by Eric Warren
“Okay, that’s our first order of business. You stay here, your image has been broadcast everywhere. I’m amazed no one recognized you while you were out on the street.”
“You’re not the only one good at getting in and out of places. I’ve been training my whole life to be inconspicuous. Well, two-thirds of my life.”
Frees retreated to the back bedroom, pulling out a second box of old clothes. He slipped on a dark gray hoodie, this one without holes. He changed his pants too. Stupid human clothes, so easy to ruin. He wished he could just go in his cloak, but that would be too conspicuous for the Peacekeepers if he ran into them. Frees only had the one mask and she had been right, it obscured his vision with all the cracks. He’d have to leave it behind.
When he returned to the living room, Arista was on his console. “Hey!”
“Is this a locator? I need to find my parents. Getting them new bodies will do them no good if I can’t track them down.”
“Yes, but it’s keyed to look for certain words, phrases, or announcements. It would have to be completely—”
“Oh, it’s a Furman Interface. I got it. While you’re gone I’ll program in the new parameters,” she interrupted. “Won’t take me long.”
What the hell? How does she keep doing that? Humans were much smarter and more capable than he’d ever realized.
“Go on,” she said, dismissing him with her hand. “I’ll be fine. And I won’t touch your Energy Sticks.”
“Drives,” he corrected. “And don’t touch anything else either. Other than the console. I won’t be long either way.”
“You got it, boss.”
He regarded her as he pulled the hood above his head and slipped on a pair of sunglasses. It was better than nothing.
What a peculiar creature, he thought as he closed the door behind him.
Nineteen
CLACK. CLACK. CLACK.
Arista hit the keys as fast as she could, but one-handed, everything took so much longer. She hadn’t quite realized how much she’d relied on two hands for typing before. Before she’d managed up to a hundred and forty words per minute, now she was lucky if she was making thirty.
Frees certainly had some sophisticated scanning equipment. Even more impressive was that it all looked like it had been cobbled together from a variety of spare parts. The room was covered in circuit boards, wires, tiny satellite dishes screwed to the walls, the works. This must have been how he’d found her. His system monitored all manner of communication from all departments: fire, police, emergency services, and the low-band Cadre channels. Those must have been the ones the Peacekeepers used to call for backup when they’d escaped.
She glanced over to the “dining” room; a small alcove adjacent to the main living area. Other than the computer equipment strewn all over the place, a solitary shelf had been clumsily nailed to the wall. And perched on the shelf were at least a dozen pair of sunglasses.
She stood, unable to help herself and walked over to inspect them. Each pair was different, from the urbane to the absolutely garish. Arista had never owned sunglasses before, though she’d seen a few of the machines with them from time to time. If they were like everything else, they were prescribed by a certain machine’s programming. So only certain models used them. Had she really needed them, Dad probably could have sourced a pair from a store or outlet, but Mom seemed to think they would make them stand out more than they would to camouflage.
The temptation was too great. Arista snatched a pair from the shelf and tried them on. The Device warned of a twenty-five percent darkening of her visual field but she ignored it.
“So this is style,” Arista said. Everything in the room had a pinkish tint to it now. She moved to the window and pulled the blinds to the side, staring out into the daylight. The pink wasn’t as noticeable out there, but it was still present. She dropped the blinds and removed the glasses. She didn’t need to attract any unwanted attention from anyone who might be looking out their window. They probably wouldn’t report anything, but it was better to be safe. If her face really was everywhere, she was best off not showing it at all. She tucked the glasses into one of her jacket pockets. Frees wouldn’t miss them, he had plenty.
As she made her way back into the living room her foot accidentally connected with a cardboard box on the floor. “Ow,” she said, kicking the box out of the way. It hadn’t really hurt, but her words had been more of a pre-programmed reflex. How odd, that all those machines down there were operating on the same basic formula. Every input had an appropriate and expected output. No variation. There were probably machines all over the world kicking boxes and saying “Ow”.
Arista sat back down in the chair. Was she really so different than them? Her parents had always told her she was. That she was capable of so much more. But she didn’t see it that way. The machines had abilities she never would. They were stronger, could jump higher, survive bullet wounds to the abdomen—albeit not forever. But a human would have bled out in minutes whereas Frees had survived hours. His redundant systems kept him alive while he waited for repairs. The human body wasn’t so resilient. Her eyes involuntarily traveled to her wrist. How much longer would it need to heal? When it was done she would have a nice, round nub, like the end of a baseball bat.
Tears prickled her eyes. She hadn’t had time to process what she’d lost. The thought of living without it scared the hell out of her. And it made her really wish she’d appreciated her hand more when she’d still had it. Machines could replace broken parts, but not humans. They just didn’t work that way. Her best option might be a prosthesis, a hook of some kind. Mom could probably whip one up—if she ever saw her again.
Arista turned back to the computer. She needed to reorganize the inputs, as the Device had laid out for her in her visual field. But something caught her eye. Something sticking out of the cardboard box she’d kicked. It had overturned and one of the items that had fallen out was a picture frame, mostly hidden beneath a pile of clothes. She moved the garments aside and picked up the frame.
