by Beers,David
Her mother remained quiet, but went about the kitchen, hunting supplies. She planned on cooking a large meal tonight and mandated that everyone in her family be early for it, because if anyone was late, "I'm going to lose it on the lot of you."
"Are you scared, Mom?" Skelly asked after a few minutes. She sat at the kitchen table with a glass of orange juice. The day outside looked absolutely beautiful, the sun shining and the sky clear. Skelly couldn't imagine what the world had been like under The Genesis, entire weather phenomena blocked from their natural progression whenever It decided. Nothing to fear because a grander being took care of everything.
Her mother stopped searching and turned around. "Yes. Are you?"
Skelly nodded. "I don't understand why it has to be this way. Why we can't just live how we want."
"I know." Heather turned back around and put an onion on the chopping board. "I understand, theoretically, why It wants us changed. Everything I see on the news is just horrible. Every time I turn it on there's another war, people dying, the world being destroyed. There's destruction everywhere I look, except here with us, and that makes me wonder if it wouldn't be best for a lot of those people to die off. Maybe even best for them."
"What do you mean, best for them?" Skelly asked.
"I just wonder who wants to live a life like that, so full of violence?"
Skelly took a sip of her orange juice and considered the question.
"You think they'd rather die than live, even if it's like that?"
Her mother's knife went up and down on the onion. "Sometimes people don't know what is best for them."
"Sounds like something The Genesis would say." A wicked smile took over Skelly's face.
Her mother turned around, smiling too, and flicked a few pieces of onion at her. "Hush, child. You're in enough trouble as it is."
* * *
Andy and Skelly sat on the balcony, the door behind them closed. Trina sat perched on the edge, looking out at the city.
"How was your day?" Skelly asked.
"Why is she here?"
"I want her to be. I want her opinion on a lot of this."
Andy looked at Skelly for a solid thirty seconds. "You trust her?"
"She's not connected to It, Andy. You know she's not. It's impossible."
He looked to the small machine. "And what if she is? What if we're wrong and The Genesis has had these little contraptions wired up the whole time? We'll be dead before nightfall. Or what if It can connect whenever It wants?"
The assistant turned around, her tiny feet holding the balcony bannister firmly. "I can't convince you one way or the other, Andy. I've been in existence for a hundred years and I was made by humans. Not The Genesis. You know the history as well as anyone else, I'm sure. The Genesis removed itself. Caesar too. It left only what was necessary to continue basic maintenance functions. I don't know what else to tell you. There isn't a single incident in the past five hundred years in which a machine was commandeered by The Genesis."
"What did you do before us?" Andy asked. "A hundred years is a long time."
Skelly knew the answer to this of course, but she hadn't ever seen Andy take such an interest. To him, Trina was a nuisance at best.
"For a while, I wasn't turned on. For fifty years or so, I just sat in a warehouse. Eventually the company that made me was sold and they moved me to another warehouse. When they turned me on, I was with another family for thirty years, and then they sold me to you guys when times got tough. Now I'm here."
"And what did that family do?"
"Andy, stop," Skelly interjected. "We're not out here to have a discussion of Trina's complete history. I'm asking you to let her listen. She's highly intelligent and can help. I trust her. I'm asking you to trust me."
Andy looked again at Skelly. "Fine."
A few seconds of ice remained before Skelly melted it. "What do you want to do?"
She saw her brother's eyes change, moving away from the hard stare to thoughtfulness. "I’d like to know what you want, first. Whatever we decide, we're doing it together, okay?"
Skelly nodded, already knowing that was the case. She wouldn't go anywhere without him; they would either meet The Genesis or this other woman together. "I want to hear what else they have to say."
"Why?"
"I don't want to die, Andy. I don't want Mom and Dad to die either. That's the deal we make if they want us, our parents come to."
Andy nodded and looked off the balcony into the air.
"Can I say something?" Trina asked.
Andy nodded again, slightly.
"Skelly told me what you guys saw in that bedroom and the rest of the house. The way the place seemed coded to your specific interactions, even how the teacher seemed to control you--"
"He didn't seem to do anything. He controlled me," Andy said.
"Sorry, the way he controlled you," Trina continued. "I've never heard of anything like that before, but I looked into it. I know you both understand this, but I just wanted to confirm that nothing like that has been in existence ever before. I'm not even sure it exists now, at least in reality. I don't see how it's possible. I think both of you might have been placed in a digitally created world."
Andy only nodded again, and Trina grew silent. Skelly knew he was probably thinking the same thing, though it didn't make any sense.
"What do you want to do?" Skelly asked in the silence.
"I want to meet her, I think. I don't want you there, though, not for the first time."
"What?" Skelly said.
"Yes, when I meet her, I'm going alone."
"Hell no you're not. You just said we're doing it together."
"I said whatever we decided. Meeting her isn't a decision. It's testing the waters."
"Not happening," Skelly said. "If you go, I'm going. That's all there is to it."
