The Last Human

by Lee Bacon

  The van’s back door was still hanging open. Any HunterBot that passed by the van would have a clear view inside. A clear view of us.

  But closing the door was not an option. That would create too much sound, alert them to our hiding spot.

  All we could do was wait. Remain silent. And hope the other robots did not walk past.

  Click. Click. Click.

  The HunterBots were getting closer.

  I listened to their steady approach. Probabilities flickered through my mind like fireflies.

  Probability of being discovered: 86.4 percent (and rising)

  Probability of avoiding capture: 13.6 percent (and falling)

  The math was against us.

  The inside of the van echoed with the harsh sound of claws. One of the HunterBots was especially close. Only a few meters away.

  I listened as it stalked closer.

  Slowly/Steadily.

  I anticipated what would happen next. A metal snout coming into view. A pair of blood-red eyes turning their deadly glare in our direction. Sharp teeth snapping together, a vicious warning not to move.

  Except none of that happened.

  Instead, the clicking suddenly stopped. A curtain of silence had fallen outside. In the sudden quiet, the van filled with questions.

  What was going on? What were the HunterBots waiting for?

  An instant later, a sound crashed through the brush. This was not the precise mechanical stride of a machine. This was the flurried dash of a fleeing animal.

  The deer.

  I remembered the way it had bolted out of the bushes earlier. Was this the same deer? I could not be certain. But the sudden burst of sound had obviously caught the attention of the Hunter-Bots. All at once, they set into motion. A mayhem of clicking claws. All headed in the same direction. Away from our van. Toward the animal in the bushes.

  I did not know how long the HunterBots would be gone, and I did not wish to find out. Poking my head out of the van, I scanned our surroundings. No sign of any other robots.

  As quietly as possible, our group exited the van.

  I knew which way the HunterBots had gone. I led our group in the opposite direction. Into the cluster of trees that stretched along the side of the highway.

  For now—at least—I was not thinking about where we were going. I had only one destination in mind.

  Away/Away/Away.

  01001110

  Everything was green. As if the color settings in my visual ports had malfunctioned, painting the world a thousand different shades of the same color.

  The deep jade of vines twisted around the trunks of trees and dangled from above.

  The lime-tinted glow of sunlight pressed against the leaves overhead, trying to peek down at us.

  The rich emerald of moss clung to everything. To the ground. To the stones. To the trunks of trees.

  Even the air seemed to wear the color green.

  It was everywhere.

  We traveled several kilometers through the forest, listening closely for the sounds of HunterBots, until we were certain there were no other robots around. Only then did Emma climb out of Ceeron’s backpack.

  “How much farther?” she asked.

  “We are getting close,” I said.

  We stumbled through the forest. Ducking under vines, stepping over fallen trees, tripping over the twisted fingers of roots.

  A sharp branch snagged the bottom of my flower-print shirt. As I untangled myself, I wondered why I was still wearing this outfit. This silly shirt and hat.

  Then a memory lit up my mental circuitry.

  Day[1]. Looking out at the ruins of humanity.

  Why is all this still here? I had asked. Why not bulldoze these structures? They serve no purpose.

  The voice of Parent_1 echoed in my memory drive. They are a reminder.

  The memory ended, leaving something else in its place. A theory. Perhaps this shirt served a similar purpose. It was a reminder.

  Soon we would arrive at Emma’s destination. I did not know what we would discover there, but I had done the math, and the probabilities all pointed to the same result.

  We would never see each other again.

  If this was the case, then at least I would have a souvenir of our brief/unexpected/strange/distressing/stimulating time together. At least I would have this silly shirt and hat. At least I would have a reminder.

  01001111

  I tracked our movements on my internal digital map. Our GPS positioning blinked blue. Our destination glowed red.

  We were almost there.

  Somewhere, hidden deep within all this green, was the thing we had been searching for. The point we had traveled 47.2 kilometers to reach.

  “What do you think we will find when we get there?” Ceeron asked.

  “Impossible to say with certainty,” I replied.

  Ceeron picked up a dead tree in our path and tossed it out of the way. “There are no signs of human civilization anywhere. Why would the map lead so far into the wilderness?”

  The question went unanswered. Our voices dropped away when a new sound arose. A distant hum that joined the chorus of squawking birds and chirping insects. An engine somewhere overhead.

  The four of us glanced up.

  Another drone.

  We could not see it, but we could hear it.

  We could only hope the thick ceiling of leaves/branches kept us from being spotted.

  We waited until the sound of the drone faded. Then we moved again.

  Emma was strangely quiet this whole time. I analyzed the reason for this. The meaning behind her silence. Was she nervous? Or excited? Was she afraid of what she would find? Or of not finding anything at all?

  My analysis was inconclusive. I did not know the truth wrapped up inside Emma’s silence. Perhaps she did not either.

  I checked the GPS. “Almost there. Whatever it is—it should be at the top of that hill.”

  I pointed to where the landscape jutted upward at a 52-degree angle. The last obstacle standing between us and our goal.

  We began to climb, each in our own way. SkD took a winding path up the hill, zigging and zagging like a mechanical mountain goat.

