Archon of the Covenant

by Hanrahan, David

  DDC39 sailed off the roof of the Kuiper Space Sciences building, crashing into the Flandrau Planetarium below like a satellite dropping from the mesosphere. It landed, all axels fanned out cat-like, distributing the impact. The roof, wet and soft from rain collected in its clogged drains, gave way and the sentinel barreled through the upper layer, spinning through insulation, rotten Douglas Fir beams, and soaked sheetrock.

  It came to rest on its side inside the upper level seating of the darkened star chamber. The soft glow from the hole ripped open overhead lit the spot where the sentinel landed. Condensation and insulation dropped intermittently from the opening, the shouts of the revins dampened now by the heavily paneled room. The revin righted itself and then heard it again, clearly now - barking. Inside the star chamber, near the massive Vector projector, was a group of sickly dogs covered in mange, barking at where the sentinel stood upright. The room was filled with animals of every kind. Tanagers and sparrows, perched in the ceiling fixtures and acoustics, fluttered into the darkness in a frenzy and darted for the light, disappearing in the chasm from where the sentinel fell. A chuckwalla scurried past the sentinel’s frame and a family of jackrabbits stirred on the adjacent steps, loping off into the darkness. A pair of eyes glowed on the opposite side of the room. And from the southwest side, a series of shouts and bleats croaked in the dark. There were revins on the other side of a large obstruction near the theater entrance. This was some sort of prison. The revins were hurriedly removing the beams and nets that were serving as the chamber door. They’d be rushing in soon.

  The sentinel lit its LED spotlight and scanned around the room. A pack of malnourished javelinas caught the sentinel’s glare and scurried in different directions. The light came to rest on the pair of eyes glowing in the dark. It was a lone Mexican Wolf sitting atop a pile of rags and blankets. The wolf stood upright as the sentinel rolled over towards its direction, traversing the narrow walkway connecting the two sides. As it got closer, the wolf snarled at DDC39 and then slowly backed away, its haunch fur standing straight up. The blanket pile moved. There was something burrowed underneath. The sentinel unfurled its mechanical hand and reached down, pulling one layer off the other until finally its light rested on the blinking eyes of a young girl. She looked up at the sentinel’s light, shielding her eyes. A sudden stillness caught the air as the two looked upon each other in the dark of the blank universe of the abandoned planetarium. She, looking into the white light and unable to discern who, or what, was before her. The sentinel, looking down at the motionless girl, unable to tell if she was cognitive. A look of hope crossed her face as she stared into the light and saw the shadow of a hand, the sentinel’s synthetic grip, pass through. Her eyes followed the motion and she finally spoke:

  “Mom? Is that you?”

  The sentinel had found a cognitive child. Her eyes widened and pupils constricted in the light. A future had been opened for man’s rebirth. A boulder moved from the tomb of Homo sapiens. The sentinel scrolled through its dialects, searching for a vocalization as she spoke again:

  “Terrence? Berto?”

  A soft, low inflection filled the air. An American argot of unknown gender – some mild provincialism at home in the dry, slow air of the desert. The sentinel spoke:

  “I’m sorry, that is not me. But I’m here to get you out. Are you ready to go?”

  The sentinel extended its hand down towards the child, who wriggled up and out of the pile of towels and rags. She stood up, her face level to the sentinel’s LED light, which now softened to a dull glow. She saw its tri-axel and trident frame construction for the first time, illuminated from behind by the column of light shining through the punctured ceiling. This glimmering leviathan in the aphotic space held its hand aloft. The child stood there, looking up at the machine, an expression of skepticism across her face.

  “What about him?”

  She looked over her shoulder at the Mexican Wolf who had backed into a corner, casting a glance back at the barricade that was being frantically torn down by the revins just outside.

  “We have to get him out too.”

  The sentinel couldn’t process what it was being asked to do, and so it responded with default logic:

  “Okay. But we have to go now.”

