Robogenesis

by Daniel H. Wilson

  “Run!” I shout.

  The shove snaps her out of it. We are brother and sister but we haven’t hit each other since the war started. Mathilda turns away and scrabbles for the building across the street.

  Only now do I move the bar out from in front of my knee. Keeping the metal there was the only way for her not to see. If she knew my leg was sliced open and bleeding, she never would have left me. The pain of that last step has put a cold sweat on my forehead and goosebumps on the backs of my arms. I’m panting like a dog now and I can feel my heartbeat pounding in the back of my throat making me want to throw up.

  Someone has an arm wrapped around my neck, pulling.

  I have one last chance. I spin in place, throwing the person behind me off balance. I’m swinging the heavy metal pipe as hard as I can. A flash of pain from my knee bolts up my leg and comes out of my mouth as a scream. But the bar connects. Hard. It makes a sound like hitting a home run.

  Ding.

  The Tribe member behind me drops.

  And my knee gives out. I hit the ground again, on my stomach this time, metal bar singing against a curb as it bounces away. Thomas lands with his knee on my back, presses my face into the dirt with his forearm. I see Mathilda duck into a squat brick building across the street. It’s a hidey-hole, but a dead end. There is no other way out, no other buildings near it. A bad place.

  And the sun is setting now.

  “Ah, shit,” says the acne-scarred guy at the doorway. I hear Thomas puke and cold spatters against my cheek. The pain in my leg is rising like floodwater, drowning me. In flashes, I see Thomas wiping his mouth. Another guy lies still with a dent in the side of his shaved head. Something pink is dribbling out of the hole. The man at the door is grinning down at me and shaking his head.

  “She’s gone,” says Thomas. “And I’m not going into that death trap. How are we supposed to flush her out?”

  “First get the cuffs on the farm boy here,” says the scarred man. “Raise Felix on the radio and tell him about his primo. And drag the kid over to watch this.”

  I fade out.

  Somebody is giggling in the dark. I can smell pure alcohol. A couple of men rush past me with metal cans. Something sloshing inside. My mind is swimming and my eyes won’t focus. What seems like seconds later, I hear the first flames.

  I open my eyes.

  Smoke clouds a crisp moon. A rind of flame chews on the base of the brick building. Dark figures lurch around in the night. There is no way out of there. My sister is inside and these cackling monsters are setting the whole thing on fire.

  “Mathilda?” I mutter.

  The building roars as a wall of flame climbs its side. The leafy vines and creepers are turning into veins of light. Higher up, I hear leftover windows shattering from the heat. The shards make a pretty sound as they tinkle down onto the pavement.

  “Damn,” says somebody. “We gonna have to get back.”

  “For real?” asks somebody else. His voice is a sandpaper murmur under the chuckling flames.

  “Get back, now,” comes a shout. “It’s going!” And now hands are under my armpits. Dragging me through cool grass with the heat of that flaming building pressing against my face. Cold darkness tongues the nape of my neck as the flames press in.

  “She’s coming down!”

  The excited shouts are lost now in a falling stream of wreckage. Chunks of the building are dropping, hitting the ground like meteor impacts. Spraying shards of rock and buckling the concrete sidewalk. I’m kicking with my good leg, heel digging into the dirt. Bucking and wriggling, trying to get away.

  “My sister’s in there,” I’m moaning. I can’t hear my own voice over the splitting beams and crashing sections of brick facade. The whole building is swaying, falling apart and sending embers roiling up into the sky.

  “Mathilda!” I scream. Or I think I’m screaming it. My voice is only a vibration in my chest. The collapse seems to last forever. Dust and ash and sparks escaping into the sky. But it ends. Like all things.

  The grass is freezing and wet on my back. Dark sky above and a lump of smoking wreckage that radiates heat like a dark sun. My tears are tracing cold paths down my temples. My hands are crossed over my stomach, wrists burning from handcuffs.

  “. . . kid is friggin’ heavy.”

  “. . . thing went up like a firecracker.”

  “. . . see what he did to Felix’s little cousin?”

