by Eric Warren
“Talk about something,” Arista said after too long of silence. All she could see was the faint blue glow of Frees’ skull a few feet ahead of her.
“What would you like to know?”
“What was life like for you, before?” she asked.
Frees didn’t respond.
“What’s wrong? Don’t like to talk about it?”
“No, it’s not…I’m not…it’s personal.”
Arista supposed she couldn’t blame him. But her mind recalled the picture she’d found. The one that didn’t match his story about working for the Cadre. Out in the wild, blue wilderness. She held the image in her mind; the snow-capped peaks of the Rockies hundreds of miles in the distance. The sky, azure and clear, not a cloud in sight. The plains, tan like old, worn leather, stretching far out into the distance. And the happy family posing for the picture. If she could just hold it in her mind she might be okay.
“Tell me about what happened right after you changed. What did you do?”
He sighed. “There’s not much to tell. I remember feeling sick, it was the first thing I ever felt. Sick to the stomach. I mean sure, I’d had flashes of emotion before. A bit of happiness, sadness, or anger here or there. But nothing complex. Nothing visceral. And this was visceral, down to me wanting to rip my internal pumps and mechanisms from my superstructure. And the headache. I thought my head was going to explode.”
“How long did it last?”
“Not long. Maybe a few minutes. Fortunately, I was alone. There wasn’t anyone around to see or report me.”
So he wasn’t lying about that part. Everyone she’d changed had experienced a similar sequence of events. “How long had you worked there?”
“Hmm? Oh, in the Tower? A few years.”
“So not long after you were brought online.”
“No. Not long after.”
She could barely see, but thought she detected more than just hesitation in his voice. He was hiding something. “How did you end up getting away?”
“I just left and didn’t return. I went to my apartment like I had done every day. Looking back if I’d had the equipment I do now, I would have built a false crash into the system. Something that reported me offline.”
“They didn’t come looking for you?”
“The Peacekeepers? No, they don’t send them after missing or errant workers. Sometimes errors happen and machines go offline or their programs become corrupted and they end up trying to direct traffic or playing shortstop in a little league game. Mistakes happen. By the time the police showed up I was already gone, working as fast as I could to stay off the grid.”
“And that’s where you’ve been ever since.”
“Yep.”
“Frees,” Arista said, her voice soft. “I don’t appreciate being lied to.”
“What do you mean?” Was that a quiver she heard in his voice?
“I saw the picture. Underneath all the clothes. That was you, wasn’t it?”
Frees stopped, waited a moment, then turned to face her. She could barely make out his features in the dim light. “You went through my stuff?”
“I needed a blanket. It was in there. I looked. You didn’t exactly try very hard to hide it.” Her palm had all of a sudden become very sweaty and she wiped it on her jeans.
“That’s just a picture,” he said, turning again and resuming his original course.
“Really? Because it looked an awful lot like you.”
He spun back around. “How would you even know? I don’t have an epidermis.”
“I could just tell. The facial structure. The way you held yourself. You had a moustache, it suited you.”
Frees gritted his teeth as if to say something then thought better of it.
“Was that your family?”
He turned back and resumed walking. “They weren’t anyone’s family. They were pre-programmed machines, designed to fill pre-determined roles. Nothing more.”
Arista caught up with him. “But that’s who they were. The people you were programmed to love. And when you changed, they remained the same, didn’t they?”
“I tried to change them myself, I thought maybe the program was infectious. That once one of us had been altered, we could alter others. I tried for weeks because for the first time in my life I finally felt real love for someone. For my wife. For my child. But they couldn’t feel it back. All they could do was pretend.” His voice became harsh. “And it was so goddamn transparent. What kind of society only allows for the semblance of emotions, for just the lightest taste of them, without allowing the full range? What kind of life is that?”
Arista didn’t know what to say. But something tugged at the back of her mind. “Frees, if you weren’t changed by The Cadre, how were you changed? What happened?”
He drew a deep breath. The action struck her as odd as he didn’t have to draw a breath at all. But he still simulated it. Was it because he was programmed to? Because he thought it might make him more relatable? Or was it because he was genuinely worried and this was the only way he knew how to build up courage?
“Okay, but you have to promise—”
The sound of thunder rumbled through the walls, cutting him off. Arista instinctually glanced up into the darkness, as if she could see the storm clouds, however the thunder wasn’t abating. It only grew louder and with a start, Arista realized the ground had begun to shake underneath them. She reached out to the wall, placing her palm against the cool stone just to reassure herself the vibrations were real. “Frees, what is that?”
“Run!” Frees yelled.
Twenty-Four
“WHAT’S GOING ON?” ARISTA YELLED as they sprinted forward in the darkness.
“It’s an explosion, somewhere behind us. A big one!” he yelled back. She could barely hear him over the rumbling through the tunnel. Her eardrums would explode if this kept up much longer. She put one hand over her left ear and did her best to wedge her wrist against her right as they ran. Frees turned right, then left, then right again. The route was still being mapped in her mind, but if it had been left to her eyes she would have no idea where she was. It was nothing but black all around them.
