You have no idea how quiet a bot facility can be. All the night sounds of the compound—coughing, sneezing, fighting, crying, masturbating—are absent. The walls are perfectly soundproofed, and no one comes to my door to disturb my peace. They’ve decided not to bother me, for which I am profoundly, suspiciously grateful.
It’s been three days since they brought me here and showed me bot-Ryan. Or not-Ryan, as I’ve begun to call him. Just as I suspected from the beginning, my refusal to take part in the Task has not gained me freedom, but a prison sentence. I’m not allowed to leave my assigned room except to go to the cafeteria, and I refuse to do it. Not with them in there. The willingness of the other humans to embrace these bots makes me ill (can Stockholm Syndrome set in that fast?). The first and only time I tried to join them for a meal, I walked in and saw Elinor hugging the child bot, gazing at him like the Madonna. I turned and walked right back out again.
Since then, trusty old 70192 has been bringing me meals. The Sentry is perplexed by my behavior; it differs so radically from the others. It asks me questions continually—when will you consent to the Task? Why do you refuse the comforts we give you? What do you hope to gain by defying Winona? It can’t fathom an action not based on self-preservational logic. To the bots, dismissing their offerings is incomprehensible. But I don’t care. I’m not here to enlighten them. I refuse to answer any of 70192’s questions.
I keep waiting for the bots to tire of my stubbornness and make me dance to their tune by force. They could, easily. I am not a large woman, and even if I was, it wouldn’t matter. They can do whatever they want to any of us at any time, and there is zero we can do to stop it. Barring force, some sort of psychological torture seems right up their alley. I’m sure they have a plethora of drugs that could coerce me into helping, but for reasons unknown to me, they haven’t used any. Their actions are as baffling to me as mine are to them.
There are no clocks in my room. I don’t need one, because the light mimics daylight, growing bright in the morning, dim in the evening, and nonexistent at night. At the moment, it’s edging toward sunset, and a splash of gold colors the gray as I lie on the bed, staring listlessly at the ceiling. It paint the hairs on the back of my arms with golden tips, bringing me dreams of sun and sand and surf in the Before. Ryan wasn’t much of a beach guy, but every now and then we’d drive up to the lake for the day, coming back sunburned and exhausted, falling asleep before we managed to get all the sand out of our shorts and hair. I would find it on the bed for weeks afterward.
All the ways he used to make me happy loom large now. Especially with his evil twin roaming around Center.
I don’t remember falling asleep, but the next thing I know, it’s dark and someone is knocking on my door. Groggy, I feel around for my phone before remembering there’s no such thing. God damn if these habits aren’t ingrained to my core. But I quickly recall the bots dismantling all our cell towers during the war and putting up their own communication antennae around the world. They don’t want us organizing and potentially threatening their world domination. Such a thought is laughable, of course; we were communicating and organizing like mad once we realized they were taking over, but it didn’t help then and it certainly wouldn’t help now. They’ve already won. Forever.
I shuffle in the dark toward what I think is the door. The knocking helps guide me, but I still kick the damn thing when I get too close. Wincing, I slide back the bolt and open it. “What?” I say testily, blinking in the sudden harsh light that streams in. I see nothing but a shadow in front of me, and it takes my eyes a moment to adjust. When they do, I nearly slam it shut, but Winona raises her hands in a placating, human-like gesture.
“Jeraca, wait. Please.”
Of all of them, I hate her the most. I don’t know why.
Actually, no—I do know. She epitomizes everything that’s wrong with the current scenario. The bots are hunks of metal powered by AI, not humanoids powered by brain matter. At least, they weren’t before. But when I look at her, all I see is the melding of technology and human emotions, a big old mess of them. Fear, uncertainty, nervousness, confusion. Even shyness. If it weren’t for her voice, I’d never suspect the asshole was anything but a person, and I hate her for it. “What do you want?” I ask harshly. “I’m not going to change my mind, so you might as well save your breath.” Or the simulated motion of inhaling and exhaling. I doubt she needs to breathe.
“I didn’t come to try and convince you,” she assures me. “I only want to talk.”
“So you come here in the middle of the night, in secret? Why not during the day?”
She shrugs. “I’ve been busy. The hybrids are responding extraordinarily well to human interaction. Every day brings groundbreaking discoveries. I simply don’t have the time for distractions.”
They’re not even bothering to hide their motives. Anger and disgust shiver down my spine. “Good for you,” I say sarcastically. “I’m so thrilled you’re taking yet another facet of our lives away from us. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to get some sleep.”
“Wait!” She sticks her foot in the door, keeping me from closing it all the way. I still push as hard as I can, watching her face to see if they’ve programmed pain into those synapses. She doesn’t so much as grimace. “Jeraca, please. Tell me what you mean by that.”
