“Speak one more time, and I will cut you into pieces instead of shooting you.”
Oliver's voice came back on the radio.
“Moses, this is Oliver. My answer is... I will give you... only what you deserve.”
Moses sat in dead silence. Uncertain. But quickly he understood, and whipped the radio to his mouth.
“Okay. Okay, Oliver. If that is your answer. I will kill Adowa. And then I will kill you and the mzungu next!”
Adowa dared then to look in his eyes, to fall into his murderous gaze. This was the end for her, but she wouldn’t depart the world with her head turned away.
“You are the worst kind of coward, Moses,” she spat.
Unflinching, Moses curled his finger around the trigger.
“And you are a useless woma—”
A lunging, dark form filled the window frame directly behind him, and a massive, clawed appendage hooked inside and ripped his face apart, opening wounds so large the semblance of human expression was erased. The only thing escaping his mangled visage was a hideous, deformed scream. Reflexively, his finger flattened the trigger of the gun, the round tearing a hole in the roof of the vehicle just inches from Adowa's head. Blood spray painted her face and shoulders, and she slammed back against the passenger door.
Through incomprehensible gore, she witnessed Moses towed through the window as though on some huge, invisible cable while his limbs thrashed uselessly against the dashboard. An instant later it all ceased, and he fell limp. In a surreal blur, his body vanished into the terrain, like the grass itself was hauling it away. The speed at which it happened left Adowa in as much shock as all the brackish blood glistening on her. A scream caught in the back of her throat. She stayed pressed against the door, her disbelieving stare wedded to the bloody window frame. In the midst of an intense silence, the radio squawked suddenly, shaking her.
“Moses, do not hurt Adowa! Please!”
Adowa spotted it in the center of the driver's seat where Moses had been sitting just moments before. Hands trembling, she picked up the radio and pressed the talk button.
“Mah... mah...” Speech failed her. She clamped her eyes shut and took several deep breaths.
“Moses, are you there?” Oliver's voice barked.
Making another attempt, Adowa keyed the radio.
“Oliver... it's me. It's me, I'm alone. Moses is dead... he's dead!”
Silence.
“Was it LEON?” he asked.
Adowa edged toward the open, bloody window, seeing only tall grass, brush, and the shadow-spotted tree line some thirty yards away.
“Yes,” she said. Certain. Coming back into her shock-splintered memory, the clawed appendage that tore Moses from his seat retook detailed form. Mechanized digits made of carbon fiber with retractable, fully articulate claws. Razor sharp. “It was him.”
“He's on our side,” Oliver replied, nervous, excited energy in his voice. “Do you understand, Adowa? LEON just saved your life!”
She attempted to grasp the magnitude of such a thing. If true, and LEON acted so strategically... so personally... then this opened a whole new scope of possibility for—
“Adowa, you must drive to us now. Bring the Rover around the south side of the building,” Oliver said.
She nodded as though Oliver could see the gesture, but of course he couldn't. And her breath was failing again. It was the crush of adrenaline pounding her system. Her hands shook so badly the radio danced in her grip.
“Adowa, do you hear me? Drive to us now and we will leave together,” Oliver said.
She nodded again. Sobs came in heaving spasms, and tears rolled down her face.
“Adowa,” Oliver called again. “Adowa, can you hear me?”
It took all her effort, but she carefully moved the radio to her mouth, thumbed the talk button, and said, “Yes, Oliver. I can hear you. I understand.”
“Good. Now drive to us. Can you do that?” he asked.
Adowa palmed the tears off her face, only then noticing a dark depression invading the grass about twenty yards away. Approaching her slowly.
* * *
“I think... I think he's coming back,” Adowa said, her voice imprisoned in a layer of radio static.
Blaine shot Oliver a look and got nothing in return, just a glassy, distant stare. Oliver mashed down the talk button.
“Adowa, drive to us now. Do not hesitate, just drive in a straight line. Now!”
No response.
“Adowa!”
Nothing but the incessant buzzing of insects. They waited. Moments became minutes. Blaine shot his binoculars back in the direction of the Land Rover. He could make out the top of the vehicle. Through the windshield, it appeared empty.
