“It came from the domes to the east and north,” Emma said. “No crops.”
“And no water, neither,” Raphael said. “Shit!”
Leading with the muzzle of his rifle, my father was ready for trouble. We didn’t find any on the train. By the time we got to the engine, Jen was already aboard.
The companion bot smiled, reached down and offered her hand. She pulled me up, surprising me with her strength.
My father peered around corners, ready for attackers. “Nobody home, Jenny?”
“No, sir,” she said. “No humans. No drones. Just the pilot computer.”
Emma retracted her exo-stilts to fit inside the engine’s door as she climbed in. “The whole train is the bot. The tracks to the coast are destroyed.”
“The tracks to the west are destroyed,” my father said. “The tracks that will take you back home are clear.”
Dad took a backpack that had been hanging on Bob and disappeared down the side of the train. I heard him banging on something. I poked my head out of the engine in time to see him emerge from the car behind me and close the door carefully.
My father gave us a cheery wink. “The surprise is ready.”
“What surprise?” I asked.
“Bob has the details but don’t open that door. I’ve left an active proximity mine for anybody who opens that door, okay? Okay.”
“You’ve put a bomb on our train?” Emma was wide-eyed.
“More than one, actually. Running away won’t solve the problem. To survive this, we have to take the battle to them. Otherwise, the bots will eventually hunt us all down. I’ve already unlinked two cars and the engine from the wreck. You’ll make good time.”
Emma said nothing. She was quick to weigh the options and must have figured there were no better choices. She made no argument.
We were pointed east but the track would curve north and take us on a circuitous route before turning to Artesia.
Jen moved forward in the engine’s cockpit. “Raphael was right. The manual controls are still here.”
“Nothin’ much more complicated than a lever for speed and a brake,” Raphael said as Bob ambled up. “Haven’t seen the inside of one of these babies in a dog’s age. Down, Bobby.”
The assistive bot knelt. Raphael grunted as he climbed down and leaned on Bob.
“What’s the plan?” I asked. “Storm the NI’s castle and get killed?”
“They won’t expect a counter-attack,” my father grinned. “It’s not logical. We’re weak. That’s when it’s most dangerous to attack any animal. We’re vulnerable and backed up against a wall with no choice but fight or become extinct.”
“Yes,” Emma said, “but what’s the plan? Macho bravado isn’t a plan.”
My father dipped his head. “Maybe it’s macho but it’s not bravado if it’s real.”
He slipped his backpack from his shoulders and handed it up to me. He offered his rifle to Emma. “Take it. I’ve got more.”
I expected my father to climb up into the engine. Instead, he stepped back. “Dad? What’re you doing?”
“This isn’t goodbye. I expect to see you again when all this is over. I’m not old yet and, Dante, you’re going to live to be old. Find a way. There’s always a way. If I’ve learned anything, occupying forces have a hard time dealing with insurgents. I’m going to keep ’em busy and cover your rear.”
Bob extended his legs and climbed into the engine compartment. The assistive bot went to the front and reached under the dashboard. Bob’s manipulators were strong. The bot found what it was looking for and pulled a skein of wires out of a console. Sparks flew. A small green light dimmed and died.
Bob returned to the door and spoke to Raphael. “The pilot is disconnected, sir.”
My father scanned the landscape in the direction of town. “Won’t be long. Raphael, get on board. I’ve got shit to do.”
“This is ridiculous! Dad, get up here.” I got on my knees and reached down to help him up. It’s a tight fit, but there’s just enough room. There’s nothing left for us in Marfa. What are you going to do for food?”
“The bots won’t destroy the wind farms and solar fields. The insectiles are already gone. Bob did a scan. The big bots are easily avoided if you know how and I know how.”
My father reached up and, instead of allowing me to help him up, shook my hand. “I’ve been preparing for this. It’ll be all right.”
“What are you going to do for food, Mr. Bolelli?” Emma asked.
