Dark Humanity

by Gwynn White

  Then she stands and looks around, still not seeing Henry anywhere. Maybe he's off to find water or—something.

  Looking around though, she wonders just how far away they are from that mansion—they'd run for a while, but who knows if it was far enough away from them. Who knows if they'd come looking for them out here?

  She looks at Petra again and, seeing no signs of movement or any indication that the bot will wake soon, she decides on a tree that looks nice and tall—twenty feet into the air. She remembers that they had run south, so looks north and climbs up the tree. From the top of this one, surely she'd be able to see the house, even if they did run far enough away.

  Maybe from here, she'd also be able to tell where they are in terms of the city? Likely not, but worth a look-see, anyhow.

  At the last minute, she throws on her knapsack in case she comes across any more eggs or maybe even some birds. "All their gizzards," she mutters, remembering how delicious the food was at the mansion, and trying to fight the urge to go back there to get some more.

  At the top of the tree, she finds a comfy enough fork in which to plop herself. This is far better than the city, she decides as she plucks one of the tree's leaves, sniffs it, and chews on its shiny edge.

  From here, she can just barely make out one of the mansions' many roofs. So they are a few clicks away, that's good, she reckons. The farther the better.

  Of course they're too far away from the city—all she sees are the tops of trees.

  Turning her head to look over on the other side, she's certain they must be close to that vault now. If they reach that vault of food, she won't have to fondly think of the food at the twins' mansion any more. Then they can make their way past the vault to the outer edges of the dome, to the—

  She holds her breath when she hears movement from below. She wonders at first if it's just Henry returning from—wherever—or if it's Petra waking finally.

  But there's something off about the sound—something like, well like the sound of more than just one person.

  She looks through a space in the branches and leaves and tries her darnedest not to move, not to scream.

  Because four people walk through the trees and stop just where Petra still stands. Sidney bites down on her lip hard, knowing that, even if she had more explosives in her bag, she won't be able to take this lot on and win. Because it's unmistakable—as she looks over their dirty coats, ripped jeans and heavy boots, their scraggly facial hair and the toothy grin one of them maintains, with bad yellowing teeth to boot, she knows without a doubt they're raiders. And the one she’d hurt along with Henry walks with them, his neck bandaged.

  They speak with guttural voices in a dialect she's not accustomed to, but she can understand in their tones that they don't mean to just walk away.

  Then another raider drives on a bike through the trees, with a long trailer behind him. Henry sits in the trailer, his arms tied behind his back. A thick stream of blood has dried on the side of his face and his eyes are wild with fury or with fear, she can't tell from up here. Still, his eyes dart back and forth between the raider with the yellowing teeth and Petra.

  Then he looks at the fire. Sidney knows he's looking for her now, but stays put. Doesn't breathe. Doesn't move an inch.

  Then, as if in understanding, Henry's face remains passive as he watches the other raiders tie Petra's hands behind her back, grab her under the arms, and make her still body sit down on the back of the trailer beside him.

  Sidney’s heart races a mile a minute as she realizes they mean to take Petra away.

  One raider kicks at the fire, causing one of the eggs Sidney laid there to burst. He yells angrily at Henry as if it's Henry's fault his shoe is now dirtier than it was before.

  But Henry glares back at him, his chin in the air, his jaw set. He lowers his chin slightly though his eyes stay on the other raider. He mutters something so low, the words don't reach Sidney's ears. The raider doesn't like Henry's answer, whatever it was. He punches him—once, twice, several more times until Henry's face drops down to his chin and he remains slack. She wonders what he’d said to them, but if it wasn’t clear to her before that he’s not one of them, it is now. She fears for him as she does for Petra.

  The other raiders walk back into the trees and start their bikes, then they noisily rip through the forest towards the north—leaving Sidney in the tree, hearing nothing but her pulse hammering in her ears.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Petra

  They've taken over the twins' old mansion. This much Petra knows, because she recognizes the walls and the crown molding across the room.

  It's a smaller room than the ones she's seen before, but big enough to hold her and what looks like Henry, crumpled up in another corner of the room, his hands behind his back as her hands are still behind hers.

  Then—laughter from another side of the house. Men’s laughter. Her last moving memory was of her dancing and singing to Henry and Sidney before they got to that clearing. Then memories from when she was charging under the sun pop up. Three men—no four—came and took her and Henry away. Where did Sidney go? Her ears registered movement in the trees. So logic states Sidney must have climbed, just in time to not get caught. Good. If a bot were capable of hope, this is what it would be. Then all she has to worry about now is Henry.

  The door to the room slams open and her eyes land on the dirtiest looking man she's ever seen, even dirtier than Henry had been the time they'd found him.

  He struts into the room, wavering slightly, and she recognizes the way he maneuvers around, he’s not quite at a hundred percent capacity. The wave of stink rolling off him brings fumes and chemical smells. Drunk, her scanner says. At about quadruple the legal amount allowed for Allendians. Given that the legal blood alcohol level was point zero two percent, it's not that much.

