He gasped a huge lungful of air, wondering why he’d never before appreciated the fresh sweetness of one of the most critical elements for life, until at last his breathing returned to its normal pace.
With airflow returned, he glanced down at his arms as if they belonged to a stranger. How did he know what to do? He’d always been terrified of water, expecting that he’d drown in anything deeper than a bathtub… and he never took baths, just to be certain. So how was it that he knew how to fall off a moving motorbike well above the surface, pierce the water, and maintain his current buoyancy without any sense of panic or strain?
All questions for a later time.
He spotted the canoe fifty yards to the east. It had floated downriver since he’d abandoned it for his stupid stunt, moving closer to the great lake.
“Okay, body,” he muttered. “You seem to know how to swim. Let’s go get that boat.”
He moved to a more horizontal position in the water, spreading out his arms and kicking at the same time, never letting his face dip below the surface, keeping his eyes and mouth clear to watch the boat and breathe. As he settled into a rhythm, he glanced at the north shore of the river. It was dark, blackened with teeming mounds of Ravagers, swaying and writhing like a predator awaiting that final foolish move by its prey before it would pounce. Wesley gulped. No, he wouldn’t go near that shore again.
To the south, he still saw greenery. Trees swayed in the light breeze. He spotted the occasional small furry creature darting among the underbrush. Birds chirped. The contrast between south and north was startling.
He refocused on the boat. With agonizing slowness, he gained on his target. Each stroke moved him forward faster than the current driving the boat and the precious supplies it carried. His muscles ached, demanding rest after the extended trauma of the day, but rest meant death. With sheer force of mind, he kept going, kept swimming, using the exhilaration he felt after learning of that unknown ability as fuel for his efforts.
The boat was within ten feet.
Five feet.
One foot.
He took one more stroke, then reached up and grabbed the side.
Success.
He felt his eyes well up with tears, and it had nothing to do with their exposure to the river water. He felt as if he’d finally ensured his survival, now that he’d reached the boat.
Then he frowned. He still needed to get inside the boat. He couldn’t rest and sleep as he needed if he was hanging on to the side. He’d either never sleep… or never wake up if he succumbed to slumber.
But how would he get into the boat without tipping it over, spilling his precious supplies and filling the interior with water he didn’t want aboard?
His eyes fell back along the tranquil southern shore.
Ten minutes later, he’d angled the boat up against the riverbank and tied the tether to an overhanging branch. He scrambled to the dry land and pulled the vessel closer before stepping aboard. He fumbled in his supply bag for a knife and pulled the end of the tether in, bending the branch that kept him stationary, then sawed through the end. His fingers were far too numb and waterlogged to untie the knot at this point.
The rope splayed into component strands, and then he was free, floating with the current once more.
He used the oars to steer himself toward the middle of the river, tending toward the southern bank. He’d move at optimal speed here in the deepest, freest flowing water, and though he’d much prefer to hug up against the south bank, he needed to get to the lake as quickly as possible, before the Ravagers inevitably surrounded him. With his course set and propulsion supplied by the current, Wesley pulled the oars inside and engaged in some critical thinking.
He’d prepared for a catastrophe, at least to the extent that one could. His prep work focused on survival in the event of a societal breakdown. It made sense because he knew such an event was inevitable; the inequitable distribution of wealth and resources, rising prices of life’s necessities, politicians beholden to the megacorps rather than to the voters they ostensibly served. One could feel the tension brewing within the Lakeplex walls and even inside the Bunker, could sense the agitation growing, ready to burst at any time. He’d tried to warn people with his podcast, but nobody thought of the Red Bird as anything but a loon. His warnings and exposure of the truth made no difference.
The Ravagers ended the outburst before it started. There hadn’t been a societal breakdown. Society simply vanished.
Any that survived would blame the East, conforming to the programming slammed into their minds since birth. They’d been told the East would one day invade, with horrific consequences, unless they worked collectively to prevent such a nightmare. Wesley, given his job with General Jamison in the Bunker, knew that was impossible. The East hadn’t made any more of an incursion into Western territory than the West had made into the East. Small periodic strikes kept people primed to look for threats where they didn’t exist.
No, this assault came from within. Probably the megacorps. He’d bet what remained of his life that Oswald Silver had played a starring role in this catastrophe, wiping out the Lakeplex for reasons large or small, but disastrous regardless to those no longer alive. Still, though… he had to consider the possibility that this was the East’s doing.
He frowned. If the East were to attack, they’d only do so to acquire Western territory, arable lands full of resources exploitable to improve the quality of their lives, including new subservient subjects to help consolidate the power of the oligarchs ruling the other side of the world. If that was the case, though, why raze everything so thoroughly? The Ravagers left nothing recoverable behind. The land was ruined, no longer able to support life of any sort, and all human life—save for him—was gone. Why destroy what you wished to control?
Perhaps the Eastern oligarchs felt it best to be rid of a nuisance rather than deal with it. That didn’t rule out coordination of efforts, and Wesley didn’t think it absolved Silver of guilt. The man had to have his fingers intertwined in this effort no matter who’d initiated the process, didn’t he? But Silver liked power and control. Even he had to see that savaging lands he already claimed as his own made little sense. Who wanted to control barren land devoid of people?