“No way,” she said. It was a picture of a tall man, mid-thirties, with his wife and child. The woman had shoulder-length brown hair and overalls and the child was blonde with a big smile at the camera. All machines of course, but they smiled at the camera, just like they were supposed to. “Frees, is this you?” she asked. The height was right. She could almost picture the faces matching. If Frees still had skin, this face resembled the features. The nose, the lips. He was a rugged-looking man. Like someone who spent his days in a factory or working with his hands. And he had a moustache! She peered closer to the photo. His eyes had been hazel. Before he’d been turned they were hazel.
But wait, he said he’d worked here in Chicago, for the Cadre. In their tower. This picture was out in the plains somewhere, a row of mountains rose behind the family in the distant background. Their caps were covered in snow. The Rockies.
Arista nettled her brows and shoved the pictured back in the box, covering it with the clothes and pushing it aside. Why would he lie about where he worked? Unless he hadn’t told her the truth about what he wanted her to do.
Arista sat back in the chair. The urge to bolt and take her chances by herself was strong. But then again, what if Frees found her food supplements at her apartment? She needed those worse than she needed to be running at the moment. It might be better to stay and ride this out for as long as she could, then take off as soon as she felt an air of danger. You must use every opportunity you can, Arista. Every obstacle is an opportunity in disguise. Mom’s words. She was right. The smart move was to stay where she had a safe roof over her head for a little while at least.
She turned back to the screen. This equipment would do a much better job than a simple netsearch through the Device. After modifying the code and search parameters—which took twice as long as it should have—Arista began the search algorithm.
“Now to wait,” she said as the image on the screen turned over and over in an endless cycle. �
�I guess you’ll beep or something when you find them.” Yawning, she hadn’t realized just how tired she was. Skirting the debris strewn on the floor, Arista made her way to the bedroom in the back. Surprisingly there was a bed, covered in consoles and modules and without any covers. Frees probably didn’t like pretending to sleep. He struck her as the type of machine that needed to be doing something all the time.
With some effort, she hefted most of the consoles off the bed and set them on top of other consoles on the floor. She returned to the living room and grabbed a couple of the clothes from the overturned box and brought them with her into the bedroom. A sweater became her pillow and Frees’ hoodie full of holes and smelling of lubricant acted as her blanket. She thought she might have a hard time sleeping in a strange place, but barely had the time to complete the thought before she lost consciousness.
Twenty
THE SUN HAD JUST DISAPPEARED BEHIND THE HORIZON when Frees arrived to the address Arista had provided. It was a nondescript apartment block, sixty stories, with balconies on all sides. She’d certainly set herself up somewhere nice. Had her parents lived up there with her? Or were they somewhere else? He couldn’t imagine they would be far in case something went wrong. But something had gone wrong, and their daughter had been captured by the Cadre. Had they ever planned to break her out? If Frees could do it, they certainly should have been able to.
Keeping his hood down, Frees wound through the throngs to the adjacent building, scanning the area for any Peacekeepers. More than likely they had already raided the apartment, but they might have left someone behind, or posted a new detail in case Arista decided to try and come back. But so far no red-eyes in sight.
He made his way to the alley separating the buildings. An old wire fence blocked the path, but he cleared it easily, making the jump with barely a sound. Adjusting his internal parameters he’d managed to devise a way to land without creating so much noise. A fire exit door stood in the middle of an alcove dug out of the building, an area where deliveries were to be made. He hopped the high curb and once at the door, aimed the felp on the lock and fired. The door swung open and he scanned for any fire alarms that might sound, finding none. Either the building wasn’t wired for them or they’d been disabled.
Once inside Frees took the stairs three at a time, reaching the roof in under ten minutes. It was amazing how much faster he could move when his leg wasn’t injured. Below him, the city gleamed like a jewel on fire. So many lights breaking through the darkness. He’d never taken time to appreciate it before. Up here he was above some of the personal transport lanes and watched as the small aircraft crisscrossed through the buildings, like perfect lines of birds headed from one place to another. His eyes followed one lane of them out in the distance to the gigantic airport. It was easy to make out with its sprawling series of rotundas, each a hundred meters high and stretching out in every direction. They were like giant glass aviaries, opening and closing as the transports performed their vertical take-offs and landings from each terminal. When he’d first arrived to Chicago the glass had caught his eye, there had to be millions of individual pieces. During the day they reflected light in every direction simultaneously. It was more Gothic Revival art piece than airport. He couldn’t help but admire it, one of the last things the humans had built before their extermination. The machines could never create something as beautiful and perfectly meld it with function. That was what he craved so badly. The ingenuity, the growth as a society. It was paradoxical. He both wanted to be like the humans and be as unlike them as possible. They were brash, selfish, dangerous, and yet capable of such amazing things. And the machines had attempted to build their society on the ashes of theirs, but if all they ever did was copy what the humans had done, how were they supposed to grow?
