Ravagers [03.00] Deviate

by Alex Albrinck

  Sheila’s eyes had grown wider as she’d started to see the truth. “That’s why we have such profound societal pressure to have large families?” Her voice had trailed to a whisper, as if she wanted him to tell her that what she spoke was wrong.

  But it wasn’t. “That’s exactly why they did it, Sheila. Past civilizations had their own reasons for choosing family size, and most were commendable. The Finders had no such altruism. They needed every person to get healthy, have many children, and repeat that cycle. Those societal mores worked. The ‘amazing medical discoveries’ in the early years, better and more consistent access to higher quality foods, plus large number of offspring… over time, humanity did recover. They became stronger, smarter, and with a more diverse gene pool. The ability to adapt and problem solve improved. All by design.”

  “And that sounds good.” She paused. “Why did they decide to kill everyone after reaching that point?”

  “They knew they’d reach a point where they’d have to start eliminating people. In their minds, the small populations of those darkest times weren’t the issue; in fact, they were ideal. It was the lack of access to the benefits of civilization in conjunction with the… not ideal nature of the people comprising those small numbers. If they were going to rebuild the world in the image they desired, they wanted people there who enhanced that utopia, not those who detracted from it.”

  Sheila’s face had turned pale. “So they manipulated humanity twice. First to grow numbers and increase the general health, and now… to reduce our numbers to a desired level?” She moved back to the bed and sat down. “That’s sick.”

  “It is. And you need to know this so that you never stop fighting against it.”

  “I won’t.” She put both hands near her hips as she sat, helping maintain her posture. “There’s more, isn’t there?”

  “Very much so. The marvels of the technological revolution are indeed marvels, and while they’ve helped society in many ways, they weren’t developed for such altruistic reasons. With numbers sufficiently restored, the leaders of the group now needed to identify those they’d save, or those whose offspring might meet their requirements. They started watching. Observing. Looking for those identifiable traits they wanted in those who’d survive the purge and live in the new utopia. And they used the most ubiquitous technologies to perform those observations and gather that data. They watched Internet searches to weed out those with undesirable interests. They set up sites promising cures to various ailments and tracked those visited to eliminate them from consideration. With plenty of people around after two centuries, they could start removing the least desirable in a subtle manner, generally at a young age before they’d reproduce. A small cold turned fatal. A random accident on the job that wasn’t so random. Criminal charges resulting in prison sentences from which the falsely accused would never emerge. It would be a slow process, but they thought it could be effective given sufficient time. And none of their efforts were traceable; everything seemed completely natural.”

  “Why would it matter?” Sheila looked ill, listening as he talked about the use of people as test subjects, their lives tossed aside if they failed some unknown test. “Clearly these people had power. Why the worry about secrecy?”

  “Sheer numbers.” At her puzzled looked, Micah explained. “There were perhaps two hundred million people on the planet when some of the initial efforts I’m describing started. There were perhaps a few hundred people directing these efforts, with perhaps ten thousand total carrying out those directives. Even with significant technological advances, you don’t win many fights if you’re outnumbered ten thousand or a million to one.”

  Sheila’s eyes had closed. He detected a faint nod, an indication that she understood. He recognized that the closing of the eyes helped her feel less pain at the horrors he described.

  Micah walked to her. She felt his approach; with his secret revealed, he made no effort to mask the metal-driven weight of his body, and his footfalls shivered the floor and walls of the room. She opened her eyes. He could see in them a deep pain, a horror beyond even what she’d felt as she’d watched the Ravagers slither over and destroy her city. It was a pain that came from knowing it hadn’t been an accident, a natural disaster unleashed at random. It was the brutal culmination of centuries of efforts, an outcome a small group would call a great success. It meant realizing that the greatest monsters weren’t those who howled in the night, but those who plotted and manipulated from the shadows… or walked among them in plain sight, plotting the deaths of each soul they passed.

  Evil existed in human form. The Ravagers were merely an extension.

  He held out his hand. “Let’s go for a walk. The movement may help you.”

  “Nothing will help me, Micah.” But she took his offered hand, and he gently helped her to her feet. Then they walked. He reduced the weight of each footfall to standard Micah levels.

  He cleared his throat. “I should mention that amid all the horrors described and the power held by those orchestrating everything that there was good news.”

  She looked at him. “Good news?”

  “Yes. The evil people suffered setbacks. You see, they’d expect to see a particular trait wiped out after time; if you prevent all with a particular gene from reproducing, it was theorized, then you’d stop seeing anyone born with or carrying that trait. And yet those very genes and traits would express themselves in new populations elsewhere, in people they’d not flagged before. The generations of expanding populations and rapid technological advancements led to many free thinkers who didn’t follow the carefully crafted social memes; in so doing, they forced deviations to Phoenix’s plans, delays in the carrying out of various activities. Through no specific intention, humanity as a whole did fight back. Phoenix thought they’d be done with this phase of their plan long before now.”

  Sheila offered a weak smile. “Go, humanity.” She raised her fist as if cheering.

