Absolution

by Peter Smith

  Toby was standing in front of the transport when they arrived. Behind both it and the aircraft was the open door of the Spire hangar. The pinks and deep purples of a pre-dawn horizon stretching before them. As they walked up Tobor spoke, “I wish to inquire into your destination and reason for leaving the Spire.”

  Sean raised an eyebrow, “Where ever we damn well please.” He said gruffly at the robot.

  Tobor’s head cocked to the side as he studied her husband. She shook her head at him, “Sean wants to show me something, he hasn’t said what yet.”

  Tobor never took it’s sensors from her husband’s face, “Clarity is important when planning a security detail for Mrs. Patterson’s safety, as is the need to anticipate her medical needs.”

  Sean rolled his eyes and stepped toward Tobor, “She doesn’t need a security detail when I’m with her.”

  “Based on direct observations and my assessment of your physical and intellectual capabilities I project only a seventeen percent chance that you can protect Maria in any circumstance.”

  Sean stepped back, shock on his face. He glared at Tobor, “Seventeen percent!” He then stood up straighter, his eyes narrowing as he leaned toward Maria but never took his eyes from her protector, “Did he also call me dumb?”

  Even though she didn’t want to be happy, a small part of her smiled at the protectiveness of her long-time friend. The rivalry that both Toby and her husband had experienced since Sean had joined her life was one of the few joys that she still had left, even though she knew Sean wasn’t amused.

  She shrugged, “it’s a higher assessment than the one he shared with me on our wedding day.”

  Sean looked at her, “It was lower?”

  She nodded.

  “How much lower?” He asked.

  She shook her head, “You don’t want to know.”

  Sean looked back at the robot, realizing the insult that was leveled against him by the drone and the implications that came from it giving Maria a warning about him on their wedding day. “Look toaster, I’m more than capable of”

  Maria stepped forward and placed a hand on her husband’s chest, “He just wants to come along Sean”

  “He doesn’t need to come.” Sean said through his teeth.

  She stepped between them and looked into her husband’s eyes as her hands shifted to his biceps, “This trip is supposed to be for me, correct?”

  A conflicted expression crossed over his face, “Are you saying that you don’t think I can protect you?”

  She frowned, “That’s not what I’m saying, it’s just that where ever we are going, you can’t help me if you’re focused on security, let Toby do his job.”

  Sean sighed, a small smile stretching over his face, “Okay.” He said, nodding.

  Tobor nodded once apparently satisfied that it had achieved it’s goal, “Before we depart, I must update you on the task you assigned me at the Reclamation Unit.”

  She nodded her head, giving her machine friend permission to continue, even though the last thing she wanted to think about right now were the events of that day. She could have said that about pretty much every day for the last six years. Except a handful and those all involved Sean and Alex, “Go ahead Toby, what’s a bit more burden to bear.”

  “I could not crack the encryption on the data I acquired from the equatorial launch site in the Atlantic.”

  “So why the need for the update?” Maria asked.

  “Seventeen hours ago I located a second launch site, nearly three thousand kilometers to the southeast of the Hawaiian islands.”

  Maria sighed, “Let me guess, on the equator?”

  Tobor nodded and Maria continued, “So you found it by just searching along the equatorial region?”

  “Yes, however, locating this facility was difficult. It was employing active visual countermeasures and emitting nearly no EM emissions.”

  “Was?”

  “Upon finding the facility I dispatched an infiltration unit to approach from underneath the water line. They swam to the structure, scaled it and began observations of its activities. It would appear that its focus had been on cannibalizing heavy lift rockets within in its hangars and facility electronics to produce several small launch vehicles capable of placing satellites into lower orbit. Shortly after observations were initiated, my team was detected. The facility attempted to seize the unit’s operating systems, however I had identified the weak point in the OS from our previous excursion and issued a patch empire wide. Upon failing to take control of my force, the facility initiated a self destruct. I have deep water recovery drones on route to the wreckage to search for any salvageable intelligence.”

  “What type of Satellites?” Sean asked.

  Tobor’s face plate never left Maria, “Communications and observation.”

  “Well, that’s good news.” Maria said.

  Sean arched an eyebrow, “It’s a good thing that there’s another mysterious launch facility from your father’s era getting ready to put satellites with unknown intent into the space above Earth?”

  She shook her head, “No, that it doesn’t have access to any land or ocean floor based resource facilities. If it had to disassemble its own stock of rockets and itself to meet its objectives.”

  “How do we know that, maybe it just doesn’t have the transport ability to get it to the platform?” Sean replied.

  She shrugged, “Still falls into the good news category.”

  She looked back at Toby, “Any update on my mysterious friend from the Reclamation Unit?”

  Tobor shook it’s head once, “I determined how access was gained to the RU’s manufacturing facility, but tracing the signal led to a Chinese National Space Administration satellite that had yet to re-enter the atmosphere.”

  She pressed her fingertips against her temples, letting out a frustrated hiss of air, “Prepare a capture mission for that satellite. I want you to rip out its memory and see if you can’t find out where it’s been receiving signals from and relaying them too. Lets try to roll this damn rogue AI up and end dad’s legacy.”

