“The machines changed us,” says Tom. “We’re different, but the same. We call ourselves transhuman.”
Transhuman.
“Is it okay if I touch?” asks Tom, motioning at my eyes.
I nod, and he leans down and touches my face. He peers at my eyes and lightly brushes his fingers against my face where the skin turns to metal.
“I’ve never seen this,” he says. “It’s incomplete. Rob never got to finish. What happened, Mathilda?”
“My mom,” I say.
That’s all I can get out.
“Your mom stopped the operation,” he says. “Good for her.”
Tom stands up. “Dawn,” he says, “this is amazing. The implant has no governor on it. Rob didn’t get the chance to hobble it. I don’t know. I mean, there’s no telling what she can do.”
A wave of rising heartbeats cascades toward me.
“Why are you all excited?” I ask.
“Because,” says Dawn. “We think maybe you can talk to the machines.”
Then Nolan moans. It’s been two hours since we arrived here and he looks terrible. I can hear him breathing in little pants.
“I have to help my brother,” I say.
Five minutes later, Marcus and Tom have placed Nolan next to the autodoc. The machine has its legs raised, poised like needles over my little brother’s sleeping body.
“Make an X-ray, Mathilda,” says Dawn.
I put a hand onto the autodoc and speak to it in my mind: Hello? Are you there?
Indicate preferred function.
X-ray?
The spider legs begin to move. Some move out of the way, while others creep around Nolan’s body. A strange clicking sound comes from the writhing legs.
The words come into my mind with an image. Place patient in the prone position. Remove clothing around the lumbar area.
I gently turn Nolan over onto his stomach. I pull his shirt up to reveal his back. There are flecks of dark, crusted blood all around the knobs of his spine.
Fix him, I think to the autodoc.
Error, it responds. Surgical functionality unavailable. Database missing. Uplink not present. Antenna attachment required.
“Dawn,” I say, “it doesn’t know how to do surgery. It wants an antenna so it can get instructions.”
Marcus turns to Dawn, concerned. “It’s trying to trick us. If we give it the antenna, it will call for help. They’ll track us down.”
Dawn nods. “Mathilda, we can’t risk that—”
But she stops cold when she sees me.
Someplace in my head, I know that the arms of the autodoc are silently rising into the air behind me, instruments gleaming. The countless needles and scalpels hover there on swaying legs, menacing. Nolan needs help and if they won’t give it, I’m willing to take it.
I frown at the group of people and set my jaw.
“Nolan needs me.”
Marcus and Dawn look at each other again.
“Mathilda?” asks Dawn. “How do you know it’s not a trap, honey? I know you want to help Nolan, but you also don’t want to hurt us.”
I think about it.
“The autodoc is smarter than the spiker,” I say. “It can talk. But it’s not that smart. It’s just asking for what it needs. Like an error message.”
“But that thinking Rob is out there—” says Marcus.
Dawn touches Marcus on the shoulder.
“Okay, Mathilda,” says Dawn.
Marcus gives up arguing. He looks around, sees something, and strides across the room. Reaching up, he grabs a wire dangling from the ceiling and swings it back and forth to unloop it from a piece of metal. Then he hands it to me, eyeing the autodoc’s swaying legs.
“This cable goes to the building above us. It’s long and metal and it goes high. Perfect antenna. Be careful.”
I barely hear him. The instant the antenna touches my hand a tidal wave of information comes flooding into my head. Into my eyes. Streams of numbers and letters and images fill my vision. None of it makes sense at first. Swirls of color blow through the air in front of me.
That’s when I feel it. Some kind of … mind. An alien thing, stalking through the data, searching for me. Calling out my name. Mathilda?
The autodoc begins speaking in a constant babble. Scanning initiated. One, two, three, four. Query satellite uplink. Database access. Download initiated. Ortho-, gastro-, uro-, gyno-, neuro …
It’s too fast. Too much. I can’t understand what the autodoc is saying anymore. I’m getting dizzy as the information surges into me. The monster calls for me again, and now it is closer. I think of those cold doll eyes that night in my bedroom and the way that lifeless thing whispered my name in the darkness.