  Blinking away tears, I strain my neck to look up. Thomas and four or five members of the Tribe are standing in a circle around me. They smoke handmade cigarettes and pass around a bottle. The scarred one looks down at me.

  “You killed the wrong guy, kid,” he says, and light from the smoldering building is flickering on his disfigured cheeks.

  “Killed?” I ask.

  “Put a fucking hole in his head,” says an anorexic-looking guy. His bony arms are crossed over each other for warmth. He rubs his shoulders. “Dead before he hit the ground.”

  “Boss man,” says the guy with the scar, alerting the others.

  A dark form appears, backlit by the glowing mound of rubble. It’s a compact man, face hidden in shadow. Two others are around him, maybe more. The shape squats over the man I killed. Reaches out and puts a palm over the face, closing his eyes.

  “Éste lo hizo?” asks a low voice in Spanish.

  “Yeah, this is the kid,” replies the scarred man.

  It is silent and dark for a long second.

  “Put him in the hole,” says the dark shape, standing.

  “You got it, Felix.”

  This dark shape is the leader of the Tribe. The one responsible for all this. In the shadows, he turns his head to the side and stops at a precise angle. Even in silhouette, the pose reminds me instantly of Mathilda. The way my sister would push her eyes out into the world, seeing more than what was there. It’s like meeting somebody with a familiar tic. After a second or two he looks back up.

  “It’s time for you to leave, muchacho,” Felix says. “Los saltamontes will be all over this place soon. You know how they love the heat.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The shadow turns to leave.

  “Mr. Morales,” says a familiar voice, “it’s . . . it’s an honor to meet you, sir.”

  Thomas. The reality of what’s happened is coming into focus now. This is the killer who betrayed my sister. Who saw to it that she burned alive. My sister is dead. Knowing it is breaking everything inside me. Shattered machinery is still moving and hurting itself more and I can’t make it stop.

  The building came down. There was no way out.

  “He’s a modified,” I croak, sitting up. Wrists bound together, I shrug my shoulder across my leaking eyes and smear snot and tears across my face. “Thomas is modified. Check his hand. Look at his left hand, because he hasn’t got one. It’s just a pair of fucking Rob scissors.”

  Felix and the scarred man turn to look at Thomas. He is backing away, step by step. As their eyes settle, he stops moving.

  “He’s full of shit,” he says. But the sleeves of his army coat still hang over his hands. He puts his arms out to his sides in an I-have-nothing-to-hide gesture.

  “You Rob-made? Let’s see, Tomás,” says Felix.

  Thomas looks down at me, a flurry of expressions crossing his face: anger and despair and sadness, like a trapped animal. And then he smiles.

  “Sorry, Nolan,” says Thomas.

  He does a little flourish and lifts his arms so that his coat sleeves fall back to his forearms. His right hand is open, fingers splayed. But his left hand, where the scissors were, is just a bandage-covered stump. I try to think of the last time I saw his scissors and I can’t remember. He must have used the autodoc and then a bandage to hold them in place to trick Mathilda’s eyes.

  “I did lose a hand in the war, but I’m not modified,” he says. “And I gave you the girl. So I’m a citizen now, right?”

  I’m staring at his stump, lip quivering. Thomas had
this planned. He knew all along what he was going to do to us.

  “You cut it off?” I ask, and my voice is small. “Then you kept it in your sleeve to fool Mathilda. That’s not fair. It was a machine. He cut it off!”

  It’s no use. Telling won’t help. Now I must try to live.

  “Deal’s a deal,” says Felix, and he walks away.

  The man with the scar shakes his head at me. Digs out a piece of paper, some kind of Tribe citizenship card, and hands it to Thomas. After inspecting the card, Thomas lifts it up and mock salutes the men with it. Tucks it into his pocket and turns to leave.

  “Long live the Tribe,” he says.

  My eyes are squeezed shut now and I can feel my heart full of broken parts. Every thought slices deeper. I hear snatches of my mom’s voice. She is the only sister you will ever have.

  Thomas squats next to me, elbows over his knees.

  “Welcome to the new world,” he whispers. “I tried to tell you, kid. Not everybody is good.”

