Keepers

by Brenda Cooper

  Lou stalked across the street and stood in front of Blessing. “Is that what we were waiting for?”

  He looked like a cat who’d caught a hummingbird. The bots stopped behind him, looming, as wide as the road.

  She loved Blessing, but there were times he made her want to tear her hair out. “Were these used in the attack on Portland? Were they hacked?”

  “They’ve been upgraded.”

  “Great. Hopefully they were also tested.”

  He grinned and shrugged, his look suggesting she was worrying about nothing. As if having big machines solved problems.

  “Well,” she said dryly, “I had been wondering how we would defend ourselves if the current residents of Chelan didn’t want us around.”

  The ecobots stopped in the road, waiting.

  “Breakfast is ready!” Matchiko called, her voice twice as exuberant as usual.

  “I suppose I can’t send them back where they came from,” she observed.

  Blessing’s smile was still on his face, but he managed to look crestfallen in spite of it. How could a grown man be so good at emotional drama?

  Well, Julianna had sent the damned bots. They must have been expensive. “I suspect they’re coming with us.”

  Blessing’s smile widened. “I think we should name them.”

  She sighed. “Whatever. Let’s eat, water the horses, and head out.”

  Daryl had come up beside her and taken his hat off, staring up at the metal beasts. He grinned. “That gives us a lot of muscle.”

  Men. “I had hoped to ride in without being noticed.” She turned toward the door and headed for the kitchen, following the scent of toast and eggs.

  ‡ ‡ ‡

  Lou sat beside Matchiko on the lead ecobot. They nestled between three sets of folding arms right behind the large rounded head where it rested, retracted, near the front of the robot. The bot’s multiple drones all occupied their parking slots, making the wide top feel crowded. Daryl, Shuska, and Blessing all rode horses. Day rode the other bot, and the other three mounts walked on a long lead attached to one of the bot’s arms.

  Lou practiced giving the ecobots commands. Now that they were out of town and in an empty place on a wide stretch of decent road, stopping and turning the bots seemed like a good idea. Matchiko held on tight, and wore a sour little smile, so Lou asked, “Is anything other than the ride bothering you?”

  Matchiko reached for Lou’s hand. “I have a hunch that Chelan is going to be rough. And I don’t know if the ecobots help or hurt. I’m guessing hurt.”

  “They don’t exactly let us ride in quietly.”

  “Especially not if you keep driving them like drunken cars.”

  “Hey! We need to practice giving them orders.”

  “They might just be humoring you.”

  “They’re machines.”

  “Smart machines. Can we just go straight for a while? I’m trying to count hawks.”

  To be fair, Matchiko did have her notebook resting near her. Lou stopped asking the machine to do anything. She’d already tested voice commands and using swipes on her wristlet.

  It did matter whether or not she could command the bots, but in her experience, ecobots sometimes had their own agendas, and those would have priority. They would obey her if they had no higher calling associated with saving the world. Or, as proven in Portland Metro, they’d give her no warning at all if they were hacked. They might even turn on her and her people.

  Ecobots made fickle staff.

  Chelan was roughly fifty miles from Wenatchee. Two days, if they pushed the horses. Three days if they didn’t.

  “I wonder if they’ve blocked the roads?” Lou mused.

  Matchiko shifted to a new position, stretching her injured leg out and reaching toward the ankle in a pose that looked like yoga, the move oddly graceful on the metal back of the robot. Like a single flower in the middle of a rocky cliff. “We’ll find out in the morning.”

  “If they’re organized, they’ll know we’re coming.”

  Matchiko nodded.

  “What if there’s no good place to stay? No usable water?”

  Matchiko sighed. “It’s a big lake. You have your stash of water pills.”

  “There’s only one big road on either side.”

  Matchiko reached a hand out and touched her cheek, her fingers warm. “Stop worrying so much.”

  “I’m not worried. I’m looking forward to finding a nest of Returners.”

  “You know,” Matchiko smiled, “we’re used to dealing with one or two Returners at a time. Once, we had six. Remember? This might be a hundred. Or five hundred.”

