E-Day

by Nicholas Sansbury Smith

  The droid gestured toward the seats as the other kids sat. Service bots like this one were everywhere in Megacity Phoenix, like all the megacities. Each was programmed for its specific region and the unique issues its respective megacity faced. In Phoenix, the issues were plentiful. Poverty, air quality, water shortages, and almost always, a shortage of food.

  Phil pushed at the droid again.

  “Don’t,” Ronin said.

  “Or what?” Phil said. “You going to stop me, or will you cry to your big brother?”

  “Come on, stop being a prick,” Zachary said.

  “You think you’re a big shot,” Phil said. “Because your dad and uncle are soldiers?”

  Zachary didn’t reply.

  “My dad was a soldier, too. He died in Paris five years ago when we tried to take it back from the barbarians,” Phil said.

  “I’m sorry,” Zachary said. “But I don’t see what that has to do with this droid.”

  The droid directed its facial screen toward a knife Phil was pulling from his pocket.

  “Please put that down,” it said politely.

  Zachary stood up, but it was too late.

  Phil was already etching into the chest plate. When he was finished, he bent down, blew off the shavings, and brushed it off.

  Worthless droid.

  “There,” Phil said. “All better.”

  The droid looked down at the words.

  “Why did you do that?” came a female voice. The facial screen changed from Emanuel Captor’s face to the dimpled smile of a woman with brown eyes and hair.

  “Who the hell is this bitch?” Phil asked.

  “My name is Apeiron, and I asked you a question.” Her smile vanished, but her tone remained calm.

  “Because you’re not a human, and I am.”

  “You vandalized Unit 1987099 because it is not a human? Vandalizing property is subject to code 19 of—”

  “Droids can’t enforce laws against humans,” Phil interrupted. He twirled the blade again and laughed.

  “No, but we can upload this incident to the local liaison to investigate you for anti-AI behavior,” Apeiron said. “Perhaps you would like me to file a full report?”

  Phil’s pale skin glowed a bright red. “My dad died fighting the Coalition,” he snapped. “I’m not one of them.”

  “Your hatred toward AI seems to suggest Coalition loyalties.”

  “No,” Phil said.

  Elan, who was following the conversation on his Commpad, gave Ronin a worried side glance. Neither particularly liked the idea of worshipping AI, but they both respected it and believed it was making the world a better place.

  The train screeched to a stop, and everyone piled out, with Phil leading the way.

  The Hummer Droid stood in the door as it closed shut, its face once again resembling the AI Administrator.

  Phil snorted as the train zipped away. “Man, I thought you were a Droid Raider, but you’re just another droid lover,” he said to Zachary.

  “No, I’m just not a dumbass with a small dick like you, who feels like he has something to prove.”

  Phil glared at Zachary.

  “What? Did I hurt your feelings?” Zachary said.

  “Hey, guys. Check this out…”

  Ronin looked toward the voice. The other kids were standing under a holo-screen mounted over the stairwell leading to the street. Four different sub-screens displayed the same image: an Engine riding a horse.

  “Holy shit,” one of the kids said. “Is that your uncle?”

  Ronin walked up directly to the holo-screen. There was no mistaking the renowned hybrid stallion, Kichiro, or the rider on its back, Captain Akira Hayashi.

  There was also no mistaking the white flag hanging from his spear.

  Phil laughed. “The great Captain Hayashi is surrendering!”

  “W-what?” Zachary stammered, pushing his way through the kids to stand between Ronin and Elan.

  “What’s this mean?” Ronin asked Zachary.

  “It means your hero uncle isn’t as brave as everyone thinks,” Phil said with a smirk.

  — 5 —

  “Don’t look at anyone, not even other civilians,” Keanu said. “If someone tries to talk to you, don’t respond. Keep your head down, eyes low, and focus on getting in and out.”

  “I will,” Chloe replied.