  Ceeron used a massive tree as leverage to lift itself up. Once it got to the top, it reached down to help Emma.

  I, on the other hand . . .

  I was not designed with Ceeron’s size. Nor did I come equipped with SkD’s off-road treads. It took me longer to clamber up the hill. Using roots/branches/rocks as handholds/footholds, I awkwardly navigated a slow path upward.

  I was the last to reach the top. Which meant I was the last to discover what the others already knew.

  There was nothing waiting for us at the end of our journey.

  01010000

  The images on SkD’s screen perfectly reflected my thoughts. Questions swarmed my brain. I surveyed our surroundings. We stood in the center of a clearing. A flat square of grass and scraggly bushes, surrounded by trees.

  Nothing else.

  My mind grasped for possibilities. “Maybe . . . Maybe there was something here once. Maybe it was destroyed when humanity was wiped out.”

  SkD traced a path back/forth across the clearing. Ten meters forward, then ten meters back. More question marks scrolled across its screen.

  Emma remained as before. Silent. She moved through the clearing, searching the ground, her expression sharp with purpose. The rest of us were clueless, but Emma seemed to know exactly what she was looking for. A moment later, she found it. Her attention landed on a tangle of bushes. She crouched and picked up . . .

  A rock.

  My confusion multiplied. Was this the reason we had traveled all this way? For a rock?

  Perhaps the rock held some greater significance we were not aware of. I zoomed in for a closer look. Shape: triangular/flat. Size: about as long/wide as my hand. Color: pale gray. Visible markings: none.

  In other words: an ordinary rock.

  “Emma?” My voice was un
certain. “What do you need the rock for?”

  No answer.

  Emma’s mysterious behavior continued. She took the rock to the center of the clearing. Dropped to her knees. And plunged the rock into the ground, pointy end first. She scooped out a small section of soil and tossed it aside.

  It was only then that I finally understood.

  First: Emma was using the rock as a shovel.

  Which meant: She was digging.

  Therefore: Something was buried underground.

  But what?

  My coworkers and I joined in the effort. We did not need stones to dig. Our hard metal fingers plunged into the earth, tossing away the soil. Before long, the ground was littered with holes. Loose dirt and torn grass lay scattered at the edge of the grove.

  “What are we looking for?” I asked.

  Emma responded without looking up. “You’ll know it when you find it.”

  It was an answer, but it was also not an answer.

  “I found something!” Ceeron showed off its discovery: an earthworm. The insect wriggled across its palm. “Is this it? Is this what we are looking for?”

  Emma eyed the earthworm, a slight smile forming on her dirt-smudged face. “Nope. Not it.”

  She went back to digging. So did the rest of us. Clearing away more dirt, our holes growing deeper/wider, until—

  CLANG!

  I did not expect to hear this sound in the middle of nature. The sound of stone hitting metal. And it was followed by another sound.

  A soft, human gasp.

  Emma reached into the hole she had been digging, brushing dirt away with her hand.

  “It’s here,” she whispered to herself. “This is it.”

  I peered over her shoulder into the hole. It stretched about as deep as Emma’s arm. At its bottom was a flat metal surface. As we excavated more dirt, the shape of the buried object became clearer. Its edges, its contours. It went deeper into the ground. Much deeper.

  We cleared away the last of the dirt from the metal surface. Finally, I gained a full glimpse of what was buried there.

  An underground hatch.

  01010001

  Hatch. Noun. 1. A small door or opening.

  Verb. 1. Life emerging from within an egg.

  01010010

  The hatch was a solid block of reinforced steel. A heavily armored doorway that led deeper underground.

  “Um. Guys.” Emma hesitated for 2.3 seconds. “There’s . . . something I need to tell you.”

  Ceeron responded, “What is it?”

  She looked up from the hatch. Her gaze sketched a steady path from SkD to Ceeron before finally landing on me.

  She took a deep breath.

  Then she said, “I’m not the last human.”

  01010011

  Beginning. Middle. End.

  This is the formula that most stories take. When we first met, Emma told us what had happened to her. And now—days later—she made a confession:

  Her story was a lie.

  Not all of it. The beginning and middle were the same.

  The underground world. The illness. These parts were true.

  But the end was different.

  Standing over the hatch, Emma told us Version[2] of her story. As she spoke, she aimed her eyes at the ground. She wrapped her words in a nervous hush. Almost a whisper. I turned up my audio ports and listened.

  This is what she said.

  This is the real end to Emma’s story:

  Emma’s underground world was crumbling as illness spread through the bunker, coiling its dark tendrils around everyone.

  Everyone except Emma.

  For some unknown reason, some mystery hidden deep within her programming, Emma was immune to the illness.

  She went to the small/cramped room that she shared with her FamilyUnit.

  Her mother and father were lying on their bunks, their skin pale and drenched in sweat.

  Emma took her mother’s hand. “The doctor said we don’t have the medicine we need. Without it . . .”

  Her voice trailed away, but her unspoken words hung in the air like smoke.

  Without it, there is no cure.

