Strike

by Jim Heskett

  “A war?” Tenney said. “A war against who? The serfs? Why would he need to do that?”

  All at once, everything clicked into place for Rosia. She sucked in a breath and felt her heart leap into her throat. “Not the serfs. Denver. Wybert was going to rebel against the First City.”

  The woman nodded. “He had the firepower and access to code the robot’s neural brains, but no battle programs. No way to teach the robots how to operate independently in a fight and how to deal with battle against real soldados. All of his testings failed in actual combat scenarios because the robots couldn’t adapt to changing conditions. So he used you to create scenarios. To teach the artificial intelligence how to fight.”

  “And it was all collected on our chips,” Yorick said. “Our movements, our strategies. All of it to train these robots how to fight, wasn’t it?”

  The scientist nodded. “That, and sensors around the battlefield monitored you. We collected the data and transformed it into scenario models to teach the robots how to behave. Their algorithms had to become adaptable, and Wybert needed an immense amount of real-life data to make it happen.”

  “How many of these robots are there?” Rosia asked.

  The woman considered this for a moment. “I’m not sure. Five hundred, maybe more. Most of them are in storage areas below ground. In these tunnels.”

  Tenney stepped forward, hoisting his rifle. “You helped him do this. You helped him enslave us.”

  The woman raised her hands in front of her face, sobbing. Rosia genuinely felt sorry for this woman. Her tears were real, and she was on the verge of a full-on panic.

  “No, wait, please,” the woman said. “There’s more I can tell you.”

  She eased out of her spot in the corner, holding her hands up in a show of surrender. Taking tentative steps, she scooted over toward one of the computers and then pressed a button. The screen whirred to life. As she typed on the keys, Yorick asked, “what language is that on your badge?”

  “French,” she said.

  His brow furrowed. “But the Frenchies lost the war.”

  The woman shook her head as the glow of the computer lit up her face. “There’s a lot you don’t know. The French didn’t lose the war. Not exactly. But, the southern invaders did drive them from this area. Mostly they’re back east.” Then, the screen changed, and she said, “anyway, it doesn’t matter much now, does it?”

  A moment of silence passed among them. Rosia figured they were all trying to think about how much anything did matter now. Wybert was dead. Everything they had known for most of their lives was now in question. The reality had not fully settled on them yet.

  The scientist continued. “The others, I don’t know details. But you,” she nodded at Yorick, “I do. Wybert studied you often, and we used many of your battle strategies to code the programs. You were one of his favorites.”

  Yorick’s lips swished back and forth, but he said nothing. There was no good way to react to being told you were favored by a monster.

  “You were given the first name of Yorick here,” the scientist said, “but you were born with the name Franco Ortega. Your parents live a few hundred kilometers from here, just south of the Wyoming border, past Cheyenne and into Colorado. A town named Harmony. At the north end of town, in a red house with blue shutters. I don’t know the street address, but I’ve seen photos from above.”

  She stopped typing and turned the monitor toward them. The screen showed a man and a woman, and a chill struck Rosia’s spine. The images on the computer danced in front of her eyes. A picture of the house, taken from the sky above.

  These people looked familiar, but Rosia couldn’t place it. She had seen them, somehow. Some time in her life, Rosia had met them, or seen them, or something. Maybe it was how much they looked like Yorick—or, Franco.

  His face went white. He stared at the screen, his eyes jumping back and forth. Rosia leaned over and put a hand on his shoulder. So much to take in right now.

  Yorick swallowed. “How… how do we get there?”

  “All I can tell you is to walk,” the woman said. “If you take any of the vehicles from Wybert’s garage, you’ll be killed within fifty kilometers of the plantación. They all have tracking devices built into them, and once you’re beyond the range of the signal jammers, you’ll be found. Trust me. King Nichol knows everything, but you’ll find that out for yourself soon.”

  “Wybert wanted to rise up against the king,” Yorick said. He eyed the woman. “Where do you stand?”

  She shrugged, terror on her face. “I’m an academic. I only want to go back to my family in Michigan and forget all of this ever happened. Now that he’s gone, I’m free. I don’t have to follow his rules. If I open the gate for you, will you let me go?”

  Rosia nodded, and the woman typed on the keyboard. After a few seconds, she paused. “There. I’ve started the sequence. It will take it a minute or two to activate. I can’t help that. There was a block due to the alarm activated on the plantación. Safety protocol. But it will open soon. Nothing can stop that now.”

  She folded her arms across her chest, shaking. She opened her mouth to speak, but before she could get any words out, her head exploded in a burst of red. Her body flinched back and then smacked into the computer, knocking it to the floor. On the floor, she jiggled a couple times and then went still.

  Rosia jumped back to find Malina, holding out her rifle. Finger on the trigger. A cold, flat look on her face.

  “What did you do?” Rosia said.

  Malina looked up at her, seemingly surprised by Rosia’s question. “She was one of them. And they all have to die. She’s dead now, so there’s one less. We can go.”

  There was a frigid vacancy in Malina’s eyes that sent bolts of unease into Rosia’s heart. Her boyfriend Tenney, a worried frown on his face, reached out and took Malina’s rifle from her. Then he put his arm across her shoulder and escorted her out of the room.

