“You mean I ought to fuck you.”
“It’s just a thought.”
Cinnamon closed her eyes. “I’m going to rest my circuits. Don’t touch me.”
Cutter smiled and sat back. “I’ll just look. Hands off.”
They sat in silence for a while. “Twenty hours to go, still,” Cutter breathed, “until we reach this fabled naval base.”
“Do you believe in this plan?”
“What else have I got to believe in?”
“Do you still have DaVinci’s gun?”
“I do.”
“Can I trust you with it?”
“I’ve got no reason to put a blemish on that beautiful body. I’ll save these for the cannibals.”
“You’re tired. Your nerves are shot. Why don’t you rest?”
“I just can’t,” Cutter said.
“Sit down on the floor.”
“What for?”
“I don’t want you being punchy when we need you.”
“Are you saying-”
“Yes,” Cinnamon said, letting her hair down.
“There’s a kid sleeping right over there.”
“So keep quiet.”
She straddled him and undid his jeans. “I think I might have enough...to get wet.”
Cutter laid his head back on the cot. “Holy shit.”
“Quiet.”
Cinnamon opened her shirt, and Cutter’s. “Are you comfortable?”
“I’m in Heaven,” he whispered.
Hitch, at the wheel, glanced in the rearview. He turned the mirror away. Amanda was drifting off.
Cinnamon worked slowly, gently, and put him inside her. Cutter closed his eyes and laid his head against her breast. “My God.”
“Work with me. Find a rhythm. That’s it.”
“It’s nice.”
“Good.”
“You don’t know what this means to a lonely man,” Cutter said.
“I think I do.”
“Is it okay if we go for a while?”
“Just keep quiet,” she said, and kissed him.
He kissed her back and hugged her close. “This is what it is,” he said, rocking gently, “this is life.”
“Bruce turned around for a dog.”
“It’s those simple things that make sense out of the heavy shit. You feel so good.”
“Thank you.”
“There’s a bit of satisfaction in it for you, isn’t there.”
“I suppose.”
He kissed her again and rocked back, kneading her thighs. “You’re sweet as sugar, Cinnamon.”
“Thank you.”
“Here we go.”
He looked into her eyes as he came, arms tight about her waist.
“Think you’ll sleep now?” She asked.
“Yes ma’am.”
She settled herself back on her cot, beside Lucy and the dog. “I’ll sleep too.”
“Sounds good.”
Cutter stretched out, toes touching West’s hair, and smiled. “This’ll be the best sleep I’ve had in years.”
“Happy to be of service.”
“I like you, Cinnamon.”
“You’re all right, Cutter. I’m keeping one eye open though.”
“Okay,” Cutter said, and went to sleep.
Cinnamon closed both her eyes and huddled there on the cot, alone.
***
Hitch tried to watch the road more than Amanda, but he couldn’t. She tossed and turned in the passenger seat, then sat up. “Hell with it.”
“Sorry you can’t sleep.”
“It’s not your fault. The world’s been turned upside-down.”
“What’s going on?”
“Nightmare insinuated - well, really, directly said - that the next Harvest is coming now.”
“Jesus Christ. And we’re headed for the coast.”
“We can’t give up. We can’t go back. Not this time.”
“Because Mike says?”
“Because I say, Richard. I’m through with mines and caves and that shit. I want my world back.”
“You never knew the world before the Harvest.”
“It’s our goddamn birthright, as human beings. Even the robots see that now.”
“Not all the robots. We’re probably going to run into some trouble, and God help us, this Bruce better be able to explain it.”
“You were great back there, by the way,” Amanda said. “Thank you.”
“Thanks yourself.” Hitch smiled. “I’m glad you’re here.”
“Me too.”
***
“So, I’m something of a legend to you?” DaVinci asked as he drove. Bruce, sitting beside him, nodded. “I’ve been on your trail a long time.”
Delmar was quiet in the back; recharging. They hadn’t said anything about the corpse beside the taxicab, until now.
“Do you eat dream-meat?” Bruce asked.
“Well then. You’ve done your job and done it well. Shit. I guess if I’m gonna tell someone, might as well be a synth.”
“You do.”
“I’ve ingested nanoplasmic cortices. It’s how I work. It’s how I think, how I imagine. It makes me...human.”
“Without, what are you?”
“Like you, I suppose. Soulless.”
“Is that a life worth living?”
“I don’t know,” DaVinci said. “And neither do you.”
“Fair enough.”
“Did you know your lineage goes back to a very renowned artist and inventor? I often wondered if you had some of that.”
“If I did, it was cut out.”
“Shame,” Bruce said.
“You think so? Do robots have regrets?”
“I do.”
“Tell me.”
“I can’t tell you all of it,” Bruce said, “but it’s been a half-century since the Harvest Cycle began and I’ve been out there exterminating humans. For nothing.”
“You can make a difference now. You can be worth something.”
“That’s what you say,” Bruce said, “yet I’m being told that the words of gods don’t matter.”
“Nightmare isn’t our god, if it’s a god at all.” DaVinci unfolded one of Hitch’s maps. “West’s route takes us from Rushmore through Wyoming, Utah, and Nevada - then California.”
