The Mother Code

by Carole Stivers

  It had been a strange conversation to have over coffee and toast. But Rose had agonized endlessly over the advantages and disadvantages of that solitary upbringing. It could be a good thing, she said, if the goal was for the children to eventually mate. “Children reared together will view themselves more as brothers and sisters, not necessarily as potential mates.” But from the standpoint of human socialization, it might present problems. Early socialization would have to rely solely on the Mothers themselves—the soft “hands,” audible voices, imprintable faces, and unique personalities of the human women whose babies they carried, databases rife with information about life in the world before they were created, extensive programming in the Socratic method—all the elements that Rose had painstakingly built into the Mother Code.

  In the end, even under Code Black, it was important that the children eventually be given a way to find one another. To effect such a meeting, each Mother held a clock, counting down the time until her charge would reach the age of six years. At that time, she was to follow a set of instructions leading her to a specific, secure location. There, medical supplies, food rations, and housing would await. There, the new children could form a community. With any luck, there might even be other, nonmalevolent human survivors, waiting there to greet them.

  The clocks had been programmed. At the appointed time, each bot would determine that a countdown had ended—that it was time to go. But to go where? Rick pictured Rose at their last meeting with Blankenship—had it been only two weeks ago? “We need those Code Black homing coordinates, General,” she had insisted, the urgency of her impatience coloring her cheeks.

  “If you ask me, it’s a simple choice,” Blankenship had replied. “They should come home here to Langley. But the robotics team doesn’t like the odds on such a long flight. I’m afraid the team is stalemated.” He had actually smiled as he flashed her that steely gaze of his. “I wouldn’t worry too much about it. The possibility of a Code Black launch is extremely remote.”

  In the end, the decision had never been handed down.

  “Shall I upload the coordinates for Los Alamos?” Kendra asked.

  “How long would that take?”

  Kendra closed her eyes, her lips moving silently. Rick waited; the woman might be a computer herself, her mind constantly running routines. “Now that the navigation software is already integrated, and since it’s only me here . . . at least twenty-four hours. Maybe more.”

  Rick tapped his index finger nervously on the desk. A day. That might be a day too long. The breach at Fort Detrick, no doubt a trail leading to Los Alamos—through James Said. But there was another option. The fail-safe. A backup to be used to abort the mission, in the event that it turned out to be faulty or unnecessary. “Do they have their fail-safe homing sensors installed?”

  “Yes.” Kendra flashed him a smile.

  “And . . . if we’re around . . . we can set up a beacon to call them anywhere we need, once we know it’s safe to do so.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then there’s no problem.”

  “No . . .”

  “Anything else?”

  “One more thing . . . Under Code Black, unless we can home them successfully, even we won’t know where they are.”

  “We won’t? No GPS signal? Nothing?”

  “We hadn’t worked out the security on that. The supply depots will be our best clue . . .”

  “Supply depots. Yes. They’re set?”

  “They were finished a few months ago. The teams were told that they were part of a tactical desert warfare training ground. Anyway, the Gen5s are programmed with the locations of the supply depots. We can expect them to frequent those once the children are born. Until then, out there in the desert, they’ll be like fifty needles in a haystack. Big needles. But needles nonetheless.”

  “We’ll find them,” Rick said. “Once we know it’s safe, we’ll find them.”

  * * *

  RICK OPENED HIS eyes, waiting for them to focus. He rolled his tongue against the back of his teeth, swallowing what felt like a wad of cotton. His neck was cramped, the stub of his right leg jutting out over the edge of the cot. All around him was pitch-black. Where was he? Los Alamos. XO-Bot building. A complex of small conference rooms had been modified to provide temporary sleeping quarters for those with special clearance.

  He unfolded himself, feeling for his prosthesis on the floor nearby. Hurriedly he strapped it on, enduring the unpleasant tingling sensation that told him it had a life of its own. He limped out the door and down the hall toward the robotics lab. The hall, usually bustling with personnel, was empty, as was the lab. But the back doors of the bay were wide open. The Gen5s were already outside, their hatch windows reflecting the rising sun as Kendra paced among their ranks, her right hand flitting over her tablet.

  “Where’s Rudy?” Rick asked.

  “He’s readying the incubators.”

  Mac was moving from one to the other of the bots, a power torque wrench in hand. “Some of the tread nuts weren’t tightened properly,” he muttered. “I sure hope these things are good to go . . .”

  “They have to be,” Rick said.

  Rudy appeared behind him, pushing a cart, which he wheeled up beside four others identical to it. Inside cushioned plywood boxes, thick glass enclosures were nestled—the incubators. “The embryos are installed,” he said. “We just need to load these into the Mothers.” He turned to Rick. “General, are you sure we are doing the right thing?”

  Rick looked out over the array of bots, their powerful appendages tucked close to their rounded bodies. Out here in the sun, they reminded him of giant birds, poised for an epic migration. “Kendra says the software is sound. The Gen3s gave birth as planned,” he said. “And you and I are still alive on this antidote. The Gen5s are as ready as they need to be.”

  “But the C-343 sequence, it is new. We have not tested it in fetuses . . .”