The colors spin around me like a tornado.
Stop, I think. But nothing happens. I can’t breathe. The colors are too bright and they’re drowning me, making it so that I can’t think. Stop! I shout with my mind. And my name comes again, louder this time, and I can’t tell where my arms are or how many I have. What am I? I scream inside my head, with everything in me.
STOP!
I drop the antenna like a snake. The colors fade. The images and symbols drop to the floor and are swept away like fall leaves into the corners of the room. The vivid colors bleach away into the dull white tile.
I take one breath. Then two. The autodoc legs start to move.
There are tiny motor sounds as the autodoc works on Nolan. A spotlight flicks on and shines on his back. A rotating scrubber comes down and cleans his skin. A syringe goes in and out almost too fast to see. The movements are quick and precise and full of little pauses, like when the petting zoo chickens used to turn their heads and peck at corn.
In the sudden quiet, I can hear something beneath the static of the tiny motor noises. It is a voice.
… sorry for what I’ve done. I’m called Lurker. I’m bringing down the British Telecom tower communications blockade. Should open up satellite access, but I don’t know for how long. If you can hear this message, the comm lines are still open. The satellites are free. Use them while you can. The damned machines will—Ah, no. Christ, please. Can’t hold on any longer. I’m sorry.… Catch you in the funny pages, mate.
After about ten seconds, the broken message repeats. I can barely hear it. The man sounds very scared and young but also proud. I hope that he is okay, wherever he is.
Finally, I stand up. Behind me, I can feel the autodoc operating on Nolan. The group of people still stand, watching me. I have barely been aware that they are here. Talking to the machines takes such concentration. I can hardly see people anymore. It is so easy to lose myself in the machine.
“Dawn?” I say.
“Yes, honey?”
“There’s a man out there, talking. His name is Lurker. He says he destroyed a communications blockade. He says the satellites are free.”
The people look at each other in wonder. Two of them hug. Tom and Marcus slap their hands together. They make small, happy noises. Smiling, Dawn puts her hands on my shoulders.
“That’s good, Mathilda. It means we can talk to other people. Rob never destroyed the communications satellites, it just blocked them off from us.”
“Oh,” I say.
“This is very important, Mathilda,” she says. “What else do you hear out there? What’s the most important message?”
I put my hands on the sides of my face and concentrate. I listen very hard. And when I listen beyond the man’s repeating voice, I find that I can hear further into the network.
There are so many messages floating around. Some of them are sad. Some are angry. Many of them are confused or cutoff or rambling, but one of them sticks out in my mind. It is a special message with three familiar words in it:
Robot defense act.
Mathilda had only scratched the surface of her abilities. In the coming months, she would hone her special gift in the relative safety of the New York City underground, protected by Marcus and Dawn.
The message she was able to find on this day, due to the ultimate sacrifice made by Lurker and Arrtrad in London, proved instrumental in the formation of a North American army. Mathilda Perez had found a call to arms issued by Paul Blanton, and the location of humankind’s greatest enemy.
—CORMAC WALLACE, MIL#GHA217
2. CALL TO ARMS
We have discovered the location of a superintelligent
machine that calls itself Archos.
SPC. PAUL BLANTON
NEW WAR + 1 YEAR, 1 MONTH
The following message originated in Afghanistan. It was intercepted and retransmitted worldwide by Mathilda Perez in New York City. We know that, thanks to her efforts, this communication was received by everyone in North America with access to a radio, including scores of tribal governments, isolated resistance groups, and the remaining enclaves of United States armed forces.
—CORMAC WALLACE, MIL#GHA217
Headquarters
Afghan Resistance Command
Bamiyan Province, Afghanistan
To: Survivors
From: Specialist Paul Blanton, United States Army
We are sending this message to urge you to use whatever influence you have as a member of a surviving North American human stronghold to convince your leadership of the terrible consequences which will be suffered by all humankind if you do not immediately organize and deploy an offensive force to march against the robots.