The lands won’t remain lifeless and devoid of people.
Wesley sat up straighter. That hadn’t come from the Voice. It was his own memories speaking to him, memories no longer blocked by whatever device the Voice used to exact such thorough control over him. But what did the words mean?
He frowned. The Ravagers were machines, performing as programmed. If the programming could be changed, the deadly devices could become something… different. Something… useful, even?
Was that the plan? He tried to remember, but specific memories faded just as he seemed on the verge of grasping them. The idea that they’d change the machines after the purge felt correct. The plan—the plan he’d learned of after it was too late—came to mind. They’d use the machines to rid themselves of the inferior, the useless, the rabble of humanity, turning their bodies to dust just as they’d do with buildings and walls. They’d perpetuated various myths to keep humanity packed tightly together, greatly simplifying things. But it might not be enough. They couldn’t make and position enough machines before starting to eradicate everyone before word would spread, people would take action, and thus escape the carnage. It would ruin the plan, delay their triumphant arrival to rebuild the world. But… if they could take a small number of the machines called Ravagers and have them copy themselves with the dust generated from destroyed matter? The proliferation from even a modest number of small caches would expand, consume, and destroy everyone given enough time. No need for messy hunts for desperate people who’d shoot first and run second.
The challenge: they didn’t know how to perform that replication. They’d needed an expert, someone gifted with robotics, one who could teach machines to assemble copies of themselves with available raw materials on an indefinite bas
is.
He felt his face flush and his skin crawl as the memory cracked open even further. He remembered who they’d found to help with that key design feature of machines they’d eventually call Ravagers, the machines they’d just used to destroy his home and murder the millions living inside those walls, many of whom he considered friends and acquaintances.
He vomited over the side of the boat, sickened at the aid he’d provided the enemy.
Had he been some bloodthirsty tyrant in the life he’d lived before the onset of his current deep amnesia, a past so shameful that he’d repressed any memory lest he die in shame at the horror he’d helped unleash?
No. That wasn’t right. He knew that wasn’t true. No, they’d tricked him. They’d told him that the advances he would make would help bring peace. Like a fool, he believed, and he’d thrown himself into his work with a deep passion. He’d succeeded. And then they’d taken him far away to see his breakthroughs in action. Somewhere in Eastern territory. Oswald Silver was there. There were others he didn’t recognize. People Silver knew. Respected.
Feared.
They’d shown him the truth. And…
He couldn’t remember more. Nothing helped.
But what he remembered told him enough.
This wasn’t West against East. This was a global elite operating beyond those designations. That cabal wasn’t targeting him, or General Jamison, or the Lakeplex. It wasn’t even targeting the Western Alliance.
No, this group targeted the whole planet.
His eyes widened. He no longer heard the rippling river currents, the winds rustling the trees on the south bank. He no longer felt the boat rise and fall as it meandered along toward the great lake. The fear, the terror, the shock consumed him, blocked out all sensation of his surroundings.
They’d had a name for it. They’d told him. It was a word for a creature from a mythology created long before the Golden Ages. They’d used the name of a creature that would die of self-immolation in its infirmity, turning into a pile of dust and ashes, only to rise, reborn, healthy, and youthful from its own remains.
That’s what they wanted. To eradicate what they didn’t deem necessary, retaining only those people they deemed worthy, and rebuild the world to their specifications.
There were other caches of Ravagers, then. Not just the one he’d seen expand beyond the confines of the Bunker. There would be caches spread throughout the world. Perhaps they’d all activated at the same time, or at a pre-defined schedule for whatever reasons they might have to spread out the carnage. He didn’t know. He knew only that the vast majority of the human population would die soon, if they hadn’t already.
He set his jaw. He’d done too much to help the evil succeed in their quest. But that was before he knew the truth.
Now he knew. Now he remembered. Now he felt the pain at the trickery involved in enlisting his help to perpetuate their evil plans.
He knew one thing, one thing that nobody in Phoenix knew.
He’d spend the rest of his life seeking revenge against those who’d perpetrated this calamity.
—5—
SHEILA CLARKE
SHEILA FELT THE anger mount in her like a volcano ready to erupt.
She’d made the decision to kill Micah Jamison, and not just because he’d tried to kill her. She’d decided to kill him because he couldn’t make the decision to do the right thing in the face of orders to the contrary. Lives—massive numbers of lives—had been lost due to his inaction and unwillingness to disobey an immoral order.
For that, he would die. His deficient moral code made him expendable.
Yet she couldn’t kill him.
It wasn’t from her lack of effort. She’d shot him. She’d hit him in the face with her gun. She knew she’d kicked him in the face at least once as he’d hauled her away from the initial wave of Ravagers. Yet his face was unblemished, he remained conscious, and he was very much alive.
Now he told her this ridiculous story. This… insulting story.
