Dark Humanity

by Gwynn White

  "I can not leave my sister," she screams and turns around to stumble back in the direction of the house.

  He could run after her and stop her, he's definitely strong. Then what? Have her push him away again just so she can run into a burning house for a dead sister?

  He watches her run and fall, then get up and run again and knows that her limbs are purely working on adrenaline and determination at this point.

  Who even knows if her mind was right in the first place, but he knows right now, there's no point chasing her down or in trying to talk her out of her madness.

  So he turns before he sees her get to the house, and he runs in the opposite direction, meaning to get as far away from that wild weaponized bot as he can.

  He can't tell what direction he's running, the pain's still controlling everything at the moment.

  Tears run down his cheeks as his sides ache. The side of his head is bleeding again, and he wipes at it angrily. He can't stop, not even for a moment.

  Because she'll find him sooner than later. She'll find him guilty of some Allendian crime and act as his judge, jury and executioner.

  The thought makes his legs run faster and he doesn't even look in the direction he's running anymore, more determined than anything to just get away.

  When he trips over—something big, he stumbles forward and lands on his hands and knees, his air taken out from under him.

  "What the—" a little voice yells behind him and when he looks up, he sees her brown eyes glaring down at him like he's excrement on her shoe.

  "Henry," she says, "where's Petra? What's going on? How did you get away from—"

  But he's already up again. "We have to go, Sidney," he says, his voice strained. He looks past her and, seeing no signs of Petra, repeats the words and urges Sidney to run.

  "But Petra—" she says.

  "Petra's not what you think, Sidney," he says, his eyes wild. He runs a bruised hand through his hair, shaggy and slick with sweat.

  She turns to look back and gasps at the smoke and flames rising up into the air, clearly from where the mansion stood.

  "What's going on over there?" She starts towards the mansion.

  Before he can talk himself out of it, Henry grabs her by the shoulders to pull her back.

  But she drops to her knees and punches him in the crotch so hard, he lands on his side with his hands holding his bruised member. "What—" he says, but she's already running away from him in the other direction.

  He tries to yell out her name, but the pain is so excruciating, he hardly manages a grunt. And she's gone.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Sidney

  Burning smoke hits her nostrils minutes before she reaches the clearing where the mansion is. Or was. It's burning rapidly, flames thrown into the air. She knows the top of the dome is far above, but wonders if something burning this high and this hot could melt it. What would happen if it melted, would it come raining down on all of them, like a melted glass hail that would burn worse than the stinging rain?

  She runs to where the mansion once stood but stands back far enough to watch the bonfire. Petra's nowhere to be found. Sidney has no idea what happened but surely Petra would have been able to get out of there? And what was Henry talking about?

  She stands and stares up at the flames, strangely mesmerized by the way they lick up the last of the mansion, eating it up under their blue and red teeth. This is a monster of sorts, she thinks. Nayne had told her once about monsters and what they could be like. Nayne had never described something like this, but she knows it's the perfect word for what's happening now. She's hypnotized.

  So when a hand lands on her shoulder, she nearly screams but cuts it off just in time as she realizes it's Petra.

  She pushes herself into Petra's arms, not thinking about what she's doing. Just knowing that she was scared she'd thought she'd never see Petra again.

  "Those men took you," she sobs. "I thought they'd kill you. Take you apart or something."

  She doesn't know why she cares so much—it's not like they've grown that close in that last few days. Still, she can't help but hold on tighter to the bot. "I thought I'd never see you again."

  Her shoulders shake as she feels tiny and hopeless against the wall of flames ahead of them. She knows she's safe away enough from it, but something reminds her of how easy it is to die in this world, what an easy thing it is to do, to die. She knows she doesn't want any more death in her life. She couldn't handle Nayne's death that well. She knows her mind's not working as well as it should. She's been talking to herself after all. That's not right.

  When Petra gently pries Sidney off her waist, Sidney realizes she's shaking, crying, her shoulders heaving as she struggles to breathe.

  "We should move you away from here," Petra says as she nudges her towards the forest, towards the south again. "The air here won't be safe for you, come on."

  Then she takes Sidney's hand and they walk into the forest together, neither one of them bothering to look at the house again.

  They walk for a while, then finally Sidney says, "What happened in there? Those raiders looked—" she wants to say frightening, but goes with, "dangerous. Like really dangerous."

  Of course she knows they're dangerous, they're raiders after all. Why in the world would they take Petra—a bot—away? it's not like bots can get eaten. They could be taken apart, she supposes. Still, something doesn't fit.

  "Were they the raiders with Henry?" she asks. Though the way they treated him makes no sense to her, she wonders why he was so keen on running away from Petra.

  "No," Petra says. "They were of another faction."

  Sidney doesn't miss the word 'were' instead of 'are.’ So Petra must have taken care of them then. "Are they dead, Petra?" she whispers, as if afraid they'll be overheard. "Did you kill them?"

  "I did."

  "But how? They were so many of them to just you." Though Sidney's never seen Petra fight, she has a feeling this bot is softer than the other kinds that used to roam the streets with tazers in hand, killing all the flu-ridden Allendians. She holds on tight to Petra's hand, soft and silky despite its owner being made of metal and silicone and whatever other materials she's made of.

