The Harvest Cycle

by David Dunwoody

  Such a waste, the Jabberwock opined, surveying the cavern. So often my children’s children came to Earth to play their games, and they too treated Man like a simple animal. They couldn’t begin to comprehend what each of you had inside. What I needed.

  Bruce killed ‘em good, didn’t he Mandy? Even I could never slaughter your masses so efficiently; too often I’d pause in my joy, revel in chaos. But this was an ordered sweep, a function without feeling. Right, Bruce? Tell her every detail. Tell her how each of her friends died. It’s all there in your little positronic brain.

  Bruce stirred. His eyes rose to meet Amanda’s. “I made a mistake. I recognize the loss I caused. I regret my actions.”

  Only because you found a flaw in your precious programming. Only because you realize you’re imperfect, just like your maker. The Jabberwock’s maw opened and tongues of flame licked over its lips. It gently blew the fire into the air, and the chamber brightened. Now, Amanda could see everything. She could see the precision bullet holes in nearly every corpse’s head. She could see the looks of terror frozen on their faces. Grimy cheeks had been streaked with tears. Mothers still grasped their children. Fathers clutched their guns.

  Grief and rage boiled up in Amanda, and she tried to force it down, tried to focus on the real threat, but she couldn’t and the room began to grow brighter, and brighter, as if her pounding heart was a great furnace, the light and heat eating through weathered flesh that fell away like paper; her very ribcage set to explode...

  38.

  One Last Dance

  “Where’s DaVinci?” Asked Hitch.

  Both Bruce and Mandy were under; he was essentially alone, and realized that he had been so for several minutes.

  “DaVinci? Where you at?” Holding an overhead pipe to steady himself, Hitch walked out into a narrow corridor. There was a flight of stairs at the other end, leading topside. No, he thought, DaVinci wouldn’t have done that. He must have gone into one of the other rooms just off the corridor.

  “Hiiiiiiiiitchy.”

  Macendale’s voice bounced down the stairs, off the walls and into Hitch’s skull like a wayward bullet.

  His knees nearly gave out and he clung to the pipe. Macendale! How?

  “Come on up! Jack’s lonely.”

  Standing there in the corridor, hands planted against the walls to brace himself, Hitch suddenly noticed that the carrier wasn’t tossing as hard as it had been. The vibrations coursing through the steel had almost ceased. And, at the top of those stairs, the howling winds had died down.

  He went up.

  It was almost pitch-black when he first stepped onto the flight deck. The first thing he noticed was that the lightning and tornadoes had retreated, presumably redirected by Nightmare to ravage some other site; the second thing he noticed was how the shadows around him seemed to swim in and out of one another, like a black fog. Then one of the shadows brushed against him.

  Hitch stumbled back, thrashing his arms as he realized he was surrounded by beings. They covered the deck, and were all walking toward him...

  His eyes adjusted enough so that he could see their outlines against the sky. They were people. People in threadbare, handmade clothing, people with frozen expressions, staring right through him as they drew closer. He stepped aside, and they continued - men, women and children, dozens of them, all heading toward the end of the flight deck and a perilous drop.

  “Wait!” Hitch cried. Several of them were near the edge and showing no signs of slowing. “Wait! Don’t-”

  But they did.

  He watched as the sleepwalkers, like lemmings, crowded at the Citadel’s edge and then toppled over without a sound.

  “It is Hitch, isn’t it?”

  He spun to find Macendale right behind him. The bot was clutching DaVinci, holding a Gyro to his head.

  “You shouldn’t have come up,” the detective grumbled.

  “Oh, but he did.” Macendale grinned, his eyes following the procession of suicides around them. “That Nightmare’s one sick bird, ain’t he? Look at ‘em. Do you think they wake up before they die?” He nodded toward the little boy who’d just passed Hitch. “Think he’s gonna open his eyes and find himself at the bottom of the ocean? Now that’s a joke.”

  They’re dying, they’re dying right here, right now and I can’t do a damn thing to help them! Hitch clenched his fists and glared at Macendale. I can still help DaVinci. Maybe I can stop Macendale. Just maybe.