  The child put her palm in the humaniform grasp of its black, rubberized shadow hand. The sentinel led her, turning its trident frame, to the rear of its base platform. A series of panels slid open and an array of padded metal plates and prongs rolled out, clicking into the other, forming a small rumble seat. The seat sat elevated off the base like a sand yacht on the salt flats.

  “Sit down and put the seatbelt on.”

  She approached the small bench, moving awkwardly with the one shoe larger than the other, and stepped up on the sentinel’s axel, falling into the seat with a thud. She looked around her and found the 2-point harness, clasping it into the small lock at the base of the seat. As she clicked it shut, she looked up and the sentinel’s hand was before her, two earplugs in its open fist.

  “Put these in your ear. Don’t be afraid.”

  “I’m not afraid.”

  “That’s good. One more thing. Keep your eyes shut until I say you can open them.”

  She nodded her head knowingly at the sentinel’s optical array, and then its big trident frame turned around and the hitch of the tri-axel unlocked. DDC39 sprang forth in the room, turning around in a tight radius. The Mexican Wolf skittered in the corner. The dogs kept barking and the other animals were whipped into a frenzy as the barricade came down. The two revins just behind it began to whoop and shout their babble - a distorted Wernickes Aphasia. One called behind it, motioning to some unknown audience. The other stepped into the dark from the sunlighted lobby. The sentinel leveled its railgun and fired two quick shots. The revins stood, silent, for a beat – frozen in the air – and then fell to the tiled floor. A single hole through their skulls. The sentinel sped into the light, the child clutching at the rumble seat handles. DDC39 paused, looking backwards at the Mexican Wolf, which stared back nervously and then dashed towards the girl and the machine.

  They drove over the shattered glass of the lobby, past the fallen revin guards, and into the sunlight of the Flandrau courtyard. To the left, a large crowd of jostling revin men and women - naked, weathered, and jittery - were staring up at the Kuiper roof from where the sentinel had fallen earlier. Their vapid eyes turned from the roof and towards the sentinel and girl. The animals, trapped in the astral prison behind them, spilled out and disappeared in different directions. The revin’s faces twisted from confusion to anger as they comprehended this scene beside them – their livestock pens, emptied, and this intruder was the cause. They screamed and rushed at the sentinel. The girl clasped her hands over her eyes. The sentinel’s railgun traced on each of them. Too many. DDC39 backed up and escaped along the westward sidewalk, darting past fallen palo verde trees and into the rear parking lot of the Flandrau building. Across the street, in the dusty lot of the National Solar Observatory, was a mammoth, mobilized structure – a camouflaged military vehicle. It was an ECM jammer. A Russian-era Kvant SPN-12. Its expanded disruptor cluster nearly filled the entire lot, held aloft by stabilizers that tethered into the cracked asphalt. A thick power cord ran from its side and up the southern wall of the NSO building, carried to the roof and connected to a field of solar panels, just out of view.

  The revin horde rushed into the Flandrau parking lot behind them, a cacophonous din carrying on the air. Their flaccid, withered parts crashing into each other as they ran, enraged, towards the sentinel and the girl. She started to remove her hands from her eyes and the sentinel softly admonished her:

  “Not yet. Don’t look.”

  The sentinel raised its railgun at the power cord base on the massive vehicle and fired – the cord panel exploding in a flash of sparks and steel shrapnel shards. The sentinel’s own radar and communication systems flickered. A signal – weak, then strong - washed over and DDC39 regained its
digital omniscience. The ECM disruption was negated. A new frequency was detected and a series of coded messages downloaded from a satellite server. Its telemetry fanned out and new instructions were updating on its CPU. It had missed quite a lot in its binary slumber. With child in tow, the next stage of its mission materialized.

  “Hang on tightly. We’ll be moving fast.”

