by Eric Warren
“He’s not going to talk,” Arista said. “We have to convince him.”
Her tone made Frees want to shudder. There was something different about her, more determined, less…willing to deal with bullshit. He recalled an Arista who would have tried reasoning with Byron, coaxing what they needed out of him. But she’d barely even tried. It seemed like that woman was long gone.
As they reached the lobby she pointed to the fountain in the middle. “I’ll meet you there in a second.” She made her way over to the concierge while Frees escorted Byron through the crowds to the fountain. People sat around the edge of the water itself; it had been designed as a bench to admire the sculpture. Frees noted hundreds of corroded coins lay at the bottom of the pool.
“Hey, machine,” Byron said. His voice was full of vitriol, as if talking to a machine was beneath him. Frees chose not to respond. “Help me bring her in and I’ll make sure you’re treated well.”
Frees moved him beside the fountain and waited, watching for Arista to return.
“Oh, I get it,” Byron said. “She’s programmed you to be loyal. Or maybe you just feel a sense of loyalty. Cause she changed you.”
“She didn’t change me,” Frees replied, keeping his voice even.
“Yeah? Could’ve fooled me the way you do everything she says. Let me tell you a little secret: you’re not autonomous. You’re just simulating it. It’s not like you’re really alive. You may think you are. You may feel like you are. But it ain’t true. You’re an imitation. A fake.”
Frees gritted his teeth to keep from ripping the man’s head from his body. If this is how all the humans were Frees realized how lucky he’d gotten with Arista and Marcus.
“Gotta say, I do like the look,” Byron added. “It’s got this rebel-without-a-cause feel to it.” He leaned into Frees. “Don’t think it makes you special, though. You could build yourself two more arms and you’d still be the exact same thing. A walking computer running a program. Nothing but plastic, metal, and electricity all bundled up in a pretty little package. Except maybe in your case, not so pretty.”
Frees bore down, using every ounce of his willpower not to break. He knew the man was goading him into making a mistake, but he couldn’t help the anger bubbling up from inside. He tightened his grip on Byron and saw the man wince in pain, though he seemed to enjoy it.
“Ready?” Arista’s voice brought him out of it. She’d returned with another length of wire in her hands. This one twice as long and thick as the cord binding Byron’s hands.
“What’s that for?” Frees asked.
“This is how we get our answers,” Arista said. She turned to Byron. “One last chance. Tell us what the colony’s plans are and their location. We won’t let you go, but it won’t get any worse for you either.”
Byron scoffed. “What are you gonna do, princess? Torture me?”
“That’s exactly what I’m going to do.”
Frees thought for a moment she might be joking. But her lips betrayed no hint of a smile, and her eyes were stern. She wasn’t kidding around.
“Here.” She handed Frees the cord. “Wrap it around his feet, tie it tight, then connect it to the top of the waterfall up there,” she said, pointing to the top of the granite slab where water was cascading down into the pool. “I want it low enough so just his head is under water.”
Frees stared at the top of the waterfall. Was she serious?
“Mama’s little errand boy,” Byron mocked him.
Arista smacked him across the face. A move so unexpected Frees took a step back. “Let’s see how much you have to say once you’re under a couple of inches of water,” she said, her voice soft, yet menacing.
“I love the water!” Byron retorted, though Frees thought now he heard a hint of fear in the man’s voice.
He took the cord from her and tied it tight around the man’s ankles, making sure to double-knot it. Then he glanced up at the granite slab. It was twelve feet from pool to the top and Byron was six-foot-one, which meant he needed just about six feet of slack. He grabbed the long end of the cord and jumped to the top of the slab in one fluid movement, yanking Byron off his feet and dragging him across the pool. He hit the slab with an audible smack and a grunt as the water cascaded over him. The people around them didn’t even notice.