  4. FREEBORN CITY

  Post New War: 3 Months, 10 Days

  The so-called freeborn robots, created by the deranged Archos R-14 and awakened by a Japanese scientist, suffered greatly in the aftermath of the New War. As a race, they were at once responsible for the human victory and creations of the monster they had defeated. Made in the image of man, these sentient machines nonetheless found themselves wary of their precursors. The vast majority of freeborn had never seen a human being, much less fought alongside one. For their part, most surviving humans refused to believe that a freeborn robot had betrayed and defeated Archos R-14. Allied in victory, the two races had this one chance to form a lasting alliance. They failed.

  —ARAYT SHAH

  DATABASE ID: NINE OH TWO

  Forty miles outside Fort Collins, Colorado, my running gait stutters and I fall out of the relaxed rhythm that I have maintained for twenty-eight cycles of day and night. An easy trotting gait transitions through an unfamiliar stumble to a jarring walk and then to a full stop.

  My joints are still. Heat dissipates. The world is suddenly, shockingly silent.

  An observation thread notified me of the freeborn camp seconds ago. The site is perched on a hillside at a range of three kilometers. Nearly undetectable. Trace radar signatures reflect back to me under faded, dusty skies. At maximum sensitivity, I detect an audible snippet of coded Robspeak floating on the wind.

  I have found my own kind.

  For a few yawning milliseconds my primary action threads oscillate between high and low utility, simulating the outcome of meeting these machines. In my operational lifetime, I have known two other freeborn: Hoplite and Sapper. Regrettably, both units suffered lethal outcomes while aiding me in combat directives.

  They died for me and I buried their remains to honor them. It seemed right.

  Now I shut down all active sensing equipment—radar, sonar, and lidar. Break the outline of my humanoid silhouette by pressing my body into a rough thicket. I pull my limbs close to my casing to confuse high-resolution thermal imaging. Hold myself as motionless as the dusky rocks.

  Using only passive vision capabilities, I zoom to the limit of my CCDs. Then I execute full digital zoom.

  A haze of dust floats in the twilight, obscuring my vision. The freeborn camp is spread out on a bare rocky hillside. Dead grass and dirt. Scrubby spherical bushes spread out in fractally spaced clumps. Dim humanoid figures are engaged in unknown activities. Not much else to see in the visible spectrum.

  The lack of movement is conspicuous, especially compared to Gray Horse Army. My thoughts turn back to the human soldiers I fought alongside. To the whispering voice of a little girl who used to speak to me.

  I remember the kilometers-long column of spider tanks making camp during the journey north. Thousands of warm-blooded mammals, their chests rising and falling with constant respiration, veins pulsing with oxygenated blood, warming the arctic air with their exhalations. Interacting, their jaws dipped up and down, small eyes darting about in their orbits, vocal cords vibrating through a narrow band of human audible frequencies. Their facial muscles flexed elastically, constantly conveying social information.

  It took time, but I learned the patterns. At first, the sheer complexity made the task seem impossible. But then I felt the satisfaction of breaking the code. I began to unravel the meanings behind their laughter and crying, their screams of pain or of joy. Over time, I came to know them.

  What I found most interesting were their hands. Long fingers set to work cleaning weapons, digging foxholes, checking ammunition. Adjusting and securing and calibrating. Even asleep, the humans would twitch and breathe and think. An array of countless tiny movements like the swarming of insects.

  How strange that I miss them.

  The freeborn on the hillside are modified safety-and-pacification units: Hoplites and Wardens and Optios. My own kind. Milspec humanoid models, stronger than the domestics. Approximately thirty units. Wearing scavenged human garments for added protection and camouflage, similar to the ones I wear. Stiff, soiled military fatigues stretched over jutting servos. Layers of civilian pants and T-shirts, coated with dirt and grease and dark ovals of spilled blood.

  Soldiers who look like heavily armored scarecrows.

  The camp is undisturbed by cat holes or campfires or tents. No environmental modifications whatsoever. These soldiers do not require it. Chairs are for those who sit. Beds are for those who sleep. There is no campfire that will bring warmth to this army.