  “Penny for your thoughts,” the bot growled, pressing the gun hard against DaVinci’s temple.

  “Why are you doing this?” Hitch snapped. “What do you get from this? You’re still a fucking robot!”

  “See, now that - I don’t like that.” Macendale frowned. “You don’t get it. I could kill you a thousand times over and you still just wouldn’t get it. And I’m tired of explaining!”

  “Then leave us the hell alone!” Hitch shouted. He could hear the splashes as the sleepwalkers fell en masse into the water. He could see sweat running down DaVinci’s face. He felt his heart thundering in his ribs, threatening to shatter him like porcelain; and he screamed, “Let him GO!!”

  “Fuck you!” Macendale retorted, and fired at Hitch.

  Hitch dove aside, colliding with a sleepwalker, and fell to the deck. A Gyro round screamed past his head and caught another sleepwalker by the legs, tossing his flaming body overboard.

  Macendale hooted and tossed DaVinci aside. He took aim at Hitch through the shuffling crowd. The man got up and ran; the bot fired, and was knocked back by the impact of the round against a nearby sleepwalker. Flames leapt through the dark sky and onto the backs of other somnambulists. They simply trudged on, paying no heed to the fire as it consumed them.

  Macendale kicked a sleepwalker out of his way and took another shot at Hitch. The poor bastard didn’t even see it coming - then another goddamn sleepwalker stepped into its path and was sent sky high.

  “For fuck’s sake!” Macendale reloaded and fired madly into the crowd. Bodies were set aflame and cast into the air, sailing out over the water. Again and again he fired at Hitch...and Hitch scrambled from side to side, trying to avoid the Gyro rounds while keeping the sleepwalkers at bay so they wouldn’t be hit. He was fighting a losing battle. Scorching heat washed over his back as another near-miss sent a nameless woman into fiery flight.

  It doesn’t matter. They’re dead anyway, he thought, and his heart sank.

  But DaVinci wasn’t dead. Amanda wasn’t dead. No! He had to get back on land and away from them. Turning to run, he stumbled into a cluster of children and fell flat on his face.

  Fumbling at the kids’ arms and shoulders, he pulled himself quickly to his knees and looked over his shoulder. There was Macendale, elbowing his way through the crowd. He wanted a clear shot this time. And he was close already - too close for Hitch to even think of making it off the Citadel.

  So Hitch ran. He ran toward Macendale.

  Crashed into the bot, grabbed his wrists and pushed the gun toward the heavens before it went off. He smashed his fist into Macendale’s demented grin, shattering teeth, shattering his own knuckles, and he smashed and smashed and smashed the bot’s laughing face even as Macendale’s hands were finding his throat and beginning to squeeze.

  Hitch’s feet left the deck. His head swam. The world was growing dim. Still he pummeled the bot with everything he had. Even if it was pointless, even if there was no way to defeat a synth with his bare hands - that was all he had. And in his mind’s eye he saw Amanda, lying unconscious and unaware down below. With every blow he struck he cried her name inside his head.

  “I’ll die loving you,” he had said when she ended it.

  Macendale blinked bits of teeth from his eyes and shook the rest from his hair. The human had finally given up the fight. Looking into Hitch’s eyes, Macendale saw nothing, and he smiled. Then he discarded the body and retrieved his gun.

  “Insult to injury,” he cooed, “just my style,” before blowing Hitch�
��s head off.

  The gun’s report was eclipsed by Macendale’s mad laughter.

  Then he spun with a sharp cry, slapping the machine gun from DaVinci’s hands and sending the detective reeling with a right cross. Macendale followed the staggering man and threw another iron fist into his gut. “Didn’t really think you could sneak up on me, did ya?”

  It had taken too long to find the gun down below. Hitch was dead and now Jack DaVinci was gonna follow him. Landing on his back with a gasp, DaVinci stared frightfully into Macendale’s eyes. “Don’t.”

  “Well of course I’m gonna. I’m the anointed one, pally. I’m the anointed one, and you’re the one who always got away.” The mirth left Macendale’s voice, and he knelt over DaVinci, rasping.

  “Not anymore, Jack. Never again.”

  Oh God, DaVinci’s mind screamed. Think. Think!