  A cold silence spread across the room. Yorick and Rosia stared at the dead scientist, blood seeping out of her.

  “We should go,” Rosia said, her voice sounding loose and hesitant.

  Yorick tried to look away from the corpse but had a hard time moving his head. He swallowed a few times before he could speak. “Yes. But there’s one more thing we have to do.”

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Yorick opened the front door of the mansion, dragging the body behind him. Yellow jumpsuit rumpled and brown with drying blood. He was already tired from the day’s exertion, but this was important. They needed to see.

  Yorick’s pockets clicked and clattered with the half dozen control chips they’d taken from inside the mansion. He didn’t know what they were for beyond something to do with teaching the robots how to fight, but he knew they were important. A tool they might need later.

  Wybert’s dead weight slumped down each of the grand steps as he and Rosia hauled his body down them. When they reached the bottom, they dropped him there. The bullets had stopped flying. There were no screams out here in the courtyard. There were a handful of serfs and a small number of guards, all of them staring in awe at the dead body of their lord, bloated and covered in blood. The sight of his fresh corpse seemed to have sucked the fight out of everyone in an instant.

  Yorick lifted his hand to shield his eyes, and he looked all around, trying to spy the soldados. If they were still here, they weren’t engaged in the fight. Likely, they’d left. That was a problem to solve later.

  Yorick and Rosia left the dead lord there as the alarm ceased across the plantación. And, in the moment of silence, no one spoke. To the southwest, the front door of the cafeteria opened. A couple of farm workers, limping and bruised, escorted a group of small children out of the training center.

  What would happen to the young ones? Maybe some survivors would stay here, within these walls. To make it into something fair for everyone.

  Not Yorick, though. He wanted out.

  Over the next couple of minutes
, they stood, catching their breath, as more and more of the serfs drew closer. Some came from the fields, some from the battlefields, some from the dorms. More had survived than Yorick had been expecting, which lifted his heart. It almost made him forget that so many had died.

  Then, another alarm blared, but this one, they knew well. The gate movement warning, letting everyone know to stay clear of the massive doors. They crept open, cawing and groaning as the giant steel screeched against the ground.

  Heads swiveled from the dead body to the gate opening. To the grass and trees and mountains beyond that barrier. But no one moved. So many blank looks on the faces of the survivors. This was a whole new world for them. For the first time in their lives, the gate had opened, but no guards were standing by it with weapons trained on them. No one would shoot them for approaching it.

  Yorick took his rifle in his hands and lifted it to the sky. He fired a single shot. Everyone present turned their attention back to him.

  “Slaves,” he said, bellowing at the top of his lungs. “The lord is dead. No one can keep us inside these walls any longer. It’s time to go!”

  And one by one, the remaining former serfs of Lord Wybert’s plantación put down their arms and marched toward the gate. A few were limping and bloodied. Some cradled others, walking in tandem. Some went toward the dorms, maybe to collect their belongings, but others didn’t seem to care about keeping anything from this life. They dropped everything and sprinted toward that open gate. Toward the wide unknown beyond these walls, all they had previously lived since they were too young to know better.

  Toward freedom.

  Tap here to get the sequel, or move forward a few pages to read a sample chapter.

  Afterword

  Want to continue the story? You can get a free Slave Games short story featuring Yorick and Hamon by signing up for my dystopian reader group.

  You can also get the sequel here, or tap forward a few pages to read a sample chapter.

  So,

  Thank you for reading my book!

  Please consider leaving reviews on Amazon and Goodreads. You have no idea how much it will help the success of this book and my ability to write future books. That, sharing it on social media, and telling other people to read it.

  Are you interested in joining a community of Jim Heskett fiction fans? Discuss the books with other people, including the author! Join for free at www.jimheskett.com/bookophile

  I have a website where you can learn more about me and my other projects. Check me out at www.jimheskett.com and sign up for my reader group so you can stay informed on the latest news. You’ll even get some freebies for signing up. You like free stuff, right?

  For Laura, because you reminded me why I write everyday. For something better.

  Sample of FLAME

  A sample of the next book in trilogy, FLAME.

  Yorick still carried his rifle even though he’d expended all his ammunition yesterday. He carried the rifle for a few reasons, and chief among them was the familiarity of it. After a decade of training as one of Lord Wybert's guerreros, Yorick felt more comfortable with a weapon than without.

  His three companions were also either low or out of ammunition. Rosia had none left. Tenney and Malina had a small amount in their rifle magazines, but Yorick and Rosia had spent the bulk of theirs the day before. No one had been killed, but they'd spit quite a few warning shots to keep away the attackers in the brown open-backed vehicle.

  Growing up on the plantación, there had been recurring sets of rumors of roving gangs outside the walls. Mostly, these rumors came in stories told by the older guerreros to the younger ones, to scare them. You better not venture out of your dorm at night, or the gangs are going to get you.

  The largest and most ruthless gang in the area went by the name of White Flames, and their members dressed in yellow and brown clothing, sometimes with bright yellow bandannas. Lots of tattoos, especially up around their necks. Yorick had always assumed their power was more mythological than practical. But now, having seen them in action, he knew how dangerous they could be.

