Dark Humanity

by Gwynn White

  “Look!”

  Barely moving his head, Kristiansen rolled his eyes towards the opposite side of the basin.

  A POCK was emerging from a drainage pipe like the one they were sitting in.

  It came out nose first. Then it tumbled down the gentle slope to the bottom of the basin. It was clearly not alive.

  A spindly metal appendage thrust out of the tunnel. Followed by another. These lethal-looking, multiply jointed spears were attached to a wheelie bin with a moronically grinning cartoon dog printed on its side. The bin did not actually move on wheels, but on sucker feet. It was collapsible along three axes. Elfrida knew this because she’d seen more than one of them at work in YM City, spearing trash. They were called Garbage Hounds.

  “What’s that doing here?” she hissed.

  “Picking up the trash, I guess.”

  “That looks like one of our POCKs!”

  The Garbage Hound waddled down the slope after the dead POCK. Its belly bulged.

  “That stupid bot is stealing our kills!” Elfrida raged under her breath.

  They had been instructed to take their kills back to the trucks to be counted. That was the test. And this bot was screwing with the set-up.

  “This is totally unfair! How will we know who killed the most POCKs, if it’s taking them?”

  “It must have been reprogrammed,” Kristiansen muttered. “POCKs don’t look much like candy wrappers.”

  “We have bots like that back home in Rome. Everybody hates them. They’re always digging up flowers and stuff. And if you drop something important, it’s guaranteed to get picked up and munched.”

  “Yeah. They say garbage recognition is one of the toughest challenges in robotics. One person’s recycling is another person’s treasure. So … so … it couldn’t have been programmed to recognize POCKs. That would be beyond the ability of anyone on this rotten little moon.”

  The Garbage Hound waddled to the spot where the dead POCK had come to rest. With a casual gesture that chilled Elfrida’s blood, it rammed one of its spears into the fluffy corpse. It toddled on towards the cluster of maglevator capsules, carrying the POCK high.

  “It must have been hacked,” Kristiansen breathed.

  The Garbage Hound stopped dead. It swivelled.

  “… to hunt by infrared.”

  “Oh, crap, crap, crap.” Elfrida shrank back into the tunnel. “Do you think it can detect us?”

  “Yes.”

  The Garbage Hound continued on its route, and disappeared behind the maglevator capsules.

  Kristiansen worked his legs past Elfrida and rolled into the light. His fringe was caked with frost. His skin looked as white as milk, bloodless. Elfrida touched her own numb cheeks and nose. Frostbite, she thought. She couldn’t feel her fingertips inside her gloves, either.

  Kristiansen sat down on the slope, pushed off, and started to slide.

  “Wait!” Elfrida called, too late. This was exactly what Kristiansen must have done when he came to the drop-off in Pipe No.1. Not for a second did he hesitate. He just pushed off and slid into the unknown.

  She sat where he had, pushed off, and slid down after him.

  Because the chances were good that Colden was down there.

  Dead, or alive.

  ★

  They picked themselves up and skated towards the row of mylar-shrouded maglevator capsules. The ice was slick, as if it had repeatedly melted and refrozen. The Garbage Hound reappeared from behind the capsules. It toddled determinedly towards them, its spears extended.

  Elfrida raised her rifle and squeezed the trigger. She felt no scruples whatsoever. It was just a freaking bot.

  Zzzip! Plasma flared, the pulse streaking through the air so fast that it looked like a rod of blue-white light.

  The Garbage Hound kept coming.

  She had shot it through the bin, causing no damage to anything vital.

  “Aim for the base!” Kristiansen said. “That’s probably where its processors are!” He leapt away from her, angling around the bot. Leaving her to face it alone.

  Zzzip!

  The Garbage Hound halted. Elfrida held her breath, hoping she’d fried its crystals. But no, it had only been pondering whether to chase her or Kristiansen. It made up what passed for its mind, and waddled towards her, its spears raised to stab. Frozen blood caked their tips.

  She dodged. Her boots slipped on the ice, and she went down, catching herself with her hands. Her rifle skidded away. The Garbage Hound pivoted and bore down on her.