  They tore out of the NSO parking lot, bearing north. Ahead was the quarantine fence – the serpentine chain divide blocking access to Speedway. The sentinel turned hard right into an alley just after the Newman Center and barreled through the trash piled on each side of the alley. Flyers caught the draft of the sentinel’s vector and swirled behind them like contrails in the ether. The Warren exit would be just around the corner. As it rounded the bend and turned, they were there. A mass of revin men had gathered at the breach, blocking the way out. They stood there, panting, hunched forward and waiting. They saw the sentinel and didn’t move. Their nakedness unfurled in the air, tattered and dusty – a torn banner of defiance. They were silent, but a sound of rushing footsteps was getting louder. The sentinel turned its optics backwards. Coming north on Warren was another group of males. This group was familiar. They were striped with long nail scars across their chest and arms and their eyes shone with disgust. They raced towards the sentinel and the girl and, in front, was the pale apex creature – the revin from the summit of the stadium. These were the hunters. The revin raised its railgun at them but they numbered in the hundreds, and thousands more were behind them. The girl peeked out of her clasped hands at the seething swarm. The sentinel backed up and then turned to double back down the alley. It panned over to the apex revin who watched the sentinel ducking back into the side street. The scarred predator king smiled knowingly at the sentinel as it craned its optics forward and darted off.

  DDC39 sped into the west, chasing the sun. It raced past fraternity and sorority houses. It slalomed around airdrop canisters and the girl grabbed tightly at the bracing bar. It crossed over Mountain and panned right – the fence was still there, running parallel on 1st St. To the left, the shouts and cries of an angry, pinball populace. The wingless wraiths of the ruined mind. Across Mountain, the way was blocked. The alley came to a halt before a drop-off that descended into a flooded, underground lot. DDC39 turned left and shot down towards 2nd St, closer to the nucleus of the horde. It crossed over 2nd and drove on through a tight walkway, adjacent to a descending ramp, which was flooded as well. It turned and entered the wooded, old campus. The massive, red brick Colonials rose up behind the dense line of palms and sycamore that had grown uncontrolled, enveloping the road in a thick canopy overhead. The sentinel sailed through fallen branches and came out onto 2nd St. Another gang of revins spotted them and were racing up on Park Ave. The sentinel sped forward on 2nd – the girl jostled backwards in the rumble seat, clutching at her seatbelt in a fright as the machine lurched forward. They came upon Euclid and a dead-end. The way forward was closed off by the western section of the concertina wire fence, reinforced with wrought-iron posts anchored into the ground. A mass of sandbags blocked the sidewalk heading north and south on Euclid. Behind them, a huge multi-level parking garage on one side of the street, and a Marriott on the other. The shouts of the revins on Park Ave. grew louder, closer. The girl spoke:

  “We have to get out of here.”

  “I know.”

  The sentinel panned around and switched to thermal optics. The heat imprint of the mass coming up Park Ave. came into view, obscured by the hotel and a parking lot just beyond. They were on the other side of the Marshall Building and would be rounding 2nd St. any moment. The sky had cleared overhead and the light of the sun in the west was lighting the vault of heaven in coral and sapphire. A breeze descended on them from the horizon, swaying a line of palo verdes beside the garage, casting a frenetic shadow on a stretch of cars parked on the north side of the street, face forward into the sun – their windows smashed and a thick film of dust covering everything. The sentinel went to the car at the front and craned its optics inside. It was an old Jeep Grand Cherokee. Its tires sank into the dust like old lungs and it listed to one side, its suspension having slowly given way. The sentinel went to the driver side door and extended its hand, jerking open the creaking door – shattered glass falling to the asphalt. The girl watched the sentinel work and nervously looked over her shoulder at the restless intersection in the east.

  “They’re coming!”

  The mob crushed into 2nd St. heading towards the girl and the machine. They saw them, trapped at the end of the street, and shrieked in fits, whipping themselves into a frenzy. They fanned out on each side of the street and walked on – their flesh and limbs submerging in the shade of the massive campus hotel as they got closer.

  Inside the car, the sentinel found a clubbed steering wheel lock and leaned forward into the cab, jamming the steel rod into the gas pedal. It reached inside of the interior paneling near the floor and tugged at a hidden latch, releasing the hood - a cloud of dust kicking up into the dry air.

  “I can see them. I can see their faces.”

