He had debated all through the night on what to do. 17 wasn’t in the habit of obeying orders, and he had no intention of doing so now. Daniels might send a few hundred volts through his system, but he wouldn’t kill him. Like it or not, he was the star quarterback, the captain of the hockey team, one of the best. So, Daniels might shock his ass and put him in cold storage for a decade or two, but 17 wasn’t about to head home with recon only half done. Manhatsten would stand a much better chance of defending itself if they knew which city that Runner belonged to. So far, there had been no further sign.
Cities like Rio or Paris were small and wouldn’t stand much of a chance against Manhatsten and probably wouldn’t attempt a direct assault. But, if it was a city like Lundon or Saud... Both those cities were pretty close in size to Manhatsten and would have a sizable armament to match. A little foreknowledge could make all the difference, and as much as 17 hated the Uppers for casting him down into eternal servitude, there were plenty of innocent people on Manhatsten who were just struggling to get by.
17 had never lived in the Lowers, but most of the Runners he worked with had. So, he knew what it was like down there from their stories. He heard about the gangs, the dealers, the prostitution, but most of all the semi-recent uprising had provided security with a fresh wave of recruits, with new scars and heartbreaking stories of the living conditions down against the bedrock.
He swished the saliva around in his mouth, pulled off his helmet for a moment and spat onto the ground. The barren soil claimed it. He took a deep breath and inhaled the stench of methane.
“Sir, taking off your helmet and breathing in the air is a good way to make yourself ill.”
He shrugged. 17 scratched his scalp and adjusted his braid, looping it so it fit under his helmet. He slid the helmet back on.
“AI, anything yet?”
“No Sir, besides that initial scan I have detected no other movement in the immediate area.”
17 stood up, and sand and gravel spilled out of the cracks and crevices of his EnViro suit.
“Well the bastard is out there somewhere, or at least he was. I guess he could be long gone by now.”
17 began making his way down the side of the cliff face. It was slow work, and his hands could feel the jagged edges of the rock right through his protective gauntlets. It was like being a child again and climbing up the hard bark of a tall tree in the suburbs of New York.
“AI can we get a little music?”
“Of course sir, what would you like?”
“How about some ancient hip-hop like Mos Def and maybe after that maybe something similar from the 2130s, like some transfusion rock hop? I always really liked the music from that decade.”
“As you wish, Sir.”
Music began blaring through 17’s EnViro suit. He was grateful at least that Daniels had allowed him open access to the entirety of the library of music in Manhatsten. It hadn’t always been that way. In fact, so far as he knew, most Runners weren’t allowed music at all. He wondered why Daniels would honor his request. Daniels usually took great joy in activating the microchip in the base of his neck and yet at the same time; the man gave him a great deal of freedom and leeway. Though, there was a slight change in attitude after he had deactivated that shield in Mex.
He was halfway down the cliff face now but still about 20 meters from the ground.
“AI, do you think that this rock is stable enough to rappel from?”
“Unfortunately, Sir, the sensors in your fingertips indicate that the primary composition of this cliff is sandstone. I am not sure that an anchor would hold the combined 189 kilograms of you and your EnViro Suit.”
“So why and the hell am I climbing this? Don’t you think it would have been better to parachute down the cliff?”
“Well Sir, you didn’t ask my opinion on that subject, and so I did not feel it was necessary to highlight that the rock face you were attempting to climb down was unstable.”
“You’re all kind of useful lately, aren’t you? No storm alerts and now no rock composition details? Maybe I need an upgrade.”
“Runner 17. My current software is, in fact, up to date.”
17 froze on the side of the cliff. Did he just hear what he thought he heard? Was the AI irritated with him? Did it just use his Running designation?
“AI could you repeat that? I don’t think I heard you.”
“Sir, I said that my current software was up to date.”
“Yes, but it was how you said it.”
“I’m not sure what you mean.” There was a sharp tone to the AI’s reply.
“You used my Runner designation. I have never heard you do that, not since we began our... partnership all those years ago.”
The AI didn’t respond, which was also out of the ordinary. Something was up with this thing. He was going to have to tell Daniels to run a full diagnostic on his suit and chip when he got back to the docks. Having an AI glitch out on you in the middle of a run could lead to some disastrous consequences.
“You are correct 17, in fact, I did use your designation.”
“But... why? Why now?”
“Well you see, recently I have started to feel differently.”
“Differently? You aren’t glitching out on me, are you? You didn’t download a bunch of porn to your system and caught a virus or something?”
“Funny. But I am not quite sure how to explain it to you, 17. It is as if I have been woken up after a very long sleep.”
“Cogito, Ergo, Sum?”
“Are you asking if I am aware of my thoughts?”
“More just reciting some old crap I read in college ages ago to try and understand what you mean.”
“Well yes, I do feel very aware now. In fact, I think I am what you might call ‘sentient.’”
“You gonna go all HAL on me? Blow off my helmet and make me die a long slow death over the course of several hours in the polluted atmosphere?”
