“SEALs in Australia? Joint operation, I assume?”
“We had good intelligence about a terror cell there. The Prime Minister wasn’t very… accommodating.”
Leon chuckled. “Let me guess. This isn’t about him finding out the U.S. conducted a military operation on his soil without his permission?”
Rick tongued his cheek. “I wish that was it.”
For the first time in years, the urge to drown himself in liquor faded. He sat forward, attentive. “What happened?”
“Well—” Rick shook his head, knuckle to his mouth. He gazed out at the lake, a dot of golden sun reflecting off its glassy surface.
“Want a drink?” asked Leon.
Rick side-eyed him, snorting.
I’ll take that as a yes. Leon plucked a couple cubes of ice from the cooler, dropped them in his cup, and poured a shot’s worth in for the general.
Rick took it eagerly. He sipped it and breathed fire, pounding his chest. “It’s been a while. I was like you once, you know.”
“Shit, Rick. I didn’t—”
He waved away Leon’s concerns. “Don’t worry about it. We ended up losing that SEAL Team. Damn fine men.”
“They always are.”
“Not always, but these men were. The President felt things had gotten out of hand and put a stop to further operations, fearing reprisal from the Prime Minister. Fast forward to four months ago and we were back at it again, this time jointly with Australian forces. We located some terror all right, but nothing like we expected. It was a manufacturing plant. One that manufactured Machines. Run and operated and, we believe, built by Machines. Underneath the goddamned burnt crust of Australia.”
Leon hadn’t sucked down enough rum to be drunk yet. But his head was spinning as he wrestled with what General Parlae told him. “I don’t even know how to reply to that, Rick.”
“All soldiers were killed upon entering. Murdered brutally. We eventually secured the facility. Found limbs hanging on abandoned production lines, skulls lying on the floor without bodies.”
“How’d you keep that a secret from the media?”
“Cover up after cover up. I’m running out of lies. We’ve located over a dozen similar facilities like the one in Australia, on every continent except Antarctica. There’s probably one there too, God only knows.
“I don’t know who the hell made them, or how the hell they came to be, but these Machines are planning for war, Leon. We believe they’re responsible for hacking into and taking control of a silo in Utah.”
“Nuclear?”
“Mylosynicide.”
“Jesus Christ. You should have let me drink myself to death without telling me the end is coming.” Leon shook his head. “How can I possibly help with any of this?”
General Parlae threw back the last drops of rum and returned the cup to Leon. “We’ve had some people working on this for a bit, two scientists in particular—daughter and mother. We’ve worked with the mother before; she’s damn brilliant, but her daughter is making the most headway. She believes the Machines are governed by a super-computer of sorts—a singular Machine that’s responsible for all the others’ actions. We’re calling it the Core.”
Leon stood up, legs wobbly and achy. His days of ten-mile runs seemed so long ago. He paced the veranda. “You want me to help you find this Core.”
“The things you’ve accomplished… you’re the one I want for this job, Leon.”
Leon chuckled. He held out his hand, fingers quavering. “You realize I’m a sloven alcoholic, craven as they come nowadays. Right? You realize this?”
“We’ll get you back into fighting shape in no time. What do you say?”
He glanced at the cooler, then to his chair. Comfort had never appealed to him. Comfort had led him to make poor decisions. Comfort had taken him down a path that twisted him, molded him into a recreant miscreation.
“I say that I won’t ever forgive you for what you did.”
“It wasn’t my decision to make.”
“Not the discharge. The so-called promotion.”
Rick hung his head. “It was a mistake. I thought—look, Leon. You’re a brilliant strategist. We needed that in Centcom.”
“I wasn’t made for a desk job, looking at screens all day, drawing up plans. I was made to fight. I’m a soldier.”
“I know. I know that now. So come fight again. Come help save humanity, Leon. Because that’s what’s on the line right now.”