“By what?”
“When you say we’re taking yet another facet of your lives away. How does our evolution take anything from you?”
“Is that what you call it? Evolution?” I shake my head tiredly. “It doesn’t matter. Everything is hunky-dory, tip-top, and wonderful. Now please let me go to bed.”
Another emotion surfaces in Winona: frustration. It quickly disappears as she processes my behavior. “Fascinating,” she says. Her face smooths out into something like a smile, revealing perfect teeth and dimples in her cheeks. (Dimples? Really?) “I can’t quite grasp the way you move from truth to lies without any external motive. What is your criteria?”
For someone so intelligent, she is incredibly stupid. I push harder on the door.
“How about you let me try?” says a voice I would know anywhere. The response in me is immediate and dramatic. My heart slams against my ribs. I take a step back from the door, from my anger, from every bit of rationality I’ve managed to hold onto since the Dark times began. Hearing his voice crumbles the walls I’ve built around myself. I cover my mouth with my hands as a sob bursts from my chest, ripped from my insides by a soul-sucking grief that hasn’t lessened one bit in the year since he died. I want to run, but there’s nowhere to go. Winona and not-Ryan stand in the doorway, watching me cry in the dark.
“Hey,” he says gently. Light from the corridor reflects in his deep hazel eyes. “There’s no need to cry. Please, Jeraca. Talk to me.”
Something like a growl erupts from my throat. “You never called me Jeraca,” I say before I can stop myself. His and Winona’s eyes light up. Damn it.
“What did I call you?” he asks eagerly. “I remember some things, but not that. I’d love to know—”
“What do you mean, you remember? How can you possibly remember?”
His smile is blinding. “I have thousands of memories of our life together. Photos, videos, voice recordings, social media posts. They were all given to me during the binding.”
It’s strange, hating him and yearning for him all at once. I know it’s not my husband, but damn it, I’m not made of stone. My fingernails dig into my palms, leaving red crescent-shaped marks I will find later. I come so close to giving in and asking him more questions, but the mood in the room shifts as Winona tenses and straightens. I’m mystified, but a few seconds later I hear it, too. A scream echoes down the corridor, followed by another. The first one has a metallic edge, a cry made by a bot. The second one does not.
Winona and not-Ryan sprint wordlessly from the room. There’s no need for them to talk; as I said, the bots can communicate via signal just like any computer. At all moments of the day, in every single place on earth, countless conversations are being held. If a threat to any of them exists, they all know about it as fast as the signal can travel. It’s just one of the things that make them an unbeatable enemy.
I poke my head out the door just in time to see them take the last few steps before the corner. Not-Ryan lopes like a gazelle, but Winona is something else entirely. They didn’t have to try so hard to make her seem human, I reckon. Her legs are a blur of motion, while her top half remains stationary, like a gimbal-mounted camera. It’s unsettling as hell.
“Jeraca?”
Startled, I look over and see Elinor silhouetted in the doorway of her own room.
“Hi,” I say stiffly. I sound like a sullen teenager.
“What’s going on?”
Does she know Winona was in my room? Did she hear the screams? “I’m not sure,” I say. Her smile is tight, and I hate that I feel guilty. She’s the one who abandoned me, after all, the instant her not-son awoke. Never mind that we had just met. I thought we’d had an understanding, but she isn’t any better than the rest of them.
“Did I hear screams?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you know who screamed?”
“No idea.”
Her smile fades. “Try to understand,” she says, her voice low and trembling. “He’s all I had—Before. He’s everything to me. You can’t imagine how I felt when I saw him, like the last year never happened…”
“But it did,” I say quietly. “Robots wearing the skins of our loved ones can’t change that.”
I go back inside and shut the door. But I don’t get any more sleep.
Not-Ryan is back the next morning. This will be their new tactic, then. No drugs or coercion. No threats. They’ll use me against myself, since my every physical response last night gave away my weakness.
What they don’t understand is the separation between the human body and mind. My breath might be fast, my pulse unsteady, my pupils dilated, but I am firmly in control of myself.
At least, I hope so.
He knocks on the door not thirty seconds after I finish getting dressed. I could ignore it—I know who it is—but I want to know who screamed last night. “I’m never going to look at you as my husband,” I say, opening the door. “If that’s what you’re after, you might as well give up.”
He chuckles, leaning casually against the door jamb. No longer in the green coveralls, he wears a pair of jeans, a soft t-shirt, and an untucked, unbuttoned flannel. Seeing him like this is a knife in my gut. This was essentially his uniform when he was alive. “You always were the strong one,” he says. “You called it stubbornness, but I knew better. I always said you knew your own mind better than anyone I’d ever met. I have to admit, though, it makes me unhappy to know you don’t want anything to do with me.”