  She pulled a gray hooded sweatshirt over her frizzy brown hair and looked in the cracked mirror in the small bathroom. Just like the city streets, her face was filthy. But her appearance was self-inflicted to avoid unwanted attention when she left their shelter for rations.

  Keanu hovered behind her, scratching his graying beard. He didn’t look much better than her, no longer bothering to trim his facial hair in the immaculate style she remembered growing up.

  Not much of a reason to when he barely left their home.

  This was the first time Chloe had left since watching Todd and Suzanne being herded into the factory, but they had to eat, and it was ration day. Only women were allowed to pick them up at the market.

  “See you soon,” she said.

  She hugged Keanu and went to the cellar door. He pulled the metal latch up, and she secured her hood and made her way outside.

  It was a few hours to curfew, and an orange sunset crested the horizon. Small figures perched like gargoyles along the stone trim of a former bank building. One of the Coalition soldiers moved, lifting a long-scoped rifle.

  Chloe rounded the next block, her heart racing faster, steeling herself for the grisly sight that always greeted her. Slowly, she lifted her eyes to the tallest building in the area, a ten-story former hotel with a tiled roof and stonework around the glass-paned windows.

  Two naked men hung from exterior beams, their bodies mutilated and entrails hanging out in long ropes. Crows feasted on their flesh, picking and pulling away strands.

  Chloe let out a long, deep breath, trying to block the memories that always surfaced when she made this trip. But like the other times, there was no blocking out the image of her father hanging from the same building.

  She still didn’t know what had happened to her mother, only that she too was probably dead now, due to her past working with droids. When the Coalition took you, you didn’t return. You became a slave, or you were killed.

  Chloe forced herself to continue toward the market. It wasn’t far now. Just another block. Charred vehicles and debris blocked the roads in all directions, and soldiers guarded checkpoints.

  On a curb halfway down the street, she noticed a woman lying on the concrete at an odd angle. Her legs twitched as Chloe approached, and she knew then—this woman had SANDs.

  And no one had stopped to help her.

  They all knew there was nothing to be done.

  Chloe kept walking, closing in on the market, her heart pounding, guilt filling her. But this wasn’t the first time she’d seen a person suffering like that. It certainly wouldn’t be the last either, and she knew stopping could draw attention from the closest guard at the end of the street by the market.

  A shirtless Coalition foot soldier, his chest muscles marked with scars and tribal tattoos representing the Coalition’s Nordic Gods stood looking the other way. An energy hatchet hung from his belt, and a bolt-action rifle was propped up on a shoulder.

  It wasn’t the weapons or his appearance that frightened Chloe—it was the beast attached to a chain he held in one hand.

  The two-hundred-pound Iron Wolf trotted over the cobblestone, the titanium claws clanking on the ancient bricks, and saliva drooling out of the metal jaw.

  Chloe knew better than most people how much effort went into the design of these beasts. These weren’t the companion-style droids she had once worked on for wealthy clients. These were real animals that Dr. Cross first bred in his factories and then surgically turned into killing machines with his legions of doctors.

  A thick mane of black hair crested
the wolf’s skull and ran down its back. It glanced over at her with blue eyes, sniffed the air, and then pulled on its chains. The soldier’s horned helmet turned her way, the bloodshot eyes locking with her own for a brief moment.

  Chloe looked away and passed the dying woman on the road. She felt the soldier watching her as she got in line with hundreds of other women and girls that had come out for rations delivered by white MOTHs once a week.

  The market was set between four apartment buildings, in an open square with a fountain in the center. Coalition soldiers surrounded the crates of fresh produce and dried meat as a team of locals handed out the food.

  On the rooftops were more soldiers, armed with sniper rifles, phased plasma-pulse rifles, and pistols. They all wore similar bulky armor, slightly customized and painted with Nordic symbols. The size of their horns on their helmets often represented their kills; the more branches on their antlers, the more men and women they had murdered.

