The Mother Code

by Carole Stivers

  “Take off? Where to?”

  There was another pause before the voice answered. “To Los Alamos. I’ll send you a different copy of the virus. One with a homing code. And of course, we’ll want Kai to come too.”

  There was a scratching sound. Then another voice, a man’s, came over the line. “Misha, we promised we’d get you out of there. And once he’s here . . . maybe Kai can help us convince the others.”

  Like the tiny bait fish in Sela’s bucket, Kai’s thoughts swam in his head, too slippery to grasp. Who on earth was Misha talking to? He tried again: “Misha, who’re you—” But she waved him off, the screen on the desk coming alive as she brushed it with the tips of her fingers. Through a window to his left, Kai caught sight of Rosie down on the ground. And beside her another bot—Alpha-C.

  Suddenly a small icon appeared near the bottom of the screen. The voice sounded over the little device. “Do you see it?”

  “Yes,” Misha said.

  “Copy it to a fresh card.”

  “Okay.”

  From a box on the shelf along one wall, Misha withdrew a small rectangular card. She inserted it into a port on the side of a box below the screen, and a yellow light lit up next to it. In just a few seconds, the light turned green. “Done,” Misha said.

  “Kendra’s sending you a list of instructions. You’ll be able to see them on your screen. Follow them to the letter. Do not skip any steps.”

  “Okay . . .” Misha scanned the lines of type on the screen, her lips moving silently. “I need to explain to Kai now.” At last, she turned to him. “I’m sorry, Kai. But if you really want to do this, we’ll have to move fast.”

  Kai stared at her. “Do what? Who the heck are you talking to?”

  Misha inserted a second card into the box, and Kai watched the little light once more cycle from yellow to green. “I’ll explain once we’re on our way. But for now, you’ll have to trust me.”

  The little room, its musty shelves and antiquated furniture like a set from some old video, seemed to close in on him. His brain wasn’t working right. He simply couldn’t give Misha the answer she wanted. “No. I can’t. Not until you answer me.”

  Misha got to her feet. Pacing now, she blurted out a story—about a father named James who lived in a place called Los Alamos. About how James, together with another man named Rudy, had genetically engineered the children to survive after the Epidemic. There were others, Mac and Kendra, who had built and programmed the biobots—the Mothers. And still others, the Hopi, who lived in the desert, farming and herding their sheep. These were all her family. They could be his family too.

  But all the while, Kai felt himself backing away from her, his hands behind his back, groping for the door.

  “Please,” Misha said. “We need . . .” She stopped in midsentence, staring out the window. “Rho-Z is right there, ready to go,” she said. “But Alpha . . . she could be a problem.”

  Kai had his right hand firmly wrapped around the doorknob now. People outside the fence . . . an attempt to control their Mothers. “Misha . . .” He gathered himself up, fully ready to make a run for it. “Was Zak right? Are you the enemy?”

  Peering into his eyes, Misha reached out to take hold of his arms. “No, Kai. I’m a friend. I’m just like you. I did have a bot Mother. She crashed in the desert, but she managed to give birth. Then some people found me. They saved me. Now they’re trying to help you too. They’ve been trying your whole life—”

  “So how come I never saw them?”

  “Your Mother wouldn’t let them near. She was programmed only to protect you. But there are others out there. You were never alone.” Misha let go her grip, but her eyes were still on his.

  Kai stared out the window. He remembered Sela’s story of a mysterious laser shot in the night. The cases of water left by the roadside. The supplies left for them here at the Presidio. Was it true? Had someone been watching over him, trying to help him, all these years?

  Following his gaze, Misha scanned the sky. “It’s bad enough that Alpha-C’s here. But there might be more on the way. They may not be talking to you anymore, but I think they’re talking to each other.”

  Kai watched his Mother, stationed now near the front entrance to the building. And Alpha, angled toward Rosie as though sharing some intimate secret. He remembered the trio of bots, clustered on the shore as he and Sela had drifted out across the bay . . .