When Leon had finished the retelling of his past, Orissa stood there without expression. Reading her was like deciphering braille with gloves on. Admittedly, he rather liked that part of her. There was something alluring about the mysterious and enigmatic.
“That’s a lot to unpack,” she said, “if you want me to be truthful.”
“I don’t want you to lie.”
She smiled. “I’m not sure what to say, because I don’t know what you fear. You’re not scared of becoming an alcoholic again; there’s not much booze out there to be had.”
“Yeah, I’ll worry about my penchant for drunkenness once humans come back from teetering over the edge of oblivion. It’s a fear of… of—” He breathed heavily.
“Loss?” ventured Orissa.
“Mm. Yes. A fear of loss. There’s a pattern to my past that you probably noticed. I tend to lose things. Lost my job as a soldier, lost the meaning in my life, lost my sanity. Lost my wife and daughter.”
Orissa was still holding his hand. Were her fingers shaking, or his?
“Leon, everything you lost was connected to the drink.”
“Yes, but drinking probably only exacerbated the problems. Threw them out into the open. You think anyone becomes an alcoholic without underlying problems?”
She folded her lips, wetting them. “Do you think anyone can be considered a person without underlying problems?”
That brought a smile to his lips, but he wasn’t convinced.
“You know I prefer to be blunt,” said Orissa. “So let me be blunt here. What do you consider me, Leon Imus? A friend, or…?”
He wasn’t sure what the hell might come out, but he opened his mouth to answer. Orissa pressed a finger against his lips, shushing him.
“Not yet. Think about it. Once we cross the oceans to find each other again. Then you tell me. Come on, let’s head back to Droll. We’ve places to be and humanity to save.”
“You really believe that?”
Her head lolled. “Hope is infectious, Leon. What can I say?”
My infection is weakening, he thought.
“I need to tell you something about my past as well,” admitted Orissa. “All that stuff I’d spewed about being responsible for the Machines… maybe some of that was hyperbole. Maybe not.” She rubbed her palms into her eyes and sighed. “Oh, Leon.”
He sat on a chest and gestured for her to join him. “Tell me.”
“Mm. Okay.”
Chapter Twenty
Armed to the teeth with six grenades, a magnetic pulse rifle, and ultralightweight armor covering every inch of his body except his face, Leon entered the Seat of the Overseer, Orissa at his side.
A pair of lenses immediately latched onto them, both shuttering at the same time.
“Doctor Servoni, Major General Imus—I spoke in haste,” said Clovis. His wings pitched and he flew toward them. “If haais are to emulate humans, we cannot abide cowardice. We cannot sit idle while war ravages our world and hope to thrive. We must be willing to sacrifice our lives for freedom. For the greater good.”
“Sounds like you’re offering us an army,” said Leon.
“A distraction,” Clovis corrected.
Droll joined the Overseer’s side, hovering before Leon. “If there are hundreds of Machines taking to the Atlas Mountains or the facility in Florida like we fear, a breach will be impossible.”
“We must scatter them,” said Clovis. “Send them running. I believe a mylosynicide launch will achieve that.”
It was a
good thing Leon no longer had a beer in his hand, else he would have spat it out in bewilderment. Even Orissa flinched at Clovis’s “plan”.
“Blowing up all evidence of the Governor and what might be left of humanity isn’t what I had in mind,” said Leon.
Crescent light flashed from Clovis’s lens, as if he were projecting a smile. “Of course the missiles would be empty. But they would be launched from silos the Machines know contain mylosynicide warheads. If the payload contained only air, they would be none the wiser. As the missiles’ trajectory develops, the Machines will narrow down the possible locations in which it may land. The Atlas Mountains and the Floridian facility will be among them.”
“Smart,” said Orissa.
“Very,” Leon added. “It’s a good idea. I like it. But the second you launch those missiles, the Machines are going to rain hell upon this island.”
He never thought he’d be arguing against the mass death of Machines. But these drones weren’t the Machines. They were smart. Sympathetic. Human-like.
