“Then the next morning, I saw the sunrise.” Her face brightened as she peered at one of the bright, gaping holes in the wall. “It was unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. And it seemed to call to me, to tell me that it understands my pain. You see, the sun hides in the night but emerges in the day. The light showed me how to survive, how to follow that same pattern. I tried different plants for eating—cautiously, afraid of them poisoning me, though I did get ill on some and learned to avoid them. I got used to using my limbs. I lost a lot of weight, developed my muscles, took comfort in my own strength.”
She paused. “I found myself out here. Alone, but making it. Had I stayed down in the colonies, I never would have known what the human body, the human spirit is capable of.” With that, she looked at me. “Your strength pours off you in a way I’ve never seen. If anyone can make it out here in this wild land, it’s you.”
I gave her a heartfelt smile, wanting to hug her but not sure she’d welcome it. “Thank you,” I said, pouring my emotion into my words.
Marshal pulled out the timekeeping device he’d tucked into his tunic. “Cally, we need to get back. Kuno is waiting for us.”
“But I didn’t get to hear about Shakespeare,” I said, unable to hide my disappointment.
Areta smiled. “Come back and visit me. I’ll tell you all about it. In fact…” She handed me the book. “Read it and bring it back. I’ll wait for you.”
I held it out. “I can’t possibly take this.”
“Really, I insist.” She nudged it toward me. “Talking with you has been a gift in itself. This is the least I can do as payment.”
I pressed it against my chest for a moment then tucked it into my tunic pocket, patting it reverently, enjoying the soft weight of its presence. “I’m going to come back. And we can talk about it when I do.”
She nodded, standing. “I look forward to it. Now, don’t be late. You don’t want anyone worrying about you.”
I dipped my head in thanks and smiled. Then Marshal and I headed back out the building toward the hole. The sun was barely visible through the trees, splashing vivid pinks and reds and purples across the horizon just beyond the grass. Everything was glowing, radiating with warmth. It was much easier to tolerate than during full light.
“Do you think she’s right?” I asked him.
“About what?”
I stared down at my feet as I walked, eyeing the grass, the small bugs crawling on surfaces of rocks and stumps I passed. “That I’ll make it out here. I mean, she made it. And I’ve been working on getting stronger and fitter. I could survive on my own if I—”
He stopped me, tugging my hand to draw me close. His eyes were slanted nearly shut as he took in my features. “Do you honestly think I’d leave you out here alone?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. There’s no way—”
He brushed his mouth against mine, the palest of kisses. “If you come here, I’m coming with you.”
Something inside my chest softened and melted. There was no way I would ask him to do that. But the fact that he’d even volunteer… “I’m so glad we’re friends,” I whispered.
His gaze turned unreadable. “Is that—” He paused, shook his head rapidly. “Never mind.”
“What? Tell me.” I had a guess about what he was going to say. But I desperately wanted to hear him say it.
With a sigh, he asked, “Is that what we are? Friends?”
My heart squeezed. “Unquestionably. And more. So much more.” I kissed the edge of his jaw, breathing him in, and then pulled back. I had a sudden desire to repeat what had happened with us before. He was intoxicating. “But Kuno will kill us if we’re late,” I added with a wry grin.
He chuckled, the tension gone from his body. “Let’s go, then.”
We passed our tree, which was now basking in the blue-purple glow of the rapidly setting sun. The leaves flittered near the top from a high breeze. Birds danced and chirped in its branches, with insects making strange croaking and whirring noises. How could this ever get old? Why did mankind choose to leave the surface behind, hiding beneath it like—
The whirring grew louder, combined with strong clicking. My pulse quickened as I realized what was happening. That sound wasn’t from nature.
“Marshal,” I said, tugging his hand. “I think we’re in trouble.”
We started running as fast as we could. My lungs screamed for air, and my legs shook as I thudded toward the hole.
The hole that was being repaired by these strange white tentacles. They clicked and clacked as they darted in and out of the hole, sealing the edge farthest from us.
“Run!” Marshal yelled, shoving me away.
I didn’t realize why he was doing so until I saw a wormy limb fly between us, right as I hit the ground, palms scraping on a few rocks beneath me. My head slammed against the earth. The force knocked the air out of me and I wheezed.
The limb bent back to face me then darted at my ankle, twisting tight around it. “Help!” I screamed, clawing desperately at it with my fingers, kicking it with my free foot. “Get off me!”
Marshal grabbed a rock and started smashing it against the worm. “Get! Off! Her!” He said, punctuating each word with a hit.
When he punctured its skin, it finally let me go, whipping back into the hole.
Ignoring the shooting pain in my hands and throb around my ankle, I scrambled out of the way just as another worm pressed out toward us from inside the hole. I stood and kicked it square in the front, jabbing it away from me.
Marshal took hold of my hand. “Go! Go inside! I don’t see any others coming right now.”
But I couldn’t move. Couldn’t stop staring, hypnotized, horrified, at the worm. I’d kicked a small hole in it. Wires and strange contraptions were spilling out as it writhed on the ground. This was the repair mechanism. These brutal…creatures, or whatever.