  Beside him, Misha pulled his tablet from her pack. “Kai, if we’re going to do this—”

  Kai clamped his eyes shut. What would Sela do? Of course she’d trust Misha. But where had Sela’s daring gotten her? It was Rosie who had always protected him. No matter what, Rosie had always been right . . .

  Opening his eyes, he looked into Misha’s. No, he thought, Sela had been right too. He’d never get anywhere if he let his fears get the best of him. Besides, wherever he was going, he wouldn’t be alone. Misha would be there. And though she wasn’t the same as she had been before—though she might never again be the Mother he’d once grown to love—Rosie would be there too.

  39

  KAI CLUTCHED HIS tablet between the palms of both hands. Inserted into a slot on its side was the memory card containing the deadly virus. The sight of Rosie, so close in front of him, brought a rush of conflicting emotions—anticipation, mixed with sheer trepidation. Alpha, her fuselage cocked forward in her typical birdlike stance, now stood just a few yards away.

  Misha grasped Kai’s shoulders, staring directly into his eyes. “This virus is designed to morph over and over again,” she said. “After the initial hit it will continue to reinstall, each time with a slightly different code. Get as close to her as you can to avoid any interference. Rho-Z will be fighting it every step of the way, so once we start, we need to keep the virus constantly installing.”

  “But once we get the virus in, how do we keep Rosie from flying off to this Los Alamos place before we have a chance to get inside?” Kai asked.

  “She won’t take off until the homing program is activated,” Misha said. “You’ll have to dock the tablet into her console, to set up a hardwired connection with her flight computer. Then, you’ll need to type ‘GO’ on her console keyboard.” He felt her fingers digging into his arms now. “Got it?”

  “Yes . . .”

  “When you want to start the virus transmission,” Misha said, “just press this key.”

  Holding the tablet in front of him like a shield, Kai crept down the front steps and waded tortuously through the tall grass, his eyes fixed on Rosie. She remained motionless, her ominous form seeming to grow ever larger as he approached. Behind him he could hear Misha, her steps barely stirring the brush. Maybe this would be easier than he’d thought . . .

  Then, Rosie moved.

  At first, it seemed like a trick of his imagination. But then she reared up, her massive legs steadily straightening until she was standing at full height, pivoting, searching. His heart pounding, Kai ducked down, once more under cover of the foliage. Step by tentative step, he drew nearer to her. Twenty feet, fifteen feet . . . She leaned down toward him, and he stared, mesmerized, through the familiar transparence of her hatch and into her vacant cocoon. Her powerful arms reached out, raking through the grass around him, and he just barely stepped aside in time to avoid her touch. Steadying his feet on the uneven ground, he pushed the tablet toward her, pressing the key to start transmission.

  Rosie sat down hard, her carriage coming to rest awkwardly on her treads, her arms dropping to her flanks like broken tree limbs. Misha close on his heels, Kai climbed up Rosie’s treads and pulled on the cocoon latch. His heart leapt as the door swung wide and they snaked inside.

  Just days before, this had been his home; now it was cold, dank, every surface slippery with condensed dew. He closed and secured the hatch door as Misha crouched into the hold behind him. Balancing the tablet on his lap, he
found his safety restraints, then tugged hard to tighten the straps as he snugged himself down into the seat. He was rewarded with a satisfying click as the harness engaged.

  “What about you?” he hissed. “You don’t have a harness . . .”

  “I’ll hold on,” she panted. “Just get the tablet docked!”

  He lifted his tablet, grasping it by the edges. His breath caught. The memory card wasn’t there. Misha’s warning rang in his ears: We need to keep the virus constantly installing. But where was the card? He reached down, frantically searching the floor of the cocoon with his fingers. How long did he have?

  “What’s wrong?” He could hear Misha’s frightened voice close in his ear.

  “The card’s gone . . .”

  But it was already too late. The cocoon rose as Rosie once more gained her legs. And a wave of nausea overtook him as she flooded into his mind, his thoughts scattering like dry leaves before a wind. “Kai . . . you are frightened. I will keep you safe . . .” It was faint, almost a whisper. Was it only a memory? Or was it his Mother, speaking . . . pleading with him?