They stared at each other and Skelly could nearly feel Andy's frustration. He wanted to protect her, she understood that, but she wasn't letting him do any of this alone. "We're not being separated."
"Fine," Andy said. "I'll go to the school tomorrow. I’m just driving through, so there’s no need for you to tag-a-long."
"On the weekend?"
"It'll be easier for them to spot me, then."
* * *
Andy sat in his car. He was parked on the road opposite the school.
He didn't know if he should cross the street. Didn't know if he could cross it.
He told Skelly this wasn't a commitment, but he knew the truth. Skelly believed much of what he said, especially right now. She was young, and though he not much older, those few years put him in charge whether he wanted to be or not. And if he drove into that parking lot, their world would change. His parents' world too.
"What's the alternative?" he had asked himself.
Death. That was guaranteed, so whatever choice he made here had to be better than that. Yet fear still filled him--fear of the unknown, of making a mistake.
You can't make a mistake here. What are you going to do, beg The Genesis to keep you and your sister alive? Do you think that's going to happen?
"Fuck no," he answered himself.
He groaned as he started the car.
Andy pulled out from the curb, crossed the street, and rolled slowly through the parking lot.
They were in this together now. Wherever that led.
Chapter 17
Michele Owen knew nothing besides terror.
She was in shock, though she didn't know it--shock wasn't necessarily terror. At fifteen, seeing your father killed while you were dragged away didn't leave a lot of room for knowledge.
She didn't cry, only stared straight forward as the bumps in the road jostled her around the back of the vehicle. She sat on a bench, that lined the van’s long walls--each side having one. Whoever drove, sat in the front cab, separated from her. Michele didn't look around, though people sat next to and across from her. Some were children, others adults.
Some screamed,
raging against nothing and everything at the same time. No one sitting in the van wanted to be in this current predicament, that was clear. All the people surrounding Michele looked as scared as she--though in some cases, lacking the shock.
Michele's dad ...
He's dead, she thought. Simple. Direct. No real meaning to it. The thought moved through her head like a balloon rising into the sky. She could see it, but knew that as it moved higher and higher, it would matter less and less. Because the thought wasn't real. It couldn't be.
Her father was alive and wherever she sat now, with these people all around her, was only a dream. A midday nap that she shouldn't have taken. She would wake up just as the balloon floated high into the sky and disappeared from her view.
He's dead.
Another balloon, floating up behind the last one.
"WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?" someone screamed from across the van. "WHY?"
Another person cried to her left at the sound of the screech, letting out a painful whimper.
Michele slowly turned her head, looking in the whimperer's direction. The noise came from an older black lady wearing a pretty dress. She held a tissue to her eyes though Michele had absolutely no clue where the lady would have gotten it from. Michele carried nothing with her.
She thought about asking the woman for a tissue, if she had another, but then didn't know what use she would have for it. She wasn't crying. She was dreaming. You didn't need a tissue when dreaming.
Michele looked up and watched the other people jostle as the poorly made streets took her deeper into the dream.
* * *
"You're not coming in," Leon said.
"I have to," Marty responded.
"Why? Something Caesar told you, that when I visit a friend, you have to be there?"
"She's not your friend, Leon. You don't know her at all."
Leon looked up at his assistant. "How do you know who I know? Who is her? I could be going to see a man."
Marty looked around the street, obviously for show. "It appears to me that we're standing outside the very place where a man was killed yesterday … Yep," Marty pointed at the sidewalk, "there's the bloodstain. No one's cleaned it up, apparently."
"Just because I'm going in this building doesn't mean I have any interest in visiting a grieving widow. Either way, though, you're not coming."
"I have to."
Leon sighed and looked down at his shoes. "Look, you can't."
"Why do you want to go in there anyway?"
He looked back up to the taller machine. "How much of this feeds back to The Genesis?"
"All of it."
"God, you're nothing like Grace."
"Grace served a valuable purpose. Hopefully I will too."
"Grace was Caesar's friend," Leon said. "You're nothing but his slave."
"I serve at His leisure and He wants you protected, so that’s my purpose right now."
"What was it before?"
"To ensure your recovery."
Leon smiled. "See, purposes change, and yours is changing right now. You're not coming with me."
"I have to ... are you seeing a pattern here yet?"
Leon sighed even longer but didn't look away. "Listen, if I go talk to this woman and you're standing next to me, looking very similar to the machines that just killed her husband, how far do you think I'm going to get?"
"Not very, I'd imagine. How far do you expect to get visiting her the day after her husband died?"
"Further than I would with you. Marty, you're stronger and faster than any human alive. Do you know how thick the doors are inside there? You can get through them with a flick of your wrist. Why don't you do this, come into the complex, but stay outside the apartment. I'll go inside alone and if I haven't come back within ten minutes, destroy the whole place."
Marty was quiet for a second but his eyes didn't spin, which was a good sign. He wasn't asking permission from anyone.
"I suppose I can monitor from outside, but first, why are you going up there?"
Leon looked to the building's doors. "I want to know why her daughter was taken."
* * *
Leon walked through the front doors thinking only of what he would say to the woman.
