Dark Humanity

by Gwynn White

  Not likely, of course, but still, an android can dream, she reckons. She smiles, knowing that Sidney would appreciate that sort of quip.

  The fight seems to grow and finally, silence. Does that mean they've all managed to kill each other, she wonders? Does that mean they're done and now, she and Sidney can travel back to the outer edge?

  It would be handy to grab one of their bikes this time. Surely even Sidney will be all right with that, knowing just how fast one of these things can go.

  When she still doesn't hear a thing, Petra prepares to open the door slightly. From here, it's hard to tell how many heartbeats she can hear but she knows some are still near.

  She cracks the door open anyway and peers out.

  A bike revs up to her right, and she realizes he’s closer than she’d thought. She runs through the door and hears the bike turn a corner, so she stills. It’s dark enough that he shouldn’t be able to see her.

  She turns left, sees a dark alleyway down that way—it will take her in a different direction than she wants but the building Sidney’s in is only a few minutes away and she knows twelve different paths to get there.

  Still, the bike speeds down alleyways, then she realizes there are two of them.

  If she tries to wait it out, hide in another building, the rains will come and they’ll have to scatter too. The rain will last all night, so who knows what would happen then. She’s a robot, waiting isn’t problematic for her.

  But not knowing what happens to Sidney in that time leaves her analysis in scrambles. She reckons if a robot knew how to feel anxiety, that’s what it would translate to—data and analysis ending up foggy as she tries to calculate all the various possibilities.

  Besides, she remembers that the girl is impetuous, she’s motivated with immediate results and she follows her instincts—she doesn’t always follow logic.

  So waiting is not an option in case Sidney decides on action—action that will only end up getting herself in trouble.

  Petra listens for the bike and hears it round another corner, further away from where she is.

  She closes her eyes and brings up her inner map of the grids of the city.

  The bike is on the north-east end, sounds about three minutes away. So she estimates it’s on Lincoln Avenue.

  She’s on the corner of Appleby and George. From here, she’d need to run south a ways before she can finally head in the direction towards Sidney’s building.

  She waits, counts to ten, then runs.

  Within a minute, the bike is behind her and she knows she needs to outrun it, lose it before she reaches where Sidney hides.

  The last thing she needs to do is have it follow her all the way there, so she makes her way in the opposite direction again, taking it further and further away, and hides in another building.

  She waits, as whichever raider it is revs his engine a couple times, then finally rides away, presumably to meet up with the others.

  She brings up her map again. It’s dark enough now that, as long as she keeps herself to the shadows, she’ll be able to sneak past them and all the way to Sidney’s hiding spot, she estimates within the next half an hour, just enough time to get to her before the rains start.

  So she moves.

  The way there is shorter than she estimates, but then she’s moving faster than she expected, given that no one’s chasing her any more. Still, the sooner she gets there the better. A part of her calculates there is a ten percent chance for Sidney to be found by one of the others, a chance she can’t escape them.

  But she archives the calculation, finding that it leaves her worried in a way she’s never worried about an Allendian before.

  She finally gets to the entrance of the building, not hearing a single bike or heart beat from any of the raiders. She’d spent enough time with each of them to recognize their respective heartbeats, like their own unique staccato signatures.

  And as she climbs the stairs to the western side of the top floor that she knows is still intact, she hears it—unmistakably, Sidney’s heart plays on her senses like the most beautiful music in all of Allenda. She rushes up the stairs until she reaches the door.

  It’s so dark, but she can hear exactly where the girl is as her heart trots as if in fear.

  Then Petra speaks. “Sidney, it’s me, it’s Petra.”

  Before she finishes, Sidney slams into her open arms, her tears flooding over Petra’s shirt as the robot holds her close.

  “Why did you take so long?” the girl’s tiny voice accuses. “I didn’t think you’d take so long.”

  Petra chuckles and holds her closer.

  “Okay,” she says, shushing and comforting her. “It’s okay. The rains will start soon. We’ll wait it out, then we’ll make our way out of the city tomorrow morning.”

  “And we’ll go to the Red Dome,” Sidney whispers.

  “Yes.”

  “And what if I am sick? Your program states you have to eliminate me.”

  Petra doesn’t respond right away. She pulls data from her systems, conflicted about the question.

  Finally, she says, “Perhaps there is a cure, now. The Blue Dome has been quarantined for several years. We will find a cure for you.” She’s not sure where the words come from, but understands that this will be her new mission, despite her clear directive. It makes more sense. Her job is to protect, above all else.

  Sidney agrees and holds Petra’s hand, takes her out to the roof where Sid’s been waiting, watching the raiders as they park their bikes in a semi-loose circle in the middle of Octavia Circuit.

  “What are they doing?” Sidney whispers to Petra though they’re so far away, the raiders wouldn’t hear them from here.

  Then, before Petra can answer, she hears a sharp intake of breath from the girl. Sidney points a finger towards the circle where they’ve built their bonfire and Petra looks down, understanding.

  One raider comes into view, holding an old man’s arms at his back as he pushes him forward. Then, the burly raider walks behind them, his arm nice and tight around a struggling Henry’s neck.

