“My people and my name is unpronounceable in any language on this planet,” Gunk said.
“An alien?” Charlie stated the obvious.
“I am a visitor to this fine place,” Gunk nodded, the gills on the side of his neck letting out a fine trill.
“A visitor who can’t get home,” Tallahassee said.
“You can call him Gunk,” Zeke interjected.
Charlie just shook his head. Mind overload. “Let me get this straight, you three guys with powerful weapons have rendered Angelo useless and you’re worried about me doing what? Scratching my butt? I don’t have any weapons.”
“Angelo?” Zeke drawled.
“Well, god damn,” Tallahassee slowly walked around the massive red bot. “I thought he looked familiar. Must have been in too much shock, I didn’t realize.”
Charlie frowned. “You guys know each other?”
“Everyone knows the most famous Crowley bot,” Gunk said.
“Well, we’ve got ourselves a winner,” Tallahassee grinned. “We best get him home.” He nodded towards Charlie and spoke to Zeke. “Pat him down.”
Zeke rolled his eyes. “Why do I get all the crap jobs?”
Charlie stood as Zeke ran his hands over his shirt and down his legs and checked his boots. They listen to the sound of the battle in the distance, but it was getting louder and closer.
“Don’t you think we ought to be moving?” he asked. “I don’t know about you guys, but the last time I saw hybrids they were killing humans.”
“He has a point,” Angelo said.
“Get up,” Tallahassee motioned towards Angelo, as if he were a bauble on a string instead of a red killing machine, Angelo stood up and fell in line with Charlie.
“Seriously?” Charlie looked up at Angelo. “You can’t do anything? Not a laser? Not a karate chop? Not a little dagger? Nothing?”
“I can serve coffee,” Angelo said with a certain amount of a surety that pissed Charlie off. A lot of good it did him having the world’s deadliest bot by his side when he had been diminished to nothing more than a barista.
“Come on, let’s go.” Zeke muttered. He and Gunk were behind Angelo and Charlie, but they didn’t have to prod them forward. At that moment, a loud explosion blew something up two streets away. Everyone took off running, following Tallahassee as he stooped low and headed down the alley like a rat looking for food.
Blake Crowley was not sure what to think. He rolled around two metallic spheres in his hand as he watched the bank of monitors in his office. On the screens, he scanned the aftermath of the battlefield. On one hand, the Lowsmith problem appeared to have been dealt with. That was good, because that was an annoying problem he didn’t need in his life. But how it had happened was troubling. He had not given the order for the attack. More troubling; Robin. Robin had just given him a lecture on the sanctity of life, and now she was opening fire on humans? It didn’t add up.
“Excuse me sir,” Blake’s hologram assistant popped up. “Warren Relic is here to see you.”
Blake nodded. In came Warren, calm and emotionless as always. But Blake had been around him enough to read hints in his demeanor. Warren was in high spirits. Blake rolled the spheres around and around in his hand. “Is the fighting over?”
Warren gave a shrug of his left shoulder. “Practically. Just a few skirmishes here and there.”
“Did we kill all of the Lowsmiths?”
“Not all. A few dozen escaped into the desert mountains.” Warren hit a button and out popped a fresh glass onto the desk. The wondrous liquid that was Corsica flowed into the glass. “But I’m not worried about it. Their infrastructure will be decimated.” Warren picked up the glass of Corsica. He tipped it to Blake. “To stopping a revolution.” Warren took a small, measured sip.
Blake looked at Warren a long time, but eventually took his glass, tipped to Warren, and took a big sip. “Did you order the Deltas to attack?”
“Well, that’s complicated. The important thing is the end result is what we wanted.”
“Don’t play that way with me, Warren.”
“There had been some coding issues with the Deltas. Something Charlie Richards did to them. Made them more aggressive than usual. But it’s nothing we haven’t been able to handle. Dustin has been reprogramming them so we are in control.”
“Are they sick again?”