  Petra doesn't answer right away, as if to analyze the exact words to offer Sidney. "They were intoxicated," she finally says, "and so they weren't able to sufficiently utilize all their capacities."

  Sidney nods though she doesn't quite understand. "What's intoxicated mean?"

  "It means they were—drunk—they weren't a hundred percent functional."

  Sidney reckons she gets it now. Nayne was drunk once, she remembers. She'd gathered them several kilos of these awesome red berries they'd found on an old Allendian farm on the outer city limits. The berries had grown wild, untouched for decades, and they were both excited to have something other than lizard meat for a change. The birds around there were a lot more difficult to catch or trap.

  They'd each taken a small bite out of one berry and it was so sweet and juicy and delicious, they'd gathered all the rest in the span of an afternoon. Then they proceeded to gorge on the stuff for days until they'd ended up with cramps for nearly a week.

  Sidney remembers the pain of those cramps, remembers how Nayne had told her this might be it, they might both die soon. She was waiting for it to just happen already, the pain was excruciating. Instead, Sidney started feeling better. Nayne didn't for a long time. Instead she started slurring her words and begged for more of the berries. She'd become belligerent and loud. She'd lasted like that for days. Sidney had to make herself camp elsewhere while she waited for Nayne to die.

  But Nayne didn’t die. She started getting better, just three days after Sidney did. She'd apologized so much, Sidney had to yell at her to stop already. Then, when Sidney had asked what had happened, she said she must have gotten drunk on the berries. Nayne wasn't really sure why, just told her to stay away from the things. It was easy enough once they'd moved away from that area. Th
e berries seemed to only exist there.

  "What are you thinking of, Sidney?" Petra's voice interrupts. Sidney realizes they've been walking for several more minutes as she remembered the berries and—

  "I was remembering something my nayne had told me once," she says.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Petra

  Memories are coming in faster and faster the longer they walk. Petra estimates that they'll arrive at the southern dome in about two days' time at the rate they're walking.

  "We should have taken one of the motorbikes," she says.

  Sidney shakes her head vehemently as if it's the worst idea in the world. "I do not ever want to be on one of those things."

  Petra doesn't insist, but doesn't comprehend the sentiment. It would surely be more efficient, it would be a much faster mode of travel. They'd already be where they need to be. Still, she leaves it. It would take too long to go back to where the house stood anyway.

  She still wonders why Henry had run away though. He should have known she wouldn't hurt him.

  Sidney's hand still stays in hers as they walk. From time to time, the child wipes a sweaty hand on her jeans, then she holds Petra's hand again. Petra doesn't mind—it's her job, after all. Comfort the child, protect her, be her companion, her friend for the next little while.

  As they walk, Sidney opens up and talks more and more about her nayne. "She was the prettiest thing in the world," Sidney says. "Just a bit taller than me. Her favorite color was purple, like a deep purple before dawn, not a light purple like her eyes were. Her eyes were so beautiful.”

  Petra’s old programing kicks in--she knows to encourage the monologue.

  “What’s your favorite color, Sidney?”

  “My favorite is light purple—violet, she’d called it. I mean it used to be green but it’s violet now. Has been for the last—year—I guess..."

  And she continues. It's the most Petra's ever heard the girl speak, and she doesn't interrupt, just lets her continue. From time to time, Sidney takes something new out of her knapsack to show Petra.

  "This one." She shows off a tiny wooden toy—it resembles a bird.

  A budgie, Petra remembers, from the days she used to host an Allendian family in the Red Dome. They'd held budgies, she remembers. They'd had an entire room in the home dedicated to the things, taking care of them, healing them, then releasing them back into the sky, hundreds of colorful parakeets “native” to earth, and some of the many animals brought along to Allenda to give some semblance of the humans’ old home.

  "I found this one," Sidney says as she strokes the toy's beak, "while we camped on the western side of the dome."

  "So you've never left this dome," Petra states. It’s not unusual. Allendians weren't comfortable leaving the vicinity of their own dome, even though the other ones were filled with even more Allendians.

  "No," Sidney says. "Too scary, Nayne used to say. Who knows what sorts of people we'd run into in one of the other domes. Best to stay put. We're safe here. Or we were safe here. I don't know—until she found out that there might be a—"

  When the child stops speaking, Petra looks down at her with a slight frown. Still, the child doesn’t continue, as if she just realized something and decided to swallow the rest of her words.

  "What are the other domes like?" Sidney finally says.

  There are three domes on all of Allenda. Petra's lived in all three, though the memories aren't clear on how long she'd lived on the others.

  "Very much like this one," Petra recalls. "The cities were all built by the same engineers, so they all have identical gridded outlays. The trees and roads and parks and homes. Yes, all the same."

  "And the people?"

  "They were all Allendians like you, Sidney."

  She understands the reasons behind the questions—children are supposed to be curious types. Still, she wonders if there's more to the questions than just that Sidney is a child.

  "Are you worried?" she says. "About the Allendians on other domes, I mean. Are you frightened by them?"

