“From my recollection, you need to eject the sunset key. Once it’s out, it’ll shut down.” Another bout of turbulence rocked the room. “Hurry! Over.”
Margo turned toward the pedestal, walked toward it, and as she approached it the large monitor in front of her came to life with a simple emote of a frowning face. As she placed her hand on the only button surrounding the cube, Talos’ voice rumbled into the room. “Don’t…”
She pressed the button and found it did nothing. She jammed it multiple times and again, nothing. Glaring at the monitor, she said, “Talos, eject the cube.”
“I don’t want to die.”
In that moment of madness as the room screamed with alarms and the machine she stood inside of was falling apart, Margo thought of her mother’s tree, her father’s smile, and the sunsets that would bathe their house. Seeing no other option, she cracked her gloved knuckles, and gripped the cube. Immediately she felt shocks of electricity shoot up her arms, but she gritted through the pain and kept pulling. A slight shift in the cube gave Margo a spark of hope, and although the searing pain was increasing, she raised one of her boots and used it to push off of the panel in front of her. There was a sudden crack, and the skin around her hands began to split open as muscle and sinew leaked out into the air. Mercifully, Margo only felt like she was on fire for a moment before her world went black.
Above, the only thing Catcher and Zip heard was the scream.
Chapter 17- Hi, my name is...
Margo’s head throbbed as a cool breeze swept over and rustled the moldy canvas tent that surrounded her. Her arms instinctively pushed her torso up as a long, tired sigh exited her lungs. She hauled her legs over the side of the cot that was holding her bedroll. She could feel the gauze wrapped around the top part of her head as she turned toward the entrance of the tent. Her left ribs hurt a bit, and upon further investigation she found them to be wrapped up in gauze as well.
It was then she noticed her hands. They were bound in large padded mittens that appeared to be covered in a shiny material. “I’m the creature from the crypt.”
A shiver shot up her spine, forcing the patient to wrap herself in her bedroll. Absently, she imagined she looked like a giant crab as she pulled the flap of the tent open to reveal a smouldering campfire. Her eyes adjusted to the cold light and began to take in more and more of the scene around her. Just beyond the fire the walker that she, Catcher, and ZiP used to chase down Talos stood tall against the bustling trees that surrounded it. As she made her way onto the cool grassy ground, the giant machine turned its rectangular face toward her, and with its giant feet, approached her like a curious animal. An audible click could be heard as the walker spoke with a very clear and concise voice, “You are awake Margo Flint.”
Still trying to get used to the idea of this machine being around, Margo pulled the hexagonal patterned bedroll tighter around herself. “Yes.”
“You were unconscious for three days. ZiP and Catcher had been tending to your wounds.”
“Where are they now?”
“At the Pipsqueak crash site. They left after you were stabilized. I was assigned to watch over you in their stead.”
“Oh… thanks?”
“No thanks is needed. It is my duty.”
Margo sat on one of the logs beside the fire and stared at the giant machine. Its legs and frame were more clearly visible to her now in the muted light outside than they had been in the dank darkness that was The Zenith’s hold. Details of the machine included its metal frame work that met with organic looking strands of muscle along its legs in a seamless transition that made it hard to differentiate where one material started and the other stopped. Its rectangular cabin overhung its legs as its two arms hung in a slack and relaxed stance. “The wonders and horrors of this place are nothing that I ever could have predicted.” Waiting to hear a comeback from the walker, her comment was met with silence, to which she asked, “How are you doing, from when we were hit by Talos?”
“My movement was hindered temporarily as ZiP was able to procure a new leg from the hold of The Zenith. I am now back to 90% systems go.
“90%?”
“The ammunition spent for the driller gun is not able to be found. Thus leaving the recharable pulsar rifle as my only offensive weapon.”
Margo nodded at the machine’s answer and then asked, “What is your name, walker?”
“I am designated Valor Path Model QWTY-775. I do not have a name.”
She nodded and said, “Yes you do, Quirty.”
“Is this the callsign you wish to assign to me?”
“Yes.”
“Callsign recorded.” A small satellite dish on top of Quirty turned toward the east. “ZiP and Catcher are requesting our presence at the crash site.”
The entrance hole in the side of the machine’s leg pulled opened and as Margo made her way to it she asked, “How are you able to move without a human at the helm?”
“When my pilot needs my stewardship, I need no instruction. I cannot fight without a human hand, but I can guard on my own when it is assigned to me.”
Chapter 18- Pieces
It wasn’t the view Margo expected as Quirty parted the trees that led to the clearing where she and Catcher had left Pipsqueak.
Now all that was left in the spot was a blackened circle surrounding the torched frame of a gyrocopter. The blades and rotor were struggling to hold themselves from the one place they were never meant to touch, the ground. ZiP was leaning against the now seperated power core as Margo lowered herself down from Quirty. ZiP was clearly in a conversation with Catcher, who was plugged into the core. The soldier turned toward Margo as her feet touched the dirt. Margo’s eyebrows winced sympathetically; ZiP’s left arm was missing. “Good, you lived.”
“That was never in question. Margo, how are you feeling?”