“Marshal! Cally!” a voice called from inside. Kuno. He popped his head through what was left of the narrow hole. “I fought them off. Come, now!”
We darted over. My side was stinging and I felt faint, dizzy. Something trickled like a river down the back of my head. Had I gotten water on me somehow?
“I’m not sure…” I slurred, swaying. I reached for Marshal, but he was suddenly so far away, and the ground was rising up to meet me.
And then all turned dark.
Chapter 18
Seven Days
“The Machine offers the finest in luxury. High-quality chairs, beds, tables—you name it, it’s been designed for your optimal comfort. Should you find yourself in need of furniture, simply vocalize your request, and the Machine will provide it to you instantly.” ~ The Book of the Machine
I was swimming in agony, my body thick and liquid, my ankle searing with pain.
I slitted my eyes open, just for a brief, blurry moment, then grew sick to my stomach and closed them again.
* * *
Six Days
My skull throbbed like nothing I’d ever felt before. It stirred me out of this darkness with a sickening thud-thud I couldn’t ignore. I cracked an eye open.
Brown walls. I was on a bed. Under blankets. My eyes hurt. My hands stung. My ankle felt raw.
But I was alive.
With a groan I tried to sit up. Dizziness swept through my head and I lay back.
“Don’t do that.” A hand pressed against my cheek. “You’re not ready to sit up yet.” It was Marshal.
“What happened?” I asked. My throat was raw, my words dry as they scraped out of my mouth.
“You passed out.” He leaned toward me, his face drawn and weary. “I was worried about you. I’m so sorry. I hurt you, Cally. I was trying to get you out of the way of the repair mechanism and you hit your head on something.”
I cupped his hand with my cheek. “It’s okay. It was an accident. You were trying to save me, I know.” I drew in a slow breath, steadying the strange lurch in my stomach. “What time is it?”
“Just past n
ightfall. We’re in your pod.” He looked around and when the light hit his face, I could see large bags under his pained, tired eyes. “You’ve been asleep for two days. Kuno suggested we give you medicine to dull the pain so you could rest up. I was so worried about you.”
“Two days? Really?” I inhaled, exhaled and tried to sit up again. This time the sickening swirl in my head wasn’t so bad. “Did you get any sleep?”
He shrugged. “A little here and there. I didn’t want to disturb you while you were…recuperating. So I only left to take a few naps.”
“Is Kuno okay?”
“He’s fine. Wily old man—he helped us escape.”
I nodded. “That’s right. I remember that part.” I draped my legs over the side of the bed. My book. I patted my pocket. Empty. “Where—”
“It’s over there,” Marshal said with a chuckle, pointing to the side table. “Like I’d let something happen to it.”
I smiled, stretched a little, rolled my wrists and ankles. They were sore, yes, but nothing was too injured anymore. The restful sleep must have helped. “Thanks. And thank you for taking care of me. I’m sure it would have been a lot worse had you not been here.”
His face dropped and he looked down at the floor. “Cally, there’s more. I have…I have some news I need to tell you.”
My heart beat stopped for a second. “What’s wrong?”
Clearing his throat, Marshal said, “Sirama died. She got really sick from drinking the water, and this morning she didn’t wake up.”
“Wait, what?” I couldn’t have heard that right. There was no way she drank that water—she was smarter than that, wasn’t she? I shook my head stubbornly. “No, that can’t be true. Besides, she didn’t say anything about feeling sick when we’d talked.”
Then again, I hadn’t asked about her. I’d been too busy griping about my own life, my own situation. I’d lashed out at her. Hurt her feelings.
And now she was gone. Dead.
Poisoned by the Machine.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. When he looked at me, his eyes were wide, sad. “It happened very quickly. And she was really old. She had a long, good life.”
Sudden grief slammed me in the chest, hot and thick in its fury. “No,” I said, over and over again. “Not her. Not her.” How was this fair? What had Sirama ever done except put her faith in others? Teach patience and understanding?
I failed her. Failed myself. And I’d never get a chance to make it up to her, to prove I was worth her efforts.
Tears slid unchecked down my face. I glanced over at my red fruit, sitting on the table beside the book.
Marshal’s mouth turned down. “Cally, that’s not all of it.” He took my hand in his, wrapping his fingers around mine. “Other parts of the Machine are breaking down now. None of the beds have come out tonight.”
I looked at him in confusion, eyes swimming with tears over Sirama. “What? But mine’s here.”
“You’ve been on it for two days,” he pointed out. “So it was already out. The communication lines have been exploding with people worried about this.”
My stomach churned. I feared I might be sick.
I stood up gingerly, moving with slow, cautious steps over to my screen, and turned it on. It was filled with messages overlapping, blinking. I checked several of them—all the same. People asking if I knew what was going on about the beds, questioning what they were going to do now and where they would sleep.
Panic thickening their voices as they reminded me about the recent troubles with water and food.
“What do we do?” I asked him, turning back around, unable to face their fears any longer. Wishing I could turn away from the news about Sirama so easily. Even thinking her name brought a hot swell of guilt into my heart. “What is the Committee saying about it?”