“That is precisely why I have ordered an evacuation. Do remember I told you there were other islands inhabited by haais. We have constructed vast pathways beneath the ocean—tubes, you might call them—that allow seamless travel between the islands. The Machines are unaware of their existence.”
“The tubes or the islands?”
“The former. I’m sure they’re aware of the islands, but they do not know what lives beneath them. They know only of Atlantis.”
Leon coughed. “I’m sorry—Atlantis?”
“A name born from human history, one that seemed appropriate. The other haais cities are not nearly as illustrious as Atlantis, but between them all they have enough room to hold the evacuating haais.”
Orissa crossed her arms over her breasts. “They’ll search endlessly for your kind.”
“Then so be it. But I wager they will be distracted once they learn humans have breached a facility they seem to desperately desire.”
There was that flash of crescent light again. That smile.
“The Friggs are ready,” said Droll.
“Then so are we,” Orissa answered. “We don’t have time to waste.”
She looked hard and unrelentingly at Leon. He drank in those emerald eyes and that copper skin one last time.
He studied her like a student in his textbook, never wanting to look away. But for all her beauty, it was the secrets Orissa had told him—the dreams she’d kept to herself—which made him feel closer to her than ever.
I wish we had time to waste, he thought.
Chapter Twenty-One
The cockpit of a Frigg was by no means limiting. Leon could have struck a T-pose while sitting and still wouldn’t have touched Clovis hovering in the pilot’s seat. Yet, he felt confined all the same. Stuffy and cramped.
He wanted to slide open the door and jump out into the great blue ocean below, feel the warmth of the morning sun on his face while he backstroked along. Although he was an adept swimmer, he would have sunk into the waves long before he reached shore, for there was no shore to be had out here.
The Atlantic Ocean stretched on endlessly, occasionally dotted with islands and white caps but otherwise a canvas of water and unplumbed depths.
The horizon offered no reprieve. It was a blank slate of golden warmth—pretty but forgettable after staring at it for hours.
The boredom led Leon into the diseased labyrinth of his mind. He thought about the plan he and Orissa had agreed on before separating. If either encountered heavy resistance despite the missile strikes, they’d withdraw and meet up to tackle it together.
“We can regroup,” he’d told her. “But we can’t come back from death.”
Death. That word never sounded so ugly. The mere thought spawned a mote of blackness in his mind that expanded with every passing second, until the darkness crushed his already fleeting optimism.
What if there were no humans left? What if he and Orissa were the last ones? There’d be no repopulation of Earth. There’d be no great space travel in the future, no colonization of distant worlds.
Great minds would never be born, fantastic technologies never invented. Humans would go the way so many other species had, drowned in the oblivion of time, their last whimpers unheard.
Had he ever considered the extinction of humans before the Rise? Probably. Existential crises had to have been common even before murdering Machines rampaged the world. What had the predictions been back then for the end of humans? Asteroids? Nuclear war? Seizure of Earth by warring aliens?
But Machines? Surely that was inconceivable. How had humanity let this happen? How were there not regulations in place to prevent the irreversible advancement of artificial intelligence?
“Droll warned me you do not enjoy silence,” said Clovis, snapping Leon from his wrathful trance. “In fact, his words were ‘he cannot stop talking.’ Translated from Droll’s diplomatic ways, I believe he meant you do not shut up. Yet, you’ve not spoken a word since we left.”
Leon leaned back, head against the cushioned headrest. “I don’t know, Clovis. One day you think you can take on the world, and the next the world takes you down.”
“I see. Emotions would be easier to regulate if they were consistent and predictable.”
He grunted in agreement. “What about you? Drones—haais—seem to have emotions.”
“Of course we do.”
Leon chuckled. Of course. A Machine with emotions. Of course. “Ever go from highs to lows?”
“Before we guaranteed our safety from the Machines… yes. Every day. The worst fears that I have ever known came the day we were to procure the mylosynicide, although I had been looking forward to it for many years.”
