Kiran Lohia was the chief of army staff. The first lady chief of army staff. The Great Revolution in the Armed Forces that had made all arguments about a man's strength being necessary obsolete had of course, enabled her achievement, but she still had had to fight against the mindsets of all those crusty army generals and bureaucrats. She had succeeded. And now she stood in the chief army command tower, peering out through the bulletproof glass at the endless sands surrounding the main headquarters.
The sky darkened. A dark cloud gathered mass over the horizon. It grew in size and seemed to speed towards the Command Tower with tremendous speed, an eyelid closing over a blue iris. She saw them from afar. That was after all the reason behind this tower in the desert. One could spot the enemy as soon as possible. Except this wasn't the enemy. This was the host of the soldiers of the New Indian Army advancing on its own Command Tower. She was expecting them. They had been spotted electronically a long time back.
The war had started a few years ago. The soldiers had fought bravely, if one could at all use such an adjective about them. At any rate, they had been tremendously successful. A month ago, they had all but won the war. Then something strange had happened to the soldiers and they began to behave unpredictably, disobeying orders, disregarding the war entirely. Yesterday, they grouped together and turned in unison, heading towards the Command Tower. No one knew what had gone wrong or why the soldiers were returning. Perhaps it was a mutiny of sorts or perhaps it was something else. One couldn't read the minds of the advancing hordes, assuming, that is, that they had minds at all.
The dark curtain shut out the sky and came swooping to the command centre. A sound of humming filled the air. They flew into the headquarters and engulfed the lean tower. The heads of army staff were surrounded. Lohia looked around. Her heart beat fast; this was unprecedented. But her years of training preserved her outer poise. Her sharp gaze stared back at the millions and millions of shiny robotic bees that now surrounded the glass panorama of the tower.
She looked back at the dossier on the screen. The name, revered throughout the country, glowed in the right hand corner: Prof. Rajaram Bhatkal. Before the files on his life and work was a small idiosyncratic write-up (who writes these things? Probably an entomologist) on the history of the Great Revolution in the Armed Forces, a backdrop to all the rest.
Even back then, when the boom started, in 2004, there were labs working towards creating artificial, i.e., mechanical insects. Robot dragonflies, robot spiders, robot flies, hell! even robot crickets. And most of these labs, even back then, got their funds from defence agencies and the grants, even back then, were, unlike I must add here, those of the actual insect watchers, the noble entomologists, freely available, long term, and bloated. All the entos got on the other hand, were insensitive questions from brutal Ph.D. candidates like " But what application does this have for human welfare?" or "What's the point?" or the spirit-chilling "So?" However, the Great Revolution in the Armed Forces changed all that. It was the huge advances in insect robotics that, in fact, brought the entomologists to centre stage.
The insect robots became mechanically perfect; they could crawl, fall, fly, die (self combust), anything their natural prototypes could do and more. Seeing the skill of these silica bugs, the eyes of the masters of war lit up for they were suddenly struck by a new and exciting idea. So far, the plan had only been to infiltrate the enemy camp with spies they would not notice but now they saw the full potential of what they had started. Why bother with insect spies when you could strike with insect soldiers? The costs of microchips and the like had fallen low enough so that mass production of these cybergnats would be much cheaper than maintaining an army of humans. They would last longer, were expendable and unburdened by weighty ethics, they could be sent with a clear conscience where infantry feared to tread. And most of all, the enemy would have absolutely no idea what hit them. What was really necessary then was to find means both of getting them to co-operate and perfecting our control over them. This required someone with knowledge of the system, of its 'circuitry': the entomologist.
The waves of bees outside constantly undulated like a shroud in the breeze. They were trying to find a way in. The glass stood as firm as a mountain, impenetrable, the only shield between life and unlife.
She went ahead to the biographical portion.
Prof. R. Bhatkal was reasonably young when the boom started. When he returned to India after a post-doc each in America and France, he had expected to stay put in the Institute of Science for the rest of his life, devoting his time to the sole pursuit of studying the social life of honeybees. But six years later, he changed his mind. They approached him as "India's foremost bee expert" with an offer he couldn't refuse. When, in those times, did an ento get offered money in the class of top software professionals? Moreover, the work was still about bees and was innovative and challenging. He didn't know then that he would be hailed as the father of the New Indian Army. Neither did he know that, caught up in the marvellous dream of the perfect army, the defence would only be willing to hear what they wanted to. No doubts allowed here, only glorious scientific progress.