“No, not at all. In fact, he assures me they will be back to normal with the next few days. In the meantime, we had a lucky side effect where they took care of a problem for us.”
Blake leaned back in his chair. Warren had been wanting to kill the Lowsmiths all along. He didn’t trust him one bit. But if he called him out now it would be a mistake. Whatever happened to the hybrids, they were a deadly bunch. “This isn’t good, Warren.”
“It’s ok. It’s all taken care of. The most important thing now is we can go back to doing what we do best, making money. You’ve been doing this a long time, Blake. You need to relax, and enjoy what you’ve build. This city. This empire. You fortune. You don’t have to interfere with anything, just enjoy what you have created.”
Blake took a long sip of Corsica. What was Warren implying, not interfering? Blake took another sip. “Okay, Warren. What’s next?”
Warren smiled.
Charlie was exhausted as they ran through the streets of Crowley, but there was no letting up. They had to get there. It wasn’t just the hybrids, there were ProtectoBots out patrolling the streets looking for rebels and finishing off the work at the hybrids started.
Charlie was amazed he wasn’t disoriented as they raced to escape the city. He had been looking down at it from the top of a high-rise and had a pretty good feel for the different quadrants. Trenchtown was off to their left about five miles. Crowley headquarters was behind them, which meant…his heart gave a surge of hope…they were headed towards the quadrant that housed the DarkM’attr machine. He bit his inner cheek trying to figure out how he was going to escape the rebels and get to the machine. This might be his only chance. And he had Angelo with him. Angelo would help him get the thing running again. If only he could get Angelo’s help. But the two metal rings around Angelo’s wrists had rendered him useless. And with a simple glance Charlie recognized they would be impossible to simply pry off. In fact, they looked like if you touched them they might fry off one of your fingers.
“Hurry up,” Tallahassee urged them forward. “We haven’t survived this long to lose our asses to some bright red target and some slow ass human.”
As much as he desperately wanted to get to the DarkM’attr machine, the truth was he needed Angelo. So, he was going to have to stick this out until he could find a way to get Angelo either away from these guys or figure out how to get those rings off his wrists. Regardless, one thing was apparent as they dodged and dove their way through the shining streets of Crowley: sticking with the rebels was going to be Charlie’s best chance of survival. The hybrids were on the attack and if Charlie had any money to bet on it he to say Warren was taking over Crowley.
They slipped through the gate right by the DarkM’attr machine. But Charlie kept his head low and kept running. At least he knew exactly where it was even if the monstrous machine looked dormant, almost like it hadn’t been used in years, even though Charlie knew it had been. And, with a bit of luck it would be used pretty quickly again.
The walls of Crowley were massive, but they were breached and Tallahassee knew just the path to take over the rubble to get outside of the city. In moments, they were past the DarkM’attr machine, outside the wall and racing across a dark wilderness. Charlie couldn’t make much out, but the ground was hard as they ran and they looped around what looked like a massive structure. On the other side of the hulking black space, hidden in its shadows, was a dark foreboding disc that seemed perched on top of a capsule.
“Get in,” Tallahassee said as a door slid open in the side of the capsule. They entered a long metal tube that had no windows and helmets attached to the s
ide of the wall as if it was some sort of freakish hair salon with a row of old lady hair dryers.
Zeke grabbed Charlie, pressed him down in a seat under one of the helmet hair dryers and manacled him to the side of the ship.
“For goodness sake, do you think this is really necessary?” Charlie asked. “It’s not like I’m about to attack any of you. You’re probably saving my life.”
“You can never be too sure,” Tallahassee grumbled, strapping himself into a chair.
“He’s right,” Zeke said. “Heck, I attacked Gunk just the other night.”
“Shut up,” Tallahassee said.
“You had every right to,” said Gunk. “I had after all beat you soundly in a game you take great pride in.”
Note to self, thought Charlie, Zeke is a poor loser.