  Lou laughed, a little high and nervous. “Are you telling me to be careful what I wish for? We’ll find a way.”

  “Don’t brag. You’ll tempt the universe.”

  Lou shut up, balancing on top of the big bot, which rocked less than a horse and differently. It made her ever-so-slightly queasy. She watched the riverbanks for animals. The recent rain has driven some dark green up through the brown grasses of early fall, all of that mixing with the softer greens of low sage bushes. A doe and a fawn drank from a low bank on the river and farther on, a yearling buck struggled uphill on the far side, watching the bots with suspicion. A few minutes later something bigger than her head splashed in the water. It was too far away for her to tell if it was a fish or a river otter. Maybe a salmon. They should be between the summer and fall runs, but the exact timing of the fall run varied. Since the biggest dams had come down, the quantity of fish had more than doubled. So maybe a salmon.

  She wanted to look at maps, but they had nothing for Internet way out here. She expected premium access from Julianna, but it hadn’t shown up yet. So when her wristlet buzzed, it had to be one of her party; they had no better connectivity way out here. She glanced down.

  Day. Economical, as always. A single word: “Stop.”

  She raised an eyebrow and swiped to tell the ecobot to stop. It obeyed so abruptly that she had to steady herself against its metal arm. She and Matchiko both stood.

  A party of five men had appeared in the road. She’d just looked that way and seen nothing. The youngest looked like he was in his thirties, the oldest probably twice that. Each of them held a gun and more than one had another weapon as well. She spotted a hunting crossbow and some kind of sword. They wore leather vests in spite of the heat and old-style sewn jeans and leather boots. Hats covered every face. They were so over-the-top her first instinct was to laugh, and she barely managed to stop herself from at least smiling.

  Returners. They had to be. Well-dressed, if stylized. She smiled. Game on. A jolt of adrenaline added speed to her racing thoughts. The ecobots wouldn’t help in a fight unless the humans were hurting the natural world or attacking the bots directly; they allowed people to kill each other with no interference. These people probably knew that. But being able to stand on top of mobile machines gave her party far better angles to shoot from, and the men on the road had no cover whatsoever to speak of.

  For just a moment everyone stood still, as if they’d all paused for a photo. Then Blessing urged his gray horse forward a few steps. He smiled his signature wide smile, looking so relaxed Lou was sure he wasn’t. He gave them a moment to speak, and when they didn’t, he said, “Good afternoon. Can we help you?”

  “Don’t go up there,” the man said. “You can turn around and go across the river and go up the other side, but don’t go to Chelan.”

  Blessing cocked his head, looking curious. “Why not?”

  “There are sick people up there. The city is quarantined.”

  Blessing kept his smile.

  Matchiko’s hand curled around Lou’s forearm, her nails digging slender moons into Lou’s flesh.

  Blessing answered the man. “We have business in Chelan.” He paused, as if thinking carefully. “What kind of illness?”

  “The kind that kills people.”

  “That’s not very helpful.”

  “Trust u
s. You don’t want to pass us. It’s like a flu and contagious.”

  He was lying. It didn’t sound like he had even thought much about his story. Maybe he’d made it up on the spot. Lou moved two steps closer to the edge of the ecobot. She was at least twelve feet above the Returners, so they looked foreshortened. She cleared her throat. “We’re Wilders. We won’t do you any harm. We don’t care what’s happening in town. But we have a job to do, and Chelan is our newly assigned territory. We’ll take our risks.”

  Matchiko let go of her arm, and Lou rubbed it.

  The man kept watching Blessing. “We don’t care what the city told you to do. The city has no rights out here, and we’re telling you not to go.” He sounded disturbingly sanctimonious as he added, “It’s for your own good.”

  “I’m not a city girl.” Lou moved her hand closer to her stunner. “We have a federal permit.”

  Beside her, Matchiko sank to a sitting position.

  Blessing stared at the man, as if contemplating his next answer.