“Can you see her?” Oliver asked.
Blaine didn't answer, and Oliver snatched the glasses away from him, putting them to his brow.
“Adowa!” he shouted into the radio. Dead quiet. Blaine and Oliver stood motionless, pinioned by the awful stillness.
“I think,” Blaine began, “that we should forget the drone... and the bodies... take the poachers’ Jeep and drive out of here.”
“We cannot leave the Land Rover,” said Oliver. “It will lead them back to us.”
Blaine said, “Then we'll drive to it, get very close—side by side—and I'll climb between the windows. If it starts, I will follow you away from here.”
It was a surreal moment for Oliver, who realized Blaine was right. The mzungu's instinct and sudden, rational calm gave him hope that they might still live through this.
“Okay,” Oliver said. “Let us go. As you said.”
Blaine took a step back and suddenly felt his shoe sink and slide into a moist substance. Repulsed, he glanced down and saw a blanched, chalky mound oozing around the edge of his shoe. Oliver recognized it immediately.
“Hyena droppings,” he said.
“Are you sure?”
“White from the minerals of digested bone.”
It sprang. A mottled blur of motion with a wide open mouth full of teeth. Sinking violently into Blaine's lower leg. The pain was instant and immense. He howled and collapsed beneath the horrific force of the hyena's bite. Oliver kicked the spotted animal in the side and brought down the butt of his radio in a sharp, whistling arc, cracking it over the head of the beast. It yelped and released Blaine, who folded in the grass, still shrieking as dark blood pumped furiously from the puncture. Oliver waved his arms at the animal, shouting, grabbing stones and throwing them. He quickly stowed the radio and the computer tablet in his bag and grabbed Blaine under the shoulders, helping him back toward the building.
Circling them, Oliver saw several sets of ears darting excitedly back and forth. A half dozen at first glance. Blaine screeched as Oliver dragged him around the north side of the building, toward the door. But he stopped in time to rip the AK-47 by its strap off Hassan's body. Carefully swinging the gun across his shoulder, he lugged Blaine into the building and pulled the wooden door shut behind them.
“Oh my God,” Blaine hissed. He looked down his body, staring in dumb disbelief at the wound, which was a mangle of blood, flesh, and fabric. “LEON... LEON did this to me,” he said, his body quaking.
“It was not LEON,” Oliver said, darting quickly through the building, pulling the window shutters closed. “Hyenas. A herd of them. If it was LEON, your leg would be missing.”
Blaine felt the room tilt suddenly, his vision spinning, a sense he was about to tumble down a forever dark chasm. He fought it—the terrible plunge—shaking his head back and forth, biting into his lip.
“Oliver,” he began, his voice unsteady, “you're going to have to get us out of here. I need medical attention. The Jeep... the poachers’ Jeep....”
Oliver swung the AK into a ready position and scuttled to the window for a look. In his slatted view through the shutters he saw them circling, agitated by the smell of blood from Blaine's wound. They scampered back and forth around the building and began vocal
izations of laughter—a signal to other clan members that there was a food source. Oliver cut across the building for a look at the nearby Jeep. With a partially obscured vantage, he saw all too well the bullet holes in the side of the engine block, and a pool of obsidian fluid beneath it. Moses, he thought. The man had done in the vehicle the same way he'd done Hassan and the civilian woman before he'd grabbed Adowa.
“The Jeep is dead,” Oliver said.
“How can you be sure?” Blaine asked.
“Moses made sure we could not leave without him.”
“Then we're done for.”
Oliver lowered the AK and ran his palm over the top of his head.
“I did not instruct LEON to kill the poachers, Peterson. They deserved what they got, but I was not responsible.”
“Why are you telling me this now?” Blaine hissed.
Oliver decided there was no good reason to tell this mzungu anything. And yet he did, for reasons beyond his comprehension. Perhaps it was because Oliver expected to die soon. And Blaine was the last human being he'd ever speak to.
“You asked me once... months ago in Dodoma... why a man such as me would agree to create a weapon like LEON.”
