Robogenesis

by Daniel H. Wilson

  I am alerted by a noise like a whale surfacing for a breath. Psssh. An oddly beautiful sound. Turning, I see a blur of quivering antennae and skittering forelimbs across the room. A type of killing machine that we call a cricket lands in the doorway. Another one, the size of a fist, punches through a pane of dirty glass and bounces lightly over the concrete. I hear the noises again, outside. I cannot help it and I make a small moan. The newly arrived crickets immediately orient toward my sound and heat.

  The cricket is a subspecies of the stumper, a crawling land mine. The difference is that the cricket uses a piston to launch itself short distances. It glides on stubby wings, highly explosive, attracted to body heat. More gray blurs are clustering on the window panes. Some are coming through, landing on shards of shining glass.

  It is nothing personal. This is simply their design.

  The heavy bag over my left shoulder is balanced by the toolbox strapped over my other shoulder. In wobbling steps, I move into a slightly cooler shadow. The crickets spread out behind me, reflexively self-organizing as they forage. Junshi-88 is already outside, facing me through the far doorway but not knowing how to react. I wave my hand at it. Be still and wait outside, please. There is a good chance I will survive.

  The wooden ceiling joists of this building have bloated and splintered like an old locust shell left behind on a tree. The cavernous room is filling with the echoes of scraping armored legs and the tap of antennae as they spread out, picking their way over rain-streaked concrete.

  Hands shaking, I reach into my bag.

  I clamp my fingers onto a black stick. Pull it out and hold each end in one hand. With a quick twist of my wrists, I activate the joist-seeker. Two struts pop out of each end, forming a hand-sized H. Each strut has a small rotor attached. I hold the device up, fingers clamped to its narrow body as the quad-rotor helicopter powers up.

  When I let go, it remains hovering in place.

  The crickets pause midstep, listening to the low hum of the spinning rotor blades. I turn my face away as the seeker blinks at the room with a scanning laser. It gently buzzes away toward the ceiling, sending a waft of air washing over my neck.

  I scurry away while they are distracted. A gray shape flutters past me like a slow-motion bullet, missing my arm by a half meter. It thunks into the wall and bounces off as light from the doorway hits my face. Junshi-88 is a dark blur outside, poised but waiting patiently. Inside, the seeker is calculating the weakest geometric point of the joists that hold up the damaged building. These flying sticks are how we demolished much of the akuma-riddled Adachi Ward when we needed to create a clear perimeter.

  I hurry through the bright door.

  Three meters into the front yard, I hear the echo of a warning siren from the joist-seeker. I count down from three in my head. Even so, the concussion surprises me, and I stumble. Staggering, I keep to my feet as the shock wave turns to heat and the broken building crumples in on itself. A simple task of spotting the structural weak points and removing them. Math and equations and explosions.

  A series of smaller explosions carve pockmarks as the crickets explode under rubble. The swarm is happy again. More crickets are streaming out of their hiding holes. Piston-launching their cheaply made carapaces into the smoldering heat.

  “Moshimoshi, 88,” I say, greeting the machine. “We continue.”

  “Head up,” says the 88, watching over my shoulder for a long second, making sure no more curious remnants are filtering out of the broken city. Before us, the shinboku rises out of the harbor like the wet bones of a leviathan. Twisting in the wind, slow and inevitable in its advance to shore. Drops of rain weep from the treelike branches that sway high above. A deep, almost subsonic, moaning emanates from the structure as those field-sized petals churn slowly in the surf. One petal is already wedged partially onto the shore, grass fluttering.

  The divine tree leans and the small alcove I saw before is almost directly above us, lost in a tangle of vines.

  On unsteady legs, I walk out into the wet marsh area. Insects flutter past my face, not all of them natural. Many of the animals and insects here are artificial. I resist the urge to sit down in the muck and study my immediate vicinity.

  Instead, I pull a ratty collage of thin parachute cord out of my bag. The cord is attached to an old board, driftwood once, with two holes drilled in it and the rope wrapped through. I carefully lower myself to one knee. Allow myself one small groan as my back creaks angrily.

  Ah well, an old mind is worth old legs.