  “Unfortunately, the satellite performed a de-orbit burn shortly after the signal was traced.”

  She nodded her head, accepting that this errant program, a relic from her father’s time in power, was at least one step ahead of them at all times. She thought for a moment and then decided to get ahead of its next action, rather than constantly being in a reactionary role, “Sean, I need you to call your dad while we’re on the flight, get a list of every Pre Fall and new satellite that the Marines and their allies are using. Let them know it needs to be a complete list and they have twenty-four hours to get it to us.”

  She turned and looked back at Toby, “After twenty-four hours, if it isn’t on that list, confirmed to be a spacecraft for one of the other Spires or one of our satellites, I want you to remove it from orbit.”

  “With our current fleet of capture vehicles it will take thirty-five days to complete the project.” Tobor replied.

  She nodded, “You can manufacture additional craft and boosters.”

  Tobor paused and focused above her head for a second, then looked back at her, “Given current available manufacturing capacity, such an action would allow us to complete the clearance of near Earth space within twenty-three days.”

  “Good, get on it then Toby and I don’t care what it takes, you find this rogue AI and you kill it. I don’t need any more surprises, especially those meant to further my father’s goals.”

  “Understood.”

  Sean held his hand up slightly, “Couldn’t we just shoot them down, it has gotta be easier than capturing them or pushing them into the atmosphere?”

  Toby regarded him for a moment. Far longer than the machine ever took to respond in normal circumstances and Maria knew what was coming next before it happened, “Such an action would lead to a large volume of destructive debris moving rapidly in Earth orbit. This field would impact units in orbit that we wish to remain ther
e, creating a cascading effect of destruction.” Toby paused, “It may be necessary to reevaluate your effectiveness sooner than I had expected.” Tobor stated.

  Sean’s mouth opened to protest when Tobor turned toward the transport. The rear ramp of the aircraft was already lowering to the deck of the hangar and they walked toward it.

  Sean glared at the machine’s back, his face flushing red. She slipped her hand into his and she smiled weakly at him. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath and tried to calm himself.

  Toby entered the plane first with them following close behind. Sean leaned closer to her, still irritated with how the robot had slapped down his idea. He whispered in her ear, “Really, what percentage did he have me at?”

  She smirked, “Greater than zero, less than Alex’s age.”

  Sean’s eyes went wide and then he glared at Toby’s back, “Oh I’m going to recycle his ass.”

  The sun was rising on the horizon as she and Sean sat in the pilot and copilot chairs. They weren’t flying. The craft’s AI and Toby were both directing the transport as it soared through the sky toward what had once been known as Vancouver.

  She nodded her head appreciatively as she listened to her mother’s audio message. The older woman made it perfectly clear by her tone that she was getting fed up with constantly being an unexpected baby sitter. She had planned on flying to Berlin to be with Williams and to help with relief efforts, but that was now put on hold. She still agreed to do it though. She could hear Alex in the background, pestering his grandmother for breakfast.

  “Mom will watch Alex.”

  “Good” Sean said curtly.

  Maria raised an eyebrow, “What’s wrong?”

  He shook his head, “Nothing.”

  She raised an eyebrow at him and he sighed, “Its just.” He started and then stopped, looking for the words to describe the emotions he was feeling at that moment.

  “I saw so many little kids his age, hurt or dead in Berlin.” He paused, swallowing. “My dad trained me since I was little to fight, to go to war but nothing prepares you for seeing it up close, for seeing little kids become victims.”

  He looked down at his hands, “Every time I saw a little boy with dark hair it was like,” he paused, “It was like I was looking at Alex and I’d get these flashes of panic. I knew he was at the Spire with you, but,” he trailed off.

  She nodded her head and reached across the space between the seats. Her hand rested atop his, “I saw Alex every time I looked at the little boy in the simulation you found me in.”

  He nodded in agreement, “So did I.”

  “Is that why you left?”

  He looked away from her, “Yes and no. I knew that there was nothing to say to you that would prove that you weren’t responsible for all that death,” his hand slipped free and he motioned out toward the horizon, “for what your father did to the world either. So I arranged this meeting.”

  She smiled, happy that he had been thinking about her even when he wasn’t in the room with her. Then her brow furrowed, “That couldn’t have taken that long to put together, what did you do with the rest of the time?”

  “First, I watched Sean sleep.” He said, looking out at the horizon.

  “Did that help?”

  “For about a minute,” He chuckled, “Then I worried about all the ways this world could hurt him, take him from us. Then I spent the rest of the time wondering if he would see us the way you see your father. If he would try to take on all the responsibility for our actions too.”

  She felt her chest tighten and her hand went to her mouth, “god” she whispered.

  “That’s when I called the settlement we’re headed to, talked to the Marine liaison located there and arranged for your visit. I knew that the only way I could make sure Alex never goes down the same path was to figure out how to get you off of it.”

  “It’s not possible to heal the child if the parent is still damaged.” She muttered to herself.