Sweat beaded on Blaine's forehead and his expression was fast becoming a rictus of agony.
“I... I didn't mean to pry... I was... I was just asking a question,” he said.
“Because I was once a boy, Peterson. This is my land. And I have seen what men like these do to boys.”
Pain rocketed through Blaine's extremity, going straight into his head. He vomited into the dirt, deep heaves wracking his body.
“Oliver,” he said, panting, gasping on hollow, dry air. “I'm finished... I can't make it.”
Oliver did not disagree. The moment he’d seen the wound in Blaine's leg, he knew the man was dead.
“But... I fear... neither will you,” Blaine said. In a moment that required all of his rapidly waning strength, he captured Oliver in his fading stare. “I fear... that your creation... will forbid you from leaving here. I see it now... I see it... can't you? He's still a lion. Not a robot... not a weapon... a lion...”
Something caught in Blaine's throat, and he choked. Suffocating. He turned blue, veins in his neck and face bulging obscenely. Oliver watched him, and for a moment tipped the barrel of the AK toward his head. Prepared to fire a shot through the man's brain. It would have been merciful, but in the few moments it took the thought to form, Blaine went limp, and a wet gurgling sound fled his mouth and nostrils. Oliver stared down into his cloudy, dead eyes, wondering where the man had gone, what sort of place he was stepping into. He'd never considered such things before. And now he'd have to wait for the hyenas to lose interest and move on. He'd have to wait with the dead.
* * *
It was a strange, humming wind approaching from a great and terrible distance. Growing. Changing. Becoming a vibration. Buzzing. Oliver woke with a start. Coming fully to, he found himself at the edge of a turbulent cloud of insects, intoxicated by Blaine's rotting flesh wound. They were orbiting, landing on him, and microbe by microbe, consuming him. Blaine's filmy eyes were fixed blindly on a point far beyond the ceiling.
Oliver swatted them away, snatched up his bag and the gun and darted to another one of the rooms. So here he was: alone, trapped in a building used by poachers, with several dead bodies, a clan of hyenas circling outside, and somewhere beyond all that was LEON.
What does a man do in a situation like this? he thought. Oliver peered through the shutters to the land outside, which was bathed in iridescent orange. The death of day. And he wondered if perhaps he should place the barrel of that AK in his mouth and somehow grow the courage to pull the trigger. Perhaps that was the only way out of here.
He swept the thought away and quickly drew the tablet out of his bag, stunned to find a message from LEON waiting for him. It read: DROVE THEM AWAY. ALL CLEAR NOW. SAFE.
Oliver fingered the shutters, easing them open for an unobstructed view at the savannah. There were no creatures in the grass—no ears, no spotted hides jousting back and forth. The hyenas were indeed gone. Beyond the shadow of the building, the vast sea of grass murmured in concert with a slow easterly wind. This was a chance, he realized—a chance he'd have to take. Another message confirmed his instinct: ALL CLEAR. MOVE NOW.
* * *
The sun drowned in a bloody pool beyond the farthest hills as Oliver marched step by step through the grass toward the Land Rover which, despite the murky, featureless horizon, appeared as a dark hump, motionless atop the swaying wall of grass. Is it still drivable? He'd find out soon enough. From where he was, the vehicle appeared to be another hundred yards or so. Getting closer with every step. The prospect of his survival grew brighter, even as the sky wilted into a deep, bottomless mauve.
Somewhere beyond a tightly grown wall of trees to the east, Oliver heard trumpeting, followed by a guttural, roaring rumble. Elephants. He moved faster, his feet slashing loudly through the growth. Time was decidedly running out.
Jump inside. Seal the windows. Start the engine and drive away. He ran the sequence over and over in his head. Jump inside. Seal the windows. The vehicle was now just ten yards away. Start the engine and drive away. Five yards. Closing.
Oliver broke through the edge of the grass, ignoring all the blood from Moses, and climbed into the vehicle, landing squarely in the driver's seat. The keys still hung in the ignition. Adrenaline possessing him, Oliver tried to turn the engine over, but his fingers shook so fiercely he couldn't get a purchase on the keys.
Focus, man. Focus!