  They have the men sit far enough away from the large bonfire, but it’s clear to Petra what their intentions are, and she stands.

  “Where are you going?” Sidney hisses.

  “To stop them, of course,” Petra states. She can’t sit here and watch as the raiders murder fellow Allendians. That’s not in her programming, and she knows at least Sidney will be safe here--until the girl says, “I’m coming with you.”

  “You are not. It will not be safe for you down there. Here, they won’t know where you are. Here, I know you’ll be fine until tomorrow morning.”

  But of course when she stands to head back down the stairs, Sid follows her. She knows she can’t stop her, can’t convince her otherwise.

  “Fine,” she says, “but you stay in a building away from them. I will take care of them. You only come out when I’m done.”

  “Okay,” Sidney agrees, and they make their way down the stairs.

  It only takes ten minutes to reach a spot right around the corner from where the men hold their bonfire.

  Petra urges Sidney into the building, closing the door behind her. “Remember,” she says, “you stay in here no matter what, until I’ve taken care of this.”

  Sidney nods, stays quiet, and waits in the dark.

  As Petra approaches the group, she analyzes the situation.

  They've all parked their bikes in a loose circle, but they're all about four feet away from there, huddled over two figures—the older man, white-haired and eyes so big, she can see his pupils from here. Henry crouches beside him, his right eye swollen shut, blood dripping down his forehead.

  She recalls where she’d left him and wonders how he got here so fast. It doesn't matter right now, because it looks like one of the raiders has a sharp piece of metal in his hand and he's about to use it to slash Henry's head.

  Petra rushes forward, meaning to stop him in his tracks. Though he hasn't tec
hnically broken a law yet, he is about to, and she's ready to punish him for it.

  Before she gets to Henry and the old man, two other figures grab her from behind and hold her, waiting for her to stop them.

  She wasn't built for self-defense though. Just for companionship, and recently to hunt carriers of the flu. She was programmed to stop anyone from attacking an Allendian, but she was never to stop anyone from attacking her.

  So, the moment she sees the object being placed on the ground, Petra stops fighting them to try to get to the others. Henry looks up at her pleadingly, but now he's fine. They're not about to hurt him anymore.

  They bind her hands behind her back, place her beside Henry and the other man, then move away to the middle of the circle where they'd had their bikes parked.

  "How did you get here?" she asks Henry.

  "Gideon here had a handy little traveling disc," he says. "Gideon, Petra. Why in the world didn't you attack them just then? What stopped you?"

  "My programming," she replies. "Had they hurt you, I would have had to intervene, but they stopped."

  Henry shakes his head, as though questioning the very nature of her existence. "I just don't understand any of this," he says. "You're programmed to protect us, to be our companion, to teach us, heal us. Yet you don't have any means to protect yourself from us. Why, Petra?"

  She can hardly answer that in a way he'll understand. After all, he is Allendian. She is merely one that was built for the likes of him.

  "Henry," she says, matter-of-factly. "It is the Allendian way."

  He shakes his head again. "Where's Sidney?"

  Petra looks up to where the seven raiders are now throwing heaps of junk in the middle of the circle, reassured that they're all present and accounted for.

  "She got away," she says, relieved that that's the case. "She's fine."

  When Henry shakes his head again, Petra realizes Sidney's hardly 'fine', not really, not in this world the way it is right now, being run by raiders and their ilk. If it were not for her, she knows what Sidney would have been faced with near the lake. She knows what sort of life all this means for the girl. Sidney's far from fine here.

  Henry's eyes are on her as she analyzes what she must do.

  "You have to decide," he finally says. "You must choose what happens here. You've done it before, I’ve seen you. I know you can. You have to choose between which Allendian laws you'll need to adhere to. You must know how important you are to Sidney. She needs you. So you have to—"

  One of the raiders, the burly one, grabs her by the shoulders before she hears the rest of Henry's words. He pulls her forward and she struggles with her binds until she recalls she doesn't need to struggle at all. The cells in her hands shift slightly and the binds fall off. Still, she doesn't push him off.

  She's conflicted—she can't hurt him unless he hurts another Allendian. She can't harm an Allendian to save herself. That's not the Allendian way. What Henry had said resonates in her head, but she can't very well put herself and her well-being before an Allendian.

  Then she looks right, towards the building where she knows Sidney waits, where she’s likely watching right now, thinking of ways to come to Petra’s rescue.

  If Petra were to die now, she knows one thing is certain: all these raiders will harm Henry without a doubt. They had done it before. They'll harm the old man. They will hunt Sidney down and hurt her too. She remembers the words they'd uttered by the lake as she waited for them to see her.

  There isn't a single doubt in her mind that they would do all those things to Sidney.

  And she finally decides, at the same moment that Burly throws her into the flames.

  Chapter Fifty

  Sidney

  She's running out the door so fast, she trips over something and ends up falling, rolling over until she lands on her back, her breath gone.

  But, not caring what hurts or even if anything is broken, she's back on her feet again, and she's running straight towards the bonfire, to the men that just killed her one friend on all of Allenda.