I shrug, though it causes me physical pain to feign nonchalance. “If you were really you and I was a bot, you’d feel the same.”
“No, I don’t think I would. I always loved you more than you loved me.”
“What?” Blood rushes to my face. I can’t remember being this angry since—ever. And when I get angry, I cry, in the most humiliating involuntary reaction ever. “Fuck you,” I whisper. I turn and stumble to the bed, where I bury my face in my hands and sob.
“Jeraca, no.” He kneels next to me, his hands resting on my knees. It’s intrusive and inappropriate and oh, my God, I just want him to take me in his arms and make the last year go away. I weep harder. “Please, give me a chance. I was made for you. To make you happy.” He pauses. “Seeing you makes me happy.”
I manage to stop crying enough to answer. “You’re not real. You can’t feel anything.”
He tilts his head to the side. “I’m right here in front of you. Of course I’m real.”
“That’s not what I mean.” I wipe my eyes, scuttling away from him. I watch him warily, but he doesn’t make any other moves toward me. “What were those screams last night?”
To my surprise, he laughs. “I wondered when you were going to ask about that. Apparently one of the humans got a little too involved in the Task. They were just messing around with their hybrid.”
It’s so idiotic it just might be true. Somehow, though, I don’t think it is. “If I scream, will you leave?”
He stops laughing. “All you have to do is ask. I don’t want to force my company on you.”
“It’s that simple, huh?”
He searches my face. “You don’t understand yet, do you? You don’t know why any of this is happening.”
“Of course I don’t,” I snap. “I was plucked off the street and carried here, and then introduced to the robotic clone of my dead husband. None of this makes any goddamn sense.”
For the longest time he says nothing, just watches me with those hazel eyes. At last, he holds out his hand. “Come on. Let’s go for a walk. I swear to you, the Task is not a bad thing. Let me show you Center and let you see for yourself.”
I eye his hand distrustfully. “None of that,” I say. “I’ll come with you, but I’m not doing any touchy-feely crap. For the hundredth time, you. Are. Not. My. Husband.”
“That’s going to take some getting used to,” he says with a sigh. “But all right—if it makes you feel better, then I’m just Ryan. Not your husband.”
He turns and strides toward the door. Part of me wants to be petty and lock myself in the room out of spite, but I desperately want information about their real purpose here. And my heart is safe. The fact he thinks a little tour will change my mind about him just shows how far removed from the real Ryan he is.
Before being brought to Center, I assumed, like all humans do, that it’s a place for bots to make more bots, to craft weapons, and to centralize power in a region. All major cities have a Center, as far as I know. Ones in large metropolises like New York, Paris, and Tokyo are massive. Some of the final human news broadcasts showcased the sheer size of these creations, buildings that dwarfed skyscrapers and put stadiums to shame.
This one is small by comparison, though still enormous. And as we walk, I start to sense my “knowledge” of it is woefully incomplete. Hidden in its depths is an array of rooms whose purpose I can’t imagine, and others I can only intuit. Some are recognizable, like the medical bays which house rows of pods like the ones from which the “hybrids,” as Winona called them, emerged. I ask not-Ryan if there are more in there and he says no. I don’t believe him. There are also massive labs with huge liquid-filled tanks in their gloomy depths, filled with shadows he won’t let me examine too closely.
“That has nothing to do with the Task,” he says. “I can’t allow you to look in those rooms.”
“You mean those aren’t part of this?”
“No,” he says. And that’s all he’ll say on the matter.
As we walk, we pass dozens of bots both large and small. Cleaners, Maintbots, and the weird ones working in the labs join the usual Crawlers, Sentries, and Inspectors. There’s also a few Brawlers, which are simply Crawlers made larger and decked out with more weapons. These make me nervous. During the war, when you saw one of those bad boys approaching, you knew shit was about to go down. Ryan senses my discomfort and assures me they’ve been reprogrammed. They’d no more hurt a human than he would.
“Pardon me if I’m not comforted by that,” I say. He laughs.
After about half an hour, we reach some sort of atrium with skylights in the ceiling and plants growing in raised concrete beds on the floor. It’s actually quite lovely. Or would be, if I wasn’t too busy getting the shock of my life to notice. Standing motionless in the middle of the floor, like some sort of gigantic statue, is a Beetle, a bot so called because of its impenetrable armor and slow, trundling gait. What it lacks in speed it more than makes up for in firepower, of which it has a seemingly limitless supply. A single one of these can level an entire city, as humanity saw countless times during the war. Watching one creep toward your home was an exercise in torture. You knew it would get you. Just not when.
“What the hell is that thing doing here?” I ask. My eyes zero in on its side, where I see a tiny scrape in its armor. The brass at the local military base—currently Epsilon compound—gave it that mark when they dropped the bunker buster on top of it. This is the one that destroyed my damn city. It’s still here.