  I lay the board flat on the damp ground. Kneel in the shadow of the

  88 and loop all the rope I have together in a neat coil. Finally, I turn my canvas sack upside down and a bundle of stiff black legs falls out. Using a carabiner, I snap the coil of rope to the black thing’s body. It is a climbing device made from something that was once called a tickler.

  My own modified design, never tested above two stories.

  In both hands, I pick up the tangle of cord. Pinch the scruff of the tickler’s neck with one hand. Four longer articulated legs dangle. I move my hands over the device and check each part. A yank on each of the climbing legs. A twist of the spooler. And a press of the power button.

  Bright laser targeting emanates from the device. Tongue peeking from my mouth, I aim the intense, coin-sized green dot into the upper reaches of the shinboku. Train it on the spot where I know the alcove is located.

  The target blinks three times.

  “Climb,” I whisper, standing. Underhanded, I grunt as I toss the machine straight up. It catches onto the stalk and begins its ascent. As it goes, I hear only the seagoing creak of fiber as the whole platform sways in massive, incomprehensible locomotion.

  I sit on the board as the coil of rope steadily unravels into the sky. Feed the rope so it does not catch as the wind blows it like spider silk. The tickler climbs the vines and branches with uncanny precision and speed. It is a black streak, like the reverse beam of a flashlight raking up the side of the tower.

  “If I am killed, please return to Mikiko and tell her what happened,” I say.

  “Hai,” says 88.

  Then the rope catches, pulls the board tight against my thighs. Toolbox over my shoulder, I cling to the rope with both hands. Somewhere, the spooler is activated. As I rise, swinging, the mold-green Junshi-88 stands expectantly below me.

  “Farewell, Junshi,” I say, and I am lifted dangling into the air.

  Holding the rope tightly, I squeeze my eyes shut. Listen to the wind sigh through the tentaclelike vines. The sound of lapping waves soon recedes. The air cools and sounds fade as the tickler’s rasping spooler reels me up in a steady motion. Peeking, I see arched, hooded microwave transmitters clustered in the branches.

  I do not dare to look down.

  Finally, I reach the alcove. It is just a Y-shaped crease in the thick vines. A narrow flat surface inside. Wide enough for only a few people. Squinting into the featureless haze of gray sky, I spot the silhouettes of antennae overhead. Fiberlike cables snake like vines over the limbs. All of them connect in a single nexus, here in this alcove.

  I scramble inside. Try to ignore the breathtaking drop as I pull my toolbox off my shoulder and drop it onto the fiber-woven floor. On my knees, hunched over, I pry at the wires. Allow the music of the circuits to speak to my hands. I place a directional antenna on the ground and swivel it around with a finger. The finder beeps quietly, scanning the direction of radio transmissions to and from the shinboku.

  While the finder works, I plug a diagnostic computer into the mainline antenna. Tap a direct line into the shinboku transmissions. Sets of encrypted data flutter over the line. On a whim, I plug in a small microphone, squeeze the transmit handle, and speak.

  “Who are you?” I ask.

  Nothing happens. The finder beeps quietly, homing in on a location out to sea. Then, a shiver runs through the tree. Groans form somewhere deep inside the platform. And text appears on my battery-powered display. The luminescen
ce races like green flame across the dusty screen. Strange words appear.

  I am the eternal spread of life across the abyss. I am the whole. The vastness.

  It reminds me of speaking to the great akuma. But this is a different mind. This transmission has arrived from the open ocean. I adjust a knob to home in on the exact location. I will find this voice.

  “I shall call you Ryujin,” I say. “After the dragon god of the sea.”

  In ancient times, it was not uncommon for men to speak with the gods. The minds of the earth and sea and sky were once present to mortals. Great wars shook the planet. Wars that determined whether our ancestors would live or die.

  “We have been finding new creatures. Not natural and not unnatural. Are you the one who is making them?” I ask it.

  Yes.

  “Why?”

  To replace you when you are gone.

  A breeze is building. The platform is moving now, swinging slightly.

  “Ryujin-sama, why do you say this? Who seeks to attack us?”