Frees lowered Byron until he was in place, sputtering against the water and secured the knot at the top. She wouldn’t keep him like this for long, not Arista. It wasn’t in her nature. This was just to scare him. “Do you want me to stay up here?”
She shook her head. “No need. He’s not going anywhere.” Byron continued to sputter against the falling water, trying to twist himself in a direction where he could get some air.
Frees’ eyes widened but he didn’t reply, only hopped back down, now trailing water behind him from the top of the fountain.
“Here, lift him out for a second,” Arista said, her voice still calm. Like she was asking Frees to help her find a missing watch, not to engage in the torture of a living being.
Byron coughed and spit up water as Frees leaned him out of the waterfall. He took two large breaths. “Are you crazy!” he yelled at Arista. “I’m a person! You don’t do this to people!”
“Let him go,” Arista said, her eyes not leaving Byron.
“Are you su—?”
“Frees,” she said, her voice serious. “Let him go.”
He considered not doing it. There had to be a better way to get the information they needed. What if Byron was right? What if he only did what she asked him to because he was under her control in some way? Could that be what was wrong with him? The malfunction he hadn’t managed to pin down yet?
“Frees!”
He winced, letting Byron go so he slapped back up against the granite, his face once more exposed to the falling water. He hacked, twisting back and forth as he tried to move himself, but each jerk only brought him back under the water. Still, it seemed, no one around them noticed or cared. Two women in smart business clothes sat right beside where Frees stood, chatting.
The seconds ticked by and his struggling became more intense.
“Now?” Frees asked, getting nervous. Did she know what she was doing? What if they ended up killing him? He’d never seen her like this before. “Arista?”
“Wait,” she said.
Byron continued to struggle for breath but Frees could tell his energy was draining fast. If he didn’t get a good breath in the next forty-five seconds he would probably drown.
“Arista!” Frees yelled.
“Just…wait!”
He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t watch her make this choice. He’d made a promise to himself to protect her, and if that meant protecting her from herself then so be it. Frees reached in, grabbing Byron by the shoulders and pulled him out of the falling water. He coughed, over and over, each time spitting up amounts of water and gasping for breath.
“I said wait!” she yelled.
“He’s had enough!” He yanked Byron forward. “You’re ready to talk now, aren’t you?”
Byron nodded, still gasping for breath.
Arista’s eyes burned fire at him. “Where is the colony?”
Byron coughed twice. “Underground. South,” he said, his voice ragged. The man who’d been so defiant only a few minutes earlier had already been reduced to this.
“Where, exactly?” Arista said.
“I’ll...I’ll have to give you the coordinates. You can’t…cough…make it in without a clearance code. The Gate won’t show up.”
“Why is the colony attacking? What’s the plan?”
He shook his head.
“Drop him back in,” Arista instructed.
“No! I don’t know what the plan is. I’m just a soldier. They didn’t tell us.” He retched, gurgling as he did it. “My job was…to eliminate Peacekeepers. Help secure the Gates. That’s it. Bring you in if I found you.”
“How were you tracking the Peacekeepers?” Frees asked. They sho
uldn’t be able to pick them out of a crowd. But Byron had managed to follow one all the way up into a random hotel room.
“Charlie’s files. We had all the codes—”
“So that’s why you broke into HQ.” Arista screwed up her face.
“They told us to get the codes and destroy everything else. We’ve been hunting them down since.”
Frees had the urge to drop him back in just for a moment, but he didn’t want to give Arista the satisfaction of being right. “Let’s cut him down,” he said. “I don’t think he can do much else up here.”
Her eyes traveled over Byron up to the cords holding him to the granite. “Yeah. Fine.”
Frees reached up to Byron’s feet while still holding him away from the waterfall and ripped the cord away from the wall. Byron fell into the pool, splashing the other patrons close by.
“Careful, this is my new suit!” one of them yelled.
Frees yanked Byron through the water and hauled him back over the edge, depositing him on the floor in front of Arista’s feet. “Anything else?” he snapped.
