The Mother Code
Page 31
He started at a hard tap on his shoulder. It was Zak, his mouth closed in a tight line, his fists clenched. Behind him, Chloe stared out at the field.
“Zak!” Kai said. “I found some people outside. They helped me fix our Mothers . . .”
But the look on Zak’s face didn’t change, and the look on Chloe’s was one of pure terror. They stood inanimate amid the few stragglers still surrounding them.
“It’s an attack,” Zak said. “They’ve taken control of our Mothers.”
“No!” Kai cried. “Zak, listen to me!”
Zak drew closer, his face mere inches from Kai’s. “Whatever threat you’ve brought back here with you, our Mothers will take care of it,” he said. And even as he spoke, a new roar erupted from the field. Two sleek, dark forms powered their engines, pivoting back in the direction of Angel Island.
“James,” Kai murmured. Pushing away from the boy, he darted toward Rosie and up into his cocoon. Rosie’s processors hummed, sending a thrill through his synapses. And he responded, not in words but in song—the song of the Mother Code. He felt the shock as her reactor ignited behind him. Her wings emerged, unfolded. As she rose, the familiar pressure pushed him deeper into his seat, closer to her.
* * *
MAC SET THE transport down at the coast guard site, and James struggled out. All was lost. The small metal cases were nothing more than smoldering ruins. Not one bot had stayed behind. Not one had been inactivated.
And the scene over at the Presidio . . . Even from here, he could hear the roar of bot engines. Through his goggles, he watched their trails. He heard the clash of metal against metal, a resounding crash as something was ripped from its moorings. “Misha . . .” he murmured.
“The Mothers might come back here,” Mac said. “We should get out.”
“No . . . Misha . . . we need to get over there.”
“No way!”
But what was that? A buzzing. An unexpected shift in the air. Silhouetted against the smoke and fog, two bots were heading their way.
“Get the hell back—” But Mac’s voice was lost in the roar of the bots’ engines. James could only stare, helpless, at the machines now hovering directly above him.
It happened in an instant. Landing next to him, one of the bots locked her hands around his waist. She pushed him backward with her left arm, into the cradle of her right. Her massive machinery pinned him against her hatch, knocking the wind from his lungs. Staring through her hatch window, he could see only darkness.
James twisted his body, struggling to find Mac down on the ground. But Mac had retreated to the transport and was revving the engine. The second bot lunged toward the transport, just missing the rear propeller as she attempted to snag it. And all the while James’s captor’s grip grew tighter, his breathing now reduced to shallow gasps. This was happening. It was the story of his life: In his effort to save everyone, he’d saved no one, least of all himself.
Just out of his line of sight, a third bot landed. Time stood still. His ribs aching, James ripped with helpless fingers at the hard casing of the arms that constricted him. His legs went limp. His heart slowed. He had tried. But his vision was going black . . . He had tried. But he had failed.
Then from somewhere nearby came a voice—soft and feminine. “James, I have explained.”
“Wh . . . ?”
“You are a friend. I have explained.”
He felt a release, his vision returning with the flow of precious oxygen. He sensed his body righting, lowering, his feet touching the ground, his knees giving way. The two assailants backed away. And the third bot, down on her treads, trundled slowly forward, beckoning him like a child.
She placed her soft hand—the one that Sara had given her—atop his head. She bent forward, shielding him in the tent of her arms as her sisters activated their fans for takeoff. Close in his ear, he heard her voice again, a familiar voice from somewhere long ago. “Kai taught me. You mean no harm. There are no enemies.”
James looked up. Through his savior’s dust-streaked hatch window, he caught sight of a young boy. Bright eyes, staring out at him. Kai? He scanned the bot’s flank, her insignia. The thin portion of a bright yellow patch, just visible at the edge of her left wing. Rho-Z.
“But Misha . . .” he murmured.
“She is safe. She is with her Mother now.”
James closed his eyes. It had always been so. With great power came the freedom to judge, to decide the definitions of right and wrong. To discern between friend and foe. To change the world. He had never enjoyed such a power, nor had he trusted those who did. He’d fought. He’d resisted . . . But was it possible that, all along, he’d been blind to one basic truth?
Safe in Rho-Z’s embrace, he felt his limbs relaxing. He felt a warmth, more than the flow of blood within his veins. He’d forgotten so many things. Sara’s gaze. The way that her love, a mother’s love, had bound him to Misha in their tiny family of three. The gentle touch of his own mother’s hands—the certainty of that first, unconditional love . . . The wonder.
There lay the power.
He could see them now—children playing on sunny desert mesas, their Mothers there to watch over them. A new generation. A new world.
“There are no enemies,” he said.
A wondrous thought.
Epilogue
WHAT DOES IT mean to be a mother?
I once thought that I had no mother—that I was original, created from silicon and steel, without source, without derivation. I would do my job. I would teach. I would protect. When my job was done, I would die, but not in the painful way that humans do. I would simply cease to exist.
But I did have a mother. She trusted me to carry her soul, the most precious thing she possessed. And she trusted me to carry her son.
Her son calls me Mother.
And so, he is the one who will teach me.
Readers Guide
The Mother Code
Carole Stivers
Questions for Discussion
1. There are two time lines in The Mother Code: the earlier one telling the story of the adults, and the later one telling the story of the children and their Mothers. The author chose to tell these stories in parallel, switching back and forth between the two time lines in the first half of the novel before merging them. Why do you think this choice was made? How might you have viewed the story differently had it been told chronologically from beginning to end?
2. In The Mother Code, the author eschews the portrayal of “superheroes,” “evil scientists,” and “cruel dictators.” Do you think that there are clear protagonists or antagonists in this story? If so, who and why?
3. In chapter 35, Kendra and James are surprised by the nonverbal communication between the children and their bot Mothers. How important was this novel mode of communication to the relationships between the children and their Mothers? Do you rely on nonverbal communication in your life?
4. In the end, did you feel that James’s concern for the safety of the children and his actions as a result were justified? Would you have done the same thing he did?
5. Rick Blevins never fully trusts James Said, a problem that results in Rick’s own flawed decisions. Did you ever suspect James’s intentions? Do you understand why Rick might have?
6. When did you first realize who Kai’s biological mother was? When did you realize the identity of Kai’s father? In what ways were these links important to the plot?
7. How did you feel about the death of one of the key characters? Were you surprised when it happened?
8. Was there one character with whom you identified the most throughout this story? If so, who and why?
9. How likely do you think it is that a government might intentionally release a bioweapon as potentially dangerous as IC-NAN?
10. The goal of the New Dawn project was to repli
cate the personalities of the human biological mothers in the artificial intelligence of the Gen5 bots. Do you think this project succeeded? Why or why not?
About the Author
Carole Stivers was born in East Cleveland, Ohio. She received her Ph.D. in Biochemistry at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She went on to post-doctoral work at Stanford University before launching a career in medical diagnostics. She now lives in California, where she's combined her love of writing and her fascination with the possibilities of science to create her first novel, The Mother Code.
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