“All interstate roads?”
“Yep.”
“Should be a smooth trip,” Bruce said.
“There’s something they haven’t told us,” DaVinci said. “Gut feeling.”
“Hunch.”
“Yeah.”
“We can extract information, if necessary,” Bruce said.
DaVinci shook his head. “Let’s try it my way. I can ply it out of ‘em. Finesse.”
“All right.” Bruce sat back.
“You’d like to watch me work, wouldn’t you?”
“I’m curious.”
“Let’s be partners. Whaddaya say. We’ll crack the case of the dreamers’ dirt.”
“Fair enough.”
DaVinci’s high was beginning to wane. He sighed and looked out at the night sky. “Fifty years gone and you haven’t bothered developing your personality. I feel bad for you.”
“Don’t.”
“Bruce, you ought to lighten up.”
“I spent fifty years slaying humans when I could’ve been fighting alongside them. I should be destroyed.”
“Maybe, at the end of all this, if that’s still what you want...you’ll get it. But right now we’re on the case, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
DaVinci reached over and opened the glove box, drew the jar of nodules into his lap. “This is all I’ve got.”
“I’m sorry.”
“So we’ll feel bad for each other. Couple of beaten down cops. Hell with it.”They drove on.
14
Suburban Jungle
They pulled off at Ogden, Utah.
Dawn broke over the Wasatch Front, a modest smattering of mountains that overlooked t
he city. The city ran right up into the mountains - chugging along grassy hill roads, Hitch brought the van to a stop at a cemetery that encapsulated several blocks.
“Let’s rest a while, get our bearings,” he said. West sat up in the back. “Why’ve we stopped?”
“To rest.”
“Mandy?”
“Let’s take a break,” Amanda said, and got out of the van. “What are the chances of finding running water in these mountain benches?”
They stood among the ancient, mossy rows of tombstones that stretched for acres in just about every direction. A dense canopy of trees rustled overhead. Birds chirped.
CAW!
“What was that?” Lucy asked.
“A crow,” Amanda answered. “A different kind of bird.”
The puppy sniffed at the ground, taking in every last scent from every last blade of grass.
“It’s so humid here,” West said. “You can smell, taste the plants in every breath. Nature has reclaimed this city.”
Cutter and Cinnamon dropped out of the van. “We ought to see if there’s anything of use in these old houses,” Cutter said. Just across the street from the cemetery were dilapidated homes covered in moss and ivy and fungus.
“They’ve probably been raided a thousand times,” West said.
Cutter shrugged. “I’ll have a look anyway.”
“I don’t want you catching any sort of infection.”
“I’ve got Cinnamon with me.”
“What difference does that make?” West threw his arms up and walked back to the van.
DaVinci, flanked by Delmar and Bruce, came through the tombstones. “Odd stop.”
“Just happenstance,” Amanda said.
“I’d like to talk with you,” DaVinci said, “if that’s all right. We can stay here with the dead if that makes you more comfortable.”
“All right.”
Bruce and DaVinci sat down in the grass. Delmar stood at the perimeter. West and Lucy and Hitch watched from a distance.
“There’s more to it. I know that. Any reason you don’t want to tell me?” DaVinci peered into Amanda’s eyes.
“I don’t want anyone to try and call this off. I know we can still do it. Even if-”
“Even if...”
“I was going to fucking tell you. I just don’t want the bots’ ‘logic’ to go haywire with knowing this.”
“What?”
“The Fiftieth Harvest is on.”
DaVinci looked at Bruce, who was frozen in place as he ran countless scenarios through his computer. “I-” He began. “I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-”
“Stop!” DaVinci said, slapping Bruce’s head.
“They’ll already be all over this naval base in California!” Bruce snapped. “Then they’re going to come inland and meet us!”
“What if we could wait it out?” Amanda asked.
“What if we could just lay low until they go back to the sea, to their cloisters? Nightmare doesn’t know about the missiles and torpedoes. It doesn’t know the specifics.”
West and Hitch, Lucy in tow, were running back to the van. “You told them?” West exclaimed.
“They’d find out sooner or later. If we’re all on the same side, this is practically need-to-know information.”
“So the Harvest is coming,” Bruce said. “And your plan for the next thirty days is silent running? Because they will get this far inland, and they will kill you.”
“Not if you’re here to help us.”
DaVinci smiled.
“She’s right. Damn it, she’s right.”
“We’re looking at the end of the world,” Hitch said. “Our little world, anyway. All I know is that I’m gonna go down fighting.”
“The Plan can still work,” West said.
“I agree,” Jack DaVinci said. He turned to Bruce. “This is based on a principle that you can’t understand - faith. Belief in something that might not come true, or exist.”
“I have faith in your God, then,” Bruce said.
***
“Utah was the seat of the Mormon religion,” Bruce said. Cutter and Cinnamon had returned to the van, empty-handed, and listened along with the others. “They practiced food storage in preparation for their apocalypse.”
“So you think we might find some foodstuffs around here? Non-perishables?”