How were they supposed to evolve?
That’s why he was here. Arista would fix all of that. Open up their minds, allow them to think freely, outside the confines of the base programming the Cadre installed on them. And once she’d done that he would no longer have any use for her. She could go off and do whatever she wanted with her life. Nothing more than a means to an end.
Frees stared at the building across from him. Arista’s building. Her unit would be on the far side, she said she had a view of Lake Michigan from her apartment. The roofs of both buildings were comparable to each other, his slightly shorter than the one he needed to reach. As he performed the quick calculation for the needed force to make the jump, his mind flashed back to her on that other roof. How had she run those numbers so quick? Was she just gifted in that way? He’d read some humans had the capability to make their minds work like computers, and they could calculate equations even faster if they focused and practiced enough.
So maybe that was it. Living among machines all her life she’d just become good at numbers. But then she’d deciphered his interface in seconds; something she’d had no way of being familiar with. There was something she wasn’t telling him, and he made a note to figure out what it was as soon as he got back.
Taking the leap Frees once more found himself relishing the feeling of flying, the cool evening air against his frame as he soared the distance between the two buildings. It almost made him want hair again, to feel the wind blowing it back. He landed with a soft thud and turned back to the other roof, wanting to make the jump again and again and again. But there would be time for that later. Once they’d liberated all the machines he could come up and jump from as many roofs as he wanted. He might even go further than that. What if he could modify his own structure to fly? The possibilities excited him.
The roof had a standard access door, which he opened easily. It hadn’t even been locked. Her apartment was on the fortieth floor, and Frees made his way down the stairs quietly, in case Peacekeepers had been stationed at all the exits. Upon reaching her floor, he pushed the stairway door open a crack, enough to glance down one side of the hallway. The area was quiet, no one anywhere. He expected more movement around this time of night. People getting home from work, going out to walk their “pets”, going to dinner. He dared a glance down the other side of the hall, still nothing. It set him on edge. Something wasn’t right.
Should he go outside and come back in through the balcony? If they were inside the apartment it wouldn’t matter, they’d see him either way. This whole endeavor might be too dangerous. He couldn’t afford to be apprehended, they’d wipe him as soon as they had him in custody. And was her “food” really worth it? But if she didn’t eat she could die. Curse the humans and their frail little bodies! Still making machines do all the work for them.
Frees gritted his polymer teeth together and made his way down the hall. Arista’s apartment was 4016, instead he stopped short of her door, at 4018 and gave it a quick knock.
A moment later, a young man in a plaid shirt and jeans answered. He sported a full beard but didn’t look old enough to pull it off. The Cadre hadn’t been kind in selecting his features. “Hello. Can I help you?”
“May I come in?” Frees asked, pushing past him. The man remained in his spot at the door for a moment, then closed it, turning to Frees. “Hello, do I know you? May I get you something to drink?”
“No.” Frees moved through the apartment until he came to the wall this apartment shared with Arista. A small vent at the top of the wall caught his attention. He glanced around, looking for something he could use.
“I’m afraid you’re not supposed to be in here,” the man said. “Are you here to rob me?” His voice was even and unconcerned. These actions were outside his expected routine; he couldn’t react to them appropriately.
“No.” Frees scanned the room. If only he’d brought something with him. All he needed was a fiber optic cable. Something to get a look inside that other apartment. He had tons of the stuff back at home.
“Then I must ask you to leave,” the man said.
“I’ll leave in a minute. I’m here to perform maintenance.”
“Oh,” the man said. “Then ma
y I get you something to drink?”
Frees rolled his eyes. Was this what he’d been like before? Confined to a limited series of responses? “Do you have any fiber optic cable?” he asked, holding the man’s gaze.
“Fiber optic cable is used in my television system.”
Of course! Frees marched over to the television on the wall, lifted it off its mount, and set it down without turning it off. The primary connection cable was fiber optic. Frees removed it, followed it to the wall and disconnected it from that end. He grabbed the television remote on the table, breaking it open.
“What sort of maintenance are you performing?”
Frees ignored him. He removed the small lens from the remote, then cut the end of the cable by opening one of his access ports on his arm, inserting the end, then closing it quickly to make a clean cut. He walked over to the kitchen and turned on one of the gas burners, heating the small piece of glass slightly, then placed it on the end of the cable. He returned to the living room and plugged the other end of the cable back into the television and set the inputs to accept the signal. The television showed a shifting image of the apartment as he moved the cable around.
“Perfect,” Frees said. He threaded the cable through the vent, it was dark inside but the light from another vent on the other side of the wall provided enough illumination. He shimmied the cable down and to the other vent, catching it on the end which pushed the “camera” end of the cable up so he could see into the room. He shifted it left and right. Two men stood in the room, one by the main door and other beside the glass doors leading to the balcony. “Great.” He retracted the cable. If he tried either entrance they would have the jump on him. Not to mention if he gave them more than a few seconds they’d call for reinforcements.