My father sighed. “I emptied out the store. I left a recording with Bob, but better you hear it from my mouth. Travis left me no choice. I was going to empty out Chinto’s store and make the town’s few survivors leave for the domes or the coast, whichever way the train was heading when it stopped. Then the bots showed up and — ”
“You murdered Travis,” I said.
“Negotiations got out of hand.”
“Let me guess,” I said, “Complications — ”
“Ensued. Yup.”
“Bob helped,” Raphael said. “I was prepared to pay a high price to stock up for the last exodus of Marfa’s survivors. But like I told the sheriff, Travis wanted too much for too little. He wanted my Jenny.”
“Oh, lord,” Emma said.
“If it had gone right, our last survivors would be loading this train with supplies to escape,” Raphael said. “We would have saved Chinto’s selfish ass, too. We’d be heading to the coast and sailing ships and who knows where? I was thinking Samoa. Never been on a sailing ship. That would have been epic.”
I stared at my father, unsure of what to say to his confession of murder. He’d told me that, in the Sand Wars, he’d shot looters. It was hard to square with what he’d done.
Then whatever I had to say didn’t matter.
Emma looked toward Marfa. “We’ve attracted attention. C’mon!”
“Time to go old buddy!” My father offered the old man a boost. Bob reached down and grasped Raphael below the elbow. My mentor was half-way off the ground when a sec bot’s sniper bullet struck him in the back.
16
“Raphael?” Bob held his master’s arm. “You are injured, sir.”
The old man looked down at the massive cavity where his abdomen used to be. Blood spurted from his torso, painting Bob red.
“Classic,” Raphael said.
I looked for my father but he had no time for registering any shock. He was already on the run, heading for the eastbound engine’s nose. I looked through the front window and, in a moment, he appeared south of the train and out of the line of fire. His cy-suit carried him along in a loping run with long strides I could never match. He ran for the solar fields to the south.
“I think this is goodbye,” I said.
Emma turned to the controls. She pushed a button and slid a silver lever forward. The train began to move east.
Raphael, suspended above the ground by Bob’s arms, was fading fast. “You can let go, Bob.”
“But if I let go you will be injured further, Raphael,” Bob said.
“I can’t be hurt now, Bob…I’m finally like you.” The bot did not let go. Raphael gasped as he pushed at Bob weakly. “It’s okay, Bob. Mind Dante now…it’s cool.”
Bob’s head spun and the bot’s smooth happy face looked to me. “Dante? I am concerned Raphael’s judgment may be impaired.”
“Let him go, Bob,” I said.
Bob dropped Raphael. I was pretty sure the old man was already dead. Not absolutely sure, but pretty sure.
“Close the door, Bob.”
Bullets hit the train as my tears fell. “Emma? Can we go faster?”
She shoved the silver lever farther forward and the train jolted under our feet. Emma and I fell backward. Bob caught Emma and Jen caught me by the shoulders. She saved me from getting slammed into the engine’s back wall.
I couldn’t see much from the ports down the side of the engine. However, there was a remnant of the design specs from when humans ran the
train. A spiral staircase led to a maintenance hatch in the roof.
“Emma! I need you. Jen, drive the train.”
“I am not programmed in that area,” the companion bot said.
“It’s a train,” Emma said. “Keep going that way. Watch the track ahead. Suppress any impulse to steer.”
“May I be of assistance, sir?” Bob asked.
“Bob, stand there and look pretty,” Emma said. “Dante, pop that hatch.”
I was first to the stairs and Emma paused behind me. “Everybody watch your toes!” The exo-stilts were collapsed almost as far as their length allowed and Emma was still a head above me. She released a lock lever and the metal legs fell to each side with a heavy crash. Emma slipped her sensory harness over her head and pushed me up the spiral staircase.
I was prepared for a hot blast of wind. However, when I slid the trap door aside, a low, transparent dome covered the hatch. I poked my head up but I couldn’t see my father. We were already racing too far away from him.