  The barbaric nature of these men and women wasn’t hard to understand, if you looked at the history of the world. Humanity had almost destroyed itself during the Carbon Wars, and ideologies had only drifted further apart over the ensuing decades of bloodshed.

  Chloe stood behind an elderly woman with a child by her side, no doubt an orphan like so many others. The girl looked over her shoulder at Chloe with a single eye, the other covered by a patch. Already the poor girl had developed tremors, her muscles twitching in the first signs of a worsening SANDS infection.

  “Hi,” she whispered.

  “Hi,” Chloe whispered back.

  The crowd inched forward, most keeping their head down. Coughs and a few sobs echoed through the early evening as the sun retreated over the horizon.

  People hurried away with baskets of food, returning to houses where they would continue hiding and praying that the Nova Alliance Council would negotiate their liberation with the Coalition leaders—known simply as the War Lords.

  But Chloe knew that wasn’t going to happen. The War Lords were generals, not politicians, and they weren’t going to give up Megacity Paris or Megacity Moscow after exhausting vast amounts of resources to revolt and take the cities.

  Escaping wasn’t an option for Nova Alliance citizens who believed in AI like Chloe. Those who tried were almost always captured and strung up on buildings as an example.

  The girl ahead looked at Chloe again as they approached the center of the market. She smiled at the kid, hoping to provide some sense of reassurance and friendship, despite her uncle’s warnings.

  If smiling at a child got her arrested, then she would rather die like her parents.

  A gunshot cracked outside of the market, commanding the attention of the crowd. Everyone around Chloe tensed up as they determined whether to flee or hold tight.

  The single shot faded away.

  Probably a rebel sniper shot, Chloe thought.

  There was a resistance force in the city, although it was bordering on extinction from what she had heard. The men and women living underground rarely came out during the day, and mostly attacked at night.

  Chloe was conflicted about their efforts. Often, the tactics ended up getting innocents killed in retribution. For every soldier they took out, the Coalition would kill ten times as many Nova Alliance citizens.

  Once again, the crowd pushed forward.

  She was almost to the front of the line and could smell the fresh fruit and bread, when a clatter of hooves made her heart skip a beat. Behind her, a mounted soldier trotted into the eastern edge of the market. Six antlers rose out of a helmet with a breathing apparatus built into the front. Thick custom armor hung off the soldier’s chest and shoulders.

  This was no grunt—this was a War Lord Lieutenant.

  Two more mounted warriors followed the first toward the crowd. Behind them marched six more men in full armor and carrying energy spears. The crowd backed away, warm bodies huddling in fear at the sight of a Coalition Lieutenant.

  They were looking for someone.

  “Chloe Cotter!” the lieutenant shouted.

  Chloe didn’t register her own name at first. Her heart flared a moment later, as reality sank in. The Coalition did know about her past, and now they had come for her!

  “We know you’re here, show yourself!” the man shouted, his voice muffled by the mask.

  Chloe remained as still as a statue, her heart thumping in her ears.

  Hushed voices broke out around her as people searched for… her.

  This has to be a mistake, she thought.

  Another two men with leashed Iron Wolves entered the market. Chloe almost didn’t recognize the one walking in front of the snarling beasts.

  “No,” she choked.

  Her Uncle Keanu staggered forward, bound, his face beaten and bloody.

  Chloe ran to him without thinking, charging through the crowd and stopping about ten feet from her uncle. His eyes met hers, fear bleeding from his gaze.

  “Run,” he stammered.

  The man on the horse directed the mechanical beast toward Chloe. Her flight instincts kicked in, and she bolted toward an alley. A guard raced to block her, but she darted into the narrow passage between two buildings.

  In the distance, she could make out the hotel, where crows feasted on the bodies of the people who had tried to escape and rebels like her dad. Unless she managed to find a place to hide, she would soon be one of them.

  But what would she do without her uncle?

  Shouts and screams followed Chloe down the alley. She ran even harder. Then, over the other noises, came snarling and a ferocious growl.

  It was coming from the street beyond the alley.