He settled down, taking slow, deep breaths. Steadying himself, exerting nothing but sheer will, his hands stopped trembling. Carefully, he grasped the key—thumb and index finger—and turned it over. The engine fired instantly and he dropped it into gear.
From his left side, a towering form materialized. He turned only long enough to make out two massive tusks, barely visible in the gloom. Awesome, sudden force blew through the frame of the Land Rover—through Oliver's body—and the whole vehicle rose precipitously. Tipping. Higher and higher until Oliver felt gravity shift, his own weight sucking him out of the seat. He tumbled aimlessly as the machine flipped, landing upside down, the entire world now hopelessly inverted.
Oliver collided with the roof, which was now flush with the ground. Even after the motion ceased, he still felt the sensation of a spin. Over his own torrent of desperate thoughts, he heard the angry trumpeting and snuffling of the elephant accompanied by the creature's horrible, deep grunts. There were massive, thudding impact tremors as a herd of them thundered by quickly. They were fleeing the area. Oliver recognized their panicked gait, and a thought landed in his head. Blaine's last words: He's still a lion.
The tablet lit suddenly, a murmuring, ghostly glow in the wreckage. Oliver reached for it, fingers extended, his grasp falling just short. A sudden, horrible pain erupted in his side, the feel of warm, viscous fluid pooling beneath his shirt, soaking him. But Oliver dove through the pain, the feel of so much blood, and wormed painfully another inch, and another, until his finger grazed the edge of the device. One final agonizing inch gave him two fingers with which he was finally able to capture the tablet and secure it in his grip. He adjusted it for a look at the screen.
HIDE AND SEEK. I SEE YOU, OLIVER. ALL ALONE NOW. I SEE YOU.
Oliver's voice shuddered. “You are just a program. I am talking to a software program!”
It was subtle, but Oliver heard something nearby—a predatory, rolling growl.
LOOK RIGHT. I SEE YOU. LOOK RIGHT.
“You're just a program,” he said, the breath trapped suddenly in his chest. Nevertheless, he gazed in the direction of the sound, through the remains of the tortured window. Framed in the center of it, ten yards out, in the barest of light, he saw the eyes floating in the motionless grass, surrounded by a huge, dark mane of hair. And beneath that was the rest of LEON's massive, bio-mechanized frame.
He's still a
lion.
Shimmering and mirror-like, those eyes remained fixed on Oliver.
I SEE YOU.
“I see you too, LEON,” Oliver said.
Those glowing eyes charged, and LEON's great and terrible maw blew open in a thunderous roar.
A Word from Eric Tozzi
From the moment I was invited to contribute a story to The Cyborg Chronicles, my mind went almost immediately toward the concept of a cybernetic animal rather than a human. In doing some research, it’s a fact that mankind is currently attempting to create a palette of remote controlled animals. These are sometimes referred to as bio-robots or robo-animals and are considered to be cyborgs by virtue of the fact that they combine electronic devices with living creatures.
Believe it or not, species that have been successfully controlled remotely include cockroaches, beetles, moths, rats, mice, dogfish sharks and pigeons. At first glance this notion seems absurd and even creepy. And it raises some very obvious moral and ethical questions about overriding the will of a living creature for whatever ends man might be trying to achieve. Some of those ends include surveillance, search and rescue, and actual combat. This concept intrigued me deeply and so I dove headlong into the story of a field test with a robo-animal gone horribly wrong.
“Hide And Seek” is unlike anything I’ve written before, and as an author I love being challenged. I consider it an honor to be a contributor in this anthology as part of the larger Future Chronicles series of books. I will forever be grateful to Samuel Peralta for the opportunity.
To learn more about me please visit my author page at Amazon.com. I’m also hanging around Facebook, Thirdscribe and Twitter.
Avendui 5ive
by P.K. Tyler
Two Weeks Ago
FIFTEEN MINUTES INTO HER FIRST DIG, Avendui 5ive fell to her knees, and her newly installed shin-plates shifted, threatening to reopen the healing wound holding them in place.
The Cyborg Chronicles (The Future Chronicles) Page 15