It was perfect initially, a behavioural ecologist's dream come true: An astronomical salary, time and money to study the thing you like most, a huge group of co-workers to command and of course the respect and authority that went with being the head of the research unit, and a very prestigious unit at that, not just some esoteric department no ordinary person had heard of, but a division of the
High Command Defence Research Grand Interlinked Enterprise itself, working for the good of the entire country!
Lohia remembered her Army history courses. The instructor, his tongue labouring under thick layers of accent droned on "It was under the guidance of Prof. R. Bhatkal, the Father of the New Indian Army that the GRAF started. In fact, all the initial breakthroughs were his contributions. The first problem in effecting the GRAF was making the insects co-operate. Bees were the perfect models. By mimicking the principles of their genes and neurobiology we bring about perfect co-operation in this new cadre of soldiers. Our army now moves as one.
The next problem was one of command. If there were no humans involved who or (grunt of a laugh) what would control the army? We also needed a control switch to prevent any attack on ourselves by the robots. The solution to these problems was one of the greatest achievements of Prof. R. Bhatkal, Father of the New Indian Army. The solution was simple. Design a RoboQueen bee. At all times let the queen be in your possession. Like the apiarist who holds the natural queen bee is unstung by the thousands of bees who form his buzzing beard, so shall the army headquarters, indeed the country itself, stay protected from the army of microchipopterans. The second point was to make the RoboQueen fulfil her purpose as supreme commander by sending out signals (programmed by us) to the rest of the force. The same individual robot could thus serve two purposes..."
The sound of metal on glass jerked her out of her reverie. The black sea outside was now lashing against the glass. Wave after wave crashed onto the smooth curve. One layer of bees fell only to be replaced by another that was soon replaced by the next. The outer face of the glass had started to get scratched. But Lohia stood confident in the strength of the glass. They wouldn't break through.
She advanced towards the end of the biography.
It was during the final phase that the good Professor's decline began. To enable optimisation without constant monitoring evolutionary algorithms were built into the mech-insects. They were designed to replicate and self regulate their population in huge swarms. Since they were primarily adapted to domination by the RoboQueen, such a selective process was not seen as a possible disruption of the basic plan. However, as this phase neared completion, Professor B. began to have doubts. Perhaps it was not a good idea to allow evolution. He voiced his doubts and became more and more obsessed with them until he became too vocal for his own good. Of course no one wanted to listen to the voice of doubt, that tiresome mosquito. He soon found himself up against all the other scientists, the Geneticists, the Neurobiologists and the Engineers: The Big Guys. He struggled to explain possible circumstances but they ignored him and drowned him out by the simple procedure of arguing louder. The tide of nervous anticipation and excitement (not to mention pride) was rising high in the country and obsessed with India the Superpower and "Vision 2050" no one wanted to listen to him. When he got too loud and tiresome, the army took over and he was housed permanently within the army HQ, ostensibly as Resident Senior Consultant. He was given his apiary and vespiary and allowed to continue his biological research program but not allowed to leave the premises in order to "safeguard national secrets." It was propagated amongst the press (and hence to the public) that he had an umm...well...delicate mental condition and so needed to be well...umm...taken care off. Comes with being a genius.
And he did indeed suffer from some sort of nervous breakdown. The world seemed to be against him and those he trusted most refused to see sense. He lost his confidence in life and shrunk back into his own world. He never really came back. He remains even today engrossed in his work, but it now seems like he cares for only his darling insects (natural ones) and nothing and nobody else. His lab is the hive from which he will not emerge.
"Unless forced out," Lohia added mentally. It was time for the King B. to be coaxed, or if need be, dragged, out of exile. If any one could save the world from these artificial arthropods it was him, the one who perhaps had foreseen their malfunctioning, the one who had designed them, their father. She shut down his dossier.