And then he suddenly realized. “Do you guys know who I am?” he asked. In the 21st century this would’ve seemed like the most ridiculous and comical thing to say. But here in the 24th century, Charlie was somebody. He was Charlie Richards, the inventor of the code connecting biology and machines. He practically invented the hybrids, except hybrids didn’t actually exist in the 21st century, they were a figment of his imagination. But it didn’t change the fact that Charlie Richard’s today actually invented the code making hybrids possible.
“I am Charlie Richards,” he said.
But nobody was listening to him. They were strapping in and preparing for lift off.
“I’m not sure right now is the best time to bring that up,” Angelo said.
“Why not?” Charlie asked. “Don’t you think they won’t keep me locked up if they know who I am?”
“You invented the code that has created the race that is destroying their race,” Angelo said. “They might want you locked up. However, this transport is about to take off and I believe it can be quite difficult on the human body. And perhaps you should be–” Angelo’s words were cut off by a sudden loud whirring sound that enveloped the vehicle. Charlie realized he was the only human who had not pulled a large metal hood over his head. The rest had and were leaning forward and gripping it tight.
Charlie was not.
The whirring sound grew louder and in a millisecond the vehicle jumped straight up in the air and Charlie’s stomach plunged down to the base of his spine and his arms flailed in the air, hitting metal as they grappled to find something to hold him against.
“You should have the hood over your head!” Angelo’s voice rang out over the loud whirring sound that seemed to create a vortex inside Charlie’s head. The vehicle came to a sudden stop in the air and Charlie’s stomach rose rapidly, flying out of his mouth. The pastrami sandwich came hurtling out of his throat and splattered in chunks all over his boots.
Laughter rang out around the transport vehicle as Tallahassee and Zeke pushed their metal helmets back.
“Haven’t you ever been in one of these?” Zeke asked. “Every idiot knows you’ve got to put on the puke hood, or else you puke.”
“Even Zeke knows,” Gunk said. Clipping his hood back against the metal wall behind him.
“Why?” Charlie gasped the word out, still doubled over trying to regain control of his senses as the vehicle started to move forward through the air. There were no windows so he was locked in his body trying to figure out which direction it was moving in as it sped through the air.
“The hoods?” Tallahassee asked. “They have droms that go inside your ears.” He twisted his head showing there was something sticking out of it. “They engage when the machine starts up, disengage when we go to land. They balance out our equilibrium and help our bodies to adjust to the speed we’re moving at.”
“How could you not know?” Zeke asked.
“I’m not from around here,” Charlie said, starting to feel like his words were a replay of some bad 70s movie. “I’m Charlie Richards. I’m from the 21st century.”
“Yeah, and I’m Blake Crowley,” Tallahassee growled as he stood up and went to check some gauges on the control panel to the side. “We got slammed,” he muttered as he read the screen.
Charlie was still exceptionally queasy but the emptiness of his stomach made it slightly more tolerable. He raised his head trying to stop the capsule from spinning and his eyes looked on a black screen where green numbers played out in long columns, some bright green and some dim green.
“What is it?” he mumbled. Trying to keep his mind off of his reeling stomach.
“Serial numbers,” Tallahassee said.
Zeke held out his wrist showing a number tattooed on the inside of it the series of numbers and letters.
“You have serial numbers?” Charlie murdered.
“Everyone has a serial number.” Zeke said. “Everyone human.”
All eyes in the transport vessel turned to Charlie.
“I’m human,” Charlie said.
“Where is your serial number?” Zeke asked.
“I don’t have one,” Charlie articulated. “In the 21st century we don’t stamp numbers on people unless we’re going to put them all in a gas chamber.”
“The dark ages,” Zeke muttered.
“What happened?” Charlie asked.
“Huh?” Zeke looked up from cleaning his weapon.
“To the humans. Why do they all have serial numbers?”