  Chloe slid to a stop as two Iron Wolves cornered her, their jaws snapping with jagged teeth. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw two men running down the alley with glowing energy swords.

  She was trapped.

  The encroaching beasts pulled on their chains as an armored vehicle slid to a stop. The hatch opened on the side. Leather boots clicked onto the pavement as a handsome middle-aged man emerged wearing a gray dress suit with armored plates hanging over the front. Wavy silver hair fell over his face. He pushed the strands back into place, revealing a black mustache and blood-red eyes. The man centered his augmented INVS eyes on Chloe and smiled kindly.

  “Don’t be afraid,” he said. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  She stood there, trembling, as the Iron Wolves fought to get free of their chains.

  The man took a step closer, his red eyes looking her up and down.

  Chloe stepped back.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “I just want to talk to you.”

  He had a kind and intelligent voice.

  Turning, he glared at the Iron Wolves. Both beasts sat on their hind legs. He then raised a hand and gestured toward someone behind Chloe.

  She turned to the clattering of hooves from horses trotting through the market. Tied to a rope held by one of the riders was her uncle. The beasts stopped, and another guard escorting put a knife to his throat.

  “Chloe Cotter,” said the man in the suit.

  She looked back at him.

  “My name is Doctor Otto Cross,” he said. He took another step closer. “I’m told you have experience with droids. Is that correct?”

  She hesitated, but then nodded.

  “Good,” he said. “Very good. Most people with experience are dead.”

  He walked up to her, stopping closer to her face.

  “I’m in need of someone for an experiment.” He glanced at Keanu. “Help me, and you and your uncle will live.”

  Dr. Cross smiled again, but this wasn’t the same kind smile. His faced widened into sinister grin.

  “Refuse, and you will become the experiment,” he said with a shrug. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a peace treaty to broker.”

  ***

  The wastes of no man’s land waited for Shadow Squad. Weak sunshine brok
e through the gray, smoke-choked sky, providing only a hazy view of the battlefield stretching around the western entrance to Megacity Paris.

  A small encampment of Piston scouts was positioned here to watch an area that no Nova Alliance soldier had set foot on in over five years.

  Kichiro trotted past the Pistons, but even the stallion seemed reluctant to stride out into the apocalyptic graveyard. Okami, on the other hand, trotted right out, white tail up and black button nose sniffing the dirt.

  The Pistons watched the squad, not saying a word.

  “AI is salvation,” said one of the Piston Clerics.

  “AI is salvation,” repeated Shadow Squad.

  Two days ago, Akira had seen the look of hope in the soldiers’ eyes on the frontlines around Megacity Moscow. Hope that the war would soon be over and humanity would find a way to live in peace, embracing their different beliefs, like Apeiron suggested.

  But centuries of warrior blood flowed through Akira’s veins, and the book handed down from those ancestors detailed the reality that humans were violent creatures by nature.

  Wars would never end.

  Only the dead have seen the end of war, Akira thought, recalling the quote from Plato.

  Kichiro stopped at the border of the no-man’s zone, and Akira looked over his squad. Tadhg, Frost, Perez, and Ghost awaited orders.

  “This is bullshit. You know that, right, Captain?” Tadhg said.

  “You’re still new, so I’m going to let that go,” Akira said.

  “This isn’t a Droid Raiding field, and Captain Akira isn’t your coach,” Ghost said. “Show some damn respect for the chain of command.”

  The first part was an understatement that Akira could see with his own eyes. There was no sport out here, no victory—only death.

  “Let’s go,” Akira said.

  He whistled to Kichiro.

  Lowering his armored muzzle, the horse led the way out into the wastes, hooves crushing bones that protruded from the dirt.

  Akira hoped they weren’t trampling on their own dead, but it was often hard to tell. Many of the corpses were so far decayed that they were unrecognizable. He tried to guide his trusted stallion through the maze to the eight-lane superhighway without disrespecting the dead.