  Without it, the sickness will only get worse.

  Without it, you will die.

  “I have to help.” Emma squeezed her mother’s hand. “I have to leave the bunker to find more medicine.”

  Her mother shook her head. “It’s too dangerous.”

  “It’s the only way,” Emma replied.

  Her mother tried to argue, but all that came was coughing.

  From the top bunk, her father spoke. “Emma. Listen to me.”

  There were dark circles under his eyes.

  His hands were so hot.

  “There’s another bunker,” he said. “About thirty miles from here.”

  He reached into a pouch beside his bed.

  He removed a tattered piece of paper.

  A map.

  Two hand-drawn markings had been added to the map:

  [1] A blue dot.

  (near the top)

  [2] A red dot.

  (near the bottom

  Her father pressed an unsteady finger against the blue dot. “This is where we are now. And this.” His finger moved to the red dot. “This is another bunker. There are other humans here. They went into hiding at the same time we did.”

  Emma stared at the map.

  Her eyes traced the lines of human and geographic landmarks.

  Roads/Cities/Lakes/Rivers/Mountains.

  Her focus zoomed in on the red dot. “I can go there. To the other bunker. Maybe they’ll have medicine. I can bring it back. It’ll make you better.”

  Her father shook his head. “It’s too risky.”

  Emma blinked. “Then why are you giving me the map?”

  “The people in the other bunker—they’ll take you in,” he said. “You can stay with them.”

  “I’m not leaving you,” Emma said.

  But her father insisted. “It’s the only way. There’s nothing here but disease. And soon . . .”

  His voice dropped away. Once again, unspoken words clouded the air.

  And soon everyone will be dead.

  Emma let out a choked sob. She squeezed her father’s hot hand. “I love you.”

  “I love you, too,” he said. “That’s why you have to go.”

  Emma was not going to argue any longer with her father.

  It was only making him weaker.

  Besides: She had already made up her mind.

  She would leave the bunker.

  She would follow the map until she reached the red dot.

  The other bunker.

  She would get the medicine that her FamilyUnit needed, that everyone needed.

  She would bring it back to them.

  The disease would be eliminated.

  Her underground world would be saved.

  She did not tell any of this to her FamilyUnit.

  She knew that would only upset them.

  Instead, she wrapped her arms around her mother’s frail shoulders. She pressed her face against her father’s feverish cheek.

  The family cried together.

  They said goodbye.

  Emma filled a backpack with supplies.

  Water/Food/Compass.

  And the map.

  She opened a metal door that had remained sealed for thirty years.

  She left her bunker.

  And emerged into a new world.

  The sun was like a distant lamp shining in her eyes.

  The breeze was like an invisible fan.

  There were no walls or ceilings.

  The vast openness stretched out all around.

  It made her nervous.

  She almost retreated back into the hatch.

  Like a mouse back into its cage.

  The bunker may have been filled with disease, but it was familiar.

  She hesitated, deciding.

  Then she closed the hatch.

&nb
sp; She concealed it with branches.

  She tightened the straps of her backpack.

  And she set off in the direction of the red dot.

  The other bunker.

  Salvation.

  01010100

  Emma reached the end of her story.

  I stared at her. She stared at the ground.

  Silence for 3.4 seconds.

  Then I spoke. “You said everyone in your bunker was dead. That is a lie. You said you did not know what was at the red dot. That is another lie.”

  Emma’s eyes never left the ground. “I wanted to tell you. I really did. But—”

  “But you said nothing.” My tone was sharp as a blade, cutting through her words. “We helped you, and you kept this secret from us. Why?”

  “Because I was afraid,” she said.

  “Afraid of what?” Ceeron asked.

  “Afraid of what you’d do if you found out there are more of us. More humans.”

  Emma’s hands intertwined like she was attempting to tie her fingers into a knot.

  “I know I should’ve told you sooner.” She spoke through a cracked whisper. “I’m sorry.”

  “Are you truly sorry?” I asked. “Or is this another of your lies?” Emma did not answer.

  I stared at her. “Based upon your past actions, I can only conclude that you are still lying. That you are manipulating us to get what you want.”

  Ceeron placed a heavy hand on my shoulder. “XR—perhaps you are being too hard on her.”

  “Or perhaps I have been too easy on her this entire time. Because of her, I neglected my job. I abandoned my purpose. I kept secrets. I lied to my FamilyUnit. Ever since Emma came into my life, I have behaved in a way that is . . . that is . . .”

  Human

  My memory drive replayed everything I had learned about humans since Day[1]. Every single flaw my FamilyUnit had pointed out to me. Every awful detail from PRES1DENT’s Daily Addresses.

  Humans were unpredictable/illogical/reckless/deceitful/dangerous. And now—so was I.

  Because of Emma.

  I glanced down at the flower-print shirt I was wearing. I was even dressed like a human.

  I no longer wanted this reminder. I ripped the hat from my head and tossed it into the trees. I tried to do the same with the shirt, but only managed to get myself tangled up in it. I had so little experience with human clothing. The fabric twisted in my fingers. My arms were stuck inside the sleeves.