  Daryl cajoled his horse into a light prance and came up beside Blessing. The two of them looked imposing.

  Matchiko twisted so she lay on her stomach, braced on her elbows, peering over the edge of the ecobot. She held a small, capable gun in her hand.

  None of the men had raised a rifle yet, but the air screamed with tension, thick and brittle.

  Matchiko whispered, “I’ve got the leader in my sights.”

  “Hold,” Lou whispered back. Shooting their way into town did not seem like a terribly good idea. But maybe the threat would help. She glanced around for Shuska, who had been riding in the last position, acting as rearguard.

  Not visible.

  Wherever she was, chances were good it would be the right place. Lou spoke again. “We’re not asking for permission. We have it, and we’re going up there. We may be able to help with your sick.”

  Matchiko gave her a soft kick in the shin.

  “We’ve got the bots and we’ve got our orders. We won’t bother you, but we’re not turning around.”

  Only one of the five men looked up at her. The other four all watched the two men on the horses in front of them.

  By now, Lou was used to being underestimated. It amused her.

  Shuska’s voice. “Please move out of our way.” She appeared from around the side of the second ecobot, mounted on Buster. Not the mount Lou would have chosen. But Shuska and the horse were of a size, and they looked good together. Shuska’s hair had been caught back to stay out of her eyes, and her left hand held the reins, leaving her right free. She repeated her command. “Please move.” When Shuska said it, please was a command.

  The man who had been doing the talking stared at the huge native woman for a long moment. One of the men behind him poked him and said something Lou couldn’t hear.

  Lou chose to risk Matchiko’s ability to get a clear shot by urging the ecobot very slowly forward, reminding the men that they had machine power.

  Just in case they didn’t have enough advantage, Blessing and Daryl had both managed to get their weapons pointed at the men while they were distracted by Shuska.

  The men guarding the road were thugs, but they weren’t strategic thugs. So far. Once more, Lou almost wanted to laugh. She knew it for nerves. She knew better than to underestimate opponents.

  The men stepped slowly to the side of the road.

  Shuska glanced at Lou. Although she said nothing, she might as well be lecturing Lou on the inadvisability of leaving armed men behind them. But there were too many to capture, or to watch well if they did. She wasn’t going to fire the first shot. She gave a slight shake of her head, signaling to Shuska that she understood her, and had chosen differently.

  Lou nodded at the men. “Thank you for the warning. I meant what I said. We may be able to help. We’ll see you in town sometime tomorrow.”

  She watched. No one raised a rifle.

  Lou told her bot to lead them off.

  The men stepped aside, watchful. Lou tried to memorize their faces, but they were hard to see at this angle and under hats.

  Shuska stayed behind until the party was a little bit ahead, and then, by some miracle, she managed to convince Buster to trot fast enough to catch up.

  Lou glanced soon at her. “Sorry,” she mouthed.

  Shuska glared at the machines. She was good with them, better than Lou, but she didn’t trust them. “I can manage. It’ll be a long night.”

  A quiet entry into Chelan would have been too much to hope for. At least with the damned ecobots. She turned to Matchiko. “I’m going to have figure out how to manage Julianna so she doesn’t send any more inappropriate gifts.”

  Matchiko had clearly been thinking along the same lines. “I hope Julianna has to ride one of these things someday.”

  Lou stared at the river. “She’s trying to run an NGO from inside the city. She knows nothing.”

  “Our last bosses didn’t either.” Matchiko reached up and took Lou’s hand. “At least we know Julianna means well.”

  “I suppose.”

  “If you want me to have time to cook anything decent for dinner, we should stop soon.”

  “I won’t mind a cold dinner.”

  Matchiko smiled her patient smile.

  ‡ ‡ ‡

  Lou woke at dawn, mildly surprised that they had survived the night with no interruptions. She rolled out of her sleeping bag into the cold morning. Pristine light graced the great river, illuminating every blade of grass with its own glowing frost halo. She sat up and looked around in all directions. No bad guys in sight. Just Daryl, on watch, his slender figure throwing a long stick-thin shadow over the horses.