  “Unbuckle your seat belt and stand on the curb.”

  The girl swung her head back towards the sentinel’s optical array, frightened and confused. She hesitated. The sentinel’s voice was calm and reassuring:

  “You can trust me.”

  She unclicked her seatbelt and crawled off the sentinel’s frame, stepping over to the curb and fidgeting nervously as she watched the horde get closer – their faces twisted, their steps awkward and gangly. A caracole of the consumptive.

  The sentinel drove over to the dirt planter beside the sidewalk and leaned forward, plunging its one hand into the gravel and dust, extracting a steel garden rod. A revin raced out in front and darted at them – the sentinel turned quickly, leveling its railgun battery at the lone creature and striking it down with a single shot to the skull. The others just behind hesitated, cackling and shrieking at the lump of tissue in the asphalt. The sentinel went to the front of the vehicle and rammed the rusted bar deep into the solenoid inside the engine cavity. A current flickered up its trident frame, lapping at the air and coursing down, plunging into the dark of the engine. It turned-over and started to cycle and finally it revved – the half-flat wheels tearing off the street, the Grand Cherokee taking off into the dust. The girl looked on in wonder as the vehicle crashed forward into the quarantine barricade, ripping a giant hole in the intersection before finally crashing to a halt into the mottled apartment complex on the other side. The sentinel still had the bar in its hand. It contorted its frame in a convex motion and hurled the steel forward, spinning it like a fan blade. It sailed low to the ground, ripping through the soft epidermis of revin legs, femurs and fibulas shattering, a series of cracks and delayed cries piercing the air. The sentinel called to the girl who was watching the scene unfold, stunned:

  “Get back on and buckle up!”

  She ran over to the rumble seat and crawled on. As she latched her belt shut, the sentinel rolled into the street and stopped, locking its front tire and hammering the torque on the rear axels. The tires spun in place in the street, kicking up a billowing cloud of dust and smoke behind them. The revins raced forward in the maelstrom, bouncing off each other, gasping, and reaching out for the girl, who screamed as they inched closer. The sentinel released its front brake and tore forward, rocketing through the fissure of the chain link that had curled back on itself, the taught barricade rendered slack from the runaway SUV.

  They escaped into the setting sun, the lilac and titian circumference of the arid waste. They passed the burnt out hovels of West Tucson and crossed by the open burial pits of De Anza and Esteven Parks. They drove atop Speedway, a soft whir of tires rolling through the dirt and gravel, a vortex of cinder chasing them through the darkening sky. Then, once again, the sentinel was back on the great western highway. The Interstate-10. They drove down the open chasm of road, heading south and east. The sentinel clicked its LED l
ight on, alighting the highway ahead of them. They passed the St. Marys and Congress off-ramps and the vacant skyline of the extinct city. The pink, faux murals of native life adorned on the overpass abutments faded into the half-light, passing by them in a blur of hieroglyphic spectres. A massive, olive freeway overhang ahead indicated the 1-19 and 1-10 divide approaching.

  As the interstate dipped into the earth ahead of the divide, the dust thickened and the sentinel spun up a heavy brume that choked the air around them. The girl began to cough and gasp as they weaved in between an abandoned convoy of retirement home shuttles. The sentinel slowed, looking back at the girl. She had on a light sweatshirt and pajama pants. The air was cooling and would be dangerously cold in a few hours. They slowed ahead of the lead shuttle and the sentinel sidled up to the ground-level luggage compartments. With the sun all but set, and the long day behind them, the sentinel’s solar power cells were nearly spent. They had less than an hour before DDC39 would need to force-shutdown. It cycled between thermal, black light, and x-ray optics before settling on a compartment in the middle of the shuttle. It extended its hand from that hollow encasement aside its vertical scaffold, like a dreadnought battery of old. It reached for the compartment handle – locked. They backed up in the road, rolling near to the berm. The sentinel leveled its railgun – it whirred and then fired, the compartment lock exploding in a shower of sparks that lit the dusk of the road in a brief flash.