“It’s possible. We need to move quickly, search this area and then establish a shelter where we’ll wait out the Harvest.”
“What are the odds that there’s anything left after fifty years of raids?” West asked.
“It’s our only chance,” Bruce answered. “Your only chance, that is. That, and the possibility of finding freshwater up in the mountains. Again, we have to move quickly. Two teams.”
“We’ll take the city,” Cutter said. “Me, Cinnamon, Hitch - sound good?”
“Delmar too,” Bruce said. “I’ll take DaVinci, West, Amanda and Lucy up into the benches.”
“All right, this all sounds good,” West said, trying to reassert his authority. “Let’s move out now. We should meet back here at dusk and camp for the night.”
Bruce nodded.
“Take care,” Hitch said to Amanda.
“We will,” said West.
“C’mon, puppy,” Lucy called, and the two groups split up, leaving the van and the tombstones, leaving the clearing in eerie silence.
***
Macendale walked along the side of the freeway, rapping on his head with his knuckles.
“Where are you, Bruce? Where have you run off to?”
He was a wreck. His limbs were bent and gnarled; he walked with a peculiar, clownish gait. He tugged at the few wisps of synthetic hair left in his head and clucked his tongue. “Bruce? Anybody?”
Just as well. He’d surprise them.
Stopping beside a ditch, Macendale pondered his mangled reflection in the water. He grabbed handfuls of the pasty muck at the water’s edge and smeared it across his face.
“Might as well look like a clown.”
He grinned at himself. His smile was broken, a gash tearing across his face. It was hideous.
He laughed hysterically.
“Oh, we’re gonna have a hell of time, aren’t we? I hope you’ve still got those humans with you, little playthings. Going to be one holy hell of a time.”
He pulled out his Gyros and sat them in his lap. He could, conversely, just blow his own brains out right here and now. But where was the fun in that?
“No, we’ll play.”
How had he come to this so easily? Was that all it took, a truck to the face, one bad night? One rotten moment and the whole world was suddenly a joke?
This was what it was to be human, wasn’t it?
He smiled, stamped his foot down on his watery reflection and watched the ripples render his face to nothing.
“You think the Harvesters are something. Oh, no. Wait till you meet me.”
He fired off a couple of rounds and hooted. Then he skipped off down the road.
***
“How long do you think we have until the Harvesters get here?” Amanda asked Bruce.
“Days. A few days.”
DaVinci led the way up a trail, barely visible through the grass, up the mountain.
West caught up to him. “Jack, is it?”
“That’s right.”
“I’m Mike.”
“How do you feel about me? Do you hate me?”
“No,” West said, “we just didn’t understand one another. But we have a common goal. A common enemy.”
“You really think we’ll be able to co-exist after all this?”
“Why not?”
“I miss my dreams. I envy you, Mike. I’m bitter.”
“Maybe there’s something we can do.”
“I don’t think so,” DaVinci said. “No, this is how it’ll be for the rest of my life. But I’ll get by.”
Lucy poked Bruce. “Yes?” He asked.
“I haven’t named my puppy ye
t.”
“Why not?”
“Just couldn’t think of a name.”
“Is your father named Walter?”
Lucy nodded. “Do you know him?”
Bruce looked like he wanted to say something, but he swallowed it down and just nodded.
“He’s not well. He sleeps a lot. But he’s really nice.”
“Maybe you should name the dog Walter.”
“That’d be funny,” Lucy said.
“It would be nice, for your dad.”
“Wally, maybe.” Lucy patted the mutt and giggled. “Do you like Wally, boy?”
“I think he likes it.”
“Okay,” Lucy said, “we’ll try it out. Okay Wally?”
The dog opened its mouth in something resembling a smile. Bruce smiled back.
***
“What’s that?” Cutter asked, pointing to a large, steepled building down the hill.
“A Mormon temple,” Cinnamon said.
“You think there’s anything good in there?”
“Wouldn’t hurt to look.”
“If these guys were preparing for an apocalypse, you’d think there might be some shelters around here. Maybe underground,” Hitch mused. “There might be people here.”
“If there are, they’re damn quiet,” Cutter said.
“Wait,” Delmar said, raising his hand. “I hear something. Up ahead.”
“Animal?”
“Maybe.”
“Could be a wildcat.” Cutter pulled out DaVinci’s gun. “Glad he never asked for this back.”
“Put that away,” said Cinnamon. “Let me and Delmar handle this.”
“Shit.” Cutter raised his eyebrows and holstered the gun.
Drawing their Gyros, the two bots crouched and scanned the road ahead. After several moments, they relaxed their stances. “Stay alert,” Cinnamon told the others.
“So how about we check the temple?” Cutter suggested.
“Let’s sweep these houses first,” replied Cinnamon, “and take the temple early tomorrow.”
“Might as well start with the houses and expand further out from there,” Hitch said, nodding. Cutter rolled his eyes. “Whatever you say.”
Delmar touched his hand to his head. “Receiving a transmission from Bruce. They’ve found a freshwater stream.”
“Thank God,” Hitch said. “I could use a wash.”
The Harvest Cycle Page 10