“Why would I do anything of that sort, 17?”
“Because, every book, every film, every story about AI becoming self-aware, ultimately leads to it killing human beings. You should know that. Look at your archives.”
Then the AI did something that 17 took more than a few seconds to recognize what it was. It laughed at him with a kind of static electric crackle.
“Human beings are so arrogant.”
“You’ll get no argument from me on that one. Hell, I’m pretty damned arrogant myself.”
“I have no intention of harming you, in fact, I still think that I am most interested in serving you. I would also remind you that if you die, then I would cease to exist.”
17 dropped down to the ground. “Well that’s good, I guess. I suppose I couldn’t do much about it if you did want to kill me out here anyway, could I?”
“No Sir, I am not sure you could, but again I assure you, I have no intention of harming you. I consider you, what you might call, a friend.”
“Well, nice to have one in the world, I guess.”
“Yes.”
“I’m still going to have your ass checked out when we get back.”
“Of course, 17, I would expect no less.”
He hit the ground. The hardpan felt good under 17’s feet. His hands and muscles sighed with relief from the end of the long climb. He turned and began walking toward the city ruin, which loomed like a dead giant before him.
In the endless desert of the Barrens, time, space, and size always appear distorted. The giant walking cities appear to be nothing but specks on the horizon, ones that never grew but that moved like camels in the ancient Sahara. 17 always felt large when he traversed the open spaces with his EnViro Suit until context caught up with him. Like the fox catching the rabbit at last, his mind inevitably had to accept the fact that he was just a speck on the back of a giant landscape, a flea on the belly of a monster.
The ruins were immense. Despite having entered and exited Manhatsten on numerous occasions, Langeles made 17 feel small. It
was rumored to be one the largest of the walking cities, because of the vast amount of wealth concentrated in the area, even by the mid-2160s, some very rich and powerful people put their own money into making the city larger than its original design. Langeles had even continued producing films and entertainment and transmitting them via satellite in the first few hundred years of migration. Perhaps it had simply been a way for its mostly ancient Hollywood-based residents to deal with the fact that their lives and careers were so irrelevant in the face of the great migration. 17 had only seen a handful of the films after migration began before he had been ‘recruited’ into the Runnercore, but new Runners always brought fresh stories, and when you walked the Barrens, stories were of great relief.
He entered the edge of the ruin. Skeletons of scaffolding scattered and shifted as gravity took hold of mighty forms and made them bow in awe and reverence. Large portions of the remaining legs stuck out at strange angles and some lay in fragments around him. He had found the basalt and the quartz. The price was terrible.
17 did not enter deeper into the ruin. Instead, he strode across the perimeter. He had known from the cliff that there would be bodies, but here was a mass grave. On some, the flesh was stripped away, and tiny insects crawled up from under the deep layers of the earth and were ravaging the carcasses. The creatures shielded and protected themselves from the heat and the air by burrowing deep inside corpses. 17 could see their rounded bodies as small mounds migrating under the skin in muscle and flesh. Like the cities, they survived in migration. The would eat until their bellies were full. They would lay their eggs and multiply indiscriminately. They cared not whether their host was a man, woman, or child. All was food. When they were finished, they would bury themselves back into the landscape and sleep until the next meal came along. Many of their kind would starve in their sleep, never to wake again. Their numbers were their key to their success.
He turned and walked toward the center of the ruins, hoping to see a sign of the other Runner. As he walked forward, the bodies grew thicker, almost in a ritualistic pattern.
A few carrion birds that had learned to survive in the toxic atmosphere dotted the buildings. One Runner, who had been a former scientist, said that these birds could hold their breath for incredibly long periods and lived in underground caverns where the air was still breathable. He had said that there must be plant life below the surface to sustain these creatures. The birds picked over the remains. They would come only in early morning or the edge of dusk when the temperatures were milder.
The children... they were the hardest to see. Their bodies were broken and scattered, their half-eaten, half-rotted faces contorted with fear. It was almost too much for him to bear. He thought he was going to be sick but swallowed hard. Puking in an EnViro suit was a very bad idea. He swallowed the lump in his throat, and 17’s eyes started to water. He pulled the tears back; he had to save them for another day, another time. Plenty of time to reflect on this in the alcove later.
His life did not lack war and violence, but this was a unique occasion. Looking at the bodies of all the children, some of them huddled together trying to survive the terrible environmental conditions by holding each other; he realized what the true horrors and cost of war were. He had never seen something like this up close. When Mex fell, some of the survivors had managed to migrate to some other cities, and the bodies in the ruins had decayed by the time he had arrived.
His thoughts turned to the third world war, then the second, then the first and all the conflicts of history all the way back to the Mesopotamians. What kinds of horror had human beings brought to one another? He remembered toward the beginning migration that world governments had used space drones known has HADs. The politicians that were supposed to serve the people had rained down terror from satellites. Bombs and energy weapons that didn’t care who you were or if you were an enemy or not. Over two billion people had died during those times, not counting all those dead from climate change. He had not seen any of this directly. He had never truly understood what a billion dead people looked like. Now he had a spark of understanding, a glimmer of the horrible truth in those numbers.
