Quite why he was this indispensable linchpin was a mystery to Solly. He had no special expertise or insight and yet every decision was referred to him. When he was gone, someone needed to fill his boots and Jaxon was the only candidate. Scott Lee, while he was the smartest person Solly knew, had no emotional investment in the farmhouse community and all the empathy of a robot. So, Jaxon would take Solly's place with Arnold and Miss Prism to advise him, along with Scott Lee if he hung around.
So, they worked on a planting plan based on a book they'd rescued from the library in Hagerstown. Jaxon's foraging expeditions on the nearby farms had yielded a viable population of hens that was already producing eggs for the community and was being actively encouraged to grow. Miss Prism had developed a fascination with chickens and was now running the unit with surprising enthusiasm.
A small herd of cattle had been assembled from the few survivors of the early days after the Long Night. A single bull had been found, and now enough of the cows were pregnant to ensure a small supply of fresh milk to supplement their dwindling supply of the powdered variety. But the search continued, wider afield, for more stock to make their herd viable.
Joe Kuchinsky had been recovering from his wounds in a bedroom at the Fordhams' place and had taken command both of that community and the detachment of troops from Wright-Patterson. One of their number had been sent to the base to get orders, but Kuchinsky thought it most likely he'd remain with them for the foreseeable future. Solly had advised Jaxon to go to Joe if he needed another opinion on anything. Kuchinsky's presence was one crumb of comfort for Solly as he contemplated leaving the place.
Scott Lee was, it seemed, a man without a mission now. He'd been unable to reactivate Alison since the attack on the Lee Corporation's fabrication plant and believed she was irretrievably lost.
"Here," he said, tossing the cylinder over. He and Solly were sitting in the front room of one of the shacks the Wright-Patterson soldiers had built beside the barn.
"What am I supposed to do with this?" Solly asked.
Lee shrugged. "Use it as a doorstop? I don't know. Maybe you can get through to her."
"You think she's still in there?"
"No, I think she was either destroyed by the mind of the drone or trapped. She'd barely survived that encounter with the prototype, and that had only lasted a few seconds. And this time, we couldn't retrieve the body of the Reaper. For all I know, she's still inside it, or maybe even in the hands of Lee Corp engineers right now."
The man's face was drained of all hope, all energy. Solly could hardly imagine this was the same man Paulie had described as having an entire town under his sway through the force of his charisma.
"She was more than just a software project, wasn't she?"
Lee looked up suddenly, as if he were being dragged out of contemplation. "What? Oh. Yes. You're right. She was my secret project. Annabel knew nothing of her."
"Why did you create her?"
Scott Lee drew in a deep breath and rubbed his face as if fighting off exhaustion. "As a counterpoint to the monster I was forced to build. You see, when my darling wife saw the end approaching, she instructed me to create an AI version of her that was indistinguishable from the real thing. Are you familiar with the Turing Test, Solly?"
"Of course I am. I was a software developer for over twenty years."
This brought a little life to Lee's tired face. "Sorry, yes. I forgot. So, it was my task to create an AI that was not only capable of fooling humans into believing they were dealing with a real person, as with the Turing Test, but to go one step further. It wasn't enough for Annabel that the entity could appear to be a human to others. For her, it had to go much deeper than that—it had to be as close to being a living mind as it was possible to be. It would seem, to anyone interacting with it, that her organic consciousness had been transferred along with her memories, prejudices and genius."
"And did you succeed?"
Lee smiled with unmistakable pride. "Yes. Perhaps I succeeded too well. As we discovered in Seattle, the AI version of Annabel is just as clever and manipulative as the original."
"So, how does Alison fit into all this?"
"She was to be the child we never had."
Solly didn't hide his shock. "What?"
"I thought having a child, even a digital one, might soften the Annabel AI. I was hoping to build in some empathy. Since her illness, the real Annabel had precious little of that."
"What went wrong?"
Again, Scott went through his face rubbing routine before settling down and sighing. "I saw what she had become and could not give Alison up. I buried her deep, because I knew Annabel suspected me, and I gave her to Khaled. He hid Alison and escaped from the Lee Building in New York, hoping to find someone who'd take her out of the city. And he found you."
"That was a crazy plan."
"He was a crazy man. He knew more about what Annabel was planning than even I did in those last few weeks. I think it planted the seeds of his insanity."
Solly tried to make himself comfortable on the rickety chair as he composed his thoughts. "I understand why you were so angry that I opened Alison up and she imprinted on me. You are her father as well as her creator."
"I was furious, and it's taken me a long time to get over myself, Solly. For that, I apologize. But the fact is she saw you as her father, and I should have accepted that. No father would have made her take over a Reaper, knowing the pain it would cause."
Solly shook his head. "But you saved our lives."
"At the cost of hers."
They sat in silence, each processing thoughts that ranged from the deep past into an uncertain future.
"It seems we both have a complicated relationship with our children," Scott said, finally. "Do you really think you have any chance of finding yours?" He left the word alive off the end of the sentence, but Solly heard it nonetheless.
