by Amy Johnson
On that trip, we went to the dump, digging around for scrap metal for a building project the Elders were overseeing in our storage room. The dump was far away from our tunnel system, meaning we walked for hours through the endless crowds of machines. I had never seen them before, and I was intrigued.
The Artificials glittered in the lights from the billboards, statuesque as they watched our every move. I watched them follow us with their black camera eyes as we weaved in and out of the confetti crowd of cybers.
Two years later, on what seemed like my thousandth above ground trip, the Artificials shot one of my father’s friends. It was the first time I’d witnessed violence from the machines. I wasn’t the one being electrocuted, but my body was rigid, melting as I drowned in fear.
The creation I had revered became a monster in half a second.
The cybers were harmless, and we would occasionally attack them just for sparring practice if we caught them alone. I watched my father trap them in dead end alleyways, fighting with all the ease and stealth of a hawk. He struck all the right places, loosening limbs and shattering bones. I memorized not only his moves, but the cyber’s as well.
This female wouldn’t be the first cyber I’d trapped.
✽✽✽
My body knows every move she could make before she does so. Driven by the computer in her skull, there are only a limited number of things she knows to do. One of those is to choke me. Another one is to break my arms by twisting them out of the socket.
That’s why, when I lunge at her, I aim directly for her arms. The attack catches her off guard; she doesn’t react fast enough.
We crash backwards onto the pavement, metal skidding against it.
“What do you think you are doing?” she asks, grabbing my wrists before I can grab hers. She’s stronger than me, but her processing is slow.
“I need your chip,” I say through gritted teeth, throwing my body to the left. The movement jerks my arm out of her grasp, but it also gives her enough time to stand.
“I can call the Artificials,” she says, swinging for me. I duck, tearing through her knee with my fist. She teeters to the left, off balance with only one leg supporting her.
“I will not, though,” she continues, grabbing a handful of my hair. With no effort, she lifts me off the ground, tossing me towards the back of the alley. I hit the concrete, back first, struggling to breathe.
My vision goes black, and I feel around the pavement for something to use as a weapon. My backpack is some distance away, and when my vision returns, I feel the contacts slipping out as I tear up.
“Because the reward for a captured human is a vacation from work,” she says, towering over me. I kick outwards, propelling her backwards a few steps.
I can’t get to her back this way. I need to spin her around to get the chip out. Climbing to my feet, I crouch as she regains her footing. The knee I shattered sparks uselessly, skin melting from the heat underneath. Behind me is a white brick wall, trapping me.
She will go for my arms first, especially since she wants to capture me. When she lunges, her head will be tilted down, eyes trained on me.
I brace for impact, holding my head high. She does exactly what I expect, throwing her entire body into tackling me against the wall. I step right. She crashes into the brick, sparks flying. My hand meets the back of her head and I entangle my fingers into her hair, rearing back and slamming her head into the wall a few more times.
When I pull it away, there’s nothing but steaming metal and drips of plastic left of her face. The glass of her eyes is shattered, spiderweb trails scattering across the surface. I throw her to the ground, kneeling down beside her and digging my hand into the soft skin of her exposed back.
Finding the familiar panel, I grip it and yank, the suction of her skin attempting to hold me back. When the wires snap like string, the cyber falls limp under me, steam curling out of her deformed body.
“Hey, Linux, I got it!” I say, standing and turning around to face the boy.
Instead of his broad, goofy smile, I am greeted by a ghost’s face, panicked and horrified.
Standing beside him with a paralyzer aimed at his head is a cyber unlike any I’ve ever seen before.
He’s monstrously tall, towering over even Linux. His outfit is a black suit and tie, finished with black shoes that reflect the sunlight overhead. His hair is short, spiked up in the front. I would’ve thought he was human, had half his face not been translucent, showing the machinery beneath. One eye is human, emerald green, and the other is mechanical, red as it stares me down.
Scarier still is the emotion on his face, a mixture of joy and rage.
“Oh my, what a catch we have today,” he whispers, picking up Linux by the back of his neck. Linux turns whiter still, his hands trembling at his side. “Zwei, there’s two of them.”
A female comes around the corner, dressed in a matching black suit. She’s as tall as he is, yet leaner. Her blonde hair curls at the top, framing electric blue eyes that put mine to shame. Like him, she looks entirely human. Yet, there’s a huge piece of skin on her face missing, a gaping hole that cuts from her hairline to her collarbone. As I stare at her, feeling my heart racing in my ears, the mechanics in her face shift, giving her a sinister half-smile.
