Well, that was all a long time ago. In the meantime, I had been at school longer than any other teacher. Still, I hadn’t made it to principal. This job wasn’t for me either, really. I wasn’t even cut out to teach history anymore. I was only capable of mathematics. That was a less controversial subject. It was all about numbers. There were no opinions, no discussions. And it was an unsuspicious subject, above criticism, even from most radical Luddites. After all, Ted Kaczynski had been a mathematics professor himself. Of course, in the seventh grade I also taught other subjects like geography and science. So there was still enough for me to do.
*
It was evening. I was home. I was sitting at my little desk in the living room. A small oil lamp gave off some light. It wasn’t so cold anymore that I had to turn on the fireplace. Some warm clothes were enough. So I wore my vest and jacket. In front of me lay my old pistol, disassembled in its components, an oil bottle, rags and various brushes. It was an old habit to clean the gun regularly, although I had not fired a shot for decades. New ammunition was no longer available, so I couldn’t just waste it. The gun was in perfect condition, but I wasn’t sure to what extent this applied to the cartridges. It was possible that the powder had decomposed. I distrusted especially the explosive charges. Therefore I loaded the gun exclusively with normal cartridges, the first five shots with expanding hollow-point bullets, the others with steel-jacketed bullets, as usual. Next to it on the desk were some papers and books from school. A bottle with the alcohol that was distilled here in New Detroit was also on the desk. There was no real whiskey anymore, but this alcohol was still better than water. It was this stuff I used for Anabelle’s generator in the end and probably the reason why it broke down at some point. However, in the last years I had the impression that the alcohol had become better. But maybe this was just because I had gradually got used to the taste and had forgotten what good quality alcohol tasted like.
While I was squeezing a small oil rag with a brush through the disassembled barrel of the pistol, I suddenly heard the alarm bell ring. That was unusual in the middle of the night. It certainly didn’t mean anything good. I quickly began to assemble my gun. Then I loaded the two magazines, inserted one clip in the gun and the other clip, loaded with steel-jacket bullets only, in my pocket. I put the gun in my belt, hidden under my jacket. I stood up clumsily, ignoring the usual pain in my leg and in my back, and limped towards the door. I heard noise from outside, some people shouting something. When I opened the door, I saw some people running through the streets with torches. The alarm bell was still ringing. I saw my neighbor’s wife, Mrs. Harrison, standing outside her door and asked her what was going on, but she didn’t know any more than I did. Then I hurried limping towards the watchtower that had sounded the alarm bell.
Further ahead on the road was a group of men. I saw that there was some fighting going on, with sticks, axes and machetes. Somewhere I heard a shotgun blast. And then I saw them. The Brutes had entered the village. Somehow they had managed to get past the palisades, and now they were in the unprotected interior of the village. And there were many of them. As far as I could see, there were several dozen here, outnumbering the defenders of the village. Many of our men had gone down, but new reinforcements were constantly coming. I also saw women and small children hurrying to get away from the scene of the fighting.
Apparently this time the Brutes had staged a massive attack. They were determined to overrun the village. And they had already made it beyond the walls. The situation was really serious. I had my doubts that the militia would be able to fend off this attack. More and more Brutes appeared, and even though more and more defenders arrived. The battle was fought with reckless brutality. The roofs of some houses had caught fire. The flames lit up the fighting. I saw bodies covered in blood and some severed limbs.
Jack Harrison ran past me. He was armed with an axe and threw himself into the battle. His axe hit a half-naked Brute with long hair and beard into his tattooed chest. With an outcry the attacker fell down on his knees. But another one was already standing behind him. His face was tattooed, his hair styled in a mohawk. Piercings with long nails were in his cheeks, the tips protruding outwards, giving his face the expression of a demon straight from hell. His clothing consisted of leather belts with numerous skewers and knives. He rammed a long steel pipe into Harrison’s stomach so that he collapsed. Then he pulled the steel pipe back and to bring it down full force on the head of the man lying on the ground to smash his skull.
I pulled out my gun, took the safety off and cocked it, then fired on the Brute that threatened Harrison. Before the steel pipe could rush down, the barbarian collapsed. There was a hole in his head. I fired a few more shots at the attackers, but wasn’t sure if I hit him. It was too dark. My shots helped to drive the Brutes back. The men of the village followed them. But I was pretty sure that this was only one group of attackers and that the fighting continued elsewhere. There was fighting noise from everywhere. I hurried to Harrison, who was getting back on his feet. There were other injured people lying around. People from the village helped them, when they were villagers. The wounded Brutes were beaten to death, so they wouldn’t escape. Some people considered my Walther P100 illegal, as it had been built in the twenty-first century, but the first semi-automatic pistol, the Mauser C96, had already been developed in the nineteenth century. So the technology itself wasn’t illegal, O’Neil had argued, and I had been allowed to keep my gun. I was probably the only one in the village with such a weapon, not because it was forbidden, but because nobody could build such weapons anymore.