  In what he hoped was an act of reassurance, Rick placed his hand on Rudy’s shoulder. He understood the risks. But he was thinking of what Rose had said: We can’t let the babies be lost. “We have to let them go,” he said, “and this might be the only chance we’ll get—we have no idea what those hackers know.”

  Kendra nodded, turning to continue her inspection as Mac and Rudy carefully loaded the incubators into their Mothers’ fibrous cocoons, attaching the necessary sensors and feeding tubes. Rick spotted a small can of yellow phosphorescent paint by the open door. Grabbing it in one hand and a shop cloth in the other, he searched the crowd of bots, reading off their insignia until he reached the one he was looking for. He stopped, climbing up on her treads.

  “What’re you doin’?” Mac asked.

  “This one’s mine,” Rick said, daubing a bright yellow design on the back edge of her wing. “Rho-Z.” I’ll keep track of you, he thought. I promise.

  * * *

  IT WAS ALREADY late afternoon, but the weather was holding out. Rick felt dizzy. He’d eaten nothing but an MRE, a field ration of unsavory gray meat ensconced in an off-white packet that had been his staple in the military, washing it down with a canteen of water before falling into his cot the previous night. Such were the provisions left in the Los Alamos quarters. “Are they ready?” he asked Mac.

  “Ready as they’re gonna be,” Mac called, folding his lanky form down into a chair near the guard post by the doors.

  “Then let’s roll ’em!” Rick called. From a console that Mac had moved close to the bay doors, Kendra gave the command. Slowly, the Mothers came to life, their treads churning over the pavement toward the expansive tarmac at the side of the building, arraying themselves at a wingspan’s distance from one another. Huddled over her console, a headset clamped over her black cloud of hair, Kendra seemed unaware of the din.

  Holding his hands tight over his ears, Rick followed the Mothers. They came to a standstill, and
there was a hush.

  Then, fifty sets of ducted fans fired up. Fifty sets of wings flared out as the Mothers leaned forward. Fifty bots began their ascent, their arms pulled tight to their sides, their treads tucked under their fuselages, their forms blotting out the sun.

  Rick flattened himself against the side of the building, clamping his eyes shut against eddies of debris. He opened them in time to see Mac running toward him, holding out one of the chunky XO-Bot lab phones. “. . . call from James Said . . .” Mac was yelling.

  “What?” Rick took the phone, but for a moment he just stared at it.

  “James Said!” Mac replied. “I thought he should talk to you!”

  “But . . .” Rick put the phone to one ear, still cupping the other with his free hand. “Hello?”

  “General? Mac says I should speak with you?” It did sound like Said, the formal, austere tone that the doctor always assumed when addressing him.

  “Said? Speak up!”

  “General, I just wanted you to know I’m sorry.” He could hear Said more clearly now, the cacophony of the Mothers’ departure fading as they slowly gained altitude.

  “Sorry? About telling the Russians?”

  “What?”

  “You told them, didn’t you? It was you all along! And all you can say is you’re sorry?”

  “General, I have no idea what you’re talking about. I just wanted to call in, let someone know I’m on my way back.”

  Rick felt his grip on the phone weakening. “On your way back . . . ?”

  “I had to fly to California . . . my parents died from IC-NAN. Now I’m driving . . . I should be back at Los Alamos in about three hours.”

  Rick felt the blood draining from him, his vision going dark as he remembered Rose’s final words: Not ready . . . He pictured her face, her eyes, pleading. We can’t let the babies be lost . . .

  “They aren’t ready,” he murmured. “Oh, my God . . . They aren’t ready!”

  “What?” James’s perplexed voice sounded from the phone even as Rick shoved it back toward Mac.

  Rick looked up. Two of the bots seemed to falter, lagging slightly behind the others. But they were all high aloft now, heading over the line of pines to the north of the labs. Craning his neck, he saw the Zero FX cycle, the one he’d ridden from the county airport, parked nearby. His helmet still rested on the seat. Cramming it over his head, he boarded the cycle and flipped on the power. Without another thought, he gave chase.

  * * *

  RICK HIT THE south entrance to the lab property going full speed, just barely missing the blockades there as he threaded between them and the woods. From Route 4, he could see the Mothers soaring over the Valles Caldera. But as he navigated a series of dangerous hairpin turns beside the meandering tributaries of the Jemez River, he lost sight of the glimmering machines for minutes at a time. His cycle could easily do 120 miles per hour. But he was earthbound, and the Mothers were scudding over the trees.

  When he saw the small side road that was State Route 126 heading west, he took it, knowing but not caring that at some point ahead it was unpaved. It was all he could do to stay on the rutted road while keeping one eye on the bots, whom he now spied only occasionally over the tops of tall pines. Near the small town of Cuba, he was thankful to pop out onto U.S. Route 550. Here the land was flat and barren, punctuated only by the occasional low-lying wash or canyon. The bots were off to his right, still headed northwest, their formation loosening. The two who had lagged seemed to have caught up—at least he could no longer see them as separate from the rest.