“Eins, she’s adorable,” the female says. Neither of them have the cybernetic accent. They have no accent at all, as far as I can tell. The female takes a giant step towards me. “Sorry, cutie. You’re going to have to come with us.”
I shake my head violently, taking a shaky step backwards. Stumbling over the body of the cybernetic on the ground, I hit the wall, knocking what air remains in my lungs out of me.
“Eins, can I just shoot her?” the female asks, taking aim for me. The gun in her hand isn’t a paralyzer. In the barrel are actual metal bullets, not the electrified blue ones.
“No,” the male says, shaking Linux at her. My eyes dart between him and the female.
I promised him. I have to protect him.
“Why not? Do you see anything valuable about her? She’s painfully average.”
I say a quick prayer of thanks to God for making me normal.
“No, she’s not,” the male says. “Look at those eyes. Almost as lovely as yours, except natural. Our ‘Eyes’ exhibit has been needing a second occupant.”
My heart stops in that moment, crushed by the thousand-pound weight of his words. I can’t go to the Anthros. I won’t. My body kicks into overdrive, and I dive for the limp cyber just as the female switches weapons and begins to fire.
Using the dead cyber as a shield, I inch backwards towards the end of the alley. There is nothing but a brick wall behind me, but there’s a ladder. Maybe I can climb out.
The female, Zwei, continues to fire her paralyzer, electrified bullets flying like bees in the air. Through my personal shield, the electricity tickles my hands, spreading goosebumps up my arms. The hair covering my body stands on end. The metal of the cyber is a good enough conductor; yet, the strength behind the bullets dies out before it reaches me.
My teeth chatter as I struggle to hold up the weight of the cyber, bending almost backwards.
The computer panel in my hand is destroyed, fried by a stray bullet.
“Eden!” Linux screams. “Please don’t leave me.”
I take a chance and glance at him, where he’s still being dangled in the air.
Leaving Linux isn’t an option. What was I thinking? I couldn’t leave him even if I tried. He means too much to me. And to Cyrus.
I let out a long, determined breath.
Even if I don’t make it out of this alley alive, Linux has to.
“Oh, don’t fight me, little Mensch,” Zwei says, throwing her arms in the air. There’s a sick smile painted on her face, still, even as she waves the paralyzer at me. “Just come willingly, and we won’t kill either of you. We will find a place for your boring companion.”
“Make me,” I whisper.
“Make you
?” She lets out a dry laugh. “Okay, but you asked for it.”
She lunges at me, grabs the body of the cyber with both hands, and lifts me off of the ground. My feet dangle under me until I am eye to eye with her.
“The fear in your eyes is hilarious,” she whispers at me.
I hold onto the cyber for dear life, frozen.
No, no, no; this isn’t how it’s supposed to happen.
The image of my parents flashes before my eyes. These two machines aren’t Artificials. They’re something much worse. Why am I scared of them? They have to have a weakness.
Desperate, I kick out at Zwei, my foot landing square in the middle of her chest. She takes a deep breath, losing her grip on me in surprise.
“Ooh, feisty,” she squeals, grabbing my ankle as I crawl away.
Now, I’m upside down.
I look around for a weapon as she carries me by one leg toward Linux and her partner. With the blood rushing to my head, my vision blurs. The heat in my face is unbearable, and my heartbeat pounds in my ears.
We pass my backpack, where my grenade sits. Why couldn’t Cyrus have given me a gun? Just once? Screw the limited resources and needing to protect the other Luddites with the guns. If I just had a long range weapon, I could…
My eyes fall on the gun in Zwei’s pocket. The hilt is exposed by her open suit jacket, flashing silver in the streetlights. It doesn’t have the blue tint of a paralyzer. Mustering up all the strength I have left in my upper body, I grab for the gun, aiming towards Linux and Eins.
“Zwei, you Dummkopf!” Eins snaps, pointing with his free hand at me.
He is a second too late, though. The bullet hits its target, the joint of his shoulder. He swears loudly as the arm dislodges, sending Linux tumbling to the ground.
“Run, Lin!” I scream, tossing the gun at him.
For a moment, confusion passes over his face. Then, he takes off at a sprint, disappearing from my sight.