  Still, her obligation is clear—he's broken at least three laws and so she needs to stop him. She needs to protect Allendians from the likes of him, even if he is healthy. His punishment? For: intoxication, for their kidnapping, for entering and breaking into a home unlawfully, even if that home itself is illegal—he needs to be incarcerated for a minimum of five years per Allendian laws. She needs to detain him and bring him to the Red Dome.

  He prods at Henry with a boot, and when Henry doesn't move, he turns to grin at Petra.

  "You're awake," he growls. "Now the fun can start."

  Before she can speak to charge him with his crimes, he walks up to her, grabs her shoulder with a rough calloused hand and brings her to her feet.

  Then they're out the door and heading down the hall just as she hears Henry come to.

  They go down the stairs, but not before Petra catches an eyeful of one of the twins—the one in the white dress. What was her name? Amelia. No, Amelia was the one in the blue, she remembers. Rinna was in white.

  It doesn't much matter anyway because the twin in the white dress is lying at the bottom of the stairs, her dress halfway up her body, her leg broken. Her eyes are closed, one bruised so badly, Petra can't tell if it was from a fall or from a beating.

  All right, she calculates. That's five laws broken now. She lists them in her database. On top of the other three broken laws: assault of a fellow Allendian, even if that Allendian's existence is unlawful. Second, Petra scans and can tell that the woman's heart has stopped. Recently. Petra's eyes land on the woman's broken leg again, and what he—they—had done to her. Clearly, she'd died brutally.

  For that crime, incarceration is off the table. It's become even more clear to her what she must do. Her hands are tied tight behind her back though. She pulls slightly on the restraints and knows they're too strong to pull off.

  Petra was never built with strength in mind—merely beauty, grace, the ability to adapt to an extent. Her memory of past lives rush forth. She was a hostess once, a model, a keeper. She was never built for the job she'd woken up to recently. But being the last robot in Allenda to protect them, she was the only one left t
o hunt down the rest. What happened to the others?

  She doesn't try to analyze that now. For the man brings her into a large room, a living room she remembers it's called. The other three men she'd seen in her picture sit around a large dining room table, sipping on more of the chemical she'd smelled on him.

  She lists off, one, two, three, several laws being broken.

  The other twin, Amelia, is strewn across the top of the table, naked except for the binds they have around her wrists and legs. She wails as one of them climbs over the table to lie on her.

  Petra's scanners work to list several more laws being broken, she's nearly overcome with information.

  She turns her head away though as the man goes about violating the woman.

  This is not the Allendian way, she recalls. They would not allow for such a thing, but how can she get these binds off her? She has to save the woman, that's all she knows.

  The wails are no longer wails now. The woman screams her sister's name, she's screaming for Petra to kill her, she's screaming for mercy.

  Petra struggles against her binds as the men's laughter drown out the remaining twin's cries.

  Then another memory surfaces. She may not have strength, she remembers, but she does have flexibility. That's how she escaped that walled imprisonment the sisters had had her in. She wasn't crushed to death—she'd merely adjusted herself.

  The thought is enough to make her shift the cells around in her arms and her binds fall off.

  Before the man can react, Petra grabs him by the neck with her newly free hand, pulls him up into the air. She's not strong—she's flexible. Her cells can move in a way no other being's can in all of Allenda.

  She brings him up high in the air as he wails almost in harmony with the twin's. Then she slams his body into the ground, enough to leave a crack in the floor below, enough to break his back and cut off his screams for good.

  The others are already on their feet as the man on the table jumps off, meaning to harm her for killing their compatriot.

  She shifts her cells again but quickly realizes the limitations. They have to stay close to be bound to her—she can't simply throw them out to attack each man separately.

  So when one attempts to grab her by the shoulders, she lets him, just to shift under his hands and move so fast around him, he loses sight of her. There's no doubt in her mind he's broken all of the same laws as the others. His fingerprints and his distinct smell is everywhere the crimes were committed.

  So she rams her hand into his face, shifting the cells enough that her entire hand seamlessly moves through his skin, bones, muscle until her fingers come out of the other side.

  The sensation on her hand is bizarre—like she's sluicing through margarine.

  He drops to the ground, bleeding. Dead.

  The other two men are on her before she can turn. She doesn't move but urges her cells to heat up to the point their hands fall away from her, blistered and smoking.

  They both yell angrily, glaring at her as they try to hold their burnt hands with their other—equally burnt—hands.

  A part of her knows she must not allow an Allendian to suffer but these Allendians have broken more laws than the others. Her decision is swift, her hands even more so.

  They're both dead on the ground by the time she realizes there's someone else behind her.

  She turns, ready to bring about more justice, but stops when she realizes it's Henry, at the bottom of the stairs. He's managed to pull himself down here, seen her bring about her justice. He stares up at her, as though afraid she's about to do to him what she did to the others. She stops and says, "Are you hurt, Henry? Do you require assistance?"

  Some of the first words that were ever programmed into her by Allendian Scientists.

