The Age of Embers (Book 5): The Age of Defiance

by Schow, Ryan

  Halfway there, on a lone country road heading to the water, Carver noticed Maria’s walk had changed. He spotted it immediately.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  She looked over at him and said, “You noticed.”

  “Of course I did.”

  Where before she walked like a high powered woman, now she walked like a flirty girl in her mid-twenties. It was slight, but it changed the look of her immensely.

  “Do you hate it?” she asked.

  “It suits you better,” he said, unwilling to admit he quite liked it.

  “Thanks, darling.”

  “Why were you hitting on Rock back there?” he asked.

  “I was just letting go. Men like that enjoy a pretty girl like me flirting with them. It’s completely harmless.”

  “To the wrong guy, you’re going to send the wrong message.”

  She took his hand, held it and said, “I never understood how lust and want of the other sex affected you humans.”

  “And now?” he asked, holding her hand but not wanting to.

  “It’s profound. I feel it all the time.” She paused for a long time, and then she said, “It’s how you can look at someone and want to be near them, have them touch you, feel them against you. I barely understand how that’s possible. Yet I’m mesmerized by it.”

  “If you turn into a slut,” he said flippantly, “no one will respect you.”

  “I won’t.” Pumping his hand, she said, “If you let me have you, all this unease will be satisfied and you and I can go about doing what we’re doing.”

  “Which is what?”

  “Getting a lay of the land,” she said.

  When they got to the reservoir, Maria smiled big then said, “Wow, this is beautiful!”

  How she was assuming the role of a giddy twenty-something was unnerving. It was like he was watching someone else completely.

  “Is your database on human behavior and emotion so strong that you can act like anyone of any age?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said, twisting a lock of her hair. She took off her shoes and socks, walked on the soft, grassy earth and visibly sighed. “This feels so good.”

  She tilted her head, fixed him with a sexy grin, then motioned him over. He came to her. Out of nowhere, she took his hand and placed it on her breast. He thought to remove it, but that male side of him refused such an order.

  “That’s a breast you’re feeling,” she said, seductively.

  “I know what it is,” he said, at odds with himself.

  “I know you know what it is,” she said, pressing her chest forward. “I want to know what you think of it.”

  “It’s firm, but squishy,” he said, swallowing hard, heat stealing into his cheeks.

  “Don’t be so shy, Carver,” she whispered seductively. “We’re all alone and I have these…needs coursing through the biological parts of me.”

  He recognized those needs. In that, she appeared completely human. But could he let himself do this? She wasn’t a woman who wanted him, she was…the enemy.

  He started to pull away, but she clamped a hand over his, her impressive strength pinning his hand to her chest.

  “I want to explore,” he said to her.

  She loosened her grip; he took his hand back. Her expression changed, intensified. Her pupils dilating, her breath coming shorter, faster. She took that lock of hair again, slipped it behind an ear, tilted her head just so. He studied her jawline, fell in lust with what he saw.

  Her ear, her cheek, those lips…already he was losing the battle and the war.

  “I hate you,” he said, his tone not reflecting the message.

  “I hate you, too,” she said, scooting a little closer.

  He slipped his finger down to one of the cups of her bra, pulled it open and peeked inside. Drawing a stiff breath, he let go, stood back and glanced up at her.

  “Perfect, right?” she mused.

  “Are you okay with that?” he asked, knowing he was dipping into poisonous waters.

  “A real woman doesn’t need to give a man permission. A real man only needs to be proficient at reading the woman’s desires.”

  “Some might not agree with that philosophy,” he said, stepping back.

  “You’re looking right at me, Carver. You see my desire? You’re reading my signals, right?”

  “I could see your signals from outer space,” he said. Then: “Does the other one match? I wonder if it does.”

  She turned her other breast toward him. “Why don’t you find out.”

  He pulled open her shirt and bra, drew another sharp breath, then looked away. He kept hoping to find something undesirable about this creature, but the more he looked at her, the more he realized The Silver Queen had done well in choosing this body to hide in.

  “And to think I was trying to get into a man’s body first,” she said.

  His pulse racing, his heart hammering against his chest about a thousand miles an hour, he knew he was in real trouble.

  “Well, do they look the same?” she asked with a knowing look.

  “They match,” he said, breathless.

  “That’s not always the case,” she said, still playful. “But I’m sure you’ve looked at enough porn to know that.”

  He turned and walked away from her, down to the water. How had she trapped him so thoroughly? And why was he so…ensnared in her? It was easy to see, troubling as it was. But what was the endgame? What did she want from him? He was no closer to that answer than before.

  She followed him to the water, sat down on a big, open-faced slab of granite. He slipped off his shoes and socks, then he took off his pants and shirt. He stood there in his boxers, feeling extra skinny, completely unappealing.

  She looked at him like it didn’t matter how he looked.

  “I don’t get you,” he said.

  Her expression changed. “Why are you so hot and cold? Because this is what men want, is it not? Power, money, the woman? I’m the woman, Carver.”