All of a sudden Arista felt something peppering her back, like tiny bugs landing on her jacket, head, hair. She turned only for a cloud of ash and dirt to overwhelm her, choking her throat and forcing her watering eyes to squint. The light from Frees’ head receded further and further from her. She tried calling out only to be rewarded with more ash in her mouth. It was hot and gritty, and she tried coughing to clear her lungs. Arista dropped down on her knees and released her ears, grabbing the inside of her jacket and coughing into it. The material provided a tiny bubble of clean air allowing her to cough without more ash flooding her airway. She tucked herself into the smallest ball she could to protect her from the onslaught; there was a heat behind her, like a warm fire.
“C’mon!” Frees said, appearing in front of her. She tried to explain she couldn’t breathe but couldn’t get the words out. He grabbed her, throwing her on his back and took off running down the tunnel, at least twice as fast as Arista could have. She continued to cough, hacking up bits of dirt and debris and a panic rose within her. What if she could never get her breath again? What if her lungs were irreparably scarred? She needed fresh air and started to thrash as Frees carried her. “Almost there, hang on!” he yelled, still moving at a breakneck speed down the black tunnel.
All at once they burst into a giant ironwork atrium, with moonlight streaming down through cracks in the ceiling. Frees jogged to the center of the room and set Arista down, who took a few more steps, then collapsed, coughing and hacking.
This was it. She was going to die in here, in this strange and ancient place that had probably been built by her own people long ago. It wasn’t nearly as dusty in here and she clearly saw the intricate ironwork, the ornamentation and the flair of the beams supporting the roof. At least she would be able to see something beautiful before she died.
As she gasped for breath Arista realized Frees had at some point appeared beside her. He held something to her lips, it felt cool and soothing going down her throat, but she couldn’t help but keep coughing, even as she drank.
“It’s okay,” Frees said, his voice soft. “Just give yourself a minute. You inhaled a lot of ash.”
Arista took the cup and greedily drank more, the water cool and clean against her ravaged throat. Finally, she stopped coughing, and drained the cup. “Is there any more?” she croaked.
Frees disappeared, then reappeared with the cup full again. She took it slower this time, allowing the water to soothe her throat.
She scanned the area. The atrium was huge, The Device estimated it at least fifteen stories tall, but it was hard to get an accurate measurement. Iron supports spread out in all directions from a central hub directly above them, working their way down the inside of the walls, ending in archways leading to a dozen different tunnels. It was some kind of transportation hub, but nothing like she’d ever seen before. To their right was an old entertainment kiosk, it’s ruined façade falling apart, but still with old newspapers inside. Beside it was a small water fountain.
“Where…?” she asked when she finally felt like she could talk without ripping a hole in her esophagus.
“I don’t know,” Frees said. “I’ve been through here a few times but never really considered it. Something the humans built I’m sure. Whatever it is, my people haven’t been using it.”
Arista took another gulp of water, then pushed herself back up on her feet and staggered to the entertainment kiosk. Beyond it, against the wall a large number of circular pads had been piled up against one of the entryways, almost like a blockade. Arista picked up a newspaper at the kiosk, but it fell apart in her hand, disintegrating. She carefully wiped away the pieces from the next one, reading the date and headline.
“April twenty-fifth, two-thousand fifty-one,” she said aloud. “World at War, it says.” She turned back to Frees. “This was the last day, wasn’t it? The last day before the end of humanity.”
Frees walked over and glanced at the paper. “Most of the major cities were invaded that week,” he said. “With the reserves the machines had built up, it didn’t take long from what I understand.”
Arista peered into the kiosk. All the foodstuffs had been ravaged and cleaned out. All that remained were some entertainment devices and various books. Her heart panged for the people who must have used this place. The thousands of souls who moved through here every day, picking up supplies on the way to their destinations, blissfully unaware of the future awaiting them. She glanced up. And up there, all those machines going about their lives just as these people had, completely oblivious to the society that had been destroyed right beneath their feet. It turned her stomach.
Arista turned, making her way across the atrium to what looked like a ticket office. “It’s a hyperloop,” she said, reading the ticket prices. Examining the archways closer she saw the doors in the ground that would open up to produce a travel pod. “An individual unit hyperloop,” she said. “It must have been brand new.”
“That would explain why most of these tunnels connect to hub areas of the city,” Frees said. “And why the machines don’t use it. Being so far underground it would be difficult to get any kind of solar charge, which is our basis for energy production. If machines got lost down here they might not be able to return in time to pick up a charge.”
“But you use your own power supply, your blue sticks,” Arista said. “So you don’t need the sun for charging.”
“Energy drives. I never like it anyway,” Frees said. “I always thought there was something unnatural about the charging cubes.” He glanced around. “Listen, I need to get outside, figure out what just hit us.”