  When Henry doesn't reply right away, she moves to him, her hands out. He scuttles back on his legs. Though it's clear the very act hurts something in him, he doesn't stop until he's as far away from her as he can possibly move.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Petra

  Petra doesn't understand why he reacts as such and looks behind, making sure the others are indeed down, then she turns back to him, now understanding that the reaction is to her. He thinks she's dangerous—he fears her.

  But—why?

  "I won't hurt you," she assures him, her training kicking in. She needs to comfort him, to let him know he'll be fine. "I'm here to protect you, as an Allendian."

  When his eyes dart behind her to the bodies she'd left to twitch on the floor, she changes the tone in her voice to reassure him more. "They were criminals, Henry," she says as she raises a hand to him again. "You see what they did here. They broke seven Allendian laws that I could count. They killed an Allendian and so they needed to be killed as well."

  "What—" he says, his voice shaking as he stares at her outstretched hand. "What are you?"

  She frowns. Her programming indicates that when such a question is posed, she must answer with, "I am your protector. Your host. Your companion."

  "But—" he stares behind her and his voice rises. "What are you? I know you're a bot, but what kind of bot? I’ve been around bots. They've never done that! They've never been like you."

  She looks down at her hands, her naked body. He must mean her ability to shift her metallic cells to do what she did. She knows she's also never met another bot like her. She is, what her makers would have called, unique.

  "I am the only one—like this," she confirms. "At least, that's what my programming indicates."

  She runs a scan on her insides—and finally understands. "There were more of those like me, but they were—destroyed." That part of her memory is incomplete as she tries to run another diagnosis. She's blocked from all the details, and knows the only way to get to them all is by getting to the southern dome.

  "We should go," she says, looking down at her naked self again. She's aware that Henry's eyes keep shooting behind her then back to her eyes again. He drops them to the ground when she catches him looking at her nakedness. He's uncomfortable, she decides. So she walks past him and the dead twin at the bottom of the stairs. She makes her way up, to one of the bedrooms. She will have to take care of the twin who's still tied to the table, unconscious since her ordeal. First things first. Though the mansion is huge, it looks like the twins had shared a bedroom together.

  Petra approaches a closet, opens up its doors and takes out the first outfit she finds, meaning to put it on fast as possible, go back downstairs to help Amelia, comfort Henry more, then finally make their way out of here to find Sidney and get back on their journey.

  Though she's run on programming, she sincerely hopes they don't run into any more of those types of Allendians, criminals. Though stopping them is part of her job, she finds it inconvenient—not at all what her purpose is.

  Her purpose was always to protect Allendians, to serve them, to love them.

  Until it was to kill them. The thought comes out of nowhere and Petra freezes. It must be getting worse, whatever it is that's had some of her memories wiped, whatever it is that's corrupted her programming. The sooner they get to the southern dome, the better. Then she can get fixed, and get on with working her job at a hundred percent capacity.

  So she quickly dresses herself, hardly noticing the outfit she's picked, but feeling that it will help her move well enough, fast enough if needed.

  She heads down the stairs. Henry's moved away from the stairs, maybe to go to the other room—maybe to help Amelia. So when Petra re-enters the living room, she's taken aback when she sees it's empty but for the dead raiders she'd judged.

  "Henry," she calls, wondering if he's already headed out the doors. It's possible—Allendians aren't comfortable around dead bodies. She looks around and senses no heartbeats. Knowing that the house is now empty of any living Allendians, she pulls out her lighter and allows a spark of fire to fall from it as she walks towards the front door, still leaving a trail of fire behind her. Allendians have always cremated the
ir dead. This home is illegal so must be destroyed. This is a convenient setup, she decides.

  And she heads out the door as the flames behind her engulf the dead and the home alike.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Henry

  He wraps his arm tighter around Amelia's middle as she whimpers. He ignores the pains in his own body, knowing that she's suffered far more than he has. Still, he flinches when she shifts and nudges his side, right where one of those raiders' boots had found its home several times while he lay unconscious. Her breathing is belabored--he wants nothing more than to just lay her on the ground and let her sleep, and he wouldn't mind a bit of sleep himself.

  However, he knows what he saw in there too, and if that Petra bot is out to kill every single 'criminal' left in Allenda, none of them really have a chance at this point, not even Sidney.

  He keeps shuffling forward, pulling the woman along with him, when she becomes even heavier than when he'd grabbed her.

  "I can't," she stutters. "I can't go any further."

  But they haven't gone far at all. Smelling smoke, he guesses that Petra's started a fire to cremate everything and everyone in that old mansion. Then she'll come looking for them, and he has to run—they all do if they want to have a chance at surviving any of this.

  "You have to," Henry huffs as he readjusts his arm again. "We have to get far away from her. She's dangerous."

  "I—I can't!" Amelia yells. Then she pushes herself off Henry. "I can't leave my sister."

  "She's dead," Henry insists. Just as he's about to put his arm around her again, she pushes him so hard, he lands on his behind.