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by Robison Wells

Page 19

 

  It was Birdman who answered. “We already took our risk by hiding you here. ” He pointed to Becky. “And it looks like we fulfilled our part of the bargain. Now we want you to escape so you can get us out of here. ”

  “It’ll still be a while before she can travel,” I said.

  “You don’t have to leave yet,” Jane said quickly.

  I looked at her, but she refused to meet my eyes.

  Back at Maxfield, I’d thought she’d been giving up, that she was scared. Now I realized it was because the real Jane, the Jane here at the fort who was giving that android her emotions, was resigned. She’d rather face the unknown of adulthood in another prison than risk her life in an escape.

  Lily was right. No one was trying to escape. Jane had given up; Harvard was crazy; Birdman was only planning for when he got too old and had to leave.

  I’d been wasting my time.

  We sat in awkward silence for several minutes watching the flames flicker and pop, leaving a trail of sparks winding up toward the dimming sky. I didn’t think I’d ever sat around a campfire before. Back in Pittsburgh we’d occasionally started a fire in a metal trash can in the winter, but this was the closest I’d ever come to camping.

  “Want to know how it works?” Harvard said, breaking the silence and changing the subject.

  “How what works?” I glanced at Birdman and he rolled his eyes.

  “How Maxfield works,” Harvard said.

  That surprised me. “You know?”

  Birdman answered, his voice annoyed and tired. “He guesses. ”

  “I hypothesize,” Harvard corrected. “So, here’s the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question. ”

  Jane laughed a little, but it wasn’t annoyed, like Birdman. It almost sounded relieved. “One thing you’ll have to get used to. Every conversation with Harvard ends up with this question. ”

  “Because it’s the most important thing we need to figure out,” he said.

  “Why we’re here?” I guessed.

  “No, no, no! We know why we’re here. We’re here so they can test the androids. We’re here because of the neural link, and you guys at the school are props. ”

  “Props?”

  “Yeah,” Harvard said, seeming to ignore the callousness of his statement. “Maxfield needs something for their robots to interact with. One of the big goals, I assume, is to fool the humans at the school. ”

  Birdman shot me a cruel look and winked. “You and Jane know something about that, right?”

  Jane shot him a quick look, then stood and walked away.

  “No, the question isn’t why we’re here,” Harvard said. “That’s been answered. The question is: who is Maxfield?”

  I shrugged.

  “Well,” he said, “what do we know about them? Three big things. First, we know they started out here with this fort, and we know this fort is old—at least a hundred and fifty years. ”

  “You assume,” Birdman said.

  “These are all assumptions,” he said, unfazed. “We know that at some point they expanded out of the fort. Benson, you told me about the pipe that Becky found—that school is old. Maxfield has been here a long time. ”

  He stood up, gesturing while he talked. “Second, this level of technology is ridiculous. Just think of all the crazy things they had to figure out. They had to build a robot that, structurally, was a perfect match for a human. Then they had to figure out the artificial intelligence—not only to make the robot act like a human, but to think that it’s human, that it’s real. ”

  I nodded. “And they had to make them look real. ”

  “Yes!” he said, pointing at me. “And it’s more than just looking real—the dupes have real skin. They bleed. They eat and sleep and breathe and think. They’re more than just robots that look human—they’re like artificial humans. How does that work?”

  Birdman tapped on his forehead. “And there’s the implant. ”

  Harvard spun to face him. “The implant is crazy. And what about a power source? What’s keeping those dupes running for years? They don’t plug themselves in at night. ”

  “I get it,” I said. “They’re high-tech. ”

  “They’re more than high-tech,” Harvard exclaimed. “They’re impossibly high-tech. ”

  Birdman shook his head and sighed. “This is where you start taking things with a grain of salt. ”

  Harvard was indignant. “What?”

  “You’re smart,” Birdman said with a laugh. “But the last grade you completed was what? Eighth?”

  “Ninth,” he said. “And that doesn’t matter. You don’t have to go to college to know that a jet is more high-tech than a biplane. ”

  “What’s the third thing?” I asked. “They’ve been here a long time, they’re high-tech, and what’s number three?”

  “Money,” Birdman said, standing up. He kicked one of the logs, rolling it toward the center of the fire. “They built this place and the school, and they own all this land, and they feed us all, and they pay for whatever makes the androids work. They have a lot of money. ”

  “So what does this tell you?” Harvard asked. I could tell he’d rather I ask him to enlighten me, but I wanted to take a guess.

  “The technology doesn’t matter,” I said, “because of the money. Anyone with the money could have the technology. ”

  Harvard frowned. “No, the technology’s still important, because it’s so impossible. ”

  Birdman smiled. “If you’d never seen that jet, you’d think it was impossible, too. Just because you don’t understand it doesn’t mean it’s impossible. ”

  “The time is what’s most important,” I said. “Because we know that whoever is behind this isn’t a single person. It’s a group. Anybody here at the beginning would be long dead by now. ”

  Harvard looked like he still wanted to talk about the technology, but he grudgingly nodded. “Right. We’re not talking mad scientist, or crazy rich guy. We’re talking about an organization. ”

  “Government,” Birdman said. “Has to be. ”

  “That’s my guess,” Harvard said. “This is Area 51 a hundred years before Area 51. Government testing. ”

  Birdman kicked at the fire again, angrier. “It should be pretty obvious. This is a fort. U. S. military. And who else would be able to keep this huge area a secret? Why doesn’t the forest service come through here once in a while?”

  He was right. It should have been pretty obvious. I wasn’t a historian, but I couldn’t think of a group that could fit. Other ideas ran through my head—the Masons or the Illuminati or a dozen other conspiracies—but that stuff was only in the movies. Then again, so were androids.

  “It still doesn’t make sense,” I said.

  Birdman turned to leave. “Screw sense. C’mon, Harvard. ”

  Before they left, Birdman looked at me. “Here’s my most important question: If it is the government, do you think we’ll ever get help? Even if we escape?”

  He didn’t wait for an answer, but strode off to the meeting room, Harvard a few steps behind him.