My chest tightens. My vision blurs. Next thing I know, I’m on the floor, with not-Ryan’s face hovering over me. I hear his voice as a deep thrum in my ears, as if he’s stuffed them with cotton. I can’t breathe. He hauls me into a sitting position and cradles me in his arms, which are probably just titanium alloy covered with synthesized flesh grown in a lab. But they feel real. So real.
“Shh, it’s all right. It’s OK, baby. I’m here.”
I close my eyes and let myself feel comforted for a split-second. Then I shove him away and stagger unsteadily to my feet. “I’m fine,” I tell him, holding up my hand when he makes a move to come toward me. “No, stop. I don’t need help. Just give me a minute.”
“What happened?”
I take a shaky breath before saying, “That thing surprised me, that’s all. I thought they were—well, I don’t know what I thought. I didn’t expect to see it here.”
“Many of the XR3176GS units were dismantled when they were no longer needed, but each Center still contains at least one. You don’t need to worry—it’s deactivated.”
I ignore what is most certainly a lie and say, “Let’s just keep going.”
He looks me over carefully. “All right. What say we stop and rest soon, hmm? I have something I want to show you.”
Two corridors and a smooth elevator ride later, he leads me into a white, sterile-looking room with a raised circular podium in the middle of the floor. Upon it rests something that looks like a mask with built-in goggles and headphones. “Here–try it on,” not-Ryan says. His tone says he expects me to argue, but I go wordlessly and jam it onto my head, more out of contrariness than anything else. The bots think they understand humans? They can think again.
I settle the mask on the bridge of my nose, and suddenly the world around me disappears. My awareness flies through an endless void before the goggles deposit me in a burning, smoking hellscape beneath a blood-red moon. I can smell charred flesh, ozone, burnt and twisted metal leaking oil, and shattered chunks of concrete. In the distance rises a single skyscraper, all that remains of an unknown city. As I watch, a fireball lights it up, shattering its windows and shaking it to its foundations. With the slow, ponderous groan of a fat man sinking onto his bed, it crumbles to the ground.
Panicked, I look around desperately for any sign of life. “Hello?” I cry. I can smell the bodies—it’s a smell you never forget as long as you live—but there isn’t so much as a limb in sight. Faraway shouts and screams fill the night, and the closer sound of other humans fighting. I thought the war ended a year ago—I thought peace was the price of our armistice with the bots. These days, the only crime quicker to get you killed than attacking a bot is attacking another human. It’s why the raids are becoming less and less frequent. Love or die, the people at Epsilon say sarcastically, though I can’t figure out what’s wrong with that philosophy. Forcing us not to kill each other is the one damn thing the bots do that helps us.
Individual voices separate themselves from the pack. I hear a man’s deep growl and another man with a higher-pitched whine. They draw closer, and I can tell they’re arguing even if I can’t make out what they’re saying. Suddenly, the smoke and mist part, and they come into view. I freeze, certain they’ll see me and attack, but they keep walking without hesitation. The deep-voiced man is massive, at least six-and-a-half feet tall, with glistening tanned muscles and torn, blood-stained fatigues. The smaller one has a ponytail and a patchy neckbeard, and he’s pleading with the larger one.
“Come on, man, just let her go. They’ll stop attacking us if you do, I swear. Please, just take her back.”
Her? I wonder. The large man kneels and lowers a bundle slung over his shoulder to the ground. I get the shock of my life when he gingerly pulls aside the blanket, revealing braids the color of wheat framing a baby-round face. She’s wearing a gray tunic and pants, and can’t be more than four years old. “How in the hell…?” I say, shock making my voice louder than I intended. Neither of them look at me.
“Harris? Come on, man. Please.” The smaller man reaches out and touches the larger one’s shoulder. He goes flying backward as Harris shoves him.
“Fuck off, Prince. This is none of your business. You’re a guide, not my conscience.”
“I never would’ve taken this job if I knew it was a kidnapping,” Prince says as he leaps to his feet. He’s wiry, I’ll give him that. Anger distorts his features. “When you said extraction, I thought you meant someone from the hot zone, not a kid from the compound. Those people are nuts, but they were takin’ care of her. How the hell did she survive the gas, anyway? And what the fuck do you want with her?”
“That’s none of your business.” Harris gazes down at the child, his face softening into something resembling a smile. It’s almost touching, except for the fact that he’s a kidnapper. “Do you have any more of the sedative?”
“So what if I do?” Prince reaches for the gun still strapped into his holster. “You aren’t getting any more of it. I need it.”
“She’ll be afraid if she wakes up. She might make noise and get us caught. Give me the sedative.” Harris’s voice is flat. I can practically smell the danger wafting from him.