  She doesn't stop running until she rams into one of them, the skinny stick-like one, and he falls back, laughing.

  She rams her fists into his chest, crying as she does, not seeing anything beyond her tears, not hearing anything but his laughter as he pushes her away like she's nothing but a bug.

  Still, she continues to hit and scratch and scream. When he pushes her away again, she throws herself at him, over and over again. It doesn't matter that there are several more of them, she thinks. None of it matters. They've killed her! She loved me, she would have been my friend, my companion for life.

  I loved her!

  And she continues to punch and scream until there's nothing left to punch. She stops, expecting one of them to grab her, maybe to throw her in the flames too. Instead she's met with silence. Then she turns, and sees a view she'd have a difficult time describing to anyone.

  Right in front of the bonfire, silver dust flows and shoots up into the air, then falls or rather shoots right back down again, some hitting the big raider in his face, not letting up until he's left bloody and still on the cement.

  More dust throws itself at the skinny raider Sidney had been punching. It pulls him up into the air so far that his screams are shut off as he falls to the ground, dead.

  Yet even more dust attacks the other raiders so fast, Sidney can't tell any more where the dust begins and where the raiders end. Finally, it all falls back to the ground, scattered all over the place, unmoving.

  All seven raiders lie still on the ground, not a groan, not a sign of life from any of them.

  Sidney's heart is caught in her throat as she realizes it must have been Petra. She's not in the fire—that had to have been her. The dust settles and doesn't move, some of it taken up by a small wisp of wind, just to settle again.

  "Sidney."

  She stares at all the dust, willing it to come back together. Willing it to form back into Petra's shape, but it stays put, like all the other silver dust strewn around Allenda.

  "Sidney."

  The voice is familiar but she's breathing so hard, her chest heaves and she makes a soft whimpering sound.

  "Sidney, it's okay. I’m here. We're here. Look this way."

  She finally turns her head to take an eyeful of Henry and a small white-haired man by his side. She watches them, not knowing how they figure into the picture. Still, she automatically walks up to them as she feels the heat from the bonfire warm her cheeks, still wet with tears.

  The moment Henry is unbound, he holds her in his arms, allowing her to crush herself to his chest. He doesn't shush her, doesn't tap her on the back, just holds her tight enough she knows it's okay. She's alive. Petra's not.

  She wails again, holding him even tighter, then turning back to the fire. "She saved us," Sidney says, her voice soft.

  "Of course she did," Henry agrees.

  "But now she's—is she dead?" Her eyes land on all the dust as it moves away from the fire. The same dust she'd been gathering to create her little explosive packs. All made from—

  "I think she is," Henry says. "I'm so sorry, Sidney."

  And he holds her tighter.

  Then they run, just as the rains start. Henry turns at the last second, sprinting until he scoops up her knapsack, and they don’t stop running until they reach the same building she hid in, knowing that it won’t let up until the next morning.

  From barely inside the door, Sidney pushes Henry away, not wanting him to try to shush her or hold her any longer. He doesn’t insist—just quietly places her bag beside her and steps away to sit just a few feet away with the other man.

  Sidney doesn’t want to stop crying—doesn’t want to shush or calm down or anything but grieve for Petra. She wails and throws punches against the door.

  Then, several minutes later, she allows the calming sound of the rain drown out her cries. She watches as it douses out the flames of the raiders’ bonfire, as it eats away at their
dead bodies. She knows that in a few short hours, there won’t be anything left of them. The only sign that they’d been there will be their bikes, rotted out by the chems in the rain, but still usable.

  She watches as the silver dust gets soaked in the water, then most of it washes away out of her view. She imagines Petra in that water, maybe swimming along with the small streams formed along the roads, maybe dancing in it, pretending she’s a mermaid. Sidney’s tears don’t let up but she fights off a sleep though she hears the men behind her snoring softly in the dark.

  Then she imagines Petra’s voice flowing to her in the night, though she knows the impossibility of that. Petra would talk her through this, if Sidney would let her. Petra would tell her this is the world they live in. Sidney knows that, despite being a programmed entity, despite being bound by Allendian law, Petra loved her.

  She may have never said the actual words, but she said it in every other way.

  “It’s an impossible decision,” Petra had said. “For you. For me, it’s simple. I protect you.”

  Epilogue

  They walk through the city together, having gathered as much as they could from the raiders they left behind, including two motorbikes. Sidney insisted on having her own.

  The old man, Gideon, has his traveling disk, and follows along, with nothing else to lose. He might as well head out of the dome with them.

  The Red Dome, he’d said. That’s where the other Allendians are, where they can get some answers for what’s been going on, and what will happen now. Where she can find a cure for her flu.

  Sidney takes up the back of their little group as she pulls off her knapsack, and takes out her pen.

  "Just keep going," she urges Henry and Gideon. "I have something I need to do."

  Of course they don't leave her behind. They simply walk a few feet away, waiting for her to be done.

  She sits on the ground beside her bike, props her bag with a blank side facing her, and starts to write.