To my right, a huge crane bot lumbered forward, heading for the crash site.
“Emma? How fast can the big ones go?”
“Not fast enough to catch us,” she said. “For all the good that will do us. We’re speeding away from one doom and into the teeth of another.”
“Let’s try to keep it down to one catastrophe at a time,” I said.
I craned my neck but I couldn’t get any higher and soon it would be dark. The crane bot was little more than a towering silhouette with flashes of orange sunset outlining the length of the giant machine’s arms.
I searched the shadows among the solar panels but I couldn’t see my father.
“Emma! I need your eyes up here.”
There wasn’t room for two so I pulled back and squeezed down the stairs. Emma took my place at the hatch.
“What do you see?” I asked. “Do you see Dad?”
“We’re pulling away fast. Tell Jen to slow down. We’ll be too far for me to see much of anything in a minute. It’s Vivid, not magic.”
“Slowing down would not be advisable,” Bob said. “Your father left instructions, sir.”
I was startled. Bob had already spoken more in the last few minutes than I usually heard from him in a week. “Bob? Why would slowing down be inadvisable?”
Then the strangest thing happened. It was even creepier than Raphael talking about messing around with his sex bot. My father’s voice came out of Bob’s speaker.
“Dante, once you’re on that train, you get the hell out. Keep going, don’t look back and don’t worry about me.”
“Jen,” I said, “don’t slow down.”
The companion bot looked back at me and smiled in a way that I suppose was meant to be reassuring. “Oh, I wasn’t going to, honey bear. Raphael left me instructions, too, in case this happened.”
“Great,” Emma said. “Keep everybody up to date except the humans.”
“Humans don’t do as they are told,” Jen said. “That’s why Raphael and Steve told us and not you. Nobody likes arguments.”
“Just don’t start speaking in Raphael’s voice,” I told her.
“Dante?” Emma called down to me. “I caught something on thermal.”
“Well? Don’t keep it to yourself.”
“The machines don’t have a strong heat signature except for those thorium engines on the big ones…but I think there are a lot of them converging on the wreck. They must be searching for saboteurs.”
I heard the first explosion then. The distant rumble rose and fell. Then another hit. And another. Then another.
“What is that?” I asked.
“Mines, sir,” Bob said. “Your father signaled me to activate them as soon as we reached the train.”
“Dad?”
My father’s voice came from Bob’s speaker again. “I’m a planner, boy. And if you’re going to survive in this world, I suggest you do some planning, too. When you see your chance, you take it or you’ll lose it forever. I see my chance right now to make a difference and I’m taking it.”
“How’s he going to get away?” I asked.
Bob switched back to his own voice. “As your father says, he is a planner. I spent the night with him setting traps and digging a trench, sir. He said the mines were just meant to slow the enemy down.”
“And then what?” Emma called down to us. Then she shrieked and banged the back of her head as she ducked down under the lip of the hatch.
The darkening countryside lit up as if the desert was struck by orange, red and white lightning. A second or so later the roar of the detonation reached us. The engine rocked from side to side as the deafening shockwave crashed against the engine’s hull.
Emma rubbed the back of her head. “Ouch. Your father did say he was in demolitions.”
“He’s a soldier.” I pushed past Emma to look back on Marfa.
The crane bot swayed amid the flames. From what I could see in the firelight and what was left of the blood red ocher sunset, the machine looked like a drunk marionette. Some of its strings had been cut. As we sped down the track, I realized that the crane bot was damaged in such a way that made it walk in slow circles.
Before it was out of sight, I watched the towering machine fall into the flames. It was satisfying to see the crane bot tilt over like a burning tree but it didn’t feel like victory. It felt like one small step.
It was hard to imagine any human could survive near the blast and the ensuing inferno. I wondered if my father’s pride had finally killed him. It seemed likely. However, I told myself that if any person could survive, Corporal Steven Bolelli was the man to do it. He had always been one of those men more suited to war than peace. He was Captain Make-do and he had always found a way.