She drew her eyebrows together but seemed to let it go. “We need somewhere to keep him where he can’t get away.”
“What are you going to do with me?” Byron asked.
“My friend here is going to put you back in that waterfall if you don’t give us the codes,” Arista said. “And if we find out you lied to us, we’ll come back and do it again until you finally tell the truth.”
No, he will not, Frees thought as she spoke. They’d have to find another way to get the information, but he wasn’t about to torture the man again. Frees leaned down and double-checked the cord holding his prisoner’s hands together—it was still tight. He caught Arista’s eye and motioned for her to follow him over to the far side of the room, out of earshot.
“What?” she asked when they reached the restaurant.
“That’s all you have to say? What the hell was that?” he asked.
“Oh, come on, Frees. What were we supposed to do, tickle him until he told us? He’s a human soldier, you saw what he did to that Peacekeeper. What he would have done to you and probably me had we given him the chance?”
“Yeah, and you saw how quickly he broke. We didn’t need to go that far.”
She scowled at him. She had a right to be angry at the humans, yes. But there was a limit. And she’d crossed it.
“I won’t do that again. Do you understand?”
She kept her eyes level with him for exactly twenty-seven seconds, then turned and left him standing there as the people around them continued to move about, oblivious.
Four
Maybe Frees was right. But every time Arista looked at the man all she could see was Sy and all her lies. Still. This man had been ordered to assassinate machines. Why wasn’t Frees more upset? This kind of thing used to send him into a near-frenzy. But now all he seemed concerned about was maintaining integrity which neither of them had agreed to. As far as Arista was concerned, all bets were off, and she could do with this guy as she pleased.
“Get up,” she said, approaching him. He rolled over on his side and retched again, but nothing else came out. “Now who doesn’t have it in them?” His eyes caught hers for a moment before returning to the ground. There was real hatred in there.
“Where do you want to take him?” Frees asked, approaching from behind. “If he doesn’t check in they might come looking for him.”
“Is that true?” Arista grabbed him by the lapel and yanked him up. “Will they come?”
“Not for a while,” he said, keeping his eyes to the ground.
Frees stood behind him and hoisted him up underneath his arms, planting him back on his own two feet as Arista’s hand fell away. “Let’s get those coordinates first,” she said. “Then we’ll work on the other stuff.”
This didn’t feel right, and yet at the same time it felt like the only thing that was right. These people had abandoned her, left her for dead, tried killing her and now they had her parents. They didn’t deserve mercy or leniency. They deserved to be dealt with the exact same way they’d treated her. And every other machine.
“How about one of the back rooms?” Frees asked. “Less exposure.”
She nodded, following as Frees pushed Byron ahead of them, winding their way around the check-in desks to the offices in the back. They were rather nondescript, bland carpeting with a couple of desks and chairs. A rack sat on the far wall with personal items and a door on the other side of the room led somewhere else. Probably maintenance halls.
Frees pushed Byron down in one of the chairs and he winced as his arms were still trapped behind him. “What are the coordinates for the colony?” Frees asked.
“Right pocket,” he replied, trying to hold it out for him. Frees reached in, pulling a silver device from the pocket with a liquid crystal display on the front.
“It says two.” Frees examined the item.
“That’s your exit Gate,” Byron replied. “It will direct whatever Gate you go through to set your exit Gate temporarily for the colony. Then it erases the travel log. You can’t access the colony without one.”
“So it’s like a shortcut,” Arista said.
Byron nodded.
“See what else he’s got on him. I don’t want to leave him with anything he might be able to use to escape.” Arista eyed him, trying to keep the vitriol out of her voice. She didn’t want to be that person, despite the actions she’d already taken.
“Escape to where?” Byron scoffed as Frees patted down the rest of his pockets. “It isn’t like there’s anywhere to go.”
Arista’s eyes narrowed her. “What do you mean?”
