by Scott Baron
It was cold.
Cold was better than nothing, though, and Daisy was glad to scrub the grime and sweat of several days from her skin. She followed up with a quick hand washing of her flight suit and undergarments, which left them clean, if not perfectly laundry-fresh.
The material was designed for minimal care, so it would be dry within the hour, but in the meantime, she had found a fluffy bathrobe on the floor of one of the adjacent apartments, and after shaking the layer of fine dust from it, had wrapped herself in its cozy, terrycloth embrace. After her first real meal in days, and free of the confines of the cramped shuttle, Daisy fell sound asleep the instant she allowed herself to lie down on the inviting bed.
“Just a quick power nap,” she told herself before sleep pulled her under.
Fat chance.
Despite the occasional bad dream filtering in, she nevertheless slept straight through ’till morning.
Daisy woke early, well-fed and well-rested. Surprisingly, she felt fantastic as she rose from the enormous bed she’d commandeered and bent in a series of cat-like stretches.
Wow, I feel a million percent better. All I need for things to be perfect would be a fresh cup of coffee.
She dressed, then padded into the kitchen, rummaging through the pantry in the morning light.
Bingo!
Coffee, and from the looks of it, a vacuum sealed container, still intact. Trepidatiously, Daisy cracked the metal band encircling the lid and pried it open. A soft hiss filled the air as the coffee grounds mixed with the elements for the first time since their packaging. The aroma was pure bliss.
Oh, I have got to have some of this. Daisy smiled as she grabbed the coffee maker on the counter. It remained inert as she flipped it to the ON position.
No power. Of course. Totally forgot. Well, I’ll take it with me, and the first building I find that has juice, I’m gonna brew me up a pot. Surveying be damned, a cup of coffee right about now is the real survival priority.
She tucked the canister in her bag, ate her final protein bar, and headed out the door to continue exploring the silent metropolis.
A small pile of fresh animal droppings lay outside the building’s entrance.
Judging by the size and quantity, coyotes, or perhaps dogs. Maybe a dozen or so. Daisy slid the makeshift machete from its straps on her bag. Better prepared than not, she reasoned, scanning her surroundings as she moved off down the quiet streets.
Several blocks later, she happened upon a large, modern sculpture in front of an office building. It was a stylized portrayal of a woman emerging from a volcano, holding a spear aloft. It seemed strangely out of place in the desolate city. For some reason, Daisy couldn’t help but be reminded of that old movie Vince loved. The one with the man on the beach, fighting the talking monkeys. She smiled at the memory in spite of herself.
“Admit it. You still love the guy.”
“You can’t love a machine. Besides, he’s light years away somewhere up there, and there’s no way he’ll ever find me.”
“You don’t sound one hundred percent happy about that.”
“I am. Believe me. If I saw him again, I’d shut the door on more than just his arm,” she replied, but somewhere in the recesses of her heart, a tickle of doubt lingered.
Movement caught her eye.
Daisy spun on her heel, machete raised, ready to fight, but the large stag, with its massive rack of antlers, was just as startled as she was. It held eye contact for moment, then bounded off down the street.
Holy crap, Daisy thought, forcing her heart back to a normal cadence. The surge of adrenaline served her well, and the following hour saw her cover a lot of ground, each time fanning farther out from the shuttle, which served as the hub on her wagon wheel search.
Fortune smiled upon her at long last when she came across an office building with power on and a fully functional break room. Daisy reverently slid the canister of coffee from her bag, and after rinsing off the thick dust that covered the machine, she set to making a pot of fresh coffee.
She sat, considering her situation as the soul-lifting aroma filled the room. Things would be okay, she reckoned. She’d just need to be more creative in her search.
Daisy poured herself a cup of liquid happiness and sat back down to think.
Yeah. Whatever happened to the city seems to have pretty obviously affected everything within miles of here. The place is long-abandoned. At least so it seems, but I know I saw someone on my flyover on the way in. As I figure it, if there’s no one up here, that leaves just one place where they could be holed up.
“You seriously considering it?”
“You have a better idea?” she silently replied to her dead friend.
She blew on the steaming mug and took a long sip.
Looks like I’m going underground.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Underground.
In ancient times it was a region consigned to the dead as they entered the afterlife. Millennia later, a sky-based heaven took its place in modern mythologies. Given the look of things as Daisy descended into the subterranean maze beneath the city, a brighter, outdoors variety, she’d have greatly preferred.
While the surface was devoid of signs of life, death, and pretty much anything in between, the tunnels stretching endlessly beneath the city were not so fortunate. There were still no bodies to be found, though clothing littered the walkways in piles as far as the eye could see. Worse than human corpses, in Daisy’s mind at least, were the occasional remnants of cyborgs and modified humans.
Artificial limbs and partial body parts, their fine metal connective tendrils and nerve-activation sensor relays splayed out on the ground, were relatively few in numbers, though often poking out from beneath an empty shirt or shoe. More than bits and pieces of formerly enhanced humans, however, there were also full cyborg frames strewn about, limbs torn from their chassis, vital mechanisms wrenched from their torsos. Long-faded blast marks scarring the metal where some form of weapon had sent them to permanently dream of electronic sheep.