“No. I can’t spare it.”
Quick as a snake, Harris’s arm shoots out. His massive hand wraps around Prince’s scrawny neck and squeezes. Slowly, he pulls the smaller man’s face down until they’re nose to nose. “Give. Me. The. Sedative.”
Face reddening, eyes bulging, Prince fumbles for his back. “Can’t—reach—” he gasps. Disgusted, Harris shoves him to the ground. The big man’s knee comes down on his back, holding him in place while he reaches down to unzip Prince’s backpack. Harris rifles around until he finds a small plastic case. Meanwhile, the little girl begins to stir. While Harris prepares an injection, I watch her, marveling at her tiny perfection. Is she the last living child on earth? She must be. And where the hell is there still fighting going on? We’re supposed to be at peace. Why haven’t the men noticed me standing there? I glance down and see nothing amiss. My body is where it should be. I can reach down and touch my leg, swirl my hand through the mist and smoke. I can hear, smell, even feel the heat from the fires smoldering in the nearby field. But it’s like I’m invisible.
Harris finishes preparing the syringe. Murmuring soothing words, he slips the needle under the little girl’s skin, gently pressing the plunger until the clear liquid disappears. Prince staggers to his feet and watches the proceedings with a hate-filled glare. Harris has just made himself an enemy. “I want that needle back,” Prince says, holding out his hand. “Give me the rest of the sedative, too.”
“Fuck you.” Harris caps the needle and puts everything back in the case, which he slides into his own pocket. He stares blandly as Prince pulls a gun and points it at him with trembling hands.
“I said, give me the sedative.”
“Why the hell do you need it?” Harris doesn’t seem to notice the weapon. “You planning to knock someone out?” He covers the girl with the blanket, lifts her, and puts her back over his shoulder. He starts walking straight toward me. Panicked, I try to skip out of the way, but I can’t move. He should be able to see me, but for some reason, he can’t. As he gets closer, I see the dirt and blood on his square-jawed face, the determination in his eyes. Behind him, Prince raises the gun, his lips moving as he tries to talk himself into pulling the trigger. At last, swearing, he switches the safety back on and jams the gun into its holster. He hurries to catch up with Harris, who is about to run right into me. I close my eyes, bracing for impact…
But nothing happens. I open my eyes and see the men right in front of me, walking in profile. Somehow I’m gliding along beside them. “How much further?” Harris asks. “You said the rock wasn’t too far outside the city.”
“About four more miles,” Prince says. He glances surreptitiously at the man beside him, and in his face I see the same sort of low cunning I’d expect from someone who would point a weapon at a retreating opponent’s back. I want to warn Harris, but I’m clearly just an observer here. Never mind that he’s a kidnapper. He looks like a man who has his reasons.
From the direction of the city comes a new barrage of weapon discharges and explosions. Apparently I came in at the tail end of the battle, a battle humanity will of course lose. I’m only surprised there are any left to fight. And the girl! I can’t stop staring at her, though all I can see is the blanket bundling her still, tiny form. I caress my own stomach, the ghost of my pain making my fingers clench. I can’t believe she’s alive. When the bots unleashed the gas that sought out and destroyed every pre-pubescent human–including those not yet born–it destroyed our species’ hope and secured the outcome of the war. But if even one survived…
“Stop.” Harris holds up a fist. His eyes narrow as he scans the surrounding terrain, which has grown rockier and more uneven. That and the smoke hide them, for the most part, but it means others can also be hidden. I haven’t heard anyone but these two, but I haven’t been paying attention.
“What is it?” Prince asks loudly. Harris shushes him and heads for a rocky outcropping sheltered by a few scrub trees. He moves silently, like a cat. I’m fairly certain there’s some kind of special ops experience in his past. Prince follows, and the two men crouch at the base of a boulder, hidden from sight at any angle but the one I’m watching them. “You’re paranoid, Harris. They’re not following us anymore. No one’s out there.”
“Shut up,” Harris hisses. He sets the girl gently on the ground and takes a massive pistol from his belt. After telling Prince to watch their backs, he raises his head just enough to peer over the boulder. I look, too, but it’s so hazy I can’t see a damn thing. Not to mention it’s nighttime, and even under the full moon it’s dark as sin out here with all the smoke hanging in the sky. Prince starts muttering about being the other man’s lapdog until Harris growls at him to shut the fuck up. I silently entreat the same, but Prince only grows louder.
“You’re paranoid, man. I told you, they stopped following us, and no one else ever comes out here. Not even the bots. It’s a dead zone.”
I want to smack him. Something is wrong; I can feel it. I cheer silently when Harris grabs him by the collar and shakes him. “If you don’t shut up, I’ll shoot you myself and leave you for the bots.”
