Man Vs Machine

by Greenberg, Martin H.

  Vivian’s first target was the transport, for the berserkers must not be permitted to flee, carrying with them specific information about what had happened here. Her strike was clean and bright, penetrating between the very atoms of the berserker’s structure, the point of her blade taking her foe in its heart.

  The wound was mortal, and she knew it, and she knew well what the berserker itself would do when it realized the extent of its injury. She pulled herself and Brother Angel clear of it, cartwheeling back, putting distance between herself and the transport, which even now was triggering its self-destruct system. The procedure was slower than it might have been, but still in-humanly fast.

  Within Lancelot’s field, Vivian felt Brother Angel begin to struggle.

  “You said you were going to accept their offer!” Brother Angel protested.

  “I lied,” Vivian said. “I’m sure you would agree that lying is a very fitting tactic in time of war. I did not lie about one thing, though.”

  Brother Angel pressed his lips together, refusing to answer. Through Lancelot, Vivian felt his reply in the sudden panic that sent bitter chemical signals flowing through his body.

  “I’m bringing you to them,” she said. “It’s time for you to give your final report.”

  The berserker fighters, only now aware of the crippling static infecting their systems, had not been able to avoid the effects of the transport’s self-destruct as Vivian Lancelot had done. One was caught completely in the transport’s dying blast, taking sufficient damage to trigger its own self-destruct.

  Lancelot protected Vivian, folding its wings over her to protect her from an explosive force that would have burned her to a crisp with the force of a second sun.

  Despite the violence of the dual explosions, the second fighter’s armor saved it from being destroyed. It knew where its most dangerous enemy was, and it came after Vivian. She dove Lancelot into the asteroid belt. Then, she released Lancelot’s shield, flinging Brother Angel at the berserker as a warrior of long ago might have flung a spear.

  “You wanted Death,” Vivian cried after the traitor.

  “Go to it!”

  The fighter diverted slightly to deal with what it perceived first as menace, then as ally, then as useless. Brother Angel evaporated beneath its fire.

  Wearied now, Vivian let Lancelot take over. Lancelot’s battle hymns sung through Vivian’s veins as the suit teased the fighter into the chase. They dodged through showers of minute stones that strained the fighter’s shields. They dove in and out of the belt’s plane, and the fighter blasted a path for its much larger bulk to follow. They placed their booted feet on a chunk of super-compacted ore and kicked it at the fighter. The fighter diverted its attention to fire at the impromptu missile, and at that moment Lancelot drew its sword.

  The glowing band of force ripped through the berserker fighter’s hull, shredding components, breaking conduits so that fluids flowed and then froze when they met the chill of vacuum.

  Vivian, hardly Vivian any longer, for Lancelot’s perceptions had overwhelmed her mere organic mind, felt the berserker fighter’s self-destruct sequence trigger. The human fighters were closing now, and she screamed on their communications channels for them to get back, get back. That berserker was going to blow . . .

  It did, evaporating a large chunk of the asteroid belt along with its own hull. Vivian knew that in time the belt would heal itself, as even unliving things did if given enough time. She, however, would not be there to see.

  Lancelot was her greatest success, her greatest failure. In wearing it for this long, she had driven her body and, even more so, her mind beyond the limits a human could survive. Already she could feel her attention fragmenting, unable to cope with the countless impulses flowing into it. While she could still focus, she reached out and touched a command circuit.

  “General Gosnick, this is . . .” She had to pause to remember her name. She was aware of so many things now, and none of them seemed to have priority. “Vivian Travers. The berserkers have been defeated. This base is, for now, secure. However, it is likely that the berserkers will eventually try again to destroy it. Even without me, there is much here to tempt them.”

  “Without you?” the general sounded appalled. “Vivian, if you are injured we can sent a ship for you. Don’t give up!”

  “I am already gone,” Vivian said. “Nor do I dare come back onto the base. Even with Lancelot’s protection, I am so pierced with radiation that I would mean death to those at the base as surely—and not nearly as swiftly—as any berserker. I have instructed Lancelot to take me to Lake, submerge us both in one of the acid pools, and then deactivate. That will end the danger.”

  “Vivian . . . You saved us. I refuse to give up.”

  She heard General Gosnick ordering the fighters to divert to intercept her, felt commands being passed through Lake Moon to have decontamination chambers readied, medical teams standing by.

  Vivian ordered Lancelot to hurry. Perhaps it was selfish of her, but she had no desire to live with her mind splintered, even if some miracle could restore her body intact.

  They dove through the burning halo of Lake’s thin atmosphere, heading toward one of the largest and most corrosive of the acid lakes.

  “Vivian! I order you to wait for rescue,” General Gosnick bellowed.

  “There is no rescue for me,” Vivian replied as she slipped beneath the acid lake’s surface, holding forth Lancelot’s sword in final salute. “If you would do me a kindness, remember me, when you do, for what I have always tried to be—a Servant of Life.”