Could it be the machines already started their rebellion on Earth? Daisy wondered.
“I don’t know. What could explain all of this?” Sarah replied.
Maybe it was all a lie and they started years ago, even before we set out on our journey back.
The carnage would have been far more shocking if the human-looking machines still had their flesh coverings on them, but not a single trace of organic material remained. Just cold, dead, metal, oftentimes shattered and torn into several pieces. Daisy squatted down next to one of the less-damaged units and brushed the thick layer of dust from its chassis identifier.
“It’s a WCM-Mark IV. Old tech. Really old. But what was it doing down here?”
“I don’t like this, Daze. Whatever did this took out hardened-metal machines, even if they were older models. Watch yourself.”
“You don’t have to tell me. I’m already at pucker-factor ten. Though maybe you could keep your incorporeal eyes peeled? Let me know if you see anything?”
“Technically, they’re your eyes, seeing as I’m in your mind,” Sarah replied. “But yeah, I’ll keep a look out and let you know if I see anything.”
“Good. Even if you aren’t real, it’s still nice having you watching my back. Have I told you how much I miss you?”
“Yeah, I know,” Sarah quietly replied. “Enough sentimental stuff. Get moving. This place gives me the creeps.”
Daisy brushed the dust from her hands and continued on, the flickering lights in the otherwise pristine walkway keeping the hair on the back of her neck on end. It was a vast underground network in this section of the tube system, full of shops, restaurants, and smaller hubs connecting local transit tubes to the far larger interstate and international ones. It was massive, and yet it was dead silent.
Or was it?
Daisy strained her ears, a faint noise barely audible far down the passageway to her left. She paused to look at the complex multi-l
ayer map of the local expanse of the tunnel network before cautiously heading off in the direction of the sound.
“How’d you do that?” Sarah asked, amazed.
“Do what?” Daisy replied, a little confused.
“Memorize the entire map with a glance. Since when did you have a photographic memory?”
“But I didn’t…” Her voice trailed off as she realized Sarah was right. Without even trying, she had somehow captured the entire map, down to its finest details. “I have no idea how I did that,” she said, shocked. “I knew the neuro-stim added all sorts of data I didn’t know about—we figured that much out already—but this, this is something new.”
She focused on the sound once more, determining the most likely location of its source based on the acoustics of the tunnel network she now held in her head. Daisy adjusted her grip on her machete and moved forward toward the mysterious noise. At the very least, it was something new, and after a full morning of complete silence, she only hoped it was something good.
There were no bloodstains anywhere near the shattered concrete wall.
Of course not. Whatever flesh had covered it is long dead and gone, she noted.
The metal man slowly moved, its feet crunching on the powdered debris as it took three slow steps back, hesitated, then took three steps forward, face-first into the wall.
Crunch.
After a thirty-second pause, it repeated the process.
Drawing closer, Daisy saw the machine had nearly completely worn through its facial endoskeleton, along with its chest and shoulders. One arm dangled loosely where it had been slowly worn free from its joint by the minor, but repeated, impacts. A small piece of metal reinforcement in the concrete right at shoulder level had done a fine job of wearing right through the joint.
The wall itself was now something of an indentation, at least two feet deep, the impacts slowly wearing away at the concrete as the malfunctioning machine pushed forward, oblivious to its obstacle.
“That’s industrial-grade reinforced concrete, Daisy. It’s designed to withstand earthquakes, sonic blasts, even small arms fire. So how the hell did a single malfunctioning cyborg do that?”
Daisy drew closer, peering at the terminally damaged machine.
“Careful, you don’t know what it might do.”
“I don’t think it could do much, see? The remaining arm is barely hanging on, and look, its power cell is critically low.”
“But those are supposed to last for—”
“Something is seriously not right.” Daisy poked the machine with the tip of her machete. It wobbled on its feet, nearly falling over before its failing servos stabilized it, then slowly adjusted itself and continued its futile journey forward.
“Talk about beating your head against a wall.”
“Look at its processor, though. It’s totally undamaged. Whatever happened to it, it did this at a core AI level.”
“Some kind of malfunction?”
“Maybe. Whatever it is, it turned this complex service cyborg into an expensive perpetual motion machine.”
“It’s going to be an expensive paper weight pretty soon, by the looks of it.”
“All right, I’ve seen enough down here for now. The smaller local loop tubes seem to be out of service, and the larger ones seem to be suffering from the same power surge problems we saw up top, and frankly, this place is giving me the creeps.”
She followed the map in her head to the nearest surface access point. The elevator would have been nice, but given the extremely spotty power stability, she thought it best to take the stairs. With a sigh, Daisy started the long climb back to the welcoming sunlight of the world above.
Up top, the fresh air and warmth from that burning ball of plasma in the sky quickly restored Daisy’s spirits. Standing a little taller and feeling far less ill at ease, she continued her search, delving into a residential sector comprised of taller units interspersed with lower buildings with verdant garden areas surrounding them. While the plants had long grown beyond their once-neat boundaries, the find was a boon for the hungry traveler.