Recently, we have discovered the location of a superintelligent machine that calls itself Archos—the central artificial intelligence backing the robot uprising. This machine is hiding in an isolated location in western Alaska. We call this area the Ragnorak Intelligence Fields. Coordinates are integrated in electronic format at the end of this message.
Before the New War began, there is evidence that Archos quashed the robot defense act before it could pass Congress. Since Zero Hour, Archos has been using our existing robotic infrastructure—both civilian and military—to viciously attack humankind. It is clear that the enemy is willing to pay an enormous cost in effort and resources to continue decimating our population centers.
Worse yet, the machines are evolving.
Within the space of three weeks, we have encountered three new varieties of specialized robotic hunter-killers designed to locomote in rough terrain, penetrate our cave bunkers, and destroy our personnel. The design of these machines has been informed by newly constructed biological research stations that are allowing the machines to study the natural world.
The machines are now designing and building themselves. More varieties are coming. We believe that these new robots will have greatly increased agility, survivability, and lethality. They will be tailored to fight your people, in your geographic environment, and in your weather conditions.
Let there be no doubt in your mind that the combined onslaught of these new machines, working twenty-four hours a day, will soon be unleashed by Archos on your native land.
We implore you to confirm these facts to your leaders, and to do your utmost to urge them to gather an offensive force which can march to the attached coordinates in Alaska to put a stop to the evolution of these killing machines and prevent the total annihilation of humankind.
March cautiously, as Archos will surely sense our approach. But rest assured that your soldiers will not march alone. Similar militias will be mustered from across human-occupied territory to do battle with our enemy in its own domain.
Heed this call to arms.
We can guarantee you that unless every human stronghold in range of Alaska retaliates, this rain of autonomous killing machines will increase manyfold in complexity and fury.
To my fellow humans
With best regards from
Specialist Paul R. Blanton
It is widely believed that these words, translated into dozens of human languages, are responsible for the organized human retaliation that began roughly two years after Zero Hour. In addition, there is deeply dismaying evidence that this call to arms was received abroad—resulting in a largely undocumented and ultimately doomed attack on Archos mounted by Eastern European and Asian forces.
—CORMAC WALLACE, MIL#GHA217
3. THE COWBOY WAY
The buck’s gotta stop somewhere.
LONNIE WAYNE BLANTON
NEW WAR + 1 YEAR, 4 MONTHS
Four months after we arrived at the fabled defensive stronghold of Gray Horse, the city fell into disarray. The call to arms had paralyzed the tribal council with indecision. Lonnie Wayne Blanton trusted his son implicitly and argued to muster the army and march; however, John Tenkiller insisted on staying to defend. As I describe in these pages, Rob ultimately made the choice for us.
—CORMAC WALLACE, MIL#GHA217
I’m standing on the edge of Gray Horse bluffs, blowing into my hands for warmth and squinting as the dawn breaks like fire over the Great Plains below. The thin cries of thousands of cattle and buffalo rise in the still morning.
With Jack in the lead, our squad was on the move nonstop to get here. Everywhere we’ve been, nature is back in action. There’re more birds in the sky, more bugs in the bushes, and more coyotes in the night. As the months pass, mother earth has been swallowing up everything but the cities. The cities are where Rob lives.
A lean Cherokee kid stands next to me, methodically packing chewing tobacco into his mouth. He’s watching the plains with expressionless brown eyes and doesn’t seem to notice me at all. It’s hard not to notice him, though.
Lark Iron Cloud.
He looks about twenty and he’s decked out in some kind of slick uniform. A black-and-red scarf is tucked under a half-zipped jacket and his pale green pant legs are folded into polished leather cowboy boots. Black goggles hang around his tawny neck. He’s holding a walking stick with feathers hanging from it. The stick is made of metal—some kind of antenna he must have snapped off a Rob scout walker. A war trophy.
