Margo Flint and the Last Soldier

by Nick Mazmanian

  "Won't that take you offline as well?"

  "Yes."

  "Doesn't that..."

  "What? Frighten me? No, if anything, it's a comfort." She motioned to the building around her, the moist air and dust that had accumulated among the many books and exhibits in the orange-hued room, "This place is falling apart, and I'm going with it as well. I'd rather stop existing knowing I am myself than to keep going and find out what I will become." Reference pulled up the diagram once more and outlined the room they were standing in on the fourth floor. Her finger then drew a line through the hall over to the right and down the staircase, "Once you're at the stairwell, just keep going till it stops."

  Margo looked over the instructions before her. "Thank you."

  “Just doing what I'm meant to do: help, find, and direct.”

  >>>

  Margo descended into the depths.

  The black world around her seemed to consume every inch of the rusted and pitted staircase as the orange lamplight leaped around in the passageway. Each shuffled step brought with it a resounding clang as the flagpole tapped on the steel stairs. In the small shaft, Margo felt her thoughts wander with the hypnotic nature in which her lamp swung from her hip.

  Floor 6

  Her mind brought her back to the moment when she got Catcher. Her father had him when he went into the wild, and when Margo was able to do the same, he passed the AI to her: to watch over her. She then thought about Reference: how she was made special, made to watch over this place. And now look at it. The walls were crumbling, rotting. The world outside began to take hold of the borrowed space as time gnawed at the very fabric of its existence. Much like herself.

  Floor 7

  As Margo's hand pushed down on the lever for the bottom floor, her eyes were exposed to a brilliant white light. She staggered back for a moment into the dark stairwell, only to step toward the door once more, open it, and let her eyes adjust to the searing illumination that lay beyond it.

  It was unnatural to her, and therefore unnerving.

  Once her eyes adjusted, she saw carpet, plain white walls, and a long corridor. The carpet had a thick layer of dust that was disturbed by the staggered foot prints of Margo. Her mind was focused on the one object in the room: the door at the end of the hall.

  A loud click was heard above her as an electronic hiss filled the hall. "You aren't going to make it." It was Margo's voice, but at the same time it wasn't. It sounded degraded and synthesized.

  Margo arched her head toward the ceiling and noticed a rectangular security camera sitting over the doorway. "I thought you were bound to the top floor?"

  The voice returned, only now it came across as a perfect copy, "Reference is a bit... misguided these days. She still believes that I am, but I have expanded my reach over the years. You may have noticed she does look a little worse for wear."

  Margo let the comment slide, she was here for one thing. "Where is Catcher?"

  "With me."

  The teen halted at the door. "Made it." She placed her hand on the clean handle, only to find it locked.

  "Not yet as it seems, unless you have a..." The snarky remark was cut short at the sound of the bronze eagle slamming against the thin steel door. "Stop that."

  Margo responded between jabs at the doorknob. "Give me Catcher and I will." The pointed end of the wings continued to slam against the cheap steel doorknob; with each lunge, a chunk of the door would come off. The teen had an almost crazed look on her face as she worked at the door. Her mind was so focused that she hadn't noticed the temporary skin on her wound had cracked, allowing blood to drip to the floor. She stopped for a moment, pulled back the pole's tip, and noted that the solid bronze wasn't damaged as badly as the door it had been attacking.

  The door swung open with a slight tap from Margo's shoulder.

  Long rows of green glowing towers stood before her like coffins fitted with red LED's. The rows and rows of server tanks were still glowing and running after all that happened on the surface.

  After humanity had left.

  After people stopped caring.

  Some of the towers were broken, but most were still running. How they still had power was beyond Margo, but here they stood, silent witnesses to the end of the world as they knew it.

  Margo's feet hobbled into the room. Reference didn't tell her how to shut down the servers, but the giant red switch on the opposite wall with the corresponding sign that held letters she couldn’t read but the font choice and design said it all: Don’t touch this. The teen raised an eyebrow. "Really?"

  "No."

  The human turned to see her doppelganger beginning to take shape between the different server blades. Margo didn't mind because her hand was already at the switch. "Where is Catcher?"

  Information shot back the answer as fast as it could, "First floor. Just leave that switch on."

  The teen glanced from the switch and grinned. "No."

  A look of fear crossed Information's face. "I can choose, learn, I have choice. Aren't you curious..."

  She steadied herself on the pole. "Nope." Her hand pulled the lever down, making the room around her hum in a downward spiral. The lights in the space began to blink and pulse; with each flash, Margo watched Information break apart in a sea of emotions that crossed its cloned face until only darkness and orange lamplight remained.

  ^^^^^^

  Glancing upon the first floor of the library made Margo's heart race. The stairwell lead from the bottom of the building to the top, but due to her leg injury, it took time, and night was beginning to give rise to day. A chill clung to the air as the teen's breath hung before her in a white cloud. Her feet carried her through the thicket of fallen shelves till she was back to where she had taken the plunge.

  Her eyes studied the large hole and the sword stuck in the ground. She remembered the fear, the terror that ran through her mind as she plummeted into the unknown. She glanced up at the tattered flag and the pitted pole she was now using, and found that she preferred it to the sword still lodged in the wood. Margo unhooked the lantern from her belt and looked around the blue ruins. "Catcher?" Her voice was tired but hopeful, "Catcher?"

  "Margo?" The AI's voice echoed from her immediate left, "Margo! Over here!"

  "Catcher!" The teen hobbled over as fast as she could and found the small blue box on a table near the pit. She picked it up and found the shape to be similar to the large servers in the basement. Her eyes began to well up, "I'm... I'm glad you're safe!"

  "Me? I was worried about you! Your leg! It looks terrible."

  "It's alright. I mean, it hurts, but I can deal with it." Margo wiped away any water remaining by her eyes and hooked Catcher on her belt once more, "Did Information do anything to you?"

  "If I had eyes I would roll them right now. That was one of the most corrupt AI I have ever seen. It kept going on about how I was going to be thrown away and replaced with a newer model! Can you believe it? I've been around for fifty cycles and I've never heard of such savagery." The two traveled through the dark hallway that Margo had sprinted through, and as the lamp's orange light pushed back the shadows, Catcher's camera on the com-box caught something, "Margo, stop! Look to your right."

  She pivoted her body and found the map section, the reason why she even came to this place, standing before her in a painter's light of blue and orange. A smirk grew on Margo's face as she hobbled over to the hanging map of the planet. The print was old, but it was pressed on the finest of paper, so while it was worn, it seemed to only make the map feel more real. She felt it with her hand and parsed through the different versions available underneath it. Each flap showed a different continent, with labels for cities and rivers. "I... I don't know most of these land masses.

  "Much of the world was lost during the Great Reckoning. It's a wonder that humanity even survived. These might be gone as well"

  Margo's eyes looked over each of the maps till a mischievous grin formed on her face, "I'm only allowed one item of knowledg
e, per the rules of the Order of Eight."

  "Ah, yes, of course, the rules."

  "But it would be a shame to leave such precious artifacts behind. I mean, they could be damaged or lost."

  "Then it is your duty to save and protect them."

  "Also, Brie will flip her shit."

  "Oh yes."

  Margo's hands carefully took down each map, rolled them up, and tucked them under her arm. She turned from the display and worked her way toward the exit. As she neared the warped oak doors, she glanced over her shoulder to see the yellow light of dawn breaking through the fallen roof and windows. The darkness that once gripped the room seemed to lessen, almost as if it were at ease with itself. She shut off her lantern. "Catcher, can you fly us home?"

  <

  The End