clear-cut patches, but old growth trees could be meters thick at the base, and shrouded in lianas and undergrowth. The underlying ground was uneven at best, and pocked with sinkholes, boulders, and gullies, all overgrown by concealing foliage. Wheeled or even tracked vehicles quickly bogged down or hung up.
Even for a mechanical walker, the footing was treacherous. At least my walker could choose its footing carefully, and the combination of surface LIDAR and ground-penetrating radar made its choices more reliable than most.
Now the pace of the walker's footfalls was an uneven stutter, breaking step to position for a long leap, then another long leap as one arm swung the walker around a huge old-growth tree trunk, then a series of accelerating steps before another leap. The LIDARs were working hard to image the ground ahead.
The faster I traveled, the louder each footfall sounded. I considered the possibilities, and opted for more speed. If the poachers heard me coming, they might be distracted from pursuing the gorillas. Anything that bought me time was a good thing.
My airborne drones should have been a faster option. Somehow, the poachers were avoiding the drones. My flying spies could not seem to track them down. My spider robots, while capable in the jungle, were not very fast over long distances.
Brachiating through the trees like a monkey was not possible with the ton-plus mass of my walker. The machine could make a high enough jump or climb a tree trunk to reach the lowest branches, but none of those branches would be able to bear the walker's weight. Ground-pounding was the way to go.
I had programmed my machine with every known two- or four-footed gait, suitably adapted and optimized for the walker's geometry and mass distribution. For this pursuit, the walker was transitioning rapidly between two-legged lope, knuckle-walking, and the occasional full gallop, as the terrain permitted. The trees assisted in cornering, and in braking as hazards came into detection range.
My walker knew, better than I ever could, how to maintain its balance and to achieve the best speed without causing or suffering damage. I told it where I wanted to go, and it took me there, while I attended to other matters.
The walker loped and scrambled up a ravine, making better progress where the ground was compacted and periodic floods kept the streambed clear of foliage. At the head of the ravine, the walker planted both hands on an obstructing boulder, and vaulted up and over it.
The climbing was draining the walker's power reserves. I shut off the cooling and air filtration, and went to direct venting to conserve power. The mixed fragrances of rot, blooms, and green growing things filled the cockpit, which warmed up rapidly. The heat and humidity soon had me perspiring. I ignored it. Soon, I would confront the poachers, and I could either relax in my air conditioning, or I would be too dead to notice.
As if to punctuate that thought, a shot echoed off the slope ahead. The external microphones gave me a rough vector. My sensor network, including the dedicated shot mics, produced a more exact location. I sent the walker on a direct intercept course at maximum speed.
I feared I was already too late. The poachers had got off the first shot, and that probably meant a dead gorilla. Cold sweat trickled down my spine as I waited for more shots.
The walker's gait was rougher, and I bounced around in the harness. The suspension could only compensate for so much. I did not care if I picked up a few bruises. My only concern was for the gorillas. I willed the walker to go faster, but going uphill through jungle was excruciatingly slow.
The walker's long arms stretched forward, hands digging into the ground, and yanked the torso forward with each stride. The legs gathered together and swung ahead of the torso, feet planting solidly to propel the whole cycle again. It was an exaggerated form of a gorilla's fastest movement, multiplied by the greater reach and mass of the walker. The wide set of the shoulders kept the arms from interfering with the legs. The headless top of the torso made an excellent surface for battering through the foliage, shattering the smaller branches and brushing aside lesser obstructions. An enraged elephant might have made less noise. I did not care. The time for stealth was past.
I searched the cockpit screens for any sign of what was ahead. Even with the stabilization turned up, the camera imagery was blurred beyond use. The LIDAR three-dimensional model was more stable, but had less detail and a very short range. The composite imagery from the drone swarm was just coming in from the location of the shot, and my heart sank.
A lone silverback gorilla, the mature male leader of the troop, lay unmoving, a dark pool expanding around his head.
The few more moments it took my walker to reach the site were an eternity in ice.