  They weren’t as prevalent as the rumors had said, though. But, they definitely were real. Outside of the plantación, there had been a few areas of small villages or settlements ransacked and abandoned. The White Flames left behind a calling card, usually a bandanna somewhere near the village entrance.

  Those White Flames scavengers that the former plantación residents had stumbled upon the day before were a grave crew. They'd been the first outsiders Yorick and his trio had encountered in their few days since leaving the plantación.

  The real world was not an inviting place. That was the impression Yorick had developed so far.

  After they'd first realized they were low on ammunition, there'd been some talk of returning to the plantación. But, Yorick wouldn't consider it. The plantación was the old world; the world they were leaving behind. Besides, some of the guards had remained, and there was no telling how they would treat any serfs who either stayed or returned. Wybert was dead, but his philosophies might not have disappeared with him.

  So they’d trudged this stretch of highway for about a week now. Yorick, Rosia, Tenney, and Malina. The other survivors of the plantación revolt had either stayed or gone their own separate ways.

  After spending his days and nights over the last several years constantly surrounded by people in a finite area, being in a small group in the great wide open felt odd and uncomfortable. Yorick was used to Rosia leaning on him as much as possible. He was supposed to be steady and level-headed. Supposed to keep her grounded.

  After what he’d seen the day they’d warred for their freedom, though, he didn’t know if he could be steady anymore.

  The highway, the gray substance Rosia had explained as asphalt, stretched on for what appeared to be thousands of kilometers. Yorick had only seen a small strip of it before, out the window of the dorm in the plantación. The same strip, every day for years.

  And now, he traveled it, setting out to hike five hundred kilometers south to some town named Harmony, to find his parents.

  “Should we stop for lunch?” Rosia asked, panting as she adjusted the straps of her backpack.

  He turned and walked backward for a few steps, checking on the beefy former field-worker Tenney and his light-skinned girlfriend, Malina. While Tenney would never allow his own expression to show it, Yorick could see the weariness on Malina’s face.

  “Sure. Let’s pick a spot under a tree if we can. I’m ready for shade.”

  Rosia put a hand on Yorick’s shoulder as she squinted at his ear. He’d been nicked by a bullet inside Wybert’s mansion in the last battle. “It’s looking better,” she said. “Does it hurt?”

  “Not at all. Feeling good.”

  Open fields of grass blanketed either side of the highway. Craggy mountain peaks on all edges of those fields. In the heat of late summer, the grass was brown and unkempt, the mountains devoid of snow.

  Wybert and his spokespeople had described the land as desolate and barren. While this part of Wyoming couldn’t be described as “lush,” Yorick didn’t think of it as that bad. There were trees and rivers and wildlife.

  The White Flames they’d encountered the day before weren’t wearing gas masks, as rumors of outsiders had claimed. They’d been dressed in normal yellow or brown shirts and jeans or pants, dirty and worn. Their hairstyles were weird… spiky like the manes of roosters, or otherwise dyed in bright colors to match the yellow bandannas. With all Yorick had learned about battle strategy, he knew this to be an intimidation tactic. Wild hair to communicate a sense of unpredictability and danger.

  “I don’t see any trees,” Rosia said. “We can push on a little.” She eyed Yorick, her lips pursed. “Do you want me to call you Franco?”

  The name he’d been born with, before Wybert had changed it when he’d arrived at the plantación. He shook his head. “It feels weird. Might as well keep calling me Yorick. That’s the only name I know.”
/>   She nodded. “I understand.”

  “Look,” Tenney said, lifting a meaty hand toward the curve of a hill, coming into view. “It’s an avión. Airplane.” There, a large craft had crashed into the side of the mountain. Green, with unknown markings on the sides. The thing had spread out in a dozen pieces along the rocky side of the mountain.

  “Looks military,” Tenney said. “Maybe ammo or other supplies inside.”

  Yorick nodded. “Works for me. Plus, plenty of shade.”

  The four of them pushed forward, and the wreck of the plane grew larger and larger. Yorick couldn’t read the writing on the side of the plane, but he recognized it as the same language as they’d seen in the computer room underneath Wybert’s mansion. French. A relic of the war.

  Yorick realized he knew almost nothing of the war. Or, at least, nothing he could count on as true. He had to assume most everything he’d learned of history growing up had been a lie. Twisted by Wybert to achieve his own propaganda goals.

  Since they’d set foot outside of the plantación a few days before, everything had been new.

  Rosia must have picked up on the sense of overwhelm flowing through Yorick because she slung her rifle over her shoulder and fell in step with him. She placed a warm hand on his back, rubbing up and down.

  He met her eyes, and they shared a smile. Always, she mouthed, and he echoed the word back to her. If she was as nervous as he was about the future, he couldn’t see it in her eyes. Yorick pulled her close, and they embraced. His hands wrapped around her waist and squeezed, and she pressed herself to him. Neither cared that they had days worth of road stink accumulated on their bodies. The embrace was all that mattered for those few seconds.