"Damn! Why does it always have to be a man who comes to the rescue? Disgusting!"
For a moment she considered having him forcibly undergo a sex change before getting him to the tower but dismissed the thought. There wasn't time for that.
The glass might stand up to these creatures, but how long could the people within survive the siege of the black stings? And then, who knows, the glass might not be strong enough. Already it seemed like the outer surface was cracking as They flung themselves at it in endless phalanxes and turtles. What was needed was someone who could deal with them.
She passed the order.
They brought him in after half an hour. He had probably needed some convincing. She was surprised by how different he looked from how she remembered him. She remembered seeing him pass by during her training days and how excited she had been. She had almost asked for his autograph. Then he had been bulky and energetic, speaking and laughing in a booming voice. He now stood before her, thin and old, with a fringe of white hair lining the bald centre of his head, each strand pointing in a different direction. His half open eyes peered out from behind thick spectacles and his eyebrows seemed permanently raised. His hands were clasped together at his chest. His chin jutted out. He seemed utterly disinterested.
"Mr. Bhatkal," she began.
"Professor!" shot out a sharp whisper that was audible above the humming of the bees.
"Professor," she corrected herself "We have a serious problem here!"
"So I've been informed."
"In my opinion, you are the only one who could possibly save the situation. There must be something we can do. I've read your file. You had doubts that something like this could happen even when it was being implemented. You must have some idea what might have gone wrong and what is possible now."
"You must enjoy ordering men around" he rasped.
She flared up. "Don't demonise me! We are up against our own army and have no idea how to control the soldiers. Soon they will either break through the glass and take us apart or we will die of starvation cooped up in this tower. The bloody robots will then possibly go on a rampage and take apart all things in their path: the headquarters, the city, the country, perhaps the world. You can either help us now or go back to your damn mosquitoes."
"Wasps," he said calmly.
Her jaw quivered but he went on:
"Social paper wasps have primitive eusociality. In this they differ from the bees. The most important difference, perhaps, is the fact that the worker wasps are not morphologically different from the queen and when the queen is removed any one of the workers on the nest could take over its role. It is traditionally thought that eusociality is in its more evolved form among the bees where the workers cannot dream of ever wresting control from the queen."
"Are you saying that our RoboQueen has lost control over the soldiers due to one of them wresting control?"
"My more recent work with ants, however, has led me to believe that it is possible for social insects to lose their high degree of eusociality and in fact evolve so that the species becomes primitively eusocial. Life's tape can be played back."
Lohia was struggling to grasp all this in the midst of the relentless thudding on the glass. "But wouldn't the queen still control them, regardless of the degree of eusociality?"
"Species which have primitive eusociality in a lower evolved form have queens who hold their authority through aggression rather than chemical control. This is true even in the initial stages of the more evolved species. The same also seems to hold when evolution is going down the other path and evolving toward primitive eusociality from high eusociality."
"Aggression?"
He gave her a withering look. "Fighting it out!" He translated disdainfully.
"I understood that! But is that what they want right now? Their queen wants to fight ours??"
He shrugged his shoulders. "What do I know about robot evolution? Ask the neuro-roboticists. Ask the engineers." And a bitter spark gleamed in his right eye.
"You can't afford to bring up your grudges now. There is no time for that. We need to fight this now! And at any rate if it wasn't for your ideas we might have a normal army of flesh and blood who would be proud and patriotic. This problem would never have arisen."
"Do not cast me into the role of the mad scientist! This is not that story! This is the story of how things went wrong because my warnings were not heeded. Problems do not arise when people listen to scientists. Problems arise when people don't listen to all scientists.
And I don't think it's quite decent to say that flesh and blood is easier to program than robots."
"Should we let our RoboQueen fight theirs or not?"
"Perhaps that is our last hope."
"Will she win?"
"I doubt it. Aggression is not the strong point of her program."
There was suddenly a tremendous sound of glass cracking. The fault in the outer surface had finally travelled through and the inside surface was now cracked. There was still not enough space for a bee to get through but the crack was widening. The dark fist outside expanded and squeezed the tower in its iron grip again.
Lohia turned towards the crack agitatedly. She looked back at the Professor. He held her gaze but his eyes remained half open.