"I only know I have to try. I need to take on the Lee Corporation and, to do that, I can't be encumbered by doubt about whether I should have done more to find my family. I've lived with that since the Long Night, but there's always been something else I had to do. But no more. This can't wait any longer."
Scott nodded. "Yes, I think I understand. But, tell me, how do you intend to take on the Lee Corporation?"
"I don't know, to be honest. I was hoping you'd have some ideas on that score."
"I think all we can do is help those who oppose the Lees. The government in DC, Wright-Patterson, good guys like Colonel Moretti in Pennsylvania. We're not going to be of much use, but I kind of think we've done more than most already in taking out the Reaper plant."
"But that will only delay them," Solly said. "It won't stop them building another fabrication facility. We've bought ourselves some time. What are we going to do with it?"
Scott shrugged. "You're going to use it to find your family." He flung up his hands as Solly tensed. "Don't mistake me, I understand why you're doing it, but I suggest you put a strict time limit on it if you want to oppose the Lee Corporation. Oh, if only Alison were still functional."
"Tell me," Solly said, relaxing again. "How were you intending to use her? Once you'd decided you couldn't use her to soften your sociopathic wife's digital version."
"Well, it's like this. Alison is a facsimile of Annabel without her negative traits. Anywhere the Annabel personality could be installed would also take Alison. I had hoped to deploy Alison into Lee Corporation's systems and, through her, control their weapons and systems. She would have to fight her mother, but if she won it would have brought them down, Solly, and we'd have had a chance to avert the second culling."
His face, momentarily so full of animation, slackened again. "But that's not going to happen now."
Solly turned the cylinder over in his hands. "So, you think there's no chance she's in here?"
"No. I've tried everything I know to reactivate the cylinder, all from within the safety of the safe in the basement, and I get nothing. All essential
systems check out, but she’s like a body on life support when the mind has flown."
The last meeting Solly had before he left was the one he'd dreaded the most. His own mood was black enough as he climbed the stairs to Ross's room, but he knew the boy suffered even more, grieving for the loss of his mobility as well as the woman he saw as his mother. Solly could only imagine how powerless Ross must be feeling right now. Relying on others for the most basic necessities, he would have to watch as they toiled in the fields, tending the animals and planting the crops that would keep him alive. Relying on Solly to get the delayed revenge he so craved. And all the time wondering whether, having lost his mother, he would also lose his adoptive father. If Solly found his natural son, what room would there be for Ross?
"Hello, son," Solly said as he opened the door.
Ross was sitting in a small armchair by the window which gave him a wide view of the fields and the lane leading up to the house where the Humvee sat. The boy grunted a greeting.
"You're going tomorrow, then," Ross said.
Solly sat down on the bed. "Yeah, that's the plan."
"And you're going on your own?"
"I am."
"Then why do you need a Humvee?"
"Because I need space to bring Bella and the kids back. Besides, it's the safest transport we've got."
Ross twisted around in his chair. "I have to come, Solly. I have no reason to stay here."
"We've been through this, Ross. You're safer here. And this is where your friends are."
"I don't want to be safe," Ross snapped. "And I need to be with my father, not with my friends."
Solly slumped. Heaven knew he'd welcome the company, and he'd have been happy to have Ross where he could see him. But it was just ridiculous to go out into the fractured world with a paralyzed boy.
"You think I'll be a burden," Ross said, reading his mind. "And I guess I will be, but not as much as you think. And I can be helpful, honest I can."
"I'm sure you can, son," Solly began. A knock on the door saved him from having to be blunt with the boy.
The door opened and, to his surprise, Vivian stood there. "Hello, Solly," she said as she came inside. She smiled at Ross. "Did you tell him?"
"Tell me what?" Solly said, his heart sinking.
"No, he's just about to explain why I shouldn't go with him. About how I'd be a burden and how it would be stupid to have a paralyzed boy riding with him."
Solly shook his head. "I was not going to say any of that," he lied.
"Well that's good then, because I'm comin' too,” Vivian announced.
"What?" Solly cried, leaping up and looking from one to the other.
"Yes, Solly, I am comin'. You know I can be useful, and I'll tend to Ross, so you don't need to worry about nuttin'."
Solly dropped back onto the bed, shaking his head. "Absolutely no! This isn't a kindergarten trip!" He regretted those words the instant they left his mouth.
"Oh, is that how you see us?" Ross shouted. "Children? We've lost as much as you have and maybe we need to be doing something useful too!"
"You can—stay here and help the community thrive!"
Vivian waved a finger at Solly, her pretty Jamaican face suddenly as hard as steel. "Not this time, Solly. This isn't your choice to make. We're comin' along because you need us. We're your posse. We got your back."
For a moment, derisive words formed in Solly's mind. Who were they kidding? They were just kids and they'd be nothing more than a burden if he took them with him. But he caught himself as he looked from one stern face to the other. Maybe they were kids, but when all was said and done, he was a mediocre app developer who couldn't hold down a job or a marriage. If the FBI had a set of criteria for flagging potential trouble makers then he, Ross and Vivian would hardly have registered. They were closer to Mr. Bean than Mr. Bin Laden.