Just like the botany pods, only these are real, sun-grown veggies everywhere!
She bent and pulled a carrot from the soil.
Huh. Kinda small. Then again, from what Tamara had said, crops needed to be rotated and the soil tilled for optimal production. A brief flash of guilt hit at the thought of the woman she’d blasted into space. Then she thought of her dead friend and any such foolish remorse passed.
Daisy dug up a few more carrots and stuck them in her bag. Harder soil means it’s tougher for some veggies to grow bigger, like carrots or potatoes.
“Technically, potatoes are tubers, not vegetables.”
“Yes, thank you, I know. I was making a generalization. In any case, at least I don’t have to worry about going hungry.”
Daisy dug through the other edibles growing in her immediate vicinity and made quick work of filling a large section of her backpack. When she stood to rise, something caught her eye.
Oh yeah. That might just work.
She hung her bag from a low branch and climbed onto the roof of the nearby storage shed. The old solar panel loosely mounted there was filthy, but it seemed perfectly intact. It only took a few minutes with her multi-tool before Daisy had removed the panel and lowered it to the ground below. At that point, she altered her search routine, heading back to the center of her route rather than continuing outward.
By the time she reached the shuttle, dragging the heavy panel behind her, she’d worked up a good sweat in the morning sun. She didn’t mind. The exercise felt good to her rapidly reviving muscles. Real exercise, not a treadmill in a small pod on a ship far out in space. Sweat and sun and air—it felt fantastic. And when she set to work climbing atop the shuttle with her salvaged booty, she did so with a smile on her face.
The idea was simple. The ship was dead, of that she was certain. It wouldn’t fly again, at least not without massive repairs, but if she could rig a trickle charge to one of the few intact battery packs, she might just be able to feed it enough power over a few days to allow for a transmission.
And if I can get that little plasma cascade device working and link its power modulator to the charging grid, once the minimum charge threshold is reached, I bet I can force a lot more power from this old thing than normal.
“In theory,” Sarah added.
“Obviously. Captain would never have let me hook this little gizmo up to the Váli for a trial run, so let’s just call this a silver lining.”
She dug the device from the depths of her bag and gave it a once-over.
Not one hundred percent functional, but it just might work enough for my needs. It was extra weight in the Narrows, but I’m glad I had this on me when I ran.
Carefully, Daisy fashioned a connection harness of fine wires, all tying in to her theoretical, yet possibly functional, device.
No time like the present to test it out.
If she could get the cells to hold a charge, the comms should function, at least on a lower power setting. Other cities had to be listening, and though they had apparently abandoned Los Angeles, for whatever reason, it would be simple for them to send a retrieval craft to pick her up and transport her back to civilization.
Once the rig was wired in place, she set to dragging a pair of the massive reserve batteries to within reach of her makeshift charging station. Up above, the sun was blazing down as high noon passed.
These seem to be the least damaged of the bunch, so I guess that should do it, she hoped, clicking the final connections into place. Nothing more to do here but wait, and that won’t make these power up any faster. All right, back to work!
Her self-pep talk finished, she took a deep swig of water from her pack, then shouldered the produce-laden bag and set off to continue her search.
“That tower looks promising, don’t you think?”
“You had to pick the tall one.”
“All the better t
o really see what’s out there, my pretty.”
“What are you, the Big Bad Wolf now?” Daisy laughed.
“Besides, look close—the buildings around it are dark, but that one is still powered up. It must have its own backup system keeping it up and running when the power fluctuates. Maybe geothermal on top of the solar.”
“So the elevators will work.”
“Precisely.”
It was a big one. A tower of at least one hundred eighty floors, and high-end, from what she could see. Expensive stores showed off their wares on the vast ground floor, while offices and residences occupied the levels above. A work-live space for the wealthy, and likely a perfect spot from which to survey the city. Also, one with a high probability of having continuous, uninterrupted refrigeration in its units. That meant freezers. Freezers stocked with food.
The day was looking up, but despite her high spirits, Daisy couldn’t shake the uneasy sense that she was being watched. A feeling that only grew stronger as the massive tower grew closer.
Across the cityscape, lights and flashing signage could be seen flickering on and off in the afternoon sky as the power went wonky, surging for no apparent reason. From her vantage point nearly two hundred floors above the streets below, Daisy still saw nothing. The city was utterly silent.
She took her binoculars from her bag and scanned the damaged buildings in the distance. She lowered them, just as confused as before.
They look systematically dismantled, she noted. But why abandon a city and take it apart? None of this makes sense.
A flashing glimmer and hint of movement in the plaza far below caught her eye. Daisy turned quickly and raised the binoculars to her face, but only caught the briefest glimpse of a bespoke-suited person in a fancy hat stepping into the lift leading to the subterranean levels.
“There’s a person!”
She bolted for the door, grabbing her pack and stowing her binoculars as she ran. Someone moving far below at street level meant one very important thing: Daisy was not alone.