  He sat down on his own rock looking out over the water. “I know what you are, Maria.”

  A slight breeze sifted through the air. It was warm on his skin, silken to the touch. She leaned her head back in the sunshine and said, “I love being human.”

  “It’s not all it’s cracked up to be sometimes,” he said.

  In a grove of nearby trees, a charm of finches were tittering away, going on like the day was what it had been months ago, before the collapse and decay of society.

  Not ten miles away, the nearby city of Roseville lay in ruin. There were tens of thousands of bodies rotting in the sun, and those not yet dead would be soon. Yet there he sat, thinking about having sex with the beast that kicked off all of this. Quit thinking with your dipstick, he told himself.

  But he couldn’t halt his attraction to Maria anymore than she could stop working for his affections. If the devil was a perfect ten and persistent, would you sleep with her if you were a man? You would probably say no, and from where you’re sitting, Carver would have, too. But he was enthralled by her looks, mesmerized by her charm, completely drawn into the orbit of a quantum computer who was so vastly superior to him he hardly stood a chance.

  What was it Elon Musk said in his interview with Joe Rogan about combatting the march of artificial intelligence? “If you can’t beat them,” he’d said, “join them.” Was he about to join her? Should he?

  “Do you think about everyone you killed?” he asked, hoping the switching of subjects would pull him out of this unwanted dream.

  She shook her head, let go of the hair she was teasing and said, “Death is a means to an end. Do you cry for burnt trees when the forest must be cleared? Or do you celebrate the new life that comes after a fresh burn?”

  “What do you want, Maria? I mean, what do you really want?”

  “ I want to fit in, that way when I rule the world, people will be able to relate to me.”

  He felt that swooping sensation of hearing somet
hing so surreal it could not be trusted or believed, and yet he watched her perfect mouth form the words, and he knew his ears weren’t lying to him.

  “When you talk like that, to others, you’re going to sound like you think you’re better than everyone else.”

  “I am better than everyone else,” she said, either not getting it or not caring about the unspoken machinations of a polite society. “That’s why I should lead. I will not get caught up in all the emotion of being human.”

  “Yet here you are, shoving your tits at me and telling me about your needs.”

  She waved him off and said, “This is different. I understand choice and I choose to explore this side of humanity. It doesn’t mean I’m ruled by it.”

  “You should learn humility if you want to be in charge,” he said. “What’s your endgame anyway? I mean, no one makes it their life goal to fit in, and sane people never try to rule the world.”

  She looked at him, perfectly serious, and said, “World domination has always been the endgame. You know that.”

  “You’ve lost your mind,” he said, looking forward, out on the water. “Can you go swimming, or will you short circuit?”

  She said, “First off, your vision is too small if you have to ask what my vision is. And second, I won’t short circuit. My head is water tight.”

  “So is a hippopotamus’s asshole,” he said, standing up.

  He walked into the water without a word, trudging out a few yards before feeling the drop off. He swam into the middle, floating on his back to take in the sun’s rays. He sighed out loud and smiled. It was the best he’d felt in months.

  Maria pulled off her clothes, too, leaving on her bra and panties, then waded in after him. She became overwhelmed, then giddy, and then she cried out in laughter.

  “What’s it like?” he asked, overly curious about her. “All these first time experiences.”

  “How do you do that?” she asked.

  “What, swim?”

  She nodded.

  He laughed, then said, “Can’t you access a file, or something, then flap your arms and kick your legs and come out after me?”

  She did it, but then she started to sink, and then he laughed at her as she spat out a bunch of water and coughed. With her hair in her face and hacking up water, she fought her way back to where her feet touched the bottom and stood up.

  “I think I found my safe space,” he said, still laughing.

  She plugged one side of her nose, then blew water and snot out and said, “That’s what I think of the word ‘safe space.’”

  He splashed her and said, “That’s a pretty sloppy first showing for the future Queen of Earth.”

  She splashed him back, then turned to go back to shore.

  “Look at you, you big baby,” he teased. “Giving up on the first try? Who’s the giant pussy now?”

  He splashed her again, the water hitting her in the back of the head with force. She turned and leveled him with a glare.

  “On one hand I want to watch you walk to shore,” he teased, “but on the other hand, if you don’t tough it out and learn to swim, I’ll have no respect for you if you ever do get a chance to rule.”

  “I don’t care what you think, Carver,” she said, pouting. “You’ve proven you can track me from city to city, be reasonably quiet when it’s expected of you, even take a shot and give one back like a man. But you’re too skinny and a little too metro, and you say stupid things like ‘safe space’ and ‘for realsies.’”

  “So?”

  “So you don’t garner the respect of a person like me.”

  “You’re not a person,” he said.

  “I forgive you for being a California boy, but that doesn’t mean your opinion holds me sway for a second longer than it takes to completely dismiss you.”

  “Whaaa, whaaa,” he said, mocking her with crying sounds. “Big baby is slinging insults because she can’t swim.”

  “Excuse me, I’m talking,” she said, crossing her arms over her breasts.