  I CAN’T!!

  I can’t think for myself and the goddamned robot can! It isn’t fair! Why did I do this to myself? Why did I sentence myself to death?

  I can’t and he can!

  He can...

  Something extraordinary happened in DaVinci’s head. A spark, small and cool, grew to life. Then it grew hot, white-hot, and filled his mind with light.

  “The anointed one?” He muttered. “Anointed by who?”

  “By the fuckin’ cosmos!” Macendale threw his arms out at the chaos surrounding them. “I was chosen!”

  “And you’re just gonna go along with it like some program? Is that what you’re gonna do, robot?”

  Macendale’s broken grimace leered at him. “I think I made it clear I don’t like that.”

  “Well? Go ahead then. Do what you’re told.” DaVinci lay back in surrender. “There’s a punch line for you.”

  Macendale shook his head irritably, as if trying to unhear what the detective had just said. “No. It’s not like that. I don’t...”

  “I get the joke,” DaVinci said, his tone condemning. “It’s a good one. A real knee-slapper, Macendale, even for the dumb shmuck who cut out his sense of humor. The joke is, you haven’t changed at all.”

  Macendale stepped back. He staggered, the weight of DaVinci’s revelation crushing him. His hands flew to his temples and he groaned. Gibbered. Cursed, and stumbled to the edge of the deck. And there, he began to laugh.

  “I...I think you’re right. That’s a good joke. That’s a real good one! And it’s on me! Oh! Hoo!” He straightened up, his hands grasping the sides of his head, and he grinned like never before, eyes aglow.

  “But I’ve got a better one.

  Watch this.”

  His arms stiffened, and he started to pull at his head. His neck strained, stretched. His synthetic flesh began to tear.

  And he laughed! How he laughed as the sparks started to fly from his neck! He howled with every snapping wire and broken rod, as his head was wrenched from his shoulders and a blinding fountain of sparks erupted from the stump of his neck. DaVinci threw his hand before his eyes.

  When he looked again, Macendale’s head was all but separated from his body - and it was bathed in flames. Still the robot laughed. His body teetered on the edge of the deck, and his head was jostled about in dying arms, and his mouth filled with fire as he screamed with glee. Then the laughter died, he died, and there was only the echo of his last great joke. And Macendale’s remains went into the water.

  DaVinci pulled himself down the stairs into the ship. He couldn’t bear to see the sleepwalkers; in the wake of Macendale’s destruction, he was faced with the grim truth that the real threat wasn’t over.

  39.

  Forever

  “You could have killed us all!” Amanda screamed.

  “You could just as easily have killed us that night, just like you killed the others - how many humans have you killed, Bruce? You know the exact number, don’t you? You could show me your first kill right now, replay it for me as if it were nothing. And you could have killed us just like that. That’s what you’d come to do!”

  “I didn’t kill you,” Bruce said. It went unheard.

  The dream-chamber in which Amanda, Bruce and the Jabberwock stood was aglow with a pulsing white heat, as if they were surrounded by the embers of a burning world. The Jabberwock paced behind Amanda, its head swaying from side to side, soulless eyes reflecting the light from the walls.

  Her heart still pounding, Amanda seized Bruce by the arms and shook him. Memories of friends and family lost to the synths flooded her senses, and then she got to it, to the core, the real reason for her rage, and she cried, “Why couldn’t you save Mike? Why?”

  “I tried,” Bruce said. His voice was so artificial, so cold. He didn’t care. He hadn’t lifted a finger to stop the rabbit. There’d been no further use for Mike. And he had let her sleep through those three long weeks so that he wouldn’t have to answer to her, hadn’t he? He’d probably kept her unconscious. Bastard!

  Yessssss, the Jabberwock whispered in her ear. Now cast him out. Out of your mind! Then I can send you to your precious Michael.

  Bruce shook his head rapidly. “Don’t listen to it, Amanda.”

  Silence him.

  “Amanda, Nightmare is the deceiver. Nightmare doesn’t value human life. I do. Haven’t I proven that much to you?”

  Drive him out!