Arista nodded, took another gulp of water, then turned to follow him.
“No, you’re staying here. We can’t risk them seeing you,” he said.
She shook her head. “I’m going.”
He resigned, nodded, and made his way to a long ladder on the side of the atrium. It led to some kind of small hatch. Arista took a deep breath, grateful for the opportunity of deep breaths, and followed him to the ladder. “You sure you’ll be okay?” he asked.
“Just climb,” she said, her voice still scratchy.
The ladder was longer than it seemed and more than once Arista had to glance up to make sure they were actually making progress. Finally, Frees reached the latch and had to hit it a few times to break the rusted bolt and open the hatch. He climbed out and held a hand out to Arista while taking a quick look around. Then he motioned for her to follow him out.
They were at the street level. Arista stared back down through the hatch. How deep below the ground had they been? The Device registered their previous depth at four-hundred and twenty-three feet.
“We need to get higher,” Frees said, glancing around. They stood in the courtyard constructed in the middle of an old apartment complex, thirty story buildings surrounding them on all sides. Arista couldn’t help but smile. A huge hyperloop hub right beneath nothing other than a bunch of apartment buildings. A bit of pride surged through her. Machines wouldn’t have done that, they would have built it somewhere more central, they wouldn’t have thought to use a non-descript area like this. It was quirky in a way. Humans had been quirky.
“Can you climb some more?” Frees asked.
“Watch me,” she replied. Although she was exhausted, dirty and somehow hungry again, she wasn’t about to let him show her up. Frees made his way across the courtyard to one of the apartment complexes and broke the handle off the door, opening it easily.
“Stairs are easier than a fire escape,” he said.
It took them almost another ten minutes to get to the top of the building. Arista tried to climb fast, but her lungs felt as if they’d been scorched and she had to keep taking breaks. If only there wasn’t the chance of running into other husks in the elevators. By the time they reached the roof access, she was dying for another glass of water.
They reached the roof and she took the opportunity to sit up against the brick of the access alcove while Frees went ahead. All of a sudden, she felt very homesick for something she couldn’t even comprehend. It was as if finding that atrium had opened something up inside her, a place built by the humans that the machines hadn’t touched. Hadn’t changed and made their own. She wanted to burst into tears at the thought of it. Being among humans would be something she could never reclaim. And while it had never really bothered her before, after seeing what they had built, even a tiny glimpse into their lives she wanted to be a part of it. She wanted to be in that world, where there were people like her. Just regular people, going about their business, but maybe giving her a simple nod on the street, or a wave. Or just anything really. Some kind of connection.
Arista took a deep breath, almost overwhelmed with emotion.
“Arista,” Frees called softly from across the roof.
She looked up, wiping the tears from her eyes quickly. Thankfully he wasn’t looking at her but staring off in the distance. She wiped her eyes again for good measure and pushed herself up, walking over to him. Following his gaze, she peered into the distance, desperate to see what he could without asking for help. But it was difficult, the lights of the city camouflaged most of the intricate details, all she could see were outlines of buildings and the occasional skyscraper.
“What am I looking at?” she finally asked.
“My apartment building,” he said. “It’s gone.”
Twenty-Five
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN, GONE?”
Frees only stared into the darkness.
“Frees! Talk to me, what do you mean, gone?”
“They destroyed it,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “They found me and destroyed it.”
Arista looked again, trying her best to discern the shapes in the darkness. The Device registered local landmarks, Willis-Debante Tower, the Clark Adams bu
ilding…they were on the south side of the city looking north. Frees’ apartment had been one tiny twenty-story building nestled among hundreds of others. She wouldn’t be able to see anything until the sun came up.
“Are you sure?”
“I’m looking right at it! Right there, don’t you see it?” he yelled, pointing out in the distance.
She squinted one last time, but there was a haze in the distance. Something that had made the lights from the buildings fuzzy and nebulous; like a fog had settled in on one particular part of the city.
Suddenly Arista realized what she was seeing. Ash and smoke. “They demolished it.”
Her heart picked up speed. All her supplies had been in there. Her vitamin shots…her powders. Everything she used to eat and stay alive had just been crushed under two hundred tons of building. Even if by some miracle they hadn’t been destroyed in the implosion, she’d never be able to find them in the rubble.
“All my work…all my equipment…” Frees said, his voice tight.
Along with it, her only chances of finding her parents. Arista stared at him. In the darkness she could still make out his features, he hadn’t bothered to draw his hood up. She thought back to the picture she’d seen in his apartment, the only connection he’d had to his old life. Frees had lost just as much as she had. The only difference was he wouldn’t starve because of it.
“How…why…” She had a hard time processing it. The Cadre had found them? Or just missed them? If they’d stayed in the apartment another hour they would have been killed immediately. Her hand went to her mouth. All those residents. The little old woman with the holographic dog. All gone.