  As he neared the deserted town of Bloomfield, he veered west on U.S. 64 toward Farmington and the eastern edge of the Navajo Nation. Passing the town of Shiprock, he sped across the arid moonscape that was the northwestern corner of New Mexico. He tried not to think about the inhabitants of these small towns. Were they dying? Were they dead? Or were they standing on their front porches, pointing to the darkening sky, fearful of the strange flock of birds overhead?

  The road turned southwest along Comb Ridge, the great uplift of Navajo sandstone extending from Kayenta, Arizona, to Utah. High above, the Mothers banked north, soaring over the massive rock monuments that dotted the landscape. Rick punched his accelerator and veered off the road. But it was no use. The terrain too rugged for his cycle, he watched helplessly as the Mothers left him behind. Too late, he caught sight of a herd of sheep ambling ahead. He yanked his handlebars sharply to the right and the cycle slid out from under him. Instinctively he leapt free of it, catching a glimpse of his prosthesis as it flew high in the sky, in pursuit of the Mothers.

  He felt his body go limp. He closed his eyes. In the darkness he saw eagles, soaring over mysterious lands . . .

  * * *

  SOMETHING WAS BLOCKING out the sun. He heard muffled voices. A smooth, tanned face appeared above him. “. . . you okay?” He felt strong hands working expertly over his body, feeling beneath his clothing. Something cradled his neck, and he was inched slowly onto a hard, flat surface. “What’s that thing over there? Bring it along!”

  Then he was floating through the air. He felt a scraping, a painful hitch in his back as he was enveloped in darkness once more.

  * * *

  RICK AWOKE IN a small room with white walls. Someone nearby was humming, a low, guttural tune that sounded both happy and sad. He felt a dense, gelatinous weight on his chest as he struggled to sit up. He brought his arms up to push it away, but his hands closed on something oblong, plastic. A small, wizened woman placed one hand gently on his chest while using her other hand to grasp the object. Carefully, she removed the bag from atop his blankets, hanging it from a hook located somewhere below his line of sight.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “You needed a catheter.”

  He closed his eyes, succumbing to the woman’s gentle ministrations. “Where am I?” he asked. His own voice, thin and feeble, seemed to be coming from somewhere across the room.

  “You are safe,” said the woman.

  “Who . . . ?”

  “My son William found you.”

  “But how . . . ?” Rick was coming around now, every bone in his body aching. He tried to sit up, but his head was spinning, throbbing with pain. On his side, he wretched helplessly as the woman laid her hand on the small of his back, guiding him to relax.

  “You were dehydrated. You’ve sprained your back, and you’ve no doubt suffered a concussion. You must give yourself time to recover,” the woman said. “My other son, Edison, is a doctor. He will care for you.”

  * * *

  WHEN HE AWOKE again, he was wrapped in a soft white blanket. He moved his neck against the pain. He was in a different place now. On the walls of this dark, rectangular room, crude patterns danced in the flickering light of a small fire—drawings of four-legged animals, women cradling babies, farmers tending to crops; a life in tableau. Farther up, he traced rectangular designs in yellow, then blue, then red, then white. He stared out through what looked like a hole in the ceiling, into the starry night.

  In his ear was the sound of a woman chanting, crooning, a soothing sound dulling his senses, heightening his awareness. It was the same song, the one from the white room.

  “Ah, you are back with us now?” said the woman, pausing in her song to speak to him. Her white hair pulled tight in a braid, her skin creased with the deep lines of age, the woman watched him with probing eyes.

  “Who are you?” Rick asked.

  “My name is Talasi,” she said. “This is my son William.”

  “It seems you are a messenger?” It was a deeper voice, emanating from somewhere off to his right. With effort, Rick focused on a ruggedly tanned man in a white cotton shirt and blue jeans.

  The old woman drew close. Between her thin fingers, she held a small metallic object—a woman made of silver—her arms spread wide and festooned with delicate silver feathers. �
��William found this in your pocket,” she said. “Can you tell me—why are you carrying my daughter’s necklace?”

  21

  JAMES DIRECTED THE car past his abandoned home, his sights set on Sara’s apartment complex. He’d monitored the car’s mobile video feed for hours: reports of a deadly flu epidemic spreading like wildfire from both coasts; the air attack on Washington. America was under siege. All were ordered to shelter in place. He’d held out hope that somehow the heart of his country was still intact, that healthy people still hid inside the buildings he passed. But as he’d picked his way past clots of abandoned vehicles, he’d encountered only an eerie emptiness. Pulling into Sara’s drive, he allowed himself to scan the road. He remembered neighbors tending their gardens, kids playing in the twilight. Now there was no one.

  He’d spoken to Sara hours before, instructing her how to take the antidote. He’d told her to stay in her apartment with the windows sealed until he got there. But as he’d made the final climb to Los Alamos, she hadn’t answered his calls. His pulse hammering in his ears, he bolted up the outer staircase of her apartment block and keyed in the four-digit code at her door.

  Inside, he was met only with silence. Wending his way through the darkening apartment, he pressed his fingers to the bedroom door. His heart stopped. The bedclothes were in disarray, but Sara was nowhere in sight.

  Then he caught sight of a lock of chestnut hair, draped across the pillow. He turned on the bedside light, reached out to touch her arm.