  “Something like that, yeah.”

  A soft chime filled the cabin, catching their attention. “We will arrive at our location shortly, I have received permission to land, please remain in your seats,” Tobor’s gentle voice said.

  “Maria, babe, I can’t pretend to know what it is you’re going through. What your dad did, it’s beyond… comprehension. All I can do is share my experience and assure you, I don’t blame you for what he did or what anyone else is doing.”

  She looked away from him, “Others can blame me.”

  “To hell with them Maria. They have no right to put the actions of another onto your shoulders. You didn’t kill the world. You didn’t take away the ability of others to make their own decisions. You protected people’s right to create their own destiny. What they did with that isn’t your fault.”

  “Sean” She pulled her hands into her lap and looked down at her feet and through the translucent material that made up the nose of the aircraft. North America now seemed to be an endless sprawl of trees and wildlife that was zipping by below her. Probably the only decent part of her father’s legacy.

  She looked at him, “I’m the reason your parents were killed. My father decided that all of you were a threat to the ideal world that he wanted me to live in.”

  He looked at her for a second, his eyes wide and stunned at the statement, then his shoulders slumped and leaned his head against the side of the cockpit. His left hand rose, and he absentmindedly tapped on the canopy with his knuckle. She waited for him to speak, unsure of what she expected him to say but certain that the silence was worst.

  “I was a shitty teenager.” He finally said, and she blinked in surprise.

  “What?” She asked, confused.

  “Really, I know I’m amazing right now but when puberty hit, I was an absolute asshole to my dad.”

  She looked at him, unsure where this was going. Of all the responses she had expected, this wasn’t even in her realm of thought, but she remained silent and let him continue, “I had internalized everything from the death of my parents. As a kid you forget and adapt pretty quickly. Dad kept me busy and treated me from the start as his own flesh and blood, so it was easy to change. But as I grew up, I started fantasizing about saving them, about saving the world from the evil robots. Eventually I wanted to know where they were buried and how they had died. It took dad a while to tell me that when he and his team had found me, they hadn’t had time to do anything with their bodies. They left them in a tent on the side of the road. He was so worried that I would hate him for that but I didn’t, I hated your father and I hated myself.”

  Her confusion returned, “Why did you hate yourself?”

  He ran a hand through his hair and started blinking more rapidly. She was sure he was trying to suppress tears, “No logical reason,” he let out a strained laugh, “But I thought I could have done something. I blamed myself, I thought, because I was small and weak my parents had exposed themselves to more risks than were necessary. They could have run faster or gone different places if I hadn’t been holding them back.”

  She watched as her husband’s breath caught. She was out of her seat in an instant, kneeling next to him. Her hand came to the side of his face and turned it to look at her. His skin was wet against her palm, “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  He smiled at her, “I know that Maria, it still hurts though.”

  His hands stretched to her face, and he took it in his hands, he leaned in and kissed her on the lips and when he pulled away, he was still smiling at her, “Now you have to understand and accept the same.”

  She let out a slight sigh as she hung her head. His face slipped from her hands, and they fell to his chest. She let out a small laugh, “I walked right into that one, didn’t I?”

  Sean wiped the tears from his eyes and then looked back into the main cabin, “That damn bot better up my percentage for intellect.”

  They both laughed, “I’ll be sure to tell Toby to reevaluate you.”

  He raised a
n eyebrow over his bloodshot eye, “You mean you haven’t before?”

  She patted his face as she raised herself enough to slip into her seat, “I am your constant advocate, my love.”

  He sat up straighter and his hand motioned forward, “There’s the settlement.”

  She looked where he was pointing. Several multi-story buildings sat clustered together, surrounded by forest. It was the same model that the uninhabited town near the Reclamation Unit followed. It was a little older in its design and represented one of the earliest habitats she had created for the survivors. She had never come here before, even after she had been informed that it had become populated. It never felt right.

  She shook her head, “I’m not sure about this, Sean.”

  He reached over and gripped her hand, “Not everyone there will separate you from your parents, Maria, but I’m not worried about their emotional health. I need you to see the good that has come from you and how you and your father are not the same person.”

  She didn’t know how to respond to that. A part of her wanted to believe it, wanted to accept it. But inside she was at war with herself. She focused forward at the rapidly growing buildings on the horizon. The transport banked around the settlement, the dawn’s light reflecting off the glass of the multistory buildings. She could see that the settlers here had expanded on the construction that her North Western RU had built. There were a number of smaller homes spread around the towers and several homesteads dotted the forests.

  She had hoped that people would live in the towers, where resources could be maximized. But the human need for expansion and space appeared to be universal and stronger than even her father’s best attempts to eradicate it. At least they were using the food production facilities that had been a part of the original construction, opting to avoid the cumbersome and inefficient task of outdoor agriculture. Though they had expanded the number of vertical farms that she could see. It would appear as is they were producing more food than this settlement could support. She’d have Tobor look into that. Odds were they were simply stockpiling food and hiding it throughout the area in case the end of the world returned.