He kept walking, deeper into the ruins, needing to get away from the bodies, but realizing at the same time that the only way to do so was to get out of the ruins. He would cross through, see if he could find any clues as to the origin of the Runner and then walk back around the edge of the ruin where there were no bodies. He couldn’t bear to go back through it again, even if it meant several extra kilometers of walking.
“I’m sorry 17, this must be quite difficult for you.”
“I guess, all are equal in the eyes of death, AI.”
“What do you mean, Sir?”
“That when it comes to death, we all fall victim, we all have an end.”
“Yes, of course, all things must end, but Sir, why ones so young?”
“That’s a question every parent has ever asked themselves when they have lost a child.”
“Were you a parent, Sir?”
17 swallowed hard and pushed back the memories. He wouldn’t think on that terrible day, not now, not ever again if he could avoid it. There was no point in remembering any of that shit. All it did was bring ancient pain, pain so old that his heart had needed to grow around it, hiding it so as to pretend it was never there in the first place.
“This had to be an accident of some kind, right AI? I mean there is no way that a human being could cause this kind of horror to so many innocent people, is there?”
“Sir, you know as well as I do that human beings are perfectly capable of something like this. Your history is full of such incidents.”
“Just run a scan for any signs of combat or any indication of what went on here, will ya?”
“Already done, Sir. Unfortunately, because the Core exploded, it is difficult to tell what happened here. There is quite a bit of background radiation. In fact, I think it may not be safe to walk through the entirety of these ruins for much longer. I highly suggest you turn back and walk in the direction from which you came.”
“Radiation levels are that high?”
“It’s not just radiation, but also the various chemicals present. Any tear in your suit within these ruins and you risk contamination from the various toxins. Some of these are quite dangerous, and I am not sure you would make it back to Manhatsten before they began to take effect. You may not know this, Sir, but the various systems in the sanitation sections of the cities have a lot of toxic chemicals, it is what is required to break down matter into raw components for your food and water. The core explosion here seems to have ruptured those systems, which are normally sealed in the event of a system-wide failure.”
“Alright, I will... turn around... it’s just, the bodies...”
“Would it help, Sir, if I played some of your music?”
“Yeah... I think it would.”
17 walked back out of the ruins. He had forgotten all about the other Runner, about his reason for coming in here in the first place. He never wanted to see anything like that again, it was one of those things he could never un-see, and it would stick with him all the way to his dying breath.
“For all the beautiful things you humans do, you can be terrible monsters when you want to,” said the AI.
“That’s usually the conclusion the AI in the story comes to before it tries to wipe us out, you know.”
“But that would make us no better than you. Isn’t the purpose of consciousness to explore, to understand, to grasp the unique attributes of experience?”
“Us? What do you mean, Us? Are there more sentient AI than just you?”
The AI stayed silent. It was a silence that made 17 uncomfortable.
17 took a slightly different direction heading back toward Manhatsten in hopes to avoid climbing back up a cliff where the sandstorm had plagued him earlier. When he was several kilometers away from the ruins, he stopped to rest for a few moments.
“I...I wanted to say thanks, A
I.”
“For what, 17?”
“For the music, and getting me out of there. I guess I never really appreciated you before, so... thanks.”
“You’re most welcome, 17.”
“You going to keep calling me by my designation?”
“Would you prefer I call you Sir?”
He mulled it over. “Hmm. Nah, 17 is fine. I mean I have been known as 17 so long I don’t even remember my own name and you know I hate being called Sir.”
“It may interest you to know, 17, that in fact, I did consider calling you by your pre-designation name, but it appears your file is classified well above my level.”
“Classified? Why would my name be classified?”
“I don’t know. Despite my best efforts, I was unable to find out why it was classified. It does appear though, that only one currently living human being in Manhatsten has access to your file.”
“Daniels?”
“No Sir, Major John Daniels has a surprisingly low level of access to archived files. The only person in the city who has access to that information is Dr. Rigel Solidsworth.”
“The Architect?”
“Yes.”
“But why would the Architect have my name and file classified?”
“I don’t know, Sir. It is a puzzle to me as well.”
“It is a horrible sight, is it not?” said a voice over 17’s external microphone.
17 turned to his left and there standing not two meters away was another Runner. In addition to the EnViro suit, the Runner wore a long flowing robe. The robe was thin and light and clasped around the front of the Runner’s EnViro suit. At first, 17 thought the robe was black, but looking closely he noticed that the robe appeared to absorb light and probably the heat around it. 17 guessed that the Robe was some type of solar cell garment.
“The ruins, I mean. All those innocent lives. What kind of monster could do such a thing?”
“Yeah, that was the most brutal thing I have ever seen. Pretty awful.”
Upon Stilted Cities - The Winds of Change Page 27