  She watches as Sidney mulls the thoughts around in her head. "I guess so. I mean I don't understand why they want all people with the flu dead. What type of Allendians are they to make a decision like that—"

  "The flu can kill all Allendians," Petra asserts, "so, the powers that be have decided it is best to eliminate the sick to save the healthy."

  "Nayne said words like these before," Sidney agrees. "But I still don't understand."

  "Well you're a child," Petra says. "These are not things for a child to understand."

  The words she utters brings forth a new memory. She'd been a teacher once, and a guardian of the family's children. That was in the third dome, the Gold Dome.

  "Well maybe it's time for you to make this child understand," Sidney yells as she throws Petra's hand to the side. "Have you thought of that? Instead of telling me I’m too little to understand why a frozen someone's life is more important than someone else's who happens to have this stupid flu. Have you thought of that?"

  She storms off in the opposite direction of where they were going. At first, Petra wants to follow her, give in to her programming instinct to comfort her. Something else tells Petra now is not the time. That the girl will need a few moments to herself. She does wonder why such a reaction though.

  She realizes that Sidney had never told her how her nayne died. As Petra stares at the girl's retreating back, her analysis tells her it's likely the girl's nayne had the flu and died from it or was eliminated. If she was eliminated, it wouldn't be a surprise Sidney's resentful.

  Petra's database doesn't collect names or faces of people the bots eliminated over the years. Still, why else would Sidney be upset right now, if that wasn't the reason her nayne had died?

  Petra decides to set up camp as Sidney vents. If there's one thing Petra remembers from her time minding children, it's that time is always a mender of all pains. Just a bit of time.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Sidney

  She mutters and grumbles as she kicks at the ground, throwing up dirt and bits of grass. "Powers-that-be," she says. "Stupid powers-that-be. They haven't even been around in so long. Who cares about them? What do they know? What does she know?"

  She knows that Petra's not really the one to blame. "Just circuits and numbers," Nayne had said. "These androids, they don't have choices like the rest of us do. They have to do what they're programmed to do."

  "But why, Nayne?" Sidney had asked. She was only eight at the time, she remembers. They were running from one of the androids, hiding for days in holes and ceilings until the thing had finally moved on to another flu-carrier.

  She couldn't understand why something so big, so powerful, would want to eliminate her. She was tiny, she wasn't doing anything wrong. She'd eaten all her breakfast like Nayne instructed her to. She was quiet when she needed to be, she never hurt anything. Nayne had started teaching her how to hunt for food, but she'd never hurt another Allendian. So why were they after her?

  "Do they hate me, Nayne?" she asked.

  "Of course not, my sweet," Nayne said. "They don't even know you. How could they hate you?"

  "Then why do they want to kill me?"

  "It's not a want," Nayne said. "Not the way you always want to sleep by my side and put your cold cold feet on my back." She'd laughed, her laugh a beautiful tinkle in the night air. "It's like—you know how you get hungry—?"

  Oh, she knew. She was hungry all the time, those days. They were traveling again, couldn't find anything bigger than a mouse to eat every now and then.

  "Something inside your brain tells you it's time for sustenance," Nayne said. "It's a lot like that for them. Except they can't ignore it. They can't do anything but give in to the programming. That's all they're there for."

  That made sense to Sidney. For once, she understood the ways of their world, and that she'd never be safe, that she'd always have to run, probably for the rest of her life.

 
; Surprisingly, Sidney felt sorry for the androids. She couldn't imagine not having choices. She couldn't imagine living a life where someone else decided that you'd have to be a certain way or do only a few certain things at a time, and that was the whole purpose of your existence.

  Now, she just hates the androids as much as she hates the "powers-that-be" that created them and programmed them to hunt down people like her.

  Why does she even need to follow Petra any more anyway? She continues to kick at the ground. Fact is, she'd kill Sidney without hesitation if her whatever it is that is broken inside ever gets fixed. It doesn't matter how much Sidney holds her hand, doesn't matter how many more hours they talk about personal things.

  None of it matters.

  Why didn't Sidney accept that before? She's unsure, but she knows one thing now—it's time to go. Time to make her own way out of here, without the android.

  She knows that if Petra were to look for her, it wouldn't take long. So she wonders if there's a way she could disable the thing.

  She drops her knapsack and rummages through it, placing things she might need to her side. Okay. She still has two inches of dust left—could make a small explosive with that, hopefully small enough that it only stops Petra for a bit, not enough to hurt. Can she feel pain? She’d have to slam it into Petra somehow. She knows friction and a spark are her friends, when it comes to these things. If only she’d still had one of the boxes her nayne had built for her, but without them, she’ll have to make do.

  What else​​? Sidney still has the compass to show her which way is south, since there are still so many trees here, it's hard to gauge where the sun sits. She won't know where this vault full of food is, but that's the sacrifice she'll have to make to get away from Petra.

  She fights the shiver of doubt, of fear, in the middle of her chest. She has to go—this much is clear. Petra may be friendly now but that's only because she's not hunting her. Once that scanner's fixed though, there won't be any discussion about what's to happen, and Sid had lost the blocker in the city. There’s no way to avoid it this time.