  The Unplug War

  By Brendan Du Bois

  Award winning mystery/suspense author Brendan DuBois is a former newspaper reporter and a lifelong resident of New Hampshire, where he lives with his wife Mona, their neurotic cat, Oreo, and one happy English Springer Spaniel named Tucker. He’s has had more than 70 short stories published in such magazines as Playboy, Mary Higgins Clark Mystery Magazine, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, as well as in numerous original short fiction anthologies. His latest suspense novel is Final Winter.

  It was a warm May day when the visitor came, when the governor of the state of New Hampshire sat on the front porch of his official residence, whittling a piece of wood, watching the shadows at play before him in the capital compound. There was a packed grass common with two flagpoles, the white paint peeling and chipping away from the lengths of wood, and at the top of the poles, faded banners flew that represented the state of New Hampshire and the United States of America. The cloth was so old that sometimes the only way to tell them apart was the striping on the American flag; the state flag was a solid blue with the state seal in the center.

  To the right was the legislative building, which was now empty, since the legislature was not in session this month. To the left was the Supreme Court, and out on dirt paths, other buildings marked the Department of Safety, the Department of Health and Human Services, and other wooden bungalows that represented what passed for the functioning state government in this part of the world.

  The governor looked at the piece of wood in his hands, a nice chunk of soft maple. He turned it over, tried to recall the shape of an Inuit sculpture he had seen in a museum out in British Columbia, decades ago, and then went back to work. It was easier to whittle than to look and to think, and to look out at the buildings and know that at one time, quite a long time ago, these buildings belonged to the local council of the Boy Scouts of America, that his own log building had belonged to the camp director, that the supreme court had been the camp’s general store, and the legislative building, the dining hall.

  But now it belonged to the state.

  He peeled off another sliver of wood. Perhaps it was stealing, perhaps not, but so far the Boy Scouts hadn’t complained, and they had had plenty of time to do so.

  The governor looked up again, at the residents moving about on the paths and on the grass, some kids playing with lacrosse
sticks that seemed to have been cut from birch trees, some of the women at the Capitol General Store, buying and gossiping, some of the men over by the blacksmith’s. He was being left alone, and he appreciated his fellow citizens for giving him this quiet time. A tradition of sort had come up over the years that if he was in his official residence, he was not to be disturbed by petitioners and supplicants, and much to his surprise, the custom had held. But if he picked up his walking stick and hobbled out there, well, he was fair game. Part of politics. He had gotten used to it.

  Horses grazed further off down the main road, at the common pasture, and he waited, wondering what was taking his State Police colonel so long. The man should have been here over an hour ago, but of course, in these times, he was still within the window of being on time. The governor kept on whittling, looking over at his walking staff, which had an odd carving at the top, an old symbol of this state, a carving he had made a couple of years ago. Once there had been a natural stone face, up in the northern part of the White Mountains, and this stone face was called the Old Man of the Mountain. It was on the state seal, on coins, photographs, prints and everything and anything that could represent the state, and a long time ago—before the governor was even born—the stone face had collapsed after centuries of rain and snow and freezing days and nights. In reading the accounts of the time, he recalled that some had thought the collapse of the state symbol was a portent of evil things to come, and how those people had been mocked and laughed by others.

  Well, maybe they were right, after all.

  He raised his head at the sound of approaching hoofbeats.

  And maybe this was another portent as well.

  The horse was a black, well-muscled Morgan, and the man who rode him did so with practiced ease. He rode up to the residence and halted the horse before a hitching post, and he got down and threw the reins about the post. His name was Malcolm Phillips, and he was forty years old, and he wore a wide-brimmed campaign-style hat of the New Hampshire State Police, of which he was a colonel and commanding officer. That hat and his khaki jacket and holstered pistol at his side were the markings of his office, for there were probably only a half-dozen such hats left in the state, all belonging to the command structure of the State Police.

  He came up and said, “Like to water my boy and myself, if you don’t mind, sir.”

  “Not at all,” the governor said.

  “Bring you something?”

  “Glass of lemonade.”

  “Sure,” and there was a pause, and the governor said, “And one for you, too, Malcolm.”

  Malcolm smiled. “That would be fine indeed. Thank you, sir.”

  The State Police colonel went into the official residence and emerged a few minutes later with an old black plastic bucket of water, which he placed near the horse, which started drinking in long, gulping swallows. Then he went inside and came back out bearing two plastic tumblers from Epcot Center, each containing lemonade. The governor took a long swallow and sighed. It was cold and fresh, and it tasted wonderful. One of the perks of being a governor was a battery-operated refrigerator for his own personal use.

  Malcolm stretched out his long legs, crossed them, and the governor said, “Well?”

  “He’s coming, for sure,” Malcolm said. “Got a telegraph report from Dummer. He should be here in about an hour.”

  The governor rubbed at his chin. “Man’s moving fast.”

  “Well . . . you don’t know the half of it.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Man’s using an automobile. A car.”

  The governor turned, knowing what kind of expression was on his face. “You must be joking.”

  The State Police colonel shook his head. “No joke. Three reports, all say the same thing. Using a car . . . not going fast, but going nonetheless. Heading this way.”