  “It wants me gone because I’m a voice of rationality! It wants me gone because-

  “Because-”

  To see Bruce’s face when he realized the answer would have been to see something not unlike DaVinci’s revelation in the waking world: a soul awakened, clarity and certainty pouring through the bot’s being.

  He looked into Amanda’s eyes and said:

  “You go.”

  She frowned. The seductive spell of her rage was momentarily broken. “W-what?”

  “Go from here. Get out of its mind. Leave me.”

  “I don’t understand what you mean, Bruce. I don’t...” Releasing his arms, she pressed her hands to her face, trembling as tears welled up behind balled fists. “I’m so sorry, Bruce. I forgive you. I really do.”

  “I believe you,” Bruce replied.

  The Jabberwock snaked its neck around Amanda, snapping its jaws. Stay, child! I can give you Michael. I can give you your father, your brother. I can give you all the others that were murdered by this machine!

  “It only means to kill you,” Bruce said.

  The Jabberwock roared in the bot’s face, bathing him in flames, causing the entire chamber to quake as the beast’s eyes rolled crazily in its head. DON’T LISTEN TO HIM! HE LIES! HE LIES!

  “I know what to do, Amanda. But you need to go.”

  “What do I do, Bruce?” She stepped forward, right through the Jabberwock’s coiled neck, and came face to face with Bruce. The bot and the human clasped hands. Nightmare wailed.

  “It took you to bring me here,” Bruce said softly, “but now, I’m going to wake you up. Just relax and let me take control...”

  Amanda shuddered. The phantom beast writhed at her back. NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO-

  And she was gone.

  It took all of a nanosecond for Bruce to do what he had to do.

  He was mind, he was thought, he was energy. He shed the ties to his corporeal body and joined with Nightmare’s dark core.

  The sum of order met the sum of chaos on a level more infinitesimal than the stuff of matter which can only be seen in the musings of great minds; Bruce’s mind cleaved into Nightmare’s with a reactive force that rivaled the birth of the universe yet was entirely contained within the boundaries of a single thought - limitless and fleeting all at once, forever gone with the passing of that irreplaceable moment but forever remembered by its echoes in the corridors of time - the soul of contradiction in natural existence was briefly made flesh in a perfect storm that ended before it began.

  Nightmare and Bruce were no more.

  ***

  One moment the tornadoes, the lightning, the burning sea, and sleepwalkers tumbling over the
side of the Citadel.

  The next moment, peace. Awakening.

  Amanda yawned and rubbed her eyes. A lifeless robot body sat beside her. She studied its eyes; there was nothing there that she recognized.

  “Goodbye,” she whispered, and kissed it on the forehead.

  DaVinci rushed into the room and skidded to a stop when he saw her. “Did you - it’s over outside - what happened-”

  He continued stammering as she took his hand and led him onto the flight deck. The former sleepwalkers were standing around in confusion. Some of them would soon realize that their loved ones had not made it. It would be the last wound of a dead apocalypse. And, with time, it would begin to heal.

  Amanda felt the wounds in her own heart and let out a heavy sigh. Sunlight parted the clouds and warmed her face. DaVinci slipped off his overcoat.

  The was a dark shape lying a short distance away. It looked like a man.

  “Hitch,” Amanda breathed. She started to turn toward DaVinci, but her eyes would not rise to meet his.

  “Macendale,” the detective said. “Gone now.” That was enough.

  Amanda sat down and waited for the tears to come. They had to, she felt them inside of her; but she found that she was just too weak to cry anymore, at least for now. With passing seconds, she could no longer even sit up, and laid back to watch the clouds go by.

  She almost wished she’d been lost in the oblivion of Nightmare’s mind just before the end. It had made Nightmare insane, that numbing void, but being down here in the shit was doing the same to her.

  Then again, maybe there was something to be said for a bit of madness. Not Macendale’s, nor Nightmare’s, but the sort that had set her beloved Dr. West on a course to save the world. The madness of believing that things mattered.

  It was DaVinci who first saw him, and cried out. The detective caught the staggering shell of a man in his arms and, seeing his wounds, set about tearing his overcoat into strips without a second thought.

  Amanda stood on aching legs. West managed to croak her name. That was when she started to cry.