  Elfrida wanted to run, but the bot was too close. She pushed into a squat and threw herself at it, beneath its spears, bear-hugging it around the bin. It was squashy, top-heavy. Her momentum knocked it over.

  The Garbage Hound slid on its side across the ice, with Elfrida clinging on. She threw herself off and kicked the exposed underside of its chassis, so it skidded away from her. Then she ran back to pick up her rifle. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw that a POCK had fallen out of the bin.

  The Garbage Hound was still sliding.

  Elfrida set her rifle against her shoulder, blinked up the crosshairs. One shot left. Make it freaking well count this time.

  Dragging its spears over the ice, the Garbage Hound tried to arrest itself. It spun around.

  A glove flopped out of its bin.

  Attached to an arm.

  Elfrida screamed in horror. She dashed after the bot. She reached it at the edge of the basin’s floor, where the ice began to slope up, stalling its slide. Its filthy spears flailed at her. She whacked them away with the butt of her rifle. She could see Colden inside the bin. Her silver hair all over her face.

  The bot made a decision. It stopped attacking Elfrida, so as to drive its spears into the ice to right itself. Before it completed the maneuver, Elfrida darted forward and grabbed Colden by the hair and one sleeve. She yanked her out of the bin. They both fell backward. Elfrida thrashed onto her feet and dragged Colden across the ice. “Colden, Colden! Wake up!”

  I shot her. I freaking shot her.

  “I’m sorry, Colden! Wake up! Please don’t be dead!”

  The Garbage Hound was coming after them. Tireless, efficient, indefatigable, just like its manufacturers boasted.

  Where was Kristiansen?

  Elfrida reached the maglevator loop. The gossamer-looking track was actually a triple curve of guiderails bracketing a superconducting electromagnet coil sheathed in steel. It wouldn’t power on until a capsule passed over it, so there was no magnetic field to hinder her. Shame; it would have hindered the bot much more.　She jumped over the track to the row of maglevator capsules. She dragged Colden between them. The bot would have trouble fitting through that gap, unless it emptied its bin. Although of course, it could just go around.

  She stopped dead.

  An L-shaped metal pole was splarted perpendicular to the capsule she’d just come around. From the horizontal section of the pole hung several hooks. And from each hook hung a POCK, head down, its throat slit. Blood dripped from gore-soaked furry necks into barrels.

  The smell.

  Elfrida’s gorge rose.

  It was the same smell she’d been smelling all along, stronger. She had misidentified it. Hunger had glitched her perceptions. She had thought she was smelling food. She had been smelling meat, in its raw state.

  The reek of an abattoir.

  She averted her gaze from the carcasses, the blood-splattered ice. “Colden, wake up. Please.”

  She pressed her cheek to Colden’s lips. Her face was too numb to detect any warmth. What had they said to do in first aid class? Summon a medibot.

  “Oh, you are a huge freaking help, Space Corps. I hate you. Hate, hate, hate you.”

  Elfrida dumped Colden on her back and started to give her the kiss of life. They had only spent a few minutes learning this antiquated trick. The assumption was it wouldn’t be necessary, because a medibot would always be near.

  The Garbage Hound waddled around the end of the row of capsu
les, clattering its spears. Elfrida sat back on her heels. She reached for her rifle, no longer feeling any urgency. Let the bot do its job. Let it pick up the trash. Colden was dead. Elfrida had lost.

  The bot waddled straight past them, to the abattoir area. It dumped three POCKs out of its bin and began to hang them upside-down on the hooks. It removed the carcasses which were no longer dripping to make room for the new ones.

  Elfrida gaped. This must be an exclusion area. The bot had been commanded to pick up ‘trash’ that was emitting heat … but not within this area. Which meant that there must be a person, or people, around, who didn’t want their own bots chasing them.

  She lowered her head and pushed another lungful of air into Colden’s lungs.

  Colden’s eyes opened. Centimeters away. Elfrida noticed for the first time ever that they were not black, but very dark brown.

  “Hey,” Colden mumbled into Elfrida’s lips. “I didn’t know you felt that way about me.”

  Something banged on the other side of the basin. Elfrida stumbled to her feet. The noise had come from the capsule that was resting on the maglevator track.