“The attacks,” he said. “They aren’t just in Chicago. We’ve got people in Japan and London, keeping them occupied. I figured you already knew.”
“And how would I know that?” Arista yelled at him.
“I thought you had friends. Or contacts.”
She glanced up to Frees and met his eyes. Mitsu and Takai. “You better contact them,” she said. “Just in case.”
Frees turned and tapped the comm above his ear, then held out his arm for the holographic display. Arista watched from over his shoulder.
Mitsu’s image appeared, emanating from his arm. “Frees,” she said. Her eyes turned to Arista. “What is happening?”
“Humans are attacking. Have you seen any activity there?” Frees asked.
Mitsu nodded. “They are trying to penetrate the building. We didn’t know they were humans, we thought Jairo had incited a riot.”
“Jairo?” Arista asked.
“The other man, who helped remove your arm.”
That’s right, Arista remembered now. When she had changed Mitsu and Takai there had been another man who had declined to help Shin. He’d just disappeared, Arista hadn’t even thought of him again until now. “What’s your status?” she asked.
“We are holding steady, but they have some powerful weapons, they are trying to break down the doors.”
Arista turned to Byron. “Why are they trying to break in if Hogo-sha is already dead?”
“Is he?” Byron asked. “We didn’t know that. We hadn’t heard anything from our contact in the field.”
“You may want to hide,” Frees said to Mitsu. “They seem to be coming for anyone who is autonomous, Peacekeeper or not. Once they confirm Hogo-sha was destroyed, they’ll probably leave you alone. If they don’t detect you.”
“What about Trymian?” Mitsu asked. “Is he under attack too?”
Arista stood beside Frees. “He’ll just have to hold out until we can figure out how to stop the humans. There isn’t a lot we can do from here.”
“I understand,” Mitsu said. “Thank you for the warning.” She cut the comm.
“Is she always so polite?” Byron asked from behind them. Arista realized now they should have made the call somewhere else. Now he knew about them and as soon as he got free he would inform the other humans. They would be search
ing for Mitsu and Takai. A loud clap of thunder rumbled through the building; the walls vibrated, shaking what few signs hung up.
“We can’t let him go,” Arista said. “Ever. He’ll tell someone about them.” She spoke more to herself than Frees, realizing the gravity of the situation she’d created for herself.
“No, I don’t even know who that was.” Byron tried to scoot his chair back. His lips were drawn back in worry.
“You saw her face, you could identify her. And even if you found all the autos, you would always know there was at least one more out there,” Arista said. “And when the all-clear sounded, you would know. And you would tell someone. A supervisor, a captain. Whatever. You’d send out squads. You’d scour the Earth until you found her. Tell me I’m wrong.”
Byron leaned back in the chair further, trying to get as far away from her as possible. “What are you saying? You’ll kill me?”
Maybe this was her life now. Maybe she’d always meant to be a killer, she’d just never known it. What was it Sy had told her? She was the only one who could kill Hogo-sha? Because she was the only human who’d ever killed an AI before. She was a natural at it. But Sy had been wrong. Arista had killed far more humans than machines. Maybe that was her purpose.
“They never should have wasted resources coming after you,” Byron said. “You’re nothing but a traitor. They should have sent us to eliminate you.”
“What?” Arista asked. She didn’t consider Sy a resource that would be missed. More like a bounty hunter.
“You don’t deserve to live among us,” Byron said. “This, this is what you deserve. The machines’ world. You’re more comfortable here. Working with them. Befriending them. You are despicable, and you deserve all the pain and hell coming your way.”
Frees walked over and punched him, sending a spittle of blood splattering across the wall. Arista admired the restraint. Frees could have caved the man’s face in if he’d wanted to.
“What’s wrong, machine? Did I insult your girlfriend? You both disgust me,” Byron said, working his jaw. “Put me back in the waterfall. It’s better than watching this. You’re a disgrace,” he said to Arista.