“I questioned it, been three days. I heard teens sleep forever, didn’t think I’d actually witness it.” Margo looked between the two artificial beings, walked over to ZiP, and hugged the metal man. The robot’s arm shot up in surprise as its head panned between Catcher and his current situation. “What… what do I do?”
“You could try hugging her back. Just go easy on the ribs.”
“I’m afraid I might crush her. My pressure sensors aren’t the best.”
A shaky voice leaked from Margo’s stuttering mouth, “I...I’m so sorry I didn’t listen to you. I shouldn’t have taken anything from the camp...” She pulled herself back and looked up at the long brimmed hat that ZiP was wearing. “...I, I..”
ZiP held up his remaining hand and held up a finger in a waiting motion. “You broke protocol. And if you were enlisted, I might have shot you for insubordination.” The robot looked between his crowd of two and continued, “Joking… maybe.”
She looked past the soldier at the wreckage. The wobbling of the metal in the wind just echoed the sadness in her heart.
Catcher asked, “ZiP, can you get me into my carrying case and give me to Margo?” Sliding him into his blue carrying case, he handed the A.I. to the bewildered teen who took him in hand instinctively, but never stopped looking at the wreckage. “We suspect that one of Talos’ shots cut this way and that’s how Pipsqueak was hit.” The A.I. looked at her distraught face and said, “We are not able to return home the way we came. We’ll have to find another way there.”
“I was only supposed to be gone for a few weeks…”
“That timeline is a bit longer now.”
“How much longer?”
“I don’t know.”
She glanced down at the case’s camera lens as a small tear streamed down her face. “What… what are we going to do? Dad is going to kill me.”
“If he could do that from home, I would find that to be most impressive.” A small trembling smile was all that he could get from her at that moment, but for Catcher that was enough. “You mustn't let this dominate your thoughts. We will find a way home again. The core is in fine shape, it just n
eeds a vessel to be mounted. We were able to scavenge food, the Girsh rifle, and the flight controls from the cockpit. Somehow, we will get you home, even if we have to build our way back.”
Margo pulled the A.I. close to her and squeezed the case tightly. “Thank you Catcher, it’s just that Pip was a family heirloom.” She then glanced at her family’s flag that sat folded on top of the core. She walked over to it and with her padded gloves she unfurled it to find that while the material was smudged in dirt and had some light burns along the edges, that it was still in one piece. “A bit battered. Aren’t you?”
“I was there when your grandfather made Pipsqueak. He made it the best he could and when it came time, your father modified it the best he could for you. Even though their efforts made Pipsqueak into what it was, do you know what made Pip so special?” She shook her head. “What made Pip special was its core. Unlike every other power core at home, this one was unique because it was made by Electrist Stavory.”
The name of her hero cut the sadness in her heart as she stammered to say, “St..Stavory, made this?” She pointed at the core. “And you didn’t tell me?”
“I was afraid if you ever knew that you would never take a chance with Pip. You’d treat it like a piece of glass and that is not what Stavory wanted with this core. Also, you never asked.”
“First you were sparked by her, then she made this core and gifted it to us. Why would you hide all of this from me? Why tell me now? I am not a fragile thing Catcher! Stop using that as an excuse. I am tired of it.”
A softness entered his voice as he said, “No, you are very fragile my dear. We all are, but if we constantly fracture ourselves we will eventually be too broken to fix. Of course, the opposite of this is true too, because if we live in fear of being broken we will never have lived in the first place. I figured you would have been too careful of both me and the core and frankly I didn’t want that for you. Neither did your father. We assumed that you’d cherish rather than utilize, and for that I do apologize, we were wrong. You deserve more respect than that.”
Margo smiled warmly and replied, “It’s okay, Catcher.
“When one is wrong, there is no sense in staying wrong.”
“Always have a Resh quote at the ready, huh?”
“He was a good thinker.”
She turned and stared that the circular core with awe in her eyes as she said, “What did Stavory want with it? Why give to my family? We’re just junkers.”
“I am going to butt in here, who is this Stavory and why does this matter? We got your engine, we can build another whirly bird!”
Margo turned and said, “Electrist Stavory was one of the most gifted electrists that ever came out of Artsiv. She didn’t just reignite or fix things, she made things from scratch based on designs that were hers alone. What made her special was that she was an artificial being. To say she was simply an A.I. in a body was be to downplay how important she was to us. She was her own person and a talent like hers hasn’t been in existence since.”
“What happened to her?”
“No one knows, she just vanished one day.”
“As to your question Margo, I don’t know why she chose your family to use this core. All I know is that it was the most valuable part, and your father knows this.”
From her bedroll shell Margo straightened up purposefully as she said, “Then let’s get it loaded up on Quirty.”
“Quirty?”
The walker stepped forward and said, “That is my name.”
“Good name.” ZiP pushed himself off of the core and began rolling it toward the walker. “Let’s get this loaded.”
“How did you lose your arm?”