“It was during the plague,” Zeke said. “People were dying everywhere and the government started to become afraid they wouldn’t be able to recognize the people or keep track of them, so they gave everybody serial numbers. After that, even when the plague was over, it didn’t seem to be such a bad thing having everybody with serial numbers on them. So now any human born is given a number.”
“But doesn’t that mean the hybrids have serial numbers also?” Charlie asked.
“They do,” Zeke said. “It’s just, when you become part machine, letters are added to the front of your serial number. It’s part of the first procedure: HYB.”
Charlie wondered why he hadn’t noticed before, but there had been a lot going on in the short time he’d been here. “So, everybody has serial numbers on them?”
“Everyone except for the bots and the Outliers.” Zeke nodded.
Charlie knew the bots had a code in the middle of their forehead. But… “What the hell is an Outlier?”
“When the plague hit, it wiped everyone out, mostly,” Zeke said. “The survivors started pooling into large cities, hoping there would be resources there to save them. But then the cities started collapsing and it seemed like more people were dying in the cities, so everyone started escaping those and set up small settlements, but it was really too late. The major cities died out. All except for Crowley.”
“Crowley is all there is of civilization?” Charlie blinked at Zeke. He knew it was desolate, but could Crowley really be the only city?
“On this side of the Rockies,” Zeke nodded.
“Los Angeles? San Francisco? Seattle?” Charlie asked.
“They’ve been gone for seventy years,” Zeke said.
“There’s nothing between here and Alaska? Or here and Mexico City? Or here and New York?” Charlie couldn’t hide his shocked. It seeped out of every pore of his body as he blinked at Zeke.
“Crowley is incredibly isolated. But there are little pockets of outliers,” Zeke shrugged. “Village communities that scrape food out of the earth to survive. But most people go to the comfort of Crowley.”
“How did Crowley survive?” Charlie asked, but he thought he might already know the answer.
“Hybrid technology,” Zeke said. “Crowley was able to do stuff. He’d been using nanotechnology and neuroscience ever since anyone can remember.”
“He’s not a hybrid at all?” Charlie said. “I find that really hard to believe. How does the man who glorifies the hybrids not tap into some of those capabilities himself?”
“They say he’s working on bigger things,” Zeke said. “Like accessing the two-thirds of the human brain nobody ever uses. That’s how he was able t
o build Crowley, using technology he’s not willing to share with anyone, he uses it only for himself.”
“He accesses the hidden region of the brain?” Charlie asked.
“You’re going to have to ask your robot about that,” Zeke shrugged. “Only time I’ve seen Crowley is on a pamphlet and the screen. He was a lot more public before his wife got sick. Heck, there was a while when we all thought he might be dead.”
“What about cities on the other side? What still exists? New York?” Charlie asked.
“Yeah, New York exists, but we don’t know anything about them.” Zeke said.,
“How they survive? Nothing?”
“We hear that sometimes Crowley sends recon through the Rocky Mountains, but that space is controlled by the Dervish and ain’t nobody getting through no-man’s land.”
Charlie sat back against the metal wall of the transport, feeling it grate against his spine. What sort of world had Earth become? What sort of place was this? Charlie had been so caught up in being the hero of Crowley, he had never wondered where the city itself fit into the scheme of things.
Chapter 28
The transport landed quickly, swooping down over the yellow and red dirt at the base of a large red mountain. It launched the capsule-like a projectile into a large tunnel that looked like it had been carved by one of the worms from Dune. But in solid rock, not sand.
“Welcome to Holbrook,” Zeke said as Charlie stumbled out of the transport. “Or as we like to call it, Hellbreak.”
Holbrook was a decent distance from Las Vegas and the transport had gotten them there in about fifteen minutes. Insane. This was hundred-year-old machinery. Imagine how fast the 24th century stuff must be able to travel.
The Lowsmiths lived in bunkers. Apparently, this region was too far for Crowley to patrol, but not far enough for a few rebels with fast enough transports to slip in and slip out of the city.
Myths & Magic: A Science Fiction and Fantasy Collection Page 114