I looked at the Brute I had shot. A huge hole gaped in the back of his skull where the expanded bullet had come out. It was the first man I had ever killed. How ironic! I had survived the whole Crusade without having to shoot a man. And now, at eighty-five, when most men of my age were not even alive anymore, I had finally killed somebody. I estimated the dead Brute to be between twenty and thirty years. He had probably not even been born when I reached the age at which I had previously planned to retire. Yet I had survived him and ended his life prematurely. But at the same time I had saved Harrison’s life.
Elsewhere the fighting continued. We hurried to help the other villagers there. Harrison ran ahead. I struggled to keep up with him, but finally lost sight of him.
After a while I reached another battlefield. Everywhere dead and wounded people were lying around. Some were Brutes, others were men from the village. Near the battlefield, the fighting continued. Two women and a group of children were attacked by half a dozen Brutes. I fired, but the attackers were not driven away. Finally, two men from the militia came running to defend the women and children.
Among the children was young Evelyne from my class. I recognized her immediately even in the darkness, as she was one of the few black people in the village. A baldheaded Brute had grabbed her. In the other hand he held a machete, which he now swung to strike at his struggling and screaming victim. I fired, but I missed. His machete came down. I wanted to cry out when Evelyne was hit, but I saw that she had defended herself from the blow with her left arm. Instead, she now struck with her right arm and knocked the surprised barbarian to the ground.
In the meantime, the two men had reached the group of fighters, and further reinforcements from the village arrived. The Brutes ran away. Only the man whom Evelyne had hit with one blow remained there motionless.
I, too, now reached the place of the fighting along with some other villagers. The men of the militia took care of the women and children and made sure that they were not seriously injured. Then suddenly the gathered people became very quiet. It was a strange silence. I pushed my way through the crowd to see what was going on. I noticed that everyone in the group was staring at Evelyne and I didn’t understand why. It was indeed astonishing how such a little girl of twelve or thirteen had struck down a full-grown man with her bare hand. But that was not the reason for the attention she had attracted. People began to whisper agitated. I too l
ooked now at Evelyne in the light of the torches that some of the people were carrying. Her left arm had been badly hurt, where the machete of the Brute had hit her. Blood gushed from the gaping wound. The steel had obviously penetrated to her bones. Between the open flesh from which the blood was dripping, I could see her bare forearm bones, with only one difference...
... they weren’t bones. They were made of metal. Evelyn’s skeleton was steel. And over that steel skeleton stretched flesh and skin. She had been badly injured, but her arm was not affected. That was because only the useless outer flesh layer was damaged by the injury. There was only one explanation: Evelyne was an android. She was an android that was so deceptively real that it was indistinguishable from a normal human.
It had to be a more advanced model than Anabelle. While Anabelle had still had a shell of plastic and rubber, Evelyne had a shell of real flesh and skin, a perfect replica of the human body. Android technology seemed to have evolved over the last sixty years. And Evelyne was the latest model.
Evelyne didn’t seem to understand why everyone was staring at her. Eventually, her eyes fell on her arm, and it became clear why. In a useless gesture, she pressed her hand on the wound to cover it. But of course it was too late. Everyone here had seen the truth. Everyone had realized that she was a machine and not a human.
I wondered where she had really come from. Who could still make an androids like this today? But the answer was all too obvious. She herself had told me in front of the gathered class: »How do we even know who won the war between humans and machines in Asia? Maybe the machines won there and we just don’t know.«
We had not won the Crusade against the Machines. In the USEAN and the Union State, the machines had survived. The Crusade must have ended in a cease-fire. And now the machines had sent their scouts to us to find out what was happening in the Neo-Luddite territories.
But who was Evelyne? Why did she look exactly like that older Evelyne, whom I once knew from the Ishtar Temple strip club? Had this Evelyne also been an android? Impossible, there were no such advanced androids at that time.
The whispering and murmuring of the people had become louder in the meantime. I could feel the latent aggression spreading. They had discovered a specimen of their hated enemy, the machines. There was no doubt what would have to be done with this machine.
What should I do now? Evelyne was my student. I had known her for several weeks now and could see nothing else in her but the little girl that she appeared on the outside. It was difficult to tell how much of her behavior was genuine and how much was programmed. Was she here with hostile intentions? Or was she here to see, if machines and humans could coexist peacefully? Did she have the mind of a child, or was it just her programming?
I didn’t get a chance to think further, because suddenly one of the villagers shouted: »She is a machine! She must be destroyed! In the name of Ned Ludd, destroy it!« The crowd, which had grown larger and larger, started to get more heated. Nobody paid attention to the fighting noise that could still be heard from other parts of the village. The men raised their weapons, their axes, machetes and clubs. No matter how robustly Evelyne was built, her android body would not be able to withstand an attack by all these people. They’d destroy her unless I intervened. And I couldn’t allow one of my students to be lynched by a mob, android or not.
»Stop!« I cried out. When no one listened to me, I fired a shot into the air. Immediately, the people flinched. »Nobody gets killed here without due process. This girl has done nothing to us. Let’s hear what she has to say!«
»There’s nothing she can say!« cried Harrison with a face distorted by hate. »That’s not a girl. It’s a machine. It must be destroyed!«
I pushed forward, placed myself in front of Evelyne and pointed my gun at Harrison’s head, the man I had just saved from the Brutes a few moments earlier.