This kid looks like a fighter pilot from the future. And here I am in my ripped-up, mud-splattered army combat uniform. I’m not sure which of us should be ashamed of his appearance, but I’m pretty sure it’s me.
“Think we’ll go to war?” I ask the kid.
He looks over at me for a second, then back at the vista.
“Maybe. Lonnie Wayne’s on it. He’ll let us know.”
“You trust him?”
“He’s the reason I’m alive.”
“Oh.”
A flock of birds flaps across the sky, sunlight glinting from their wings like the rainbow on a pool of oil.
“Y’all look pretty rough,” says Lark, motioning to the rest of my squad with his stick. “What are you, like, soldiers?”
I look at my squad mates. Leonardo. Cherrah. Tiberius. Carl. They stand around talking, waiting for Jack to return. Their movements are familiar, relaxed. The last few months have forged us into more than just a unit—we’re a family now.
“Nah. We’re not soldiers, just survivors. My brother, Jack, he’s the soldier. I’m just tagging along for the sheer fun of it.”
“Oh,” says Lark.
I can’t tell if he just took me seriously or not.
“Where’s your brother at?” Lark asks.
“In the war council. With Lonnie and them.”
“So he’s one of those.”
“One of what?”
“Responsible kind.”
“People say that. You’re not?”
“I do my thing. The old-timers do theirs.”
Lark gestures behind us with the walking stick. There, waiting patiently in a row, are dozens of what these people call spider tanks. The walking tanks each stand about eight feet tall. The four sturdy legs are Rob created, made of ropy synthetic muscles. The rest of the tanks have been modified by human beings. Most vehicles have tank turrets and heavy-machine-gun mounts on top, but I see that one has the cab and blade off a bulldozer.
What can I say? It’s just an anything goes kind of war.
Rob didn’t
come at Gray Horse all at once; it had to evolve to get up here. That meant sending walking scouts. And some of those scouts got caught. Some of those got taken apart and put back together again. Gray Horse Army prefers to fight with captured robots.
“You’re the one who figured out how to liberate the spider tanks? To lobotomize them?” I ask.
“Yep,” he says.
“Jesus. Are you a scientist or something?”
Lark chuckles. “A mechanic is just an engineer in blue jeans.”
“Damn,” I say.
“Yep.”
I look out over the prairie and see something odd.
“Hey, Lark?” I ask.
“Yeah?” he says.
“You live around here. So maybe you can tell me something.”
“Sure.”
“Just what in the fuck is that?” I ask, pointing.
He looks out over the plain. Sees the sinuous, glinting metal writhing through the grass like a hidden river. Lark spits tobacco on the ground, turns, and motions to his squad with the walking stick.
“That’s our war, brother.”
Confusion and death. The grass is too tall. The smoke is too thick.
Gray Horse Army is made up of every able-bodied adult in the city—men and women, young and old. A thousand soldiers and some change. They’ve been drilling together for months and they’ve almost all got guns, but nobody knows anything once those killing machines are slicing through the grass and latching onto people.
“Stay with the tanks,” Lonnie said. “Stay with old Houdini and you’ll be fine.”
Custom-made spider tanks plod across the prairie in a ragged line, one measured step after another. Their massive feet sink into the damp earth and their chest hulls trample the grass down, leaving a wake behind them. A few soldiers cling to the top of each tank, weapons out, scanning the fields.
We’re marching out to face what’s in the grass. Whatever it is, we’ve got to stop it before it reaches Gray Horse.
I stay with my squad, following the tank called Houdini on foot. Jack’s up on top with Lark. I’ve got Tiberius lumbering on one side of me and Cherrah on the other. Her profile is sharp in the morning light. She looks feline, quick, and ferocious. And, I can’t help thinking, beautiful. Carl and Leo are buddying up a few meters away. We all focus on staying with the tanks—they’re our only frame of reference in this never-ending maze of tall grass.
Robopocalypse Page 25
