“Hoplite?” I ask. “Warden?”
“Affirmative.”
I touch the lean humanoid on its shoulder, leaving frosted fingerprints on its smooth metal surface. It lowers its gaze to the grave site.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m at my tent if you need me.”
I leave the sentient machine to mourn in its own way.
Back at my tent, I throw my Kevlar helmet on the floor and think about Nine Oh Two, standing outside in the cold like a statue. I don’t pretend to understand him. All I know is that I’m alive thanks to him. And thanks to swallowing my rage and allowing him to join Brightboy squad.
Human beings adapt. It’s what we do. Necessity can obliterate our hatreds. To survive, we will work together. Accept each other. The last few years have likely been the only time in human history that we weren’t at war with ourselves. For a moment we were all equal. Backs against the wall, human beings are at their finest.
Later that day, Nine Oh Two says good-bye to me. He tells me that he’s leaving to find more of his kind. Mathilda Perez spoke to him on the radio. She showed him where more freeborn have congregated. A whole city of freeborn robots. And they need a leader. An Arbiter.
Then I’m alone with the hero archive and the wind.
I find myself standing before the smoldering pit where Niner shut down Big Rob. When all was said and done, we made good on the promise we made to Archos on the day we lost Tiberius. The day my big brother left for the dance. We poured liquid fire down this tube—down Archos’s throat—and we burned up everything that was left of the machine.
Just in case.
Now it’s just a hole in the ground. The freezing wind cuts my face and I realize that it’s really all over. There’s nothing out here. No real indication of what happened. Just this warm depression in the ground and a little mesh tent a ways off with a black box inside it.
And me—a guy with a book full of bad memories.
I never even met Archos. The only time the machine spoke to me was through the bloody mouth of a parasite. Trying to scare me away. To warn me. I wish we could have talked. There are a few questions I’d have liked to ask it.
Watching steam rise from the dimple in the ground, I wonder where Archos is now. I wonder if it’s really still alive, like Carl said. Can it feel guilt or sorrow or shame?
And just like that, I’ve said the last of my good-byes—to Archos, to Jack, and to a world that used to be. There’s no path back to where we started. The things that we have lost exist now only as memories. All we can do is move forward the best we can, with new enemies and allies.
I turn to walk away and stop short.
She stands alone and small in the snow, among the hash mark cuts in the permafrost from tents that have long been packed up and taken away.
Cherrah.
She’s been through every horror that I’ve been through, but when I see the feminine curve of her neck I suddenly can’t believe that such a beautiful fragile thing could have survived. My memories are suspect: Cherrah flaming down stumpers, screaming orders through raining debris, dragging bodies away from snapping parasites.
How could this be?
When she smiles, I can see all the wonderful potential of the universe shining in her eyes.
“You waited for me?” I ask her.
“Seemed like you needed some time,” she says.
“You waited for me,” I repeat.
“You’re a bright boy,” she says. “You should have guessed I’m not through with you yet.”
I don’t know why any of this happened or what’s going to happen next. But when Cherrah takes my hand, something that’s been made hard softens inside of me. I trace the contours of her fingers with my eyes and squeeze her hand back and discover that Rob hasn’t taken away my humanity after all. It just got put away for a little while, for safekeeping.
Cherrah and I are survivors. We always have been. But now it is time for us to live.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My heartfelt thanks go out to the faculty, students, and staff at the Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon University and the Department of Computer Science at the University of Tulsa for instilling in me a love for technology and the knowledge to write about it.
This novel would never have happened without the dedicated assistance of my editor, Jason Kaufman (and the incredible team at Doubleday), my agent, Laurie Fox, and my manager, Justin Manask. I can’t thank them enough.
The filmmakers at DreamWorks SKG expressed inspiring enthusiasm and support for this novel from the very beginning, and I send my thanks to them all.
Special thanks to friends, family, and colleagues who lent me their eyes and ears, including Marc Acito, Benjamin Adams, Ryan Blanton, Colby Boles, Wes Cherry, Courtenay Hameister, Peggy Hill, Tim Hornyak, Aaron Huey, Melvin Krambule, Storm Large, Brendan Lattrell, Phil Long, Christine McKinley, Brent Peters, Toby Sanderson, Luke Voytas, Cynthia Whitcomb, and David Wilson.
Finally, all my love to Anna and Cora.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Daniel H. Wilson earned a Ph.D. in robotics from
Carnegie Mellon University. He is the author of such
works of nonfiction as How to Survive a Robot Uprising.
He lives in Portland, Oregon, with his wife and daughter.
Robopocalypse Page 33