“You let him get away,” Zwei whines, throwing me onto the ground. I slam head-first into the pavement. Pain radiates through my head and back, and warm liquid runs down my forehead.
“She better be worth this,” she continues.
I pry my eyes open, the misty form of Eins’ face uncomfortably close to mine. His single red eye bores through mine, making my head hurt worse. He smells faintly of motor oil and plastic, and his teeth are slightly yellow.
“She will prove her worth. If nothing, we will breed her. She’s a strong candidate.” He puts the cold barrel of a gun on my temple. The blue of it appears like lightning in my peripheral.
“Kill me,” I mutter. “Harvest me, please.”
Eins laughs, reminding me of the sound trains make when they scrape on their brakes. The paralyzer hums in my ear.
“See you behind the glass,” he says, and I enter the lightning, thrown into a sea of excruciating pain.
Chapter 4: Lonely
Linux
Eden’s words echo behind me, twisting themselves into bitter knots in the back of my skull. Nausea builds up in my throat and pools around my lungs. I taste it on the back of my tongue.
I need to go back.
I need to help her.
Yet, I can’t. My body won’t turn around, regardless of how much I need to. Bravery isn’t something I even pretend to have, and as the fear builds in my throat, I feel weaker than I’ve ever felt in my life.
I’ve always run from the things that scare me. My parents before me ran from the machines. The adults I struggle to remember were too scared to even join the Luddites. Dark abandoned buildings and memories of living in disguises fill the spaces in my head reserved for my past. No faces, no gentle hugs. Just damp ground, gray mist, and constant hiding.
I slam through the crowds of cybernetics that blur together. Shoulders dig into my arms. Hands grab my wrists and try to pull me back. Alarms reverberate through my teeth and eyes, both the high-pitched cry for Artificials and the low alert tells the machines around me that there is a human nearby.
The crowds thicken, and I brace myself to shovel through. One shoulder tilted forward proves to be the easiest way. So, I wedge myself through the crowds, following the looming shape of the skyscrapers.
The taller the buildings, the closer I am to home.
The closer I am to home, the safer I am.
I pass under the white arches of the Anthropological Park, and the ground under me becomes uneven. I trip over my own feet as the sidewalk dips and turns, catching myself on the side of a brick building. The surface cuts into my palm, but the pain gives my mind something to think about other than the terror uncoiling around me.
I squint down at my feet and wipe my bloody hand on my pale pink shirt.
Think, for just one second, Linux, I tell myself, slowing down my breathing.
Why aren’t you running faster? What are the other factors in this problem?
I’m out of shape, for starters. Yet, I’m thin and fast. I hide in small spaces and disappear from peripherals.
It’s the shoes. They’re too heavy.
As the cacophony from the machines approaches me from behind, I kick the shoes off and take off at a sprint again, ignoring the burning sensation in my thighs, ribs, calves, and stomach.
Every muscle in my body begs me to stop. Just for one minute. Surely they won’t catch you if you take a two second break.
Yet, the image of those two machines drives me further.
What were those things? They weren’t cybernetics. Not entirely. They definitely weren’t humans, though, because even with my handicapped sight, I saw the controllers glinting under their skin. I heard the drives and sensors.
There was a heartbeat under the skin of the man who held me. His fingers dug into the soft skin of my neck, and the blood raced through his veins with unimaginable clarity. It accelerated when Eden got the upper hand.
I felt it die when Eden shot off the arm holding me in the air.
I heard the anger and rage in his voice as he chastised his partner.
No cybernetic organism has ever shown emotion like that.
My alley comes to an abrupt end, and I slam into a solid brick wall. I swear as I realize that I’ve not been counting my steps. I’m lost and blind, cornered into an alley for the second time today.
Then, another thought hits me.
“Idiot,” I hiss, digging through my pocket for my glasses. I push them onto my face, sighing at the clarity they carry with them.
My heart still jumps out of my chest, ringing through the ends of my ears and the edge of my nose. It thrums behind my eyes, and my eyelashes twitch. I glance behind me, but the alley lies empty.
Did I really lose them?
Does it matter? I need to get back to the underground before they catch up.
As I search the ground for a manhole cover, kicking debris and filth out of the way, I wonder how Cyrus will react to Eden’s capture. The man reaches record protectiveness levels on easy missions--when we are just scavenging.
Is he going to feel as empty as I do?
That emptiness weakens my knees and snakes black fingers into my ear sockets. It pulls