I stopped the walker a few meters from the prone silverback. He did not move, not even a twitch. I zoomed in my cameras, and expelled the breath I did not realize I had been holding when I detected a slight rise and fall of his chest. He was still breathing.
I quickly weighed my options. If the silverback recovered while I was outside the walker, I could be in some danger. If I did not examine and attempt to treat him, I would be only slightly less responsible for his death as would the poachers. If I infected him with a virus, I might kill the entire troop. I grabbed the field medical kit, put on a half-face respirator, popped the top hatch, and scrambled out. In moments, I had climbed down the walker's ladder points and was on the ground next to the silverback.
The pool of blood appeared to have come from a furrow across the top right of his skull, paralleling his prominent sagittal crest. It looked like a bullet crease across the meat of the muscles driving that powerful jaw. The crease appeared clean. The bullet was likely embedded in the soil upslope. If there was no fracture or depression of the skull, the chances were excellent that the silverback would make a full recovery. The best I could do was to prevent infection, and to continue my pursuit of his attackers.
I applied a spray disinfectant and wound sealant, which stopped the bleeding and would seal out any contaminants or infection until the wound could begin healing naturally. The silverback did not stir, but his breathing continued steady.
I returned to the walker, stowed the medical kit, closed the hatch, and checked my pilot harness. All indicators green, I turned to the trail.
The poachers had not been concerned about concealing their back trail. In short order, the walker's sensor suite picked up three different sets of footprints, of an odd pattern I had not seen before. They were large, blurry, and shallow. Of course! The poachers were wearing load-spreading boot soles, to diffuse the impact of their footsteps to help fool seismic sensor nets. One set of prints was measurably deeper than the other two, but not larger. That one, I thought, would be carrying a load.
An alarm began to ring in the back of my head. These were not local poachers out for bush meat. The footprint evidence could mean they had either killed or live-captured one of the smaller gorillas, and were carrying it. What other technologies might they be employing? What would I be up against when I caught up to them?
I had already sacrificed stealth in my approach. They would have heard and felt my walker closing on this location. Even if they did not know what was producing the noise, they would be expecting something large and heavy on their backtrail. The fact that they made no effort to obscure their trail told me they were relying on speed to break contact. They were going to be disappointed.
The broken foliage and occasional footprints were enough for the walker's pattern recognition routines to follow. I struck a balance between stealth and speed, thinking ahead to the terrain the poachers would be traversing. The walker proceeded in a four-footed feline stalk.
I sent my drone swarm ahead, in stealth mode and spread in a skirmish line. Nothing. Whatever the poachers were using, it was still effective against my drone's sensors. I debated using the walker's sensor suite. If the poachers could fool my drones, was it possible that I would simply walk past them unawares? Should I shift to the purely optical lenses and fibers feeding the backup goggles? Would my own eyes be any better than the walker's sensors?
The smells of the jungle reminded me that I had the vents open. That gave me an idea, and I popped the hatch again, but only a few centimeters. I shut off the ventilation fans, and anything else I could think of that made noise in the cockpit. I tuned my ears to the jungle surrounding me, and closed my eyes.
It was not long before I caught a hint of what I suspected I would find. Not far ahead, a young animal was making plaintive noises, the kind that would attract the attention of their mother or other caregivers. It is notoriously difficult to silence a healthy young mammal that is unhappy and alone. I smiled at the sound, reassured that the poachers were after a live juvenile gorilla. They were unlikely to harm it after expending so much to capture it.
I isolated the faint cries, and added the acoustic profile to the walker's tracking systems. The walker would trail that sound now without my attention, so I could focus on developing a new plan.
Operating my walker was like playing a video game. The pilot indicated a direction or goal, chose the pace or gait, and the machine took it from there. I had trained the expert systems driving the machine on every form of movement, and adapted each one to the walker's own physical characteristics. My walker could execute the moves of an Olympic-class gymnast, a Bolshoi ballerina, a Bengal tiger, or a Shaolin master, to the physical limits of the machine. Trying to second-guess that expertise would have been sheer hubris on the part of an overcontrolling pilot. An aware and thoughtful pilot, on the other hand, could perform amazing feats by giving clear, simple directions and allowing the machine to perform as designed.