  Kristiansen jumped out of the open doors. It was a 2-meter drop to the ice, because there was no platform. “I can’t find her,” he shouted, seeing Elfrida.

  “She’s here! She’s alive!” Elfrida reached down to Colden and lifted her into a sitting position. “You are alive. I can’t believe it.”

  “Goto! Watch out! The bot’s right there!”

  “I am aware of that,” yelled Elfrida. “You just have to get inside the rail loop, then it stops chasing you.” She didn’t take her eyes off Colden, fearfully searching for signs of damage. “Colden, d-d-did I shoot you?”

  “You? No, it was … oh my God, what’s that?” Colden had spotted the Garbage Hound.

  “It picked you up. It thought you were trash, I guess.”

  “Oh, great. First I get mistaken for trash. Then I wake up to find you kissing me. I am having one stinker of a day here, Goto.”

  “You still aren’t my type,” Elfrida smiled. It was so damn good to have Colden back, she actually welcomed the insult. “By the way, I’ve got your necklace. It was on the floor.”

  “Awesome,” Colden yawned. “It’s not a necklace, it’s a miraculous medal. I guess it really is miraculous, too. I thought we were all going to die back there.” She looked around in anticipation. “Where is this place?”

  With a sinking of the heart, Elfrida realized that Colden thought they had reached safety. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth.

  Kristiansen bounded across the maglevator track. The Garbage Hound waddled at him, carrying a POCK on each spear. Kristiansen froze until it had gone past.

  He’s scared, Elfrida realized. He didn’t leave me alone to deal with it by accident. He just ran, because he was scared.

  The realization gave her pause. Colden was injured. Kristiansen couldn’t be relied on. When the next threat showed up, would Elfrida have to deal with it by herself?

  Kristiansen hurried up to them. He looked fairly scary himself. His gloves were caked with blood. The sleeves of his heavy-duty polydown jacket were gory to the elbow. More blood smeared his forehead.

  “You’re alive,” he said, going down on his knees beside Colden. “I was looking for you in there.” He gestured at the distant maglevator capsule.

  “What’s in there?” Elfrida said, already guessing the answer.

  “Meat.” Kristiansen grabbed Colden’s gloves in his filthy ones. “Hallelujah! You’re alive!”

  “Ewww, you’re getting blood on me,” Colden said, not very crossly. “I guess we still haven’t found the way out, huh?”

  While Kristiansen filled Colden in, Elfrida watched the Garbage Hound. It laid the bled-out POCK carcasses on a table surrounded by plastic crates and other paraphernalia. Then it toddled away and rocked deftly over the maglevator rail. It was more agile now that its bin was empty. It climbed the slope of the basin’s rim. Folding up like an accordion, it disappeared into one of the drainage pipes.

  Elfrida returned her attention to her companions.

  “—obviously makes no sense, so they must have gone in from the surface,” Kristiansen was saying. “They drilled straight down.” He gestured at the shaft in the ceiling. “Hollowed out this reservoir, dug a bunch of drainage pipes, and then they went in from the other dome. As they melted out the new dome, they would have allowed the water to drain into the reservoir. Where it would naturally start to freeze again. Ice occupies more volume than water, so you get pressure building up. And building up, until boom! The liquid water is forced out of the shaft in a geyser. Rinse and repeat. Isn’t that amazing? We’re sitting at the bottom of an artificial cryovolcano!”

  “Amazing,” Colden yawned. “Goto, have you got any more of those THC candies?”

  “No, sorry.”

  “Crap. My knee hurts. Or, it would be hurting, if I could feel it.”

  “Kristiansen, hang on. Are you saying that shaft goes all the way to the surface?”

  “Of course. That’s how they got rid of the water.”

  “So why aren’t we flopping around in a vacuum?”

  “Well, obviously, they installed an airlock. Same as on the maglevator from Neith Spaceport.”

  “Then we better hope no one opens it while we’re sitting here,” Elfrida said.

  “At this stage, it probably can’t be opened manually. It’s for the maglevator capsules, not people.”