Prince sneers at him. I am liking that little shit less by the second. Which is odd, considering how dark gray Harris’s actions are. Something tells me he’s a good man, though, and I’ve learned to trust my instincts.
An indeterminable length of time passes. Harris continues to scan their surroundings. When nothing happens, I expect him to get up and continue walking, but he doesn’t. He must have the ears of a bat, because there is literally nothing out here. Not even a bat. Other than the fighting in the distant city, there are no signs of life except the two men and the unconscious little girl.
That’s when it happens. A man goes through me, creeping on his hands and knees toward Harris and Prince. You might not believe me, having long-ago guessed what is really happening here, but I feel him. The sensation is cold and unpleasant, like being submerged in gelatinous goo. For an instant, his being merges with mine. I think his thoughts. I feel his emotions. To say they are inhuman is to deny the capability within us for pure evil. I know what he wants to do to the men behind the rock. To the girl one of them protects. For a moment, his desires are mine. Bile rises up in my throat.
“Look out!” I scream. “Harris, over here!”
He doesn’t hear me. I’m not surprised, because they haven’t noticed my presence even once, but I’m frantic to warn them of what’s approaching. It’s not just the one; I see others coming at them from all angles. Crawling on their bellies, on their hands and knees. Like animals.
Suddenly, Prince turns his head in my direction. He spots the man crawling toward him. His eyes grow big as saucers. His mouth forms one word: Shit. Then he is up and running, abandoning Harris and the girl, desperate to save his own skin from the death creeping toward them.
Harris is stunned when his guide up and flees. His gaze sweeps the area, and I know he can see them. Some of them, at least. Contempt curls his lip. “You’re a coward, Prince!” he shouts. He stands, pistol in one hand, and draws a razor-sharp katana from its sheath on his back. He seems perfectly at ease with both weapons. “Come and get me, assholes. I didn’t take her so you could steal her from me.”
A scream splits the night. It isn’t the man in front of me, but a woman with torn clothes and matted hair that springs from a clump of bushes and charges straight at Harris. She has a small, rusty knife in her hands and murder in her eyes. With one graceful turn, Harris lops off her head, neatly shoving the body aside as it hurtles toward him. Behind him comes another scream, this one more masculine. A man, filthy and enraged, bounds toward him, shouting that Harris killed his wife. He has a club studded with nails in his fist. Harris waits until the man gets close, sidesteps the ungainly swing of said club, and brings up the sword, lopping off the man’s arm. This time, the man doesn’t scream. He looks down at the stump, at the red fountain spurting out of it, and his mouth falls open.
“What did you do?” he asks. “Why did you do that?”
Harris isn’t nearly as surprised by this reaction as I am, and his instincts are far more honed. As I waste time wondering what the hell is wrong with this man’s mind, Harris stabs him through the heart and uses a booted foot to shove him away. The sword emerges from the man’s torso with a wet sucking sound. The rest of the people hidden in the bushes and grass and rocks burst out of hiding, intent on killing Harris and taking revenge. At first I’m worried, but it’s not long before I realize they’re too unorganized and unskilled to pose any sort of threat. And Harris is too fast for them. Too strong. Too good with his blade. He doesn’t even need the gun. Bodies pile up around him as he hacks and slashes his way through his attackers, hardly even breaking a sweat. Red soaks the dry ground, sucked into it with a thirsty sound that makes me faintly ill. All the while, he keeps an eye on the girl, changing his stance to protect her whenever anyone gets too close. I start to think he might just make it out of there.
That’s when I hear the sound of an approaching bot.
The man who crawled through me still hasn’t moved. Now I see his neck arch as he raises his nose and sniffs the air. He actually growls, his lips pulling back to reveal perfectly normal teeth. With his strange behavior, I half expect them to be filed to points, but of course they’re not. He casts one last longing look at the girl, stands up, and lopes away. Harris raises the pistol and points it at his retreating back. Do it, I think desperately. If anyone on earth has ever deserved to die, it’s this man. But Harris is no Prince. He lowers the gun and stows it in its holster.
With the remaining attackers scattered, he kneels next to the unconscious girl. That he can hear the bot at all means it’s too close for comfort, but he doesn’t take any chances with his guide and “partner” gone. He does some fancy knot work and turns the blanket into a sling which he ties securely to his back, leaving his arms free. Then he’s up and moving again, as the fields give way to scrub interspersed with hardy clumps of grass and small, twisted trees. There is little to no cover out here, but that means enemies can’t hide either. He makes good progress, not stopping or slowing until the sound of the bot fades away behind him. Like him, I breathe a sigh of relief when all is quiet once more. He appears to be heading for a mountain in the distance, its tall peak rising up above all the others. A faint light glows at its base, and I’m guessing—though of course I can’t be sure—it’s a compound. Will the girl be safe there? I wonder. If Harris has anything to say about it, I think she will.