The walker could also climb -- or jump, or carry, or any other action a quadruped or primate could accomplish. Versatility had been my design watchword. That day, it paid off.
As the young gorilla's cries became clearer, I examined the terrain ahead for the best place to execute my plan. I quickly located an old tree of massive girth close to the poachers' extrapolated path. I had little time to get into position.
As the three poachers approached my vantage, I chose my target carefully. The two lead poachers had their rifles at high port, scanning the jungle ahead of them. The third trailed by several meters, a cubical lump a meter square protruding from his back. All three showed the telltale bulges of exoskeletons under the loose coveralls that blended into the jungle around them: chameleon suits. Distressed cries came from the chameleon cloth tarp covering the third poacher's pack. That had to be the cage for the captive gorilla.
My walker dropped out of the tree and hit the ground between the three poachers, facing and directly in front of the one with the cage. The walker's external speakers were blaring gorilla challenge roars, shifted down two octaves, at 120 decibels.
The effect was everything I had hoped for. The poacher I faced froze, then recoiled in shock. Fortunately, that gave me a moment that I desperately needed. On landing, my pilot harness had stretched until I struck the cockpit floor, then recoiled to bounce the crown of my head off the underside of the top hatch. I saw a bright flash, and lost some brief bit of time.
When I recovered, I grabbed the poacher's exoskeleton frame with one hand, the top of the cage with the other, and pulled them in opposite directions until the cage came loose with a screech of torn metal. I threw the poacher behind me, tucked the cage against my chest, and ran for the opposite side of the tree trunk. Rifles cracked, and bullets spanged off the back of my walker. I flinched, but kept going. I had to take the hostage out of the fight.
Once out of sight, I stashed the cage behind the tree for safety. Even the heaviest rifle bullet should not have been able to penetrate a trunk that size. With the tarp dislodged, I got my first look at the captive gorilla. It appeared to be three or four years old, still bearing the white tuft on its hindquarters that marked a gorilla too young to be independent. Poor thing. Its mother must have been frantic.
I felt a bloom of heat in my chest, a hot flush across my face. How dare these poachers come into my territory! Try to kill or kidnap those under my protection! My pulse thundered in my ears. I felt I was swelling up to fill every bit of my walker's volume with my righteous rage.
I reversed course, and with the empty tarp in one hand, charged the poachers. One, seeing the tarp, hesitated. The other two fired, and again bullets went tumbling off in wild ricochet. Before they could fire again, I had swept the hesitant one up and hurled him into one of the shooters. While they got themselves sorted out, I grabbed the remaining rifle and snapped it off at the receiver, leaving the poacher staring at the broken stub. I suppose he could have fired another round, but it would have blown up in his face.
I did not have time to weigh how I felt about that. The remaining armed poacher had recovered his weapon, and was attempting to bring it to bear. It was obvious that the rifle bullets were not penetrating my walker's armor, but that was no reason to invite random damage to sensors or stealth coatings. I grabbed the leg struts of the nearest poacher's exoskeleton, and used him as a two-meter-long club to scythe the legs of the other two out from under them.
Their exoskeletons apparently included some light armor, or at least good helmets. They continued to struggle until I had thrashed each of them at least three times. I think the one I was holding lost consciousness first, but he was being useful, so I did not exchange him for either of his colleagues. The other two took solid hits to the legs, ribs, and head before finally lying down and being good poachers.
I did not beat them to a pulp. I could have.
Once I silenced the speakers, the loudest sound in the cockpit was my own panting. I was seeing red, not from my ebbing rage, but from the blood and sweat dripping into my eyes. I paused to mop up the blood and bandage my scalp wound to keep my vision clear.