“Had to ram our way into the comm link on top of Talos’ shoulders, took a toll.” He held up his remaining hand, stopping the apology about to come out of Margo’s mouth. ZiP pointed toward the missing space. “I’ve replaced my arms and legs so many times I can’t even keep track. Well I think I did keep track, but I replaced some of those times with the data from the last few days.” He waved away the sidetracking. “I’ll find a replacement arm, somewhere. Besides, I’ll only need one arm to take out that last Rys soldier. Makes the story that much better when I tell it later. Not that the act of losing the arm was anything borin’ to begin with, it was way cooler than how these pieces are usually lost.”
“Usually?”
“Time.” He then pointed toward the steel hill that had formed across the valley. It was the broken and smoldering remains of Talos. “That’s why Talos fell apart. Lack of maintenance. Also, it wasn’t built to last…” ZiP tapped his chest. “...unlike myself.”
Margo chuckled and shook her head at ZiP’s endless self-confidence. Her body was still aching though as she made her way back to Quirty. “You’re still going to go after the Rys soldier?”
“Of course, he is my mission, and I cannot abandon that.”
“Even though Talos had been lying to you? It wasn’t HQ. Why continue with this mission?”
ZiP pointed at his dented chest plate. “I don’t need to be told what is real when I felt it.”
She looked over at the heaping mound of metal, then back to ZiP, Quirty, and focused on Catcher. “I cannot believe that the Before Ones made all of you.”
“Some of us are better than others.”
“True, I thought originally that Talos was malfunctioning, but when it admitted it outright lied to me…” She shook her head a bit. “I never thought I would run into an A.I. that would actively lie to further its own gains. Why would they make it like that?”
“Same reason they made me the way they did and Fletcher here, to do a job. Some jobs aren’t as nice as others, so designs get changed. Talos was made to act as ‘shock and awe’ while maintaining order through subterfuge and misinformation. It’s driving directive was to lie.”
“Why would they make an entity that actively lies? That can inflict harm for the sake of it?”
“To have an advantage? I dunno, high level logistics was never my forte.”
“They just seemed so wise…”
“I’ve always seen the Before Ones as clever people. Yes, they made us and had wonderous technology, but cleverness eventually runs out over time. If cleverness doesn’t convert into wisdom then the world falls, and so was the fate of the Before Ones. They were human and humans aren’t always wise.”
“Then are we doomed to repeat their same mistakes? To end the world?”
“Humanity is an iterative species. Each generation doing something different than the last. Sometimes it works, sometimes not, and even though some choices can cause problems down the line they are safe because those problems are made temporary through the passage of time. You need only look at yourself as proof, Margo. If the Before Ones truly ended the world, would you be standing here today?”
She mulled the thought over in her mind. “I guess I never really thought about it that way.”
“I’ve been in Artsiv for a long time, I’ve seen brilliant and stupid people make choices that many of its citizens grapple with to this day. I never put much stock in ‘the end of the world’ because what ended? Of course, some things have stopped, some lives ended, but for worse or better time always marches on.”
A strong resolve crept up from inside Margo that made its way onto her face; “That’s why we came here, to show everyone that there wasn’t an end to anything.” She nodded to herself and then asked Catcher, “I have a question, how did you two get on top of Talos?”
“We… shot ourselves out of a cannon.”
She turned toward the artificial lifeforms and asked, “You did what?”
“It was, at that moment, the best option.”
“Plus, I’ve always wanted to do it!”
She laughed and as she tried to pull the bedroll tighter around herself she remembered she was wearing the mittens still and her head was still bandaged. “Catcher, can you reflect my image?”
From the lens a light projected into her ey
es showing her exact face in miniature. Margo reached up and began to unwrap the bandage around her head. It revealed a two-inch cut that pulled from the right corner of her forehead and disappeared into her hairline. “That cut should heal fine. The biogel will take care of that. ZiP applied the medipatch to your ribs as well. They were heavily bruised, but most of your bandages are precautionary so you could sleep without bumping or aggravating those areas…”
“Thanks Catcher, you can end the projection.” Margo then held up her mittens as another breeze played with her short black hair. “Your hands… are in fine working order, according to the medical scan ZiP ran on you. Erm, visually speaking though...”
She pulled off the left mitten.
From her forearm to the tops of her fingertips were purple scars that could only be described as strikes of lightning etched into her skin. The bolts branched like the roots of a tree across her olive skin and circled around knuckles. Her eyebrows shot up in surprise and as she pulled out her right hand, she found it carried similar markings. “The gel sped up the healing process, but the tissue damage was extensive. I’m sorry Margo. I thought we might...”
“Don’t be.” Her voice was firm and comfortable as she looked toward her friends with an expression of determination. “I’m not.” She glanced at the clear gel that covered her arms. As a cold wind swept over them, goosebumps formed in the sections of skin that weren’t affected by the electricity. “I earned these and I’m glad for it. Every scar has a tale to it, right?”
A spot of cheer entered the Catcher’s synthesized voice, “And every tale is a chapter in your story.”
“And when your story is complete, your body spent…” She studied the lightning scars and traced the ones on her left arm with her right hand. “...the story of your life is left open for others to see.”
“Your mother was a wise one.”
“Plus, you can act like you’re a wizard that shoots lightning out of your fingertips!”
Margo Flint and the Last Soldier Page 11