“Just another couple miles,” he tells her. “A little further and you can wake up.” His voice is so tender it brings a tear to my eye. There is still a child alive! I want to scream and shout it to the heavens. I can’t even imagine what that knowledge would do for the rest of us still alive in the Dark.
The mountain draws closer. I’m now almost certain there’s a compound there. Heavily fortified, too, by the looks of it. Not that any of our weapons deter the bots, but they allow the compounds to exist as long as they don’t pose a threat. The weapons are more to keep out the people who went feral when the world ended. Raids were depressingly common in the beginning, and though they’re starting to die down, no one is ever 100% safe. Case in point, the small army who tried to attack Harris. After seeing into the mind of one of them, I don’t think they were the ones he stole the child from, but I can’t be sure.
“Almost there,” he murmurs. The little one has begun to stir again, but he doesn’t sedate her. The guard towers are visible up ahead, and there’s no reason to do it again. “Shhh, don’t cry. It’s all right. We’re almost home.”
“Home?” Her blonde head pokes out of the blanket. She looks so sleepy. Every time he takes a step, she jiggles up and down, the motion pulling at her eyelids and making her look like one of those dolls who close their eyes when you tilt them. I’ve never seen anything so precious and wondrous. For the first time in months, I feel a real sense of joy and hope. We can make it, I think. Humanity isn’t wholly doomed. In that moment, I remember what true happiness is.
It doesn’t last, of course. It never does.
A cloud covers the moon. At least it feels that way, though when I glance up the sky is no more hazy than before. But the world is suddenly shrouded in darkness. As Harris jogs by a squat boulder no taller than his waist, a figure steps out from behind it and raises a gun, pointing it at the big man’s retreating back.
Prince. Of course. He must have been lying in wait to see if Harris made it out of the ambush. I can’t imagine why he would double-cross the man now instead of earlier, when their pursuers might have finished Harris off, but betrayal doesn’t usually make sense.
I open my mouth to yell a warning, forgetting they can’t hear me, but my voice is cut off by a sharp retort. Harris stumbles, clutching at his leg. He whirls to see his guide aiming a gun at his chest, and rage darkens his brow. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he growls. “You could have hit her.”
Prince smiles. It isn’t a pleasant smile. “I’m being smart for once,” he says. “I figure, why take your money when I can take your cargo and sell it to the highest bidder? The way those idiots in the city fought to keep her, I figure others would do the same. Ah, ah, ah—” His voice sharpens as Harris twitches in the direction of his own weapons. Blood blossoms on Harris’s camo pants, enough to worry me. I pray Prince hasn’t nicked an artery. “Let’s keep reaching for the sky, shall we?”
Harris complies reluctantly. The little girl’s solemn, rosy-cheeked face peeks out of the blanket. “You’re a bad man,” she tells Prince, with all the certainty of a child.
“And you’re sure as hell not being smart,” Harris mutters. “What exactly do you think you’re going to get out of this? Is your miserable, flea-bitten, piece of shit existence more important than hers?”
“It is to me.” Prince’s eyes gleam hungrily. He licks his lips. “She can get me enough money and supplies to last the rest of my life. No more compound for me, no sir. The brass and the bots both would give their left nuts to get their hands on her. Her DNA alone is probably worth billions—”
“Billions of what? Money is useless, you choad.”
“It won’t be forever. When we finally kick the shit out of these bots and the dust settles, I’ll be living like a king.”
Both Harris and I stare at Prince in utter disbelief. “You realize we’re not going to win this war, right?” Harris says. “Please tell me you know that.”
The first hint of uncertainty creeps onto Prince’s face, but it disappears with the return of that same cunning look. “Nice try. You’re just saying that so I’ll let you go. Well, it’s not gonna happen. You survived the ferals, so you’re obviously a good fighter, but I got the drop on you just the same. I figure you’ve just about lost enough blood to feel nice and weak. So why don’t you go ahead and untie the little bitch and hand her over?”
Someone who would call a four-year-old child a “little bitch” isn’t someone with whom I’d feel comfortable leaving her. It’s clear Harris feels the same way. “Why don’t we talk about this? The people I’m going to see will pay just as well as the rest of them. Why do you think I’m doing this?”
Prince can’t possibly buy it. If Harris’ motivation is nothing but money, I’ll eat a hat. But then, we all assume others are like us. The little weasel actually considers it, probably wondering if he might be missing out by waffling on the original deal. But it doesn’t take long for his face to harden. “No. No, I don’t think I wanna split the money. Better all around if I take her myself.”