Marshal barked out a sharp laugh. “That’s the best part. The one that really has me worried. They said the repair mechanism is in need of repair.”
“What?” I could hardly believe what I was hearing. And I could hardly believe I’d never thought about it needing repair itself. “So who or what is going to do that?”
“I don’t know.” His eyes were flat with anger. “No one does. No one knows the truth about what’s going on. It’s just worry and fear spreading everywhere, out of control like a fire.”
“I’m going to see what I can find out.” Something to help take my mind off my former instructor. Wiping the tears from my eyes, I turned back to my screen and called the repair committee.
“Thank you for contacting us,” the representative said, fatigue bluntly evident in her voice. Her image looked calm and composed, but there were layers of emotion underlying her polite words. “How can we help make your day as good as possible?”
“I’ve heard there are issues with the repair mechanism and I was hoping you could clarify for me what’s going on. You know, so I can tell others the truth,” I added.
It was silent on her end for a moment. Then she said, “According to my latest information, our repair mechanism is in need of repair.”
“Yes. I heard that too. So, how is it going to be fixed?”
She tilted her head, questioning. “Well, it’ll fix itself, of course.”
“How can the Machine possibly repair itself if it’s broken? Isn’t there someone who can do it?” I could detect the frantic edge in my voice so I tried to rein it in. “Surely there’s a person able to look it over and assist it.”
“The Machine is a self-sustaining entity.” She raised her chin, looking down on me. “It has no need of human intervention. It’s perfect and will repair itself when it sees fit. Until then, you will have to wait, just like everyone else. Thank you for calling. All praise the Machine.”
“No! Wait!” I said loudly, but she hung up on me. I turned back toward Marshal, my cheeks burning with anger. He looked as frustrated as I felt. “This is just stupid. Why does no one else realize how absurd that sounds? The Machine can’t think for itself, right? How can it possibly decide when the time is appropriate to fix itself?”
“Things are going to keep getting worse,” he said quietly. His eyes were serious, dark as he stared blindly over my shoulder. “The end is coming soon.”
Those words stuck in my gut. “No,” I said. “It can’t be.”
But I knew with everything inside myself that it was true. We weren’t going to make it. Our society would sit in its nice, separate little pods, drinking fetid water and eating spoiled food, waiting for the Machine to fix itself. Because when you worshiped technology, when you let it master you instead of being the master, this was what happened.
This utter, sickening dependence. The very thing I’d been fighting against with increasing passion for a long time now.
I sat down beside him. People were dying, were going to keep dying because they couldn’t and didn’t think for themselves any longer. A sense of foreboding tickled up my spine. How much worse was it going to get for all of us?
My hands were clammy so I wiped them on my pants. Then I took a close look at what I was wearing. “This…this isn’t what I had on,” I whispered, looking over at Marshal.
His face burned red. “I had to change you out of your other outfit. I kept you as concealed as possible when I did so. But your clothing was ripped and needed repair. Though it’s highly unlikely that’s going to happen now,” he added sardonically.
I should have been mortified at the thought of him seeing me like that. But instead, I was grateful that Marshal had taken care of me. With sore arms I reached over and gave him a gentle hug. “Thank you,” I whispered. “And thank you for being a gentleman.”
He shook his head, his mouth brushing against my brow. “Of course. But I’d better head back to my pod for a bit. I need to talk to Kuno and let him know you’re okay. I also want to talk to others and see if I can learn anything new.”
I nodded, leaning back to look into his eyes. Deep wells of emotions, radiating so much unfiltered feelings to
me. For me. I couldn’t help but respond to it. To be thankful that regardless of the insanity around us, regardless of our world crumbling, Marshal was here with me.
Pressing a kiss to my forehead, he got up and waved then left.
I touched the spot he’d kissed, wishing I could mark my skin right there so everyone would know how I felt. With a sigh I put those thoughts aside to focus on the bigger issue at hand. The Machine.
How was Hanson doing? A sudden urge to see his small face, to talk to him, filled me. I moved over to my chair and pulled up the public nursery on my screen.
A young girl, probably aged ten or eleven, popped on the screen. Her hair was a shocking shade of blond I’d rarely seen. Almost white. “Hello?”
“Where is your instructor?” I pressed my lips together, trying to suppress my instantaneous flash of worry.
“I’m sorry, but she’s not feeling well at the moment, and the other instructors are with the kids trying to find spots for them to sleep,” the girl said, overly polite. “Is there someone else I can get for you?”
“Actually, I’d love to talk to my brother. His name is Hanson, and he’s—”
“I know who he is.” Her face stayed emotionless but there was a definite smile in her voice. “He sits in my row. Hold on.” A flash of blond hair as she whipped around, and then she was gone.
In the background I could see kids milling about, some crying with nervous little whimpers. Part of my heart broke. I was old enough to understand what was going on. They must be absolutely confused. Maybe I could talk to Hanson and let him know what to say to them. Ease their fears a little.
It took a couple of minutes but Hanson finally arrived. He gave me a nod in greeting. “Hi, Cally.”
Ten Days Page 14
