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The scene below is an extract from 'The Cloud' (Macmillan 2006) in which protestors make clear their views about humanoid dolls with high levels of computer intelligence. The I-95 interstate highway runs all the way between Maine in the north and Florida in the south and, where it passes through Massachusetts, it becomes a high-tech corridor. This trend began in the late 1960s as technology firms began to be spun out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Boston, Cambridge University, Harvard and the other colleges that make up America’s North-East Coast cluster of academic excellence. These firms chose locations near to the highway for ease of access and for the obvious distribution advantages. The owners of the themed retail outlet known as ‘The Adoption Center’ chose Deer Park Valley on the I-95, fifteen miles south of Boston, for the same reasons – and because of the opportunity it gave them to capture passing trade. Large billboards placed beside the highway – ten miles, five miles and one mile before the north and south turn-offs – told passing motorists that the Center had a wide range of infants available for adoption, from newborn to twenty-four months, and of all ethnic groups. Inside the adoption nursery, forty infants were sitting, crawling, playing or standing according to their age and level of physical development. A dozen of the youngest babies were in playpens, watched closely by three of the dozen white-uniformed nurses who had the care of this boisterous group. In other parts of the floor area children were playing with toys, doing drawings, exercising in activity centres or being fed by the smiling, friendly staff. Baby Luke, just eight months old, was seated in the middle of a large rubber mat and he was clearly unhappy. His wails filled the room, as wails filled these particular premises so often; clearly, he needed either feeding or changing, perhaps both. Nurse Anne Loman turned away from a small two-year-old girl with golden curls and started to cross towards Luke, her arms outstretched. Suddenly the double entrance doors leading from the main customer parking lot were forced open violently – doors that for security reasons were always kept locked from the inside. Three youthful figures, all dressed in black and wearing black ski masks, burst into the nursery, each holding a large sinister-looking weapon with a complex metal contraption at its muzzle. ‘PUT THE BABIES DOWN – NOW!’ shouted the man at the front of the group. The infants all wailed now at this violent and unexpected invasion of their playtime but none of the nurses moved. They were all frozen with fear. ‘MOVE AWAY NOW!’ shouted the group’s leader, directing his weapon threateningly at the nurse nearest to him. All around the room, security cameras silently recorded the proceedings. ‘MOVE AWAY NOW, NURSES – YOU WILL NOT BE HURT,’ yelled the leader.
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The intruders advanced menacingly into the nursery, threatening the adults with their weapons, until each nurse had risen and had gone to stand at the side wall of the nursery, as directed by the attackers’ gun muzzles. The children stared up at these interlopers with wide, frightened eyes. There was now complete silence in the nursery, as if the infants had realized that something so serious was happening that it was beyond crying. As they had risen, several of the female nurses had instinctively gathered up individual babies in their arms. When the nurses were clear of the main group of frightened children, the leader nodded curtly to his companions and the three attackers fired their high-voltage laser-channelled electrical pulse weapons directly into the crowd of infants. The babies, some no more than a few weeks old, burst into flame, their skin frying as if it were plastic, their hair catching light immediately as they were struck by 50,000-volt charges. The attackers continued to fire pulse after pulse of high-voltage power into the group of children and suddenly blood burst from the victims’ bodies as they began to explode under the sustained onslaught. The attackers and the nurses were sprayed with gore as veins and arteries burst and a vast dark pool began to spread slowly outwards from beneath the group of bodies. One of the three black-clad attackers suddenly started to scream – a female cry of anguish – and ripped off her mask to reveal pretty features that belonged to a face no more than twenty years old. ‘LOOK AT THE BLOOD, KURT!’ she screamed at the group’s leader as she lowered her heavy weapon. ‘Look at the blood!’ ‘It’s just their latest feature,’ the leader shouted back, still engaged in firing powerful bolts of electricity, his weapon whining repeatedly as its booster charger prepared each burst. ‘Come on, the warehouse is through there.’ He ran around the pile of burning children, his co-attackers following, and burst through a white door at the back of the nursery. The trio suddenly arrived in a large, cold warehouse in which wooden pallets were stacked thirty feet high. On each pallet were piled between twenty and thirty rectangular plastic boxes. The woman who had ripped her ski mask from her face ran to the nearest stack of pallets and prised a box from the pile. She glanced at the packaging and then smiled, holding up the weighty pack for her fellow attackers to read. MY BABY BOY, TEN MONTHS OLD, read the large letters on the front of a transparent window from beneath which a naked infant boy appeared to be staring out at the world. ‘NOW, WITH LIFELIKE BLOOD’ proclaimed words on a yellow flash that had been applied to the packaging. Another fine product from Someone To Talk To, Inc., read a smaller line of text. The leader nodded with grim satisfaction, then signalled for his grinning accomplice to stand aside. Standing shoulder to shoulder, the three attackers raised their weapons again and fired high-voltage bursts of electricity into the vast piles of cartons. Immediately the boxes and the pallets burst into flame and the attackers directed their fire at other shelving units in the warehouse. From somewhere nearby a loud alarm started to wail, then water sprinklers came on all around the building. But the attackers showed no sign of a desire to flee. |
A loud crack suddenly cut through the noise of the flames and a bullet whined off a nearby concrete pillar. The third attacker, a male, turned quickly and saw an elderly security guard puffing his way towards them through a spray of water, raising his pistol for a second shot. ‘Don’t—,’ shouted the leader, reaching out a restraining hand. But even as he spoke his partner lifted his stun-weapon and on reflex fired back at the old man carrying the raised pistol. The security guard was knocked backwards off his feet by the high-energy pulse. Unlike the plastic computer-based toy dolls at which the group had been previously firing, he did not burst into flames. Followed by his two accomplices, the leader sprinted towards the fallen man. As he arrived beside the prone form, the leader ripped his own mask from his face, not caring about the many security cameras dotted around the warehouse, and threw his stun-gun aside. Dropping to his knees on the wet floor, he felt for a pulse in the right side of the fallen man’s neck. The guard’s face was paper pale and smoke was still rising from his thin grey hair. ‘He’s still alive,’ shouted the group’s leader over the noise of the crackling inferno all around them. ‘Help me get him out of here, Mitch. Zoë, you call an ambulance.’ Mitch, the gang member who had fired at the security guard, now discarded his own mask and weapon. The two men took an arm each and dragged the old man out through the billowing smoke towards the daylight that they could see at the far end of the warehouse. Zoë was shouting to the emergency services on her communicator as she ran alongside. Once outside, the group’s leader immediately started full CPR on the felled security guard. He opened his shirt collar, checked the air passageway, felt again for a pulse and then began to massage the old man’s chest forcefully. As he worked his co-conspirators stood helplessly by, all their weapons and masks now discarded. ‘He’s dying on me,’ shouted the leader furiously as he pummelled the old man’s chest. He bent and put his mouth onto the wet, cold lips, blowing hard to inflate the security guard’s lungs. ‘But my gun was only on stun!’ protested the attacker who had felled the guard. The group’s leader ignored him, continuing his frantic resuscitation attempts as the minutes raced by, pausing only occasionally to catch his own breath. Loud siren wails suddenly filled the air and the tall metal gates to the loading dock at the rear of the warehouse burst open as an armoured SWAT vehicle raced into the lot, followed by a string of police cars, sirens wailing, emergency lights strobing. Then the smoke-filled air was compressed with a deep and repetitive thudding as a police helicopter descended to hover low overhead. ‘Throw away your weapons and lie face down on the ground,’ ordered an amplified voice, so loud that it seemed the rattle the attackers’ chest bones. The gang leader leaped to his feet. ‘This man needs a doctor,’ he shouted at the top of his voice, over the thwacking of the helicopter blades, the wailing of the sirens and the roaring of the inferno in the warehouse behind them. ‘THROW AWAY YOUR WEAPONS AND LIE FACE DOWN!’ repeated the police voice, now with even more amplification. The leader glanced at his two friends, shrugged as if to apologize, and then raised his arms high, got down on one knee and, with an awkward half-roll, lowered his body onto the hard, gritty tarmac. As his two followers did the same, heavily armed SWAT team members poured out of the back of their armoured transport and, with automatic weapons raised and pointed at the prone gang members, began to inch their way forward to make their arrests. |