  Good. But she didn’t trust the silence.

  Her wristlet buzzed and hummed. She glanced down to read. Accept connection from Coryn?

  She tapped Yes. Finally. Connectivity.

  Audio?

  Yes. Yes! She glanced down. Video, too. A tiny image of Coryn stared at Lou. She’d cut her hair.

  Video took excellent connectivity. A weight of relief slid from her, followed by concern. Why was Coryn calling before six o’clock in the morning?

  Her little sister sounded worried. “Lou?”

  “Good morning.”

  “There’s going to more trouble.”

  “You know about the trouble we had yesterday?”

  “We’ve had you on satellite since you left Yakima. But we weren’t able to finish negotiating and placing the bandwidth we needed to talk to you.”

  Coryn spoke fast, as if she were as relieved as Lou to be back in touch. “There’s a barricade on the road. It wasn’t there yesterday. It’s showing up on satellite shots but we haven’t been able to get a picture with enough resolution to analyze whether or not the ecobots can break through it.”

  “I hope not.”

  “What?” Coryn sounded surprised.

  Lou took a deep breath and tried to stay calm. “I’m going to have to live there. In Chelan. I can’t afford to enter in a fight. What was Julianna thinking?”

  “She’s not here right now.”

  Lou forced another deep breath. Coryn was her only support?

  “Did Julianna send the ecobots?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did she suggest that we try to go through a barrier?”

  “No. That was me. That is me. I’m in charge of getting you into Chelan.”

  Across the ashes of last night’s campfire, Shuska sat up, staring at Lou. Lou swiped her wristlet to make Coryn’s side of the conversation audible. “So let’s think a little more about this. If it’s a barricade, it’s not coming after us, right?”

  “Uh . . .”

  Lou smiled. She had known something would happen. This was better than being shot at from behind a boulder. She glanced at Shuska, who had stood and headed toward her. Matchiko’s eyes were open, but she hadn’t moved. “Look, we’ve just woken up. Can you hold on for five minutes and we’ll have a regular meeting with all of us? I w
ant Daryl, too, since he’s actually been to Chelan. Give us a second.”

  She muted the call and filled the other two in, then said, “Shuska, can you get Daryl? Maybe put Day on watch?”

  Matchiko climbed out of her bag. Shuska had already started toward Daryl. Lou hastened through a minimal set of morning ablutions and lit the clever little solar-battery stove under the coffee water, then stood waiting with the other three gathered. Moving around helped her shed some of her anger with Coryn. It probably wasn’t Coryn’s fault she was the only one available. At least she was there.

  Shuska clutched a tablet in her hand, not looking at it. Daryl stood quietly beside her, half her girth, a few inches shorter, and all wiry muscle. His hair had already grayed and the lines in his face were marked with dust from traveling on horseback most of the previous day.

  Lou swiped the connection back open and started with a question. “Tell us what you know about this barrier?”

  “It just went up last night. It’s on the 97. Jake and I reviewed the sat shots from the last week, and the material was staged three days ago. It looks like a metal. There’s a small solar cell installation to run the gate. So we don’t know that the barrier is all about you, but we do think they put it up quickly last night to keep you out. It’s about three miles in front of you, after the road starts winding up into Chelan. It’s a narrow spot—”

  Lou cut her off. “We’ll go around it.”

  “What? It might be soft enough to get through—you know, unfinished or something.”

  Matchiko looked up from where she was spooning instant coffee into cups and held her finger up to speak.

  Lou nodded, noticing the deference. It wasn’t like Matchiko to defer to her. But then Matchiko worked for her now. It made her uneasy. How could she be the boss and one of the three amigas?

  Matchiko started with a simple question. “Why would we break through the barrier?”

  “To get to Chelan.” A beat of silence. “Oh. But then you have to live with these people.”

  Apparently Coryn had finally heard the obvious. Lou asked her, “So maybe you can find a way we can go around?”

  “I’m looking.”

  Shuska spoke up. “Do we have access to maps now?”