  “It’s why the mobile phones became so valuable. It didn’t take much for those free thinkers to realize that there was no such thing as a private email or a hidden Internet search. They bought mobile phones and modified them to encrypt their conversations and mask the identity and location of searches and traffic. The devices held far more sophistication than that, however. Those phones could scrape genetic samples from the hands that held them. Hidden microphones and video cameras not available to the phone owners could turn on without warning and without detection, enabling tracking of thought and action even for those who realized that allowing such tracking might not be a good idea, even if they couldn’t understand or articulate why. Most humans willingly moved to the supposed safety of the walled cityplexes; some didn’t. We’ve all heard stories of the Hinterlands beasts, stories designed to push everyone inside the walls for easier tracking and detection.”

  “But the Hinterlands beasts are genuine threats, and the walls act as a shield against them.” Sheila’s pace slowed, and she looked at him. “They are threats, aren’t they?”

  Micah trotted down the steps as he formulated his response. “Against an unarmed human? Yes. Against a sleeping person with no shelter at all? Yes. But the beasts existed during previous human civilizations, when they were called wolves. If humans live together in sufficient numbers and generate fires, they stay away. A human armed with a small gun has little to fear from them. But the howls of the beasts are ingrained in human DNA as threatening, and that innate fear has been exploited for nefarious ends.”

  He reached the main level, looped around, and opened the door to the basement. He checked behind him to make certain Sheila followed. As he moved down the steps, he communicated soundlessly with the equipment, activating lights and powering on the screens in his laboratory.

  Sheila followed, tentative. He heard her sudden intake of breath as she reached the landing and gazed around, her footsteps ceasing. “Wow.”

  The laboratory featured a multitude of flat work surfaces, with all manner of electrical
components and gears in various stages of assembly scattered atop them. Large video screens lined the wall, most showing camera views of different parts of the house and island. Several were dark; Micah accepted in objective fashion the fact that the cameras scattered around the Bunker and elsewhere in the West no longer existed. The giant screen on the far wall displayed a map of the world; small illuminated dots appeared at various spots. Most were concentrated in the oceans and the East. The only light illuminating the Western lands hovered above the great lake to the east of the Lakeplex.

  “Most of the technology dispensed to the masses had been used for positive benefits for all in the past.” He watched as she moved around, her footfalls on the smooth flooring interrupting the otherwise silent room. “Technology is neither good nor evil; it’s purely how it’s used, how it’s programmed, that determines its impact. Technology is a wonderful servant, but a terrible master.”

  She glanced over her shoulder. “How are you programmed, Micah?”

  He grimaced. “I was nearly killed because of my programming,” he said, his voice quiet.

  “Sorry,” she muttered.

  “Perfectly understandable reaction.” He paused. “My point, Sheila, is that something like a mobile phone is an excellent and powerful tool for humans, and adds significant value to their lives. And yet those same tools enable others to listen in on their private conversations and collect small genetic samples, to monitor their thoughts and relationships and interests without permission or detection. Is the phone a good thing, or bad?”

  Sheila shrugged. “Okay. Why the emphasis on programming?”

  “To prepare you for what I’m about to show you.” He motioned her to follow, as he moved toward a container near the far right corner of the room. They moved, surrounded only by the noise and electrical thrum of the machines in this laboratory, humming a language that only he could understand. He stopped near the container and nodded, indicating that she should look through the thin plastic lid. “Look.”

  Sheila slowed down, hesitating. She’d always been quite good at piecing together limited data and reaching viable conclusions. He knew she’d understood that his segue from the evil philosophies of the Phoenix Group’s leadership into a pontification about the amorality of specific technologies wasn’t an accident, and that something about his words ought to give her pause regarding what she’d see in that container. He offered her a smile. “Nothing here will hurt you, Sheila. I promise.”

  She stopped moving for a fraction of a second, then swallowed and stepped to the container before leaning over and peering inside.

  She recognized what she saw instantly and jumped back, her skin pale as she fell to the ground, shaking her head, whispering “no” so quietly it was nearly a moan. She slid along the ground, moving further away from the container at a pace clearly insufficient to thwart her fear.

  Micah moved to her, knelt down, put his arm around her shoulders, wishing—not for the first time—that his flesh was real, that a gentle and reassuring hug from him couldn’t turn into something painful for her. More painful, even, than what she’d seen. “It’s not what you think, Sheila. It looks the same. But the programming is so nearly the opposite of what you’ve experienced that it might as well be an entirely different material.”

  “I thought I was safe,” she whispered, almost catatonic. “I thought this place was safe. Why did you bring them here, Micah?”

  He’d expected the revelation to be a challenge for her, knew that she’d struggle to accept what she’d see. He stood and moved to the container and pulled the top away. Sheila offered a pained shriek of protest, and he could feel the slight tremor in the surface material as she shook while watching him reach inside the container.

  He pulled the slick, dark, oozing mass out. Nothing moved, nothing devoured, nothing destroyed. But the small swarm of machines was otherwise visually identical to the Ravagers they’d both fled.

  “Sheila, look.” He held out his arm. She lifted her head, slowly, as if terrified that he’d dissolve before her eyes. “They aren’t Ravagers, Sheila. This is the variation of the technology that’s the mobile phone that lets you send text messages to friends and listen to a favorite song. This is the original incarnation of the technology created back during the Golden Ages, and it was one of the keys to their success and prosperity.”