  Elfrida nodded. Her focus was elsewhere. The dead POCKs. Those barrels full of blood. The abattoir stench in the air, which was … ultimately … the smell of food. She couldn’t believe she was contemplating this. But they were all three weakened by their travails. They were losing the battle with cold, hunger, and thirst. She could tell from Kristiansen’s inconsequential chatter that he wasn’t fully engaged with their situation. As for Colden, she was zoning out, nodding along as Kristiansen talked.

  “Guys?”

  “So I figured all along that it wasn’t just a vermin hunt,” Kristiansen said. “I thought maybe that was the test.”

  That woke Colden up. “Is this what you were talking about, your hunch?”

  Kristiansen nodded. “Look at that.” They all looked at the dead POCKs. “They can’t get robots to kill them? Bullshit. Robots are killing them.”

  “We killed those,” Elfrida said. “The Garbage Hound just collected them.”

  “Yeah, but what about when no one’s hunting them? This is an operation. That car over there is full of meat. Freezers full of it, all jointed and cleaned, you couldn’t tell it from beef.”

  Elfrida’s mouth watered. She had no control over it.

  “They didn’t bring all this stuff down here yesterday,” Kristiansen concluded. “So the Garbage Hound, or more than one of them, must be hunting the POCKs on a regular basis.”

  “Or maybe there’s something else hunting them,” Elfrida said. “A killer drone. One of those Shyaka said they couldn’t deploy down here because reasons.” She got up and peeked between the capsules. Nothing moved in the basin, but they shouldn’t just be sitting here. Anything might be sneaking up on them.

  “It’s possible,” Kristiansen said. “The real question is, who’s controlling the bots? I guess that’s what we were meant to find out.”

  “Come again?” Colden slurred.

  “The test,” Kristiansen explained. “We had to figure out what was really going on. Don’t you see? This is what we’ll come up against on the job, when we have to work with populations far from Earth. They’re sneaky, colonists are. We’ll try to help them, and they’ll deceive us, just because we’re the UN. Because they want to avoid paying taxes, or something. We’ll have to figure out what’s really going on with them, in order to help them. So … this is a dry run.”

  “Shyaka,” Colden said. “He’s behind it. I guarantee you.”

  Elfrida looked up at the nacreous ice of the roof. She watched her bre
ath puff out white, taking with it the heat, the moisture, the energy she needed to stay alive.

  Screw the test. Screw the Space Corps.

  “Guys? I’ve been thinking. We should try to drink some of that.” She aimed a thumb at the barrels of blood.

  “Goto. Ewww. That’s sick.”

  “And also maybe eat some meat. Before we look for the way out.”

  Colden made gagging noises. But Kristiansen said, “She might be right. Colden? It is meat. They’re obviously exporting it.”

  “They probably label it as chicken or something,” Elfrida said. “It might even taste like chicken.”

  “Yeah,” Kristiansen said. “It just … isn’t cooked.”

  “No,” Colden said. “No! I’m not touching it! Didn’t you see the way they waved their little hands at us?”

  Elfrida was about to explode at her for being sentimental under these circumstances, when they heard a resonant hum.

  It grew louder. And louder.

  A maglevator capsule eased out of the shaft overhead. It decelerated around the loop and came to a halt behind the open car on the far side of the basin.

  “Oh, thank God,” Colden said, trying to get up.

  “Wait,” Elfrida snapped. She grabbed her rifle and hurled herself away, between the unused capsules. She had 0.5 bars of charge left. One shot.

  From hiding, she watched a rectangular gap appear in the side of the newly arrived capsule. The lights were on inside the capsule. It looked empty. No seats.

  A human figure, squared-off in a fashionable coat and snowpants, appeared in the gap. Halted. “Hey, what the fuck?” A man’s voice. He jumped down to the ice and bounded towards the abattoir area where Colden and Kristiansen were sitting.

  Elfrida recognized him. He was not wearing a balaclava.

  He was not wearing a jaunty chef’s hat, or an apron, either.

  But it was unmistakably the owner-operator of C.M.O.T. Sandwiches, the food truck where the 77’ers had bought lunch two days running.

  Colden and Kristiansen must have recognized the sandwich-maker, too. Kristiansen went to meet him. “I guess we’re trespassing,” he said with an embarrassed laugh. “I apologize. We’re from the Space Corps.”