He stopped focusing on his speech as soon as he entered.
Leon didn't see a neat, organized apartment complex. No check-in desk. No chairs and fake plants.
Leon saw destruction. Hundreds, if not thousands, of people all clamoring--scratching, crawling, and killing those around them--to get to the middle of the lobby.
And in the middle?
Caesar and Manny battled. Both of them ripping and punching each other, trying to kill with a force Leon could never muster.
Leon didn't stand between the two automatically opening doors, but huddled in a corner, his skin ripped from his bones. His body even more broken than the two fighting in the middle.
"Leon, what is it?"
The urgency in Marty's voice pulled Leon from his vision; he’d never spoken with such intensity.
Leon blinked a few times and the room came into focus. A lobby. Just a lobby.
Breath heaved in and out of his body. Marty stepped forward and placed a cold metal hand on Leon's wrist.
"Your pulse is one forty. What's happening?"
"I ... I don't know," he said.
"You're lying."
Perhaps he was. He stepped into the lobby where Manny had held him, seeing the moments right before everything stopped and went black. He felt the pain, the searing screams his flesh made from his time under Manny's thumb. He watched people killing each other to get to Caesar, to rip him apart.
He knew what would have come next, what he hadn't seen. The weapons gunning down the crowd.
"Leon, I need you to tell me or we're leaving right now. I don't care if I have to pick you up and carry you."
Leon felt his breath slowing. His heart returning to normal.
"I saw the end. This lobby, it's not the same one, but it turned into the other. The one where Caesar joined The Genesis." He looked to Marty. "Do you know what happened there? Everything?"
Marty nodded. "I do."
"And you know what Caesar said is supposed to happen with me?"
He nodded again.
"It's happening." Leon faced the lobby, trying to refocus on why he came here.
"You still want to go up?"
"Can't let a little hallucination get in the way, ya know, Marty?" Leon said, hoping a joke could calm himself.
"Your sarcasm isn't appreciated."
"I guess the fresh air is making me a little feisty. Come on."
Marty released Leon, and he walked forward, letting the android decide if he would follow. Leon walked to the lobby's only employee, a young man with a name tag that Leon didn't bother reading.
"Were you here when everything happened yesterday?" Leon said, not bothering with introductions.
"Yes," the man said.
"I'm with The Genesis. Clean up crew." He used his thumb to point over his shoulder at Marty. "What's the woman's apartment number?"
"Clean up crew?" the man asked.
"Yes. We need to bring her in for analysis. That okay with you?"
Marty, and The Genesis bless him, stepped forward at that point, standing right next to Leon.
"Sure. Sure," the man stuttered. "Name is Owen, floor fifty-two, room thirty-six. Do you need a key?"
Leon ignored the man's question. "Owen is her last name? What's the first?"
"Ruby."
"Give me the key," Leon said.
The man quickly fumbled with a digital card, a remnant from the times that Leon remembered so well--times when prehistoric things like the doors at the lobby's front didn't exist.
Leon took it and walked to the elevator.
"I can't believe I did that," Marty said.
"Hey, maybe you're not all bad."
* * *
Leon looked down at the key but didn't want to use it. He would
n't break into this woman's house. He would knock and if she wanted to talk, then maybe they could. If not, then he would set out on this quest of discovery some other way.
"Go stand down there," he said, pointing Marty to the end of the hallway. "Once I go inside you can come back."
Marty shook his head but walked the length of the hall.
Leon knocked on the door. A minute passed and no one came. He knocked again and waited. Silent seconds followed and Leon thought he might have heard someone step up to the door, though make no effort to open it.
"Hello?" he said.
No answer.
"I ... I ... umm ...." None of the words he had thought up came to him. Nothing he could say that would make the woman open the door. Twenty more seconds passed and Leon knew that if he didn't do something fast, he'd lose this chance.
So he did the only thing he could think of: he told the truth.
"I don't even know where to begin. You've heard of Caesar Wells? You may have heard of me, if all of us aren't completely forgotten ... I'm Leon Bastille. I, I saw what happened yesterday. I don't know if I can help at all. I doubt I can, but I want to. I know you're not going to believe this, but I've been alive the past five hundred years. Caesar, he ... he wouldn't let me die, and I finally left where he kept me. I just want to talk to you for a minute, to understand what happened. I want to help."
His ramble finished, Leon stood there letting the silence sing its almost infinite song.
What was he doing, coming up here and telling an unbelievable story? Who in their right mind would believe anything he just said? Perhaps one of those Lawmen would show up next and Marty would really have to show his usefulness to Caesar.
Leon turned and started walking down the hall, looking at his feet and shaking his head at such idiocy. Why did he leave the mansion? Why did he go outside of the hotel? Why didn't he listen to Marty? Why in the hell did he show up here?
"Hey."
The voice came from behind him, breaking his train of thought.
He turned, wondering if someone would put a bullet in his head.
A woman stood in the doorway, looking closer to death than life.
"Any of that true?" she asked.