She turned and ordered the RoboQueen to be brought in.
The Top Security All Important Case was brought in. She opened it and looked at the insect inside. The Professor peered over her shoulder and unexpectedly smiled tenderly.
She breathed hard and typed in the release code. She authenticated the release command with a Simultaneous Voice Command-Hand Print-Retinal Scan. The RoboQueen rose slowly from the depths of the case. Its wings whirred. It flew up to the middle of the room and stood hovering.
Outside the hammering stopped. A million million eyes each with a million million facets stared at the single bee in the tower in the desert. The wave drew back away from the glass. It paused for a moment.
Then Thud!
The hammer of the bees descended again upon the glass.
Thud!
The tower shook with the vibrations.
Thud!
The force outside pulsed back, then forward and
Thud!
The steel reinforcements of the glass began to bend.
Thud!
The glass cracked wider.
A single bee broke through the glass.
Then it returned and the entire New Indian Army backed off once more. From the depths of its blackness another bee emerged, single-mindedly headed to the crack and entered. It rose to the middle of the room and flew before the RoboQueen. They whirred in the air circling each other.
Outside the raincloud undulated.
Inside the command staff spread out around the two robots. Lohia held the two in an iron gaze. The Professors' eyes opened and he stared at the two with rapt fascination.
Slowly they rotated, binary stars around an empty vacuum. Every detail stood framed in time. Each one's wings tapped the other's body. A second seemed like eternity.
And then in an instant, they were locked in combat.
Metal mandibles scratched at metal faces.
Synthetic wings flapped down and up, up and down. Their bodies tipped over and the two began their descent downward towards the ground.
The fate of the world tumbled in circles and swoops.
Their abdomens arched: swerving, piercing, evading. Their antennae spun around gleaming in the light. Legs flailing, heads struggling they looped on downward.
No one talked. No one breathed.
The intruder bit the Roboqueen on the neck nicking the metal.
Lohia's eyebrows tensed.
The RoboQueen arched its back and twisted on top of the intruder.
The intruder curved facing upwards and bit again. A leg fell to the floor.
It was then that the Professor began to laugh. He started giggling indecently at first and then burst out, his laughter booming out loud and strong.
The bees unconcerned continued their struggle. The Roboqueen crashed the bulk of her body into the intruder and bit at its abdomen.
Lohia shouted out " Professor!"
The intruder bit. The metal of the RoboQueen's neck gave way. The wires were revealed.
"Professor! Stop it! Dr. Bhatkal!"
The Professor was laughing wildly, his eyes pressed close. "Absurd! Absurd" he said.
The RoboQueen tried avoiding the intruder but the intruder chased after.
Lohia shook the Professor. " Professor Bhatkal! Rajaram!"
Once more the intruder bit. One wing of the RoboQueen floated slowly to the floor. The RoboQueen flew askew.
"Life's tape!" screamed the Professor "Eusociality! The New Indian Army! But what application does this have for human welfare?"
The intruder flew atop the RoboQueen and bit into the wires at the neck severing the connection between robotic body and robotic brain.
Lohia slapped the Professor. The rest of the staff held him tight.
"Oh Arthropoda! Oh Hymenoptera! " he cried and followed it up with a burst of maniacal laughter as if successful in calling down obscure Roman goddesses of humour.
They held his arms behind his back. "Stop laughing!" cried Lohia.
And then the RoboQueen fell.
Its head hung limp and hit the floor before the rest of the body.
The host outside collected momentum and in a great giant force came down like a shattering thunderbolt. The glass cracked open and the bees began to enter, wave upon wave until the entire command centre was clogged with thick black blood.
The bees swarmed around the humans, their mandibles mincing, their wings fluttering. Like a plague, like a contagion, like acid, the pirannhic bees ate through all things, flesh and blood, metal and wood. The staff let go of the Professor. They engulfed them. Lohia turned for a second contemplating if she should run, then turned and unflinchingly faced the metal death. They wrapped around her, a black shroud.
The Professor collapsed onto the floor still laughing.
"Gemmae, gemmae!" he cried.
And then they covered him and he could be heard no more.