  Struggling to remember his purpose, Kai felt along the side of the seat, under the console, searching for the card. But it was nowhere to be found. The walls of the cocoon were spinning. His head was spinning. Helpless, he watched the tablet clatter to the floor as Rosie yawed precariously.

  Then he saw someone . . . Misha . . . clawing her way around the seat. “. . . an extra . . . backup.” In her hand she held something small and flat. But Kai was paralyzed, his mind a jumble. Where was he? Why was he here? He felt Misha clambering up next to him, pushing him to one side. She whisked the tablet up from the floor and shoved the thing in her hand into the slot along its side.

  Rosie dropped down again with a bone-jarring thud. Her voice vanished from his mind, leaving behind only an aching emptiness. But still he felt a vibration, the earth beneath them trembling. “Wh—?” Through the hatch window, he could see Alpha-C looming just feet away, her flanks glimmering, her arms rising.

  Sliding her finger along the right edge of the tablet to make sure that the card was secured, Misha jammed the tablet down onto the console. “‘GO,’” Misha said. “Type ‘GO’!”

  Kai leaned forward. Orienting his fingers over the console keyboard, he typed.

  Immediately, Rosie’s reactor ignited. Her cocoon rocked back, her arms retracted, her wings unfolded. And then . . .

  The hatch flew open and two powerful hands reached in, grasping Misha firmly by the waist. “Kai!” Her arms flailing, Misha disappeared over the bottom lip of the hatchway.

  “Misha!”

  Rosie’s engines roared, her fans engaging to kick up swirling clumps of grass and earth. And in moments they were airborne, the hatch door almost blown from its hinges.

  Misha was gone. Forced by a sudden gust of wind, the door slammed shut. And Kai, huddled in his seat, could hear only the muffled rumble of Rosie’s ducted fans, the low hum and click of her processors churning through millions of virally induced computations as she carried him high over a city he had never seen.

  40

  JAMES AWOKE AT his desk, his mind in a fog. With a start, he registered the clock readout on his computer screen: 16:12:01. Getting unsteadily to his feet, he stumbled out into the biology lab, where the angry, purplish glow of a stormy sky sifted through the windows. He hurried across the hall to Mac’s office, his chest heaving with the effort. There was Mac, his unevenly cropped beard silhouetted against the glow of the screen. “Any sightings?”

  “Sorry, James,” Mac said. “I didn’t want to wake you. But no. No sign.”

  “But the last time we had contact with Misha was close to seven a.m. PDT . . . Surely that’s long enough . . .”

  Behind him, Rudy hobbled in from the robotics lab. He’d abandoned the wheelchair they’d sent back with him from Polacca after his last treatment—it was still parked in the lobby, a sign of his refusal to admit defeat. His face a pasty white, he hid a cough in a cloth handkerchief and plopped down heavily beside Kendra, who sat in the corner drinking a cup of stale coffee.

  Suddenly Mac punched a control on the radar, focusing in on a small red blip. “Guys,” he said. “I’ve picked up something. It’s heading our way.”

  James rushed out the door and down the hall to the floor-to-ceiling windows in the lobby. By the time Kendra had ushered Rudy from the hallway, James was already donning his Tyvek suit and filter mask. “Are you sure it is safe?” Rudy gasped, stopping to lean against the reception desk. “Perhaps we should stay inside until the bot lands. We do not know if she will be subdued.”

  “Rudy’s right,” Kendra said. “We’re safer inside.”

  James could see it now—something like a black sphere, indistinct, hovering high over the pines across the lot. It steadily took shape: its widespread wings, its belly, its treads and arms pulled tight to its fuselage. Swirls of dust began to rise from the lot, and even through the thick windows he could hear the roar of air through its fans.

  In an instant, the ground shook as the bot touched down. And it dawned on James: Outside of the drone footage, he’d never seen one out in the world. Its hatch window, pocked and streaked with dust, reflected the sky and its foreboding clouds. To either side of the hatch, he could see the powerful robotic hands, the ones that Sara had designed, their protective sheaths pulled over the soft inner fingers in the form of fists. For a moment, he found it hard to breathe.