  Not you. The enemy seeks the awakened ones. They will die in their mountain stronghold. Feasting on their power, a shallow mind shall grow deep. This thing called Arayt will exterminate the freeborn, and then humankind.

  The platform is swinging now. Seagulls shriek at the groaning of the deep struts. Something is wrong.

  “What can we do?” I ask.

  You. Can. Die.

  Slipping, I grab hold of a vine and cling to the shinboku. Long ago, men bargained with the gods. Those times have come again, I think.

  “No! Not acceptable. Can you help stop this?”

  Yes.

  “Will you?”

  Perhaps.

  I am clinging to the vines now, my right arm entwined. The little wooden board bangs somewhere. The horizon is rising and falling, wind ripping at my clothes as this titanic machine tries to shake me off like a flea.

  The finder is beeping wildly, keyed in on Ryujin’s location. Impossible. A far-off point on the bottom of the sea. All transmissions are being delivered piecemeal to clusters spread out over the abyssal plains in the depths.

  “What do you demand, Ryujin?!” I ask. “Name it.”

  A pattern.

  “What pattern?” I ask.

  Slammed against the alcove wall, the microphone slips out of my free hand and falls. I wrap both my arms around the vines, but they are slick and wet. A sandal slips off my foot and I watch it pinwheel away into the empty sky. Below, the entire bay is frothing with the thrashing of this colossal beast.

  “What pattern!?” I shout.

  What is a mind, but a pattern? I think.

  The computer has slipped away. Ryujin can no longer hear me.

  Lunging, I scoop up my finder and sling on my toolbox. Yank the board to me by its damp rope and sit on it. The tickler is still buried above, holding on tight. Leaning over the void, sitting on the board, I glance the vista of a ruined Tokyo.

  Time to go—before the shinboku tears itself apart.

  A final swing of the trunk sends the diagnostic computer clattering back toward me. Just before it plummets over the side, I catch sight of a final sentence scrolling across the display. A wail grows in my chest as I read Ryujin’s last words to me.

  Give me the one who sings . . . the mother of the freeborn.

  5. WHAT ELSE IS THERE?

  Post New War: 10 Months, 16 Days

  During three long years of war, the city of Gray Horse earned a reputation as a bastion of civilization in a barbaric, violent world. It retained that reputation for only a short time in the New War’s aftermath, under the rule of my puppet Hank Cotton. It was surprisingly easy to shatter the unity forged in battle between men of all creeds and color. Cormac Wallace arrived back to Gray Horse hoping for a return to peace and normalcy—a chance to live. What he learned is that there never was such a thing as living. There was always only survival.

  —ARAYT SHAH

  NEURONAL ID: CORMAC WALLACE

  Gray Horse. Home of the brave. Land of the free.

  But not from where I’m standing.

  With pneumatic puffs, Houdini tramps up the narrow switchback road that winds up the stone bluff and eventually leads into the drum clearing where this all began. The walker’s clawed feet are stained up to the ankle joints with red mud from dozens of abandoned farms on the outskirts of the Gray Horse plateau. We’ve passed acres of crops that look to have been untended for weeks. Hardly any human beings in sight, just the humped shapes of dead bison rotting in the fields.

  The empty farms were a disturbing sight, but we didn’t stop to check them out. Houdini’s mended belly net is slack, flapping without any supplies left. You can’t afford to slow down when you’re running on fumes.

  Cherrah and I are in our usual spot up on the turret deck. We still wear our combat fatigues and body armor. It’s all we’ve got. Looking out at the occasional scowling faces, I’m starting to wish we had something more friendly to put on. I feel like we should be waving a big white flag. It strikes me as odd that I’ve seen only native faces so far. Men, women, and children, and they look tired and angry. Something has gone wrong here. Some trauma. A lot of people are missing from Gray Horse.

  “This is not the homecoming I was expecting,” says Cherrah.

  She has on a brave face, but rests one gloved hand protectively over her round belly. It’s been seven months of slow travel since the sighted kid told us about our little boy. Now would be early, but we both know that the baby could show up any day.

  “Lonnie will explain what’s going on,” I say. “We’ll get you to the hospital and off your feet. Then I’ll go find him. Relax.”