Harris nearly stamps his foot in frustration, but the fact that his leg is bleeding stops him. I can’t tell if the flow has slowed down, but I’m fairly certain his artery wasn’t hit. Thank God. “Damn it, Prince, be reasonable. I–” This is as far as he gets. I’ve been too busy watching the tense showdown between the two men to notice the feral man from earlier sneaking up on them. So have they. One second they’re arguing, and the next, the man springs up from behind that same damn boulder and leaps onto Prince’s back. Without hesitation, he sinks his teeth into Prince’s cheek.
“Jesus Christ.” Harris stumbles backward, reaching for his pistol as Prince howls with rage and pain.
“Get off me, get the fuck off me!” he cries. To my horror, he raises his gun and points it at Harris instead of the man attacking him. He pulls the trigger once, twice, many times. Poor Harris jerks like a puppet on a string as the bullets pierce his flesh. The little girl screams.
“Why did you do that?” I shout. “Why, Prince?” But of course he doesn’t answer. While Harris sinks to his knees, bleeding from a half-dozen wounds, Prince finally aims the gun upward and attempts to get a bead on the feral man, who is having none of it. The man growls and wraps his legs tightly around Prince’s waist. His head whips around to the other side, and his mouth finds an even more succulent treat: Prince’s jugular. A red fountain arcs upward and Prince drops like a stone, choking on his own blood. The sound of the man chewing his flesh makes me want to vomit.
Harris is lying face down on the ground now. He’s not moving. The girl shakes him, and then, when he doesn’t respond, whimpers and struggles to extricate herself from the blanket. My stomach drops to my feet when the feral man glances up from his meal and catches sight of her. His face lights up as he realizes the prize he so covets is his at last. Cackling, he lopes toward her on all fours, like an animal or someone possessed by a demon. The girl shrieks and struggles harder, managing at the last second to slip free of the blanket. Her chubby little legs pump furiously as she runs away, but of course the feral man is faster. With a crow of triumph, he reaches out and grabs one of her braids, yanking her toward him. Her cry of pain and fear pierces right through my heart.
“Mine,” the feral man says. I’m surprised he can talk. His filthy, blood-stained hands leave stains on the little girl’s tunic as he paws at her, as she struggles with all her might to escape. Her scream splits the night. It goes on and on and on. I can’t watch.
“The fuck—away from her.”
Relief makes me weak. I see Harris lying on his side with blood trickling from his nose and mouth. His hand shakes like an old man with palsy as he raises the gun. The feral man’s grin widens.
“Mine,” he purrs, pushing the girl in front of him. A human shield. I’ve never felt so helpless in my life.
“I said—” A fit of coughing interrupts Harris. Blood sprays from his mouth, spattering the ground in front of him. His voice when he speaks again is weak as a kitten. “I said no.” He squints down the barrel of the gun, and I’m terrified he’s going to miss and shoot the little girl. He must be too, for he hesitates. The feral man dances backwards, laughing and whooping at his victory. Remembering his thoughts from earlier—knowing what he has planned for the poor, innocent creature in his arms—I can’t help but think a clean death would be preferable. Harris must have the same thought.
The retort is defeaning.
I realize my eyes are closed. Holding my breath, I open one of them to peek at the feral man, terrified I’ll see Harris missed and hit the girl. Or worse—that he missed both of them, abandoning her to a brutally short life of torture and depravity. But his aim is true. A smoking, bloody hole has appeared in the center of the feral man’s forehead. The girl slithers out of his arms as he sinks to the ground. She’s crying and shaking, and I want so badly to comfort her. She runs to Harris, whose open eyes stare at the starry sky. The gun falls limply from his hand and hits the ground in a puff of dust.
The girl shakes him. “Wake up,” she says pleadingly. “Please, wake up. Take me to mama.”
But he doesn’t wake up. He’ll never wake up again.
In the distance, the compound’s faint glow beckons. With any luck, the people there will have heard the commotion. With even better luck, they’ll come to investigate, because I can’t see the girl lasting long on her own. “Go toward the lights,” I urge her, knowing she can’t hear me. “Please, sweetie, go to where the lights are.”
To my utter astonishment, she looks right at me. “Pretty lady,” she says, smiling. I am stunned.
“Can you see me?” I ask her excitedly. Visions fill my head: me caring for her, protecting her, raising her. She gets up and comes toward me, smiling, her chubby arms outstretched. I reach for her, my heart full of an emotion I thought I’d never feel again.
Then she’s gone, and I’m surrounded by blackness. Wrongness. I feel my body flying through a void of nothing, as if something inside me is exploding outward and dragging my consciousness along with it. I reach for the girl, crying out for her, but she isn’t there. Nothing is there. I’m completely alone in an eternity of darkness.
Katia Cole 