I got my breathing under control with some difficulty. This could so easily have gone the wrong way. Had the poachers kept their heads, had they spread out instead of bunching up, had they aimed for the weakness of my walker's knee and ankle joints rather than the armored bulk of the torso, I would be dead and the young gorilla would be on its way out of Africa.
I should not have been surprised that a fight would result in bloodshed on both sides. I thought about adding a pad to the inside of the walker's top hatch. Maybe I would redesign the harness suspension while I was at it.
I had designed the hands of my walker for dexterity as well as strength and durability. I tore the power units off the poachers' exoskeletons, trapping them in the unpowered frames. Then I stripped off their other equipment and chameleon suits, ripping the latter into strips. I tied all three poachers together, alternating wrist to ankle, so none of them could walk off as long as they were bound. Their rifles I broke beyond repair, and their smaller devices I packed up for later examination.
I took pictures of their unconscious faces, close up photographs of their fingerprints, and several DNA samples.
Beating poachers unconscious was viscerally satisfying, but I had more important work to finish. I keyed my radio again.
"Ranger Two, Mobile Actual."
"Mobile, Ranger Two. Good to hear from you." The phrase was heavy with repressed curiosity. I was kind, and did not keep my rangers waiting.
"Ranger Two, Mobile. Three poachers to pick up, coordinates to follow. Unconscious, probably need medical attention. Secured and not mobile. Suggest at least six cargo robots to assist. Mobile out." I squirted a burst transmission of the poachers' face photos, with their location embedded in the metadata.
Picking up the cage and cradling it against the walker's chest, I began walking gently back to where I had left the silverback. I played the most soothing gorilla sounds I could find through the external speakers, hoping to calm and comfort the young gorilla. I wanted to get it out of the cage as soon as possible, but I was afraid it would run from me and get lost in the jungle.
Fortunately, it was not many minutes before we reached the silverback. He was still unconscious, but breathing steadily. The scalp wound had sealed nicely, and the blood had dried or soaked into the ground. The smell would still be upsetting to the young one, but at least it was no longer free-flowing.
I grounded the cage, gently, a few meters short of the silverback. Holding the cage with one hand, I peeled back the door with the other. The young gorilla dashed out of the cage, straight for the silverback, and clung to him, making distressed sounds.
I picked up the cage, and crumpled it like used aluminum foil. When it was a solid mass, I dropped it on the ground, turned, and walked into the jungle. When I was out of their sight, I turned around and focused all my sensors on the two gorillas.
The plaintive sounds of the younger one rapidly accomplished two things: the silverback woke up, and the rest of the troop returned. The lead male cuddled the young one until an adult female, likely the mother, arrived and gathered up her baby. The silverback gingerly explored his wound, but aside from the obvious pain, he did not seem to be permanently damaged. He'd definitely have a prominent scar.
I sympathized. My head was throbbing from the pressure cut in my scalp, cramped jaw muscles, and a stress letdown headache. I expected post-adrenaline shakes to start any minute. I was sure I'd be even more sore in more places in the morning.
A quick damage assessment of my walker revealed a V of shiny bullet streaks across the upper back, not unlike the coloration of a silverback gorilla. What a way to earn rank.
At least this family was reunited, and the gorillas were safe for now. The silverback and I had done our jobs, had done our best to protect the rest of the troop.
What remained to me was to ensure that this kind of attack did not happen again.
The penetration testers I hired afterwards turned out to be a good investment. I think I deserved that additional lesson in hubris. I had ignored Murphy's Law, and Finagle had brought that home with a vengeance. I counted myself lucky that there was not more damage.
I assured my rangers that they were not at fault. We had only ever planned for local poachers after bush meat, not foreign professionals with the latest equipment. The poachers' DNA matched criminals with arrest warrants and sizable rewards for capture. My rangers were pleased with their bonuses and new equipment. Especially the walkers I built for them.
Wow! What a story! My palms are sweaty and I feel the anger and relief! Thank you for imagining all the good technology could do!
The detailed, granular descriptions of the tech, and of the walker's movements, are impressive, D. A. Cool story.