  “The hatch is opening.” Beside him Kendra was staring too, her mouth half-open.

  James saw a thin leg, clothed in black. Then another. Then a slender torso. Misha? Charging toward the airlock, he barely let the inner door close before tripping the outer one. But once outside, he stood rooted to the spot.

  It wasn’t Misha. A skinny boy with a tattered jacket and a tangle of reddish-brown curls that spilled almost to his shoulders climbed gingerly down the bot’s treads. It must be Kai. The boy stared at him, a look of pure amazement mixed with fear.

  “Hello,” James said. Could the boy even hear him through his mask? “Where . . . where is Misha?”

  The boy just stood there, and he realized that to this boy he must look like some sort of monster. But he had to know—where was his daughter? Her call that morning had been a gift, a godsend. He didn’t care that her mission hadn’t been a success. He was only glad that she was coming home. He stepped forward, peering at the bot, hoping for someone else to emerge. “I’m James,” he said, as loud as his mask would allow. “Misha’s father. Is she with you?”

  The boy crumpled to the ground, tears spilling down his cheeks. “She . . . she was pulled out!” he cried.

  James felt a punch, his tortured lungs releasing what little air had filled them. The acrid odor of his mask insulted his nostrils. “Is she . . . alive?”

  The boy looked up at him, wiping the back of his ragged sleeve across his face. “Alive? Yes. I think so. I don’t think Alpha would hurt her.”

  “Alpha?”

  “It was like . . . like Alpha didn’t want her to leave . . .”

  James looked toward the west, at the curtain of rain that now obscured the horizon. “Come on, son,” he called out. “Storm’s coming. Let’s get inside.” He could barely move his legs as he turned back toward the building. Behind him Kai followed, but at a distance.

  Once inside the airlock, the boy pasted himself to the opposite wall, dust flying in sheets from his hair. “Move around,” James told him. “We need to get all the dirt off.” But as the boy shook his head left to right, James thought only of Misha, her loose mane flying upward. When the inner door opened at last, James struggled to unclip his mask, still watching the boy’s wide eyes as he took in the immensity of the lobby.

  Kendra kept her distance, but the boy started as Rudy approached in his wheelchair. Then Mac came hurrying from the hallway, and again Kai flinched as his ey
es took in the lanky height of the bearded engineer. “Misha’s hailing us,” Mac said, handing James the satellite phone.

  Blinking back tears of relief and frustration, James clicked on the “call” button. “Misha?”

  “Daddy, I’m so sorry. Things didn’t go like we planned. But we infected Rho-Z with the virus. Is Kai there yet?”

  “He just got here. Are you okay? What happened?”

  “Didn’t Kai tell you? Alpha-C grabbed me right out of the cocoon as we were taking off.”

  “But you’re okay.”

  “I’m fine. I think she thought she was protecting me.”

  James rubbed his jaw, sore from clenching. “Misha, why didn’t you call us sooner?”

  “When Alpha picked me up, my phone fell to the ground. Then she took me back to the building where everyone lives. I . . . had a hard time getting away. Daddy, they all know that Rho-Z and Kai are gone. And I know—they think I had something to do with it.”

  James sighed. “Where are you now?”

  “In my room at Building 100.”

  “Do you think . . .” James frowned, watching Kendra’s face. “Do you think you could get Alpha to bring you here? Just like Kai came in Rho-Z?”

  “I looked everywhere for Sela’s tablet. But it’s gone. It was probably in the boat.”

  Silently, Kai nodded.

  James heaved a sigh. “We’ll work as fast as we can to come up with another plan,” he said. He turned to Kai. “We’ll be counting on Kai to help us.”

  41

  EVEN THROUGH THE thick window of what James called the “cafeteria,” Kai could hear the ominous grumble of thunder. He could barely make out Rosie’s gray outline as she weathered the downpour alone. He felt for her in his mind, but he could find no trace. At the Presidio, he’d thought that she’d left him, that she was no longer a part of him. But now he knew that she’d still been there. It had taken the virus to truly remove her from his reach.