"It doesn't seem as though I have a choice, does it?" he said, feeling a surprising relief.
Vivian smiled. "At last, you understand the state of affairs."
"And just in case you had a change of heart overnight," Ross said, beaming, "Viv's got the keys to the Humvee."
Chapter 3
Paulie handed the binoculars to Tucker. "It's quiet down there," she sighed. "Barely anyone on the streets."
"I guess they've all been taken to Seattle," Tucker said. "Maybe we should've gone there first, rather than coming back here."
Paulie retreated from the overhang and sat up. The last time she'd been up here, she'd witnessed Scott Lee—in his Pastor Smith disguise—speaking to the leader of the militia. They'd then turned around and left, but what she'd seen had started a chain of events that had led her nearly 5,000 miles in a big fat circle back to the beginning.
"We've talked about this," she said. Endlessly. "We need to find out what we can about what's going on in Arbroath before we go after our people."
"We are going to get them, then," Marvin said.
Paulie turned to him. She'd gotten to like the man over the weeks they'd spent together, and she certainly owed him big time for the way he'd looked after and protected Luna. But they needed a break from one another. It had been a long and difficult journey back west and too long spent in the company of one person—even with Luna acting as a buffer and peacemaker—was going to result in short tempers and cross words.
They'd managed nearly 2,500 miles across the continental US, hopping from vehicle to vehicle, and she'd been content to follow Marvin's lead most of the time. After all, whereas she'd crossed it eastwards by air, he and Luna had traveled on foot and, where they could, by car. But it was getting harder and harder to find working automobiles with fuel in their tanks and, in their desperation, they'd been forced to open up vehicles that still contained the rotting remains of their former owners. That had been grim work, and they'd been grateful to have their dog Dany with them to distract Luna while they did it. Nothing, however, could completely remove the smell, and they'd been forced to travel with the windows open, whatever the weather. In a straight fight between freezing and suffocating, the cold won every time.
Colonel McBride had given them supplies and fuel in exchange for their agreement to set up solar-powered relay stations at roughly 750km intervals along the westward road. She admired McBride as he thought beyond the purely local issues and knew that information was everything. Missions had been sent out in all directions, and each had a relay so that, like a spider at the center of an ever-widening web, McBride was able to learn more and more about the tactical situation out there. And it comforted Paulie, just a little, to know that she could contact Wright-Patterson in an emergency, even if there was nothing they could do, in practice, to help from two thousand miles away.
"Of course, we're going to help them, Marvin," Paulie said with a sigh. "They're our people. But we need to know what the situation is here first. They have to have somewhere to come back to."
Marvin rubbed his eyes and yawned. "You're right, Sheriff. I suggest we make our way down there in the morning. I'm too bushed."
Paulie fought back her annoyance. She wanted to see what was happening in Arbroath now, not wait until the following day. But there had been enough petty fights in the past days and the town wasn't going anywhere.
"Sure," she said. "Let's find somewhere to camp."
They had plenty of food, as Marvin and Luna had become expert foragers, so they made a hearty supper as they sheltered beside the rusty red pickup that had been their transport for the past couple of hundred miles. Paulie sometimes felt like an interloper as Marvin, Luna and Dany had established a routine over the weeks they'd been traveling together.
Marvin would begin warming up the contents of a can in the saucepan sitting on his little camping stove. Luna would ask what it was and, whatever the answer, complain. It was a little ritual that spoke to a deep connection between them that Paulie couldn't help being a little jealous of. Luna had always been something of a daddy's girl, though she could barely remember her father. Paulie had b
een complicit in the lie that he had been stationed in Afghanistan when, in fact, he'd been living with his new partner somewhere north of LA. She hadn't been able to bring herself to wreck Luna's rose-colored impression of her father and she sure wasn't going to do it now when there was next to no chance of her ever meeting him again.
Truth to tell, Marvin had been a better father to her than the man whose genes she carried. Truth to tell, Marvin had been a better parent, period. He seemed to have a way of handling her that corrected her misbehavior without causing any resentment. It would have been fascinating and instructive if Paulie could have gotten over herself, but she couldn't.
"Are we going to live here again?" Luna said.
Paulie, who'd been totally absorbed in her destructive self-examination, took a moment to work out what her daughter had said. "What? Oh. Would you like to?"
Luna shrugged as she swallowed a spoonful of canned beef stew. "I don't care where we stop, but I'm tired of moving every day. I just wanna sleep in a bed. President Christine gave me my own bedroom."
"Well, we'll have to see how things are down there in the morning."
"Can I come?"
"No, you'll stay up here with Dany until we come back to fetch you."
Luna screwed her face up. "I don't want to be left behind. Uncle Marvin, you'll let me go, won't you?"
She called him uncle when she wanted something from him. She knew he liked it.
"No, kid, I wouldn't. Your mom's right. We don't know what we're goin' to find and we don't want Dany under our feet. You stay here and look after her."
"Dany wants to go too."
"She's just a dog. She doesn't know what she wants," Marvin said. "She ain't comin' and unless you're happy to leave her up here on her own, you'll stay with her."
The Long Night Box Set Page 67