»Back off!« I shouted at him. »All of you back off! Nobody goes near her or I’ll put a bullet through the head of the first one that moves! Don’t think I would hesitate. I’ve already killed one today. And I’m not done yet.«
People backed away further, but not as fast as I would have liked.
»Back off, I said! Move!« I shouted.
Then suddenly I felt a blow against my chest that made me stagger. I heard the whirring of a crossbow. I looked down and saw a steel bolt stuck in my chest. A man from the militia had shot at me. The bolt must have gone straight through my heart. Only now did I feel the terrible pain. I lost control of my legs. I was staggering and gradually my eyes went dark. The last thing I saw was Evelyn’s sad face.
Then I died, I suppose. I saw nothing more, heard nothing more, felt nothing more. It was over...
Chapter 14
Bangkok, Southeast Asia, 3111
I dreamt again of that white room, the same dream I had called hospital dream, which kept coming back without me remembering any details. This time I decided to memorize everything exactly.
But maybe this time I was really in a hospital and the dreams before had only been premonitions of a future event. I remembered clearly that I had been hit in the chest by a crossbow bolt. The only problem was that there were no hospitals with clinically white walls like this anymore. And as I looked at the room, I doubted more and more that it was really a hospital.
The walls were completely white with no stains. There was no furniture either. It was just an empty white room of about fifteen by fifteen feet. There was a strange geometric pattern on the ceiling from which indirect lighting was emitted to illuminate the room. On a strip along the wall I saw ventilation slits. There was also no bed on which I lay; instead I leaned against the wall in a strange bed-like frame. Some electrodes attached to my head restricted my movement. I raised my hand to examine the electrodes. It struck me that the skin of my hands was not the thin, wrinkled and age-spotted skin I remembered, but smooth, firm and spotless skin, as if I were much younger. The pain in my back and left leg had also disappeared. I looked down on myself. I was wearing white robes that somehow reminded me of a karate uniform, a wide open shirt held together by a belt, and white, tight trousers. I noticed that the amulet with the logo of the Ishtar Temple was still around my neck. Somehow I felt strong and rested. If this was a hospital, then the doctors had really done a good job. But maybe it was just a dream.
Then I realized I wasn’t alone in the room. There was a woman. I wasn’t sure, if she had been standing next to me the whole time or had only now suddenly appeared unnoticed. It was Evelyne. But which Evelyne? The Evelyne I knew from the Ishtar Temple in Washington, D. C. or the young student from New Detroit? The girl at school who had finally turned out to be an android had been about twelve or thirteen. The Evelyne from Washington had been around my age back then, about twenty-four. But the young woman now standing next to me in the white room was something in between. I guessed she was sixteen or seventeen. She was wearing a tight black suit, which would also have fitted a dancer in the Ishtar Temple, although it was simpler. It covered her breasts and stretched asymmetrically over her flat stomach to end in a kind of short pants. Around her neck I saw the amulet with the eight-pointed star.
»Back again, Sergei! At last!« she said. I didn’t realize at all that she had called me by a wrong name.
»Evelyne?« I asked in surprise.
»Yes, I’m here,« she replied. »I know that you must be in a state of confusion right now. You predicted it yourself. But that will pass as soon as your original memories are restored.« She was busy removing the electrodes from the back of my head.
»What is this? Where am I? Who are you? Which Evelyne are you?« I had more questions, but I couldn’t ask them all at once.
»The Evelyne,« she replied.
»How did I get here? The last thing I remember is getting hit with a crossbow bolt.«
»So it is. And that’s how you died.«
»I’m dead? What is this, the afterlife?« I asked. But that was nonsense, of course. »This is all just a dream. This is
not real,« I concluded.
»No, you’ve just woken up from a dream,« explained Evelyne. »More precisely, from a computer simulation. And now that you’ve died in the simulation, it’s finally over.« She had completely freed me from the electrodes. I could now get up and walk around freely. »Now all we have to do is copy your original memories back into your brain, and you will have fully returned in the real world, and all your present questions will be answered. Come with me.«
»Hold it for a moment!« I protested. »Nobody messes with my brain until I get answers to my questions. What are you, anyway? The last Evelyne I knew was an android. Are you a machine?«
»This is the body of an android into which my mind was uploaded after my human body died, just like your body.« Her voice sounded slightly annoyed at my ignorance.
»What? I’m an android?« I raised my hands and touched them. They were warm and felt perfectly normal. But I also remembered that the body of the android that I thought to be the young student Evelyne had also been covered with real flesh and human skin. She had been indistinguishable from a human child from the outside. »I don’t think so. How is that possible? All robot technology was destroyed during the Crusade against the Machines. No one can manufacture an android anymore.«
Evelyne sighed. »I even explained that to you in the simulation. The Technocratic Bloc was never defeated. The Crusade against the Machines ended with a truce in 2061. The Union State and USEAN then joined together in the Taipei Agreement to form a new Union, and technology evolved further, while the Neo-Luddites regressed back to the Middle Ages and had no idea what was going on outside their limited world. But you’ll learn all that when you get your memories back.«
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