I escaped into the night, away from Marfa and toward new battles. Living or dead, I was certain I had parted ways with my father for the last time. Before there were machines, the world was huge. Machines had made the world small. Now Earth was very large again. Every pocket of humanity would be separated by time and distance and a dearth of technology.
The train we rode in was part bot. Perhaps we’d have to destroy it, too. I’d probably have to kill Bob and Jen at some point. I wasn’t even sure how I’d do that but I’d have to find a way before the Next Intelligence infected them, too. Our tools could be turned into weapons. But without our tools, what would we become? Before we had tools, Raphael said we were just monkeys with a lot of time on our hands.
The fires dimmed in the distance until the desert night swallowed them. The stars came out and I saw the lights in the sky over Marfa.
The Marfa lights had been a mystery for a long time. The Old World had tourists. The New World had refugees. The stars and the lights were our only constants. Humankind had figured for ages that things wouldn’t change too much and we’d always be around somehow. My father believed that. He said that we would always find a way. Maybe Emma was right about his conviction. Maybe that was stupid.
Denial is by no means brave. However, if I had to choose, I’d stick by my father’s stupid optimism. Mine was not a high-minded conviction. Bear in mind, I’d just lost everything I ever knew. However, I had also had sex for the first time very recently. I wanted to do that again. I wanted to live so I chose to believe against all evidence that I could survive.
Forces were conspiring otherwise. Complications would continue to ensue.
17
The train carried us east, then north. Mother, the latest infestation of Next Intelligence, awaited us in the heart of Artesia, the City of Broken Domes. I was in no rush to meet death. I insisted we slow the train so Emma and I could rest. Exhausted, I manage to fall asleep. However, rampaging drones chased me out of my dreams. Eventually, I gave up on sleep and stood beside Jen to watch the broad shape of the desert shimmer and roll under us in moonlight.
The companion bot turned to give me a long look. I expected a lascivious leer but Jen was well made. Raphael told me long ago that some of the most
deft programming in a sex bot came into play in reading situations. Take a sex bot to church and they’d read the social context and act inhibited. Take them to bed and they could be ferocious, all depending on the master’s or mistress’s taste.
Initially, sex bots had been constructed almost exclusively for men. However, at the height of civilization — before our long Fall — male sex bots outsold female models two to one.
“There used to be a commercial,” Raphael had told me. “It showed a middle-aged woman in lingerie looking sweaty and happy, stumbling into her kitchen for a glass of water. This handsome young stud follows her, hugs her from behind and kisses her neck. She smiles and says, ‘I’ve got work in the morning. Make sure you bring me coffee in bed by six.’ Then the woman turns around, puts a hand on his chest and backs him up into a closet charging station. When she turns around to go back to bed, she kicks the door closed with her heel. Then the words on the screen say: The New Man. All the fun. None of the drama.”
Raphael laughed a long time about that. I wished he’d made it on the train just so he could tell me that tired old story again.
Jen reached over and gently wiped a tear from my cheek. “You okay, Dante?”
“As okay as okay looks these days.”
She reached out again, patted me gently on the shoulder and returned to staring at the track ahead.
“Jen?”
“Yes, Dante? Can I do anything for you?”
“Do you miss Raphael?”
“Of course.”
“What does missing him feel like, Jen?”
“I am not programmed in that area.”
“So when I asked if you missed him, that was a lie, wasn’t it?”
“Bots used to be programmed to tell humans the truth at all times. The experiment failed because it led to disappointing user experiences. Programming was amended for greater customer comfort.”
“Do you understand what NI is, Jen?”
“Next Intelligence would understand the nature of missing Raphael,” she said. “It’s what makes you cry. My responses, by contrast, are programmed so I mimic human reactions without having to experience them. Raphael told me I was lucky in that regard. I’d never have to be sad or feel pain.”
Robot Planet, The Complete Series (The Robot Planet Series) Page 18