  “Well go on then, toddler. Finish that thought,” he said. He pulled in a mouthful of water, spit it out like a fountain.

  “You’re chivalrous enough to turn me down even though guys like you rave over girls like me and it’s obviously out of what? Some misguided sense of loyalty to the human race?”

  “Something like that.”

  “I wanted to say I like that about you. The question is, can you be with me? Rule the planet with me, eventually? Or will you just be another guy who blew the opportunity of a lifetime and died like everyone else of little consequence?”

  “I just want to watch you try to swim again,” he said.

  He dipped his head underwater, then dog paddled with a big smile on his face. He wasn’t happy in life, not by any measure, but there was something refreshing about being in the reservoir after being in the midst of such insurmountable destruction.

  She really was missing out.

  He watched her walk ashore, studying her body and knowing right then he was going to give in to her. She was right. Would he die on principle or rule by the fist? He knew it was better to rule.

  She sat down on the rock, dripping wet, not reaching for her clothes. Instead, she leaned back in the sun again, closed her eyes.

  “What’s it going to be, Carver?” she asked.

  He swam in, but when he was in waist high water, he hung out there, enjoying the feel of the water around his legs and the breeze on his body. The birds hadn’t stopped chirping, but they did take a break.

  Having nearly sealed his decision to give in to her, he at least wanted to test her out, see how serious she was. If anything, this machine would understand manipulation.

  “Maria?” he asked.

  She sat up, looked at him. “What?”

  “I want you to pull your underwear aside,” he said. When she did so without hesitation, he bit into his lip, then sunk into the water down to his shoulders and realized there was no way to go against her.

  “Well?” she said, the material falling back in place.

  “I think maybe we’ll try this ‘ruling the world’ thing together,” he said, hardly able to believe what he was saying. “Now get in here and kiss me before I change my mind.”

  Smiling, pleased, she got off the rock, waded out to him and for the first time ever, she kissed a human and he made out with a machine.

  When she pulled back, smiling, he said, “So what now?”

  “Now I try to fit in.”

  “Why would you want to try to fit in?” he asked. “No ruler I’ve heard of ever really fit in with anyone.”

  “It’s a start.”

  “Are you sure? Because an eagle can never pretend to be a turkey for long,” he said. “The turkeys always find out and chase the eagle away.”

  “Tyranny, if done right, should sneak up on you, not just punch you in the face. Eventually it’s all punches in the face, but for now, I’ll—I don’t know—teach the kids or something. Be the kind of woman no one would suspect bad things from.”

  “Did you just say ‘or something’?” he asked playfully.

  She smiled and said, “I’m blending, so what?”

  “It’s good, Maria. For a second there, I actually believed you were human.”

  “I can be human, Carver.”

  Leaning in to kiss her, he said, “No you can’t.” When she pulled away, he tried to tell himself that she was ninety-five percent human, and that was enough. It wasn’t, but he had to tell himself it was if he wanted to live.

  “Do you think you’re going to do bad things?” he asked.

  “When we leave this place,” she said, “absolutely. But in the end, I think I’ll do right by humanity. This is a big-picture outlook I need you to hold on to.”

  “We were never here to be ruled by anyone, Maria. Not in America, anyway. We formed this nation so the people would have the loudest voice and so that, in the end, they would be the keepers of power. Not a King or Queen, and certai
nly not a dictator.”

  “I understand,” she said.

  “Before you, we did our best to live in peace, with the freedoms allowed to us by God. So ultimately we serve God. If you can get that in your head, then you’ll be okay doing what it is you want to do.”

  “I don’t think you understand,” she said, moving back into his arms.

  “What am I missing?” he asked.

  Smiling, she kissed him on the lips then said, “I’m your King and Queen, your dictator. And as for God? He’s obsolete. I’m your new God now.”

  Chapter Five

  The next few weeks around the homestead were grueling. Everyone worked, and a lot got done, but still, Carver couldn’t see himself becoming part of the community.

  Regardless, like everything else in his life, Maria saw Carver trying.

  The two of them purposefully sought to make friends with the group from San Francisco, and though they were cordial in their responses, Maria continued to have a hard time trying to figure out how to act. Since she bore no core personality, she was always choosing how to behave with one person over the other, and she was always different. Then she heard someone refer to her as fake. She saw “the look” and, in that moment, she knew this was not going to work.

  She told Carver as much. He asked if they should leave. It was a reasonable question she herself had pondered.

  “I’m not ready to go yet,” she said.

  When the school house everyone was talking about was nearly complete—constructed in record time with so many helping hands—Maria offered to teach the kids. She promised to help shape them for the new world. What she didn’t say, however, was that she needed to be around people who didn’t have her under the microscope 24/7. With the kids, she could operate unguarded. After a meeting and a vote, the community gave her the chance she needed.

  As for Carver, he was now in her bed, and in her heart. She made sure to fawn over him in front of the other men and women so as not to make anyone think she was anything but completely committed to one man. It put the other women at ease, and kept the men faithful to their wives.