“And now you’re mocking me?” She tried to keep the petulant whiny tone from her voice without success. She managed to work a note of pain into her words, aided by the physical pain she now endured. “Trying to explain away your guilt in everything by claiming to be a machine?”
Micah looked down at the stump of his right arm, with the wires and metal still visible, and then glanced at the detached right hand gripped in his left. He looked back at her, confusion etched on his unblemished face. “I’m not mocking you, Sheila. I’m telling you the truth because now you’re ready to hear it.”
“No,” she whispered. “You’re patronizing me because you’ve strung me along thus far, using a stage prop to try to prove you’re a machine and not a man whose immorality proves he deserves to die.”
He tossed the detached hand. She took a half step back, listening as it thudded to the soft ground. “You don’t believe me at my word. I don’t blame you, Sheila. But you have to accept the truth. Look at the hand. Do what you must do to understand and accept reality. But don’t keep denying the truth. We don’t have time to wait.”
She didn’t know what that was supposed to mean. “How do I know that that thing”—she pointed at the detached hand—“isn’t a bomb that will kill me when I pick it up?” She folded her arms across her chest and glared at him.
Micah threw up his hands—well, hand—and shook his head. “Sheila, based on the last few minutes, don’t you think if I wanted you dead you’d already be dead?”
“I think you’ve got a sick enough mind at this point that, true as that might be, you might get some sadistic pleasure out of me killing myself by triggering the bomb that kills me.”
“The longer we stand here, Sheila,” he whispered, “the longer people will continue to die unnecessarily. Find the truth. Hell, find more ammo and shoot me again. Ask Whiskey. I don’t care how you do it. But don’t keep torturing yourself like this.”
She felt that sliver of doubt.
She’d seen enough during her time at the Bunker to know that the world wasn’t what was shown and told to the general public.
And she’d watched something that looked like an oil slick expand to cover and annihilate her known world. She’d arrived here in a car that maneuvered itself and carried her here safely underwater.
And hell, she’d met a robot in the house here who could pour a glass of whiskey and recognize her on sight.
Could Jamison be a robot, one far more advanced than her favorite bartender?
“I’m a fool to even consider the idea,” she muttered. She knew Jamison heard it, but he said nothing.
She stepped forward, one wary eye on the self-proclaimed robot, one on the hand no longer attached to his arm. She crouched down in the soft grass and reached out to touch the hand. She’d shaken his hand many times before, but never truly paid it any notice. His grip was incredibly strong, but nothing about the skin ever suggested he wasn’t human. Just… very strong.
And based upon the last thirty minutes… very solid.
Oh, no.
She touched the hand, found where the skin ended and the metal began. The skin was a glove of sorts, one with a strange plastic liner on the inside. She peeled it back, just a bit. She saw and felt the mild adhesive, designed so that Micah’s “skin” didn’t shift off his body in an unnatural manner. The skin was soft, with intricate lines etched throughout, lumps at strategic places that looked like raised blood vessels. She found a raised section of skin and peeled the glove back, confirming that there were no blood vessels on the metal surface, just strategically placed striations in his artificial skin.
Could it be true?
She picked up the hand with both of hers and looked at him. He watched her with unwavering focus, but not with an intensity in his gaze that might leave her uncomfortable. She glanced down at his hand and remembered something from their earlier struggle.
He could fake the hand. He might have lost it in a battle long ago, fitted with a prost
hetic and the necessary wiring to allow his brain to control the fake limb just as he would a natural one. He might enact an illusion in which he removed his entire arm, further demonstrating his robot-ness.
Illusions had limitations, however. He couldn’t be metal everywhere.
Unless it wasn’t an illusion.
She moved toward him, slowly, cautiously. Her footfalls made no sound, a combination of the soft terrain and her measured steps. Micah watched her, curious now, not afraid, not worried, just uncertain what she’d do.
Once she reached Micah, she took his hand and hit him in the head with the detached metal hand, swinging as hard as she could.
The clanging sound on impact seemed to shake the island, or perhaps it merely jarred her sense of reality. The very heavy, very metal hand left not a mark or scratch on Jamison’s face. In fact, he hadn’t moved.
He offered a thin smile. “Testing my body composition? Brilliant. Feel free to repeat that anywhere you choose to confirm what I’ve told you.”
She smashed the metal hand much lower.
A human man would shriek in agony if struck there, might collapse and even pass out due to the pain. Jamison didn’t react, though she did detect a slight curl of his lip. Amusement.
Sheila took a step back and stared at him.
She looked back at the hand, then held it palm up in her left hand. She put her own hand into his palm.
The fingers closed, slowly, gently, in the most unthreatening handshake ever. Just enough of a squeeze that she noticed it, not enough that she would cry out in pain.
His fingers, nowhere near his wrist, relaxed their grip.
She felt her breath catch in her throat as she looked up at him once more, all doubt in her mind forever erased.
It seemed so obvious now. The heavy footfalls. The fact that he never ate meals with others, returning to his private residence to “recharge.” His incredible ability to work long hours without any signs of fatigue. How he answered middle-of-the-night calls as though he’d never slept.
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