  She watched, waiting, as if seeing the last moments of the life of a doomed man. He waited there, patiently, letting her accept what she saw at her own pace. She finally regained the coloring in her face and her breathing resumed its regular pace. The fear left her eyes, replaced by a deep curiosity. She climbed to her feet and moved closer, still wondering, perhaps, if the machines had merely been left in an inactive state. But she came forward, closing the gap, before looking him in the eye. “How?”

  “Your mobile phone runs different apps, right? What that physical device is, at any instant, is dependent upon which of those apps, which of the sets of code, is active at that point in time.”

  She shrugged. “Okay.”

  “These devices are the same. The app running inside this set of devices is quite different than the machines you saw back in the Bunker. This code set enables a single human being to control the actions of the entire batch, directing them to work in concert toward a particular goal. Humans might use them to create a home, or a sofa, or a road. Or even a car to drive upon that road.”

  She looked skeptical. “Seriously?”

  “Seriously. Other versions, other apps, were created as well. The individual machines are incredibly small, small enough to fit inside your body. The ancients created code that enabled the devices to enhance the body’s own immune and injury repair systems, rendering the owner free of any disease or sickness, and able to heal from wounds with astounding rapidity.”

  She snorted. “That’s ridiculous. Who would let those things inside their body? Machines can’t do that.”

  He smirked. “When was the last time you were sick, Sheila?”

  “I’m not sure what that has to do with—” She paused before her jaw fell open. “You didn’t.”

  “I did. Your private set of internal machines entered you the first time we met. They work. The injuries you suffered as you tried to kill me ought to have taken far longer to heal, and yet you’re moving around as if you’d experienced little more than a bruise.”

  “Your medical team is rather impressive.”

  “They are, but they aren’t that good.”

  She clasped her elbows with her hands, holding herself. “I can’t believe you’d do that without telling me. What’s to say those machines won’t suddenly try to kill me, rather than heal me?”

  “They won’t.”

  She glared at him. “Why? Because they’ve not been told to do so?”

  “Precisely. They follow orders precisely as defined in their code. Just like me.”

  Her glared intensified. “Oh, really? And what, exactly, does your code tell you to do, Micah?”

  He bowed his head. “I am to do precisely what you, Sheila, tell me to do.”

  —8—

  RODDY LIGHT

  DELANEY’S FIST SMASHED into his abdomen, and Roddy felt the air rush from his lungs. The impact and sudden air expulsion combined separate pain sources into a synergistically larger agony, and Roddy’s legs gave way. The ground raced toward him, embracing him in a manner thoroughly devoid of affection. He gasped, working air back into his lungs, twisting his head around to take in the sneering face of James Delaney, his one-time Special Forces colleague and current jailer.

  Anger seared through his veins, and Roddy, though still recuperating from the abdominal blow, nevertheless found the strength to raise an arm and extend a finger in Delaney’s direction. Then he bent sharply at the waist, bringing his thighs up to take the blow from Delaney’s boot, blocking the man’s effort to double-down on the pain.

  It hurt. But contact there hurt far less than Delaney’s original target.

  He
glanced up at his captor, expecting a face full of anger at the thwarted second blow. But Delaney looked… surprised? Impressed? “Damn. You’re getting better faster than I would have expected.”

  Then he dropped to the ground and rolled Roddy to his stomach, putting a knee in the captive’s back. The cuffs bound Roddy’s wrists in a flash, faster than Roddy had believed possible. Delaney hauled Roddy up to his feet. “Didn’t anticipate that move, did you, Light?”

  Roddy said nothing. All his mental prowess focused on restraining himself from acting on the urge to spit in Delaney’s face.

  Delaney offered a gallant wave, indicating the direction in which Roddy should walk. Roddy, still struggling to refill his lungs, glanced around. He was in what appeared to be a medical bay, with a central desk flanked by rooms sprinkled around the perimeter. Door spacing suggested the rooms weren’t large; Roddy supposed that meant this place didn’t treat severe wounds as there’d be little room for equipment of any size, or multiple attending practitioners. He spotted the woman who’d brought him food, intently focused on the information displayed on a screen. Her face looked familiar in some way, as if resembling someone he’d met before, but Roddy couldn’t place her.

  Delaney’s rough shove brought him back to the moment. Roddy stumbled, regained his balance, and started walking.

  Delaney guided him through a set of doors that opened noiselessly at their approach. They left the sterile air of the medical unit and emerged into the bustling corridor Roddy had used as a track upon his arrival on the space station. There were far more people here than he’d seen during his sprint. More likely, he had greater opportunity to notice them. His bonds didn’t pin his hands close together; the tight clasps around his wrists let his arms move freely behind him, but didn’t permit him to move his hands in front of his body. He let his eyes wander down. The bonding material for both wrist clasps and connecter was transparent. Curious. Unless one watched Roddy closely, it would appear he wasn’t a prisoner cuffed and hauled around by a guard. Delaney didn’t want his fellow residents figuring out that there was a prisoner in their midst.