  I hear a shrill whistle from up the hill.

  “Don’t relax yet, maybe,” I say.

  At the top of the bluff, we round the final corner and reach the wide-open dancing circle. The space has been turned into a staging ground for the Gray Horse Army. Spider tanks, gleaming and polished, rest on their haunches in neat rows. Hundreds of soldiers are broken into smaller squads: practicing marching drills, eating chow in a long tent at picnic tables, and organizing scavenged supplies. Others are off duty, sitting relaxed, cleaning weapons and checking ammunition. For the first time today, I see nonnative faces: white, black, and Latino soldiers.

  Houdini stops.

  The scarred old battle tank seems to be taking in the scene. It stands tall and weather-beaten and half crippled, staring down dozens of its freshly repaired former comrades. The other spider tanks are familiar old warhorses with patched armor and touched-up insignias: Jack of Spades, Mauler, Nemo, Brutus.

  My throat tightens with nostalgia, remembering the march to Alaska. I never really believed I’d see these soldiers again after Cherrah and I stayed behind to write The Hero Archive and our rendezvous was blown. But here they are: the men and women we fought side by side with.

  Houdini was a slumped wreck the last time these soldiers saw him. Abandoned, leaning against tall pines, he somehow found the strength to stand. We never figured out what spurred him to reboot and go searching through the woods for his old masters. We never had the luxury. I dismiss the thought as grim faces turn toward us. Oddly enough, a lot of hands are going to their weapons. Cherrah and I flash worried eyes at each other.

  “Down, Houdini,” I whisper.

  Nothing happens. Instead, I hear his intention light tick to yellow.

  The heavily modified spider tank keeps standing erect, bristling. Its turret grinds as it sweeps over the scene again. A tall Osage man in full battle rattle is barking orders to his squad. He’s a sergeant and strutting our way quick, flanked by four more soldiers who are all big and native. Their hands hang over the stocks of rifles attached by straps to their chests. For now, their fingers are loose and relaxed.

  The sergeant swaggers in, his bellowing voice coming into focus over the general turmoil. “Stand down and disembark from your vehicle!” he shouts.

  “Down, Houdini,” I whisper again. “Th
at’s an order.”

  Houdini continues to track the man’s progress with his turret. I hear a loud mechanical click as the intention light in the walker’s chest flips from yellow to red. The advancing soldiers spread out and drop to their knees. They’re experienced with handling spider tanks. They know what the light means.

  Four rifle barrels lift.

  “We’re GHA,” I shout. “Friendly!”

  The sergeant doesn’t seem to hear me.

  “I am going to repeat this one more time, peckerwood!” he shouts, chin jutting out. “After that you are going to have a problem. Get your ass disembarked from that big boy immediately. I want you down here and on your knees! Right! Now!”

  “Down, Houdini,” I whisper fiercely. “Down, you stupid tank.”

  “We’re GHA infantry,” calls Cherrah. “I’m Cherrah Ridge, identification number two one seven oh oh three seven.”

  The sergeant turns to his soldiers. “The two of you, get up there and drag them down. You cover them. And you, get the requisitions team out here to strip this tank down to spare parts. It looks jerry-rigged halfway to kingdom come.”

  Poised to move, the soldiers pause. Someone else is coming.

  My eyes flick past the sergeant and he kind of trails off, half turned with his hand still up. A gaunt Osage man is humping toward us, tall and bent and lumbering after his own shadow in a full general’s uniform. The fabric hangs stiffly off his bony frame, lapping at the wind as he walks. Some detail I can’t pin down is wrong with him. I’m scanning his face and gait and clothing, eyes darting frantically as a tight fear rises up in the back of my throat.

  I can feel Houdini’s legs tensing below me, a hum of power surging through his frame. And Cherrah’s hand is suddenly on my shoulder, delicate fingers clamped on.

  “What is he?” she breathes.

  Gently, the gaunt man reaches out and pushes the sergeant’s arm down to his side. Then he turns to face us, his eyes sunken behind protruding cheekbones. He smiles at me with yellow teeth and a glimmer of recognition in his eyes.