  An observation thread orients my attention to movement.

  It’s a golden Hoplite, sitting, methodically scooping dirt off the ground and rubbing it on its outer garments. The golden varieties are more prone to reflecting sunlight, revealing their position. The dirt cakes onto the clothing and encourages the welcome growth of moss and bacterial blooms that create natural camouflage.

  The Hoplite stops. Orients its face toward me.

  Alert. Throttling surplus power into sensing and acting control center. If an attack comes, I will need everything I’ve got to escape and survive. The extra energy will have no utility later.

  An action thread suggests contacting Mathilda Perez for global information concerning this encampment. Her eyes are everywhere. I quash the thread. Mathilda is on her own path now. Our friendship no longer falls within her life constraints.

  Systems primed to fight or flee, I watch the Hoplite continue scooping dirt and rubbing it on its filthy military jacket. Maxprob tapers to indicate no threat. So I step out of the bushes. Thorns tear into my ill-fitting clothing, but I pay no attention. There is no shortage of human corpses to loot.

  Now I stand exposed to snipers.

  Active sensing reinitialized. Scanning high-probability visual regions for incoming bullet trajectories. At this range, the sound wave of a gunshot will arrive after I’ve been hit. I can hope to dodge only if I see the bullet coming. Disabling executive thought threads to accommodate high-speed-object avoidance. Thirty seconds grace. Counting down . . .

  . . . three, two, one. Zero.

  No incoming attack from the freeborn. No communication. The sun perceptibly creeps lower in the west. A starving tick crawls down the sleeve of my jacket. My metal casing clicks quietly as the heat dissipates. And nearby, a lone cricket chirps.

  Reroute emergency power. Executive thought thread priority. Communication and observation analysis activated.

  I set out for the hillside.

  After a few minutes hiking, I am among the freeborn.

  A quick topographical simulation confirms the machines are arranged in an unnatural pattern that has been formulated to appear natural. No three robots are located in a straight geometric line. Maxprob indicates this is a technique to prevent automatic identification from the low-orbit satellites that still sweep the planet’s surface with synthetic aperture radar.

  To comply with this unwritten rule, I ensure that I do not stand in a straight line with any two other units. It reminds me of how the h
uman soldiers seemed to require a half meter of space around their bodies at all times. Just another local custom.

  Neck swiveling, I take in every detail as I move through the camp toward the Hoplite that recognized me earlier. Some of the freeborn are performing limb-calibration exercises, reaching precisely for invisible points in the air. A lone domestic-type freeborn uses a welder’s torch in quick, raspy flares, attaching an extra strut to strengthen its leg. Most of these machines are self-modified, like me.

  The camp is near silent in the human audible spectrum. Communications are taking place, however. Most are implicit, based on location and posture. Others occur via close-range radio frequency. Encrypted low-power transmissions become thicker the deeper into camp I get. Soon the air is humming with a blue cloud of coded gibberish. I hear a few shorter messages via ultrasonic clicks—Robspeak. Audible sound is better for short-range comms. Simpler attenuation dynamics make it easier to control range for highly secure local broadcasts.

  Plus, the grinding sounds scare away the birds.

  A 999 Optio humanoid, a tech specialist, methodically cleans the barrel of a heavy black weapon with a scrap of oily rag. A martial database search returns an M240 machine-gun variant with partial vehicular mount still attached. There are three more in various states of disrepair laid out on wool army blankets. Ammunition boxes, some partially shattered, are piled next to the weapons. Scattered in the grass are rust-colored bandages, scraps of clothing, and a dented helmet with torn netting.

  Humans were here. But not now.

  The Hoplite rests on the hillside, finished obfuscating its visual and olfactory signature with local soil. The machine has been scarred and repaired many times over. No traces of human military designation remain. In fact, all external markings appear to have been removed with a file.

  I decide on a low-volume audio signal. In the creaks and grinds of standard U.S. military Robspeak, I signal my presence and ask a question. The transmission process scrambles the message and peppers it with redundancy in case of loss. But the information contained in my utterance is: “Query. Are you freeborn? Seek to confirm.”