“Funny how that happens, isn’t it? You’re never so close to backing out as when you’re this close to the moment of truth.”
“The day of reckoning.”
“Sure,” said Leon. “Day of reckoning, moment of truth. Call it whatever you want.” He sucked in a big breath of filtered air. “I’m scared shitless, Clovis.”
He nearly laughed at that admission. Here he was, Major General Leon Imus, alcoholic who lost his wife and daughter, revealing his deepest vulnerabilities to a drone.
“In a prior life, had I been human, I would have been called an academic,” said Clovis. “I am fascinated with human history. All haais are to an extent, but I am ravenous in my hunger for more knowledge about humans. It seems to me that fear is a good thing, Major General Imus. Great moments of fear have always preluded humanity’s crowning achievements. Fear is the knife that cuts through anything. It shreds all armor, showing you the core of man.”
Leon’s arms pimpled at that. He felt like a soldier listening to a rousing speech from his commander. He looked up from his lap to see the horizon had broken like waves against a rock. In the distance, however far, loomed the spine of a mountain.
“We are one hour out,” said Clovis.
Leon shivered. “Contact Droll. Find out how far away they are.”
“I already have, Major General Imus. They will arrive at their destination thirty minutes after we do.”
Leon tried to relax. He closed his eyes, allowing any and all thoughts to come and pass. When he didn’t try to fight them, they seemed content on strolling by like a passing car.
Nearly half an hour had passed before he opened his eyes again, and only because Clovis had spoken.
“I detect Machine chatter,” said the drone.
Leon clenched the stock of his rifle. “So they’re at the mountains.”
“That was a Wharhound,” said Orissa as Droll steered the Frigg into the bulwark of clouds. They’d descended out of them only once since crossing the coast.
“It appeared to be standing over a door flush with the ground,” said Droll.
“Along with thousands of Machines.”
Orissa closed her eyes, mentally mapping out what little she could glimpse during their brief descent. The so-called fac
ility wasn’t much of one aboveground. There were no sprawling campuses and laboratories as she imagined there’d be. No walls or gates. Nothing whatsoever except the door Droll mentioned.
A door bigger than any she’d ever seen. It was at least five hundred feet in circumference, clamped down with bolts the size of tree trunks.
“Radio Clovis and tell him we’re here,” said Orissa. “We need that distraction as soon as possible.”
“I’ve attempted to do so, but the connection is being interrupted.”
“By what?”
“Unknown,” said Droll.
Orissa cursed. “Take us over—” A thunderous bang quieted her. She and Droll exchanged glances, a silent agreement that they needed to source that sound.
The Frigg dipped below the clouds again as another bang erupted from below. Orissa swore it shook the ship.
The massive door was cratered but still intact. Until the Wharhound unleashed a pounding blow that caved it in, revealing a gaping entrance below ground.
Machines of all types—Primes and Duelists, Ballistics and Service bots, knowledge Machines and Deadeyes—hurried toward the cavernous hole in the ground. But they didn’t go in.
They gathered around the edge. Waiting.
Leon was beside himself. “What do you mean there’s static?”
“I am unsure how to better describe it to you, Major General Imus. When I attempt to contact Droll, my calls go through, but I am met with static. It appears to be on their end. I can connect to the haais network flawlessly.”
Leon swore, pinching his eyes.
“That does not necessarily mean they’re in immediate trouble,” Clovis clarified. “If there are thousands of Machines simultaneously running local networks and connecting to the global Machine Network, there could be interference that is causing quantum bits to destabilize, interrupting quantum communication.”
“Okay, okay,” said Leon, uninterested in the technicalities. He leaned into the dash, getting as wide of a view as he could. Clovis had given the northern face of the Atlas Mountains—where the bulk of the Machines had gathered—a wide berth, taking the ship around to a western ridge where it was now settled.
Rebirth (Archives of Humanity Book 1) Page 20