  The governor’s hands felt cold, and he wish he hadn’t drunk the lemonade. He didn’t like being chilled, not at his age. He looked out beyond the trees and the buildings of the state capital, to the range of mountains that marked this part of the White Mountains. So far away and yet so near. Something seemed to ache within his chest. The governor said, “A very brave man. Or a very foolish one.”

  Malcolm said, “Or something else. I believe I’ll stay here with you, sir. Just to make sure everything goes well.”

  Another rub of his chin. “Thanks . . . it’s going to be tricky. I don’t know how else to put it.”

  His State Police colonel removed his hat, wiped down some moist black hair, and then held the hat carefully in his hands. “Sir . . . you’ll do just fine. Like you’ve always done for us. Don’t worry.”

  The governor picked up his knife and chunk of maple. “Malcolm, I can’t count the hours I’ve never slept at night, worrying about things . . . but I appreciate the sentiment.”

  So the next hour passed, whittling wood and drinking lemonade and talking about the damage the spring floods had caused, what this year’s corn crop might bring, and it was a nice little chat, up until the time the noise came.

  The governor stopped in mid-carving, as the noise reached his ears and oh, my, the memories that flooded back, for it had been years—decades, even!—since he had heard that kind of noise. The people out and about froze, like deer hearing a snapping twig of an approaching hunter, and Malcolm said quietly, “Holy God, I’ve never seen such a thing.”

  And such a thing it was. It came down the main packed dirt road, growling and belching, and by God, the State Police was right, it was a car, the first car he had seen moving since . . . he couldn’t remember, and from the way the people in the compound shied away and held hands to their faces, he hoped that none of them would break and run and overreact. But no, they stayed put, and he felt a flush of pride at that, that they would not run, that they would not be fearful, for indeed it was a fearful sight. He wasn’t sure what kind of car it was, but it was old, very old, rusting and with no windows or windshield. The engine sounded rough and loud, and the blue paint had faded away to almost a light gray. Painted in bright orange letters on the roof, hood, trunk and side doors was one word: UNPLUGGED.

  A wise man. No wonder he had gotten this far unmolested. The car came to a halt with another belch of smoke, and the engine was switched off. The silence . . . the silence seemed loud, odd as it was, without the noise of the engine. He was surprised at the emotions and feelings that came to him at seeing the old car grind its way into his compound. Memories of traffic jams, travels with Mom and Dad, his own travels as a college student, before the War, before everything else, and the taste of what had once been, what might be, oh, those old, old feelings and yearnings and—

  Malcolm stood up, carefully adjusted his hat on his head. “Sir, I’ll take it from here, but . . . well, good luck.”

  “Thanks, Malcolm, thank you very much.”

  The Colonel strode down the wooden steps and went to the car, just as the driver’s side door opened up. The driver came out, a short, squat bearded man, and even at this distance, the governor saw that the man was old, maybe as old as he was. He wore a dark green zippered jumpsuit of some sort, and he shook the outstretched hand of the Colonel, smiling. The governor watched the way his visitor handled himself, and he also watched how his fellow citizens were still there, staring at this apparition. Hard to believe. The Colonel talked for a bit and then nodded, and then the two of them approached the building. The governor grabbed his walking stick, got up to his feet—winced at the pain in his hips—and he stood there as the two of them approached. They stopped at the foot of the stairs, and the Colonel cleared his throat and said, “Sir, if I may, I would like to introduce you to Ronald Murphy, envoy from the Mayor of the City of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Mister Murphy, I present to you His Excellency, Joshua Norton, governor of the State of New Hampshire, protector of the poor, advocate for education, and defender of the faith.”

  Murphy nodded, came up the steps, held out his hand. “Governor,” he said, shaking his hand. “I�
��m pleased to make your acquaintance.”

  “Likewise,” he said. “Would you care for some lemonade?”

  That brought a smile to his bearded face. “That would be grand, thank you very much.”

  The State Police colonel brought out fresh glasses of lemonade and then went to the other end of the porch, out of earshot but close enough to keep any eye on things. People had gathered in a respectful semicircle about the car, and the governor said, “You’ve made quite an entrance, Mister Murphy.”

  “I guess I did, at that.”

  “What is it?”

  With pride in his voice, Murphy said, “It’s a 1967 Chevrolet Malibu. Rebuilt a few times from God knows what, and without a single computer chip in it. Still runs pretty fine.”

  “I guess it does. How are the roads?”

  “Roads weren’t that bad, but it was the bridges that gave me trouble. A number of them have collapsed from rust or ice damage, so I had to double back a few times. Headlights don’t work, so I didn’t travel at night. And I was pleased at the reception I got . . . nobody bothered me. I guess the paint job worked.”

  “My people are good readers,” the governor said. “That’s one thing I’ve made sure of for a very long time. We might not have much but by God, I’ve insisted on good schools, and good teachers”

  Murphy scratched at his beard. “Funny way that State Police guy introduced you, back then. Called you . . . protector of the poor, advocate for education. That sort of thing.”

  The governor shrugged. “It’s what I’m known for . . . for making sure we do take care of the poor and keep our schools in order. It’s tradition.”

  Murphy laughed. “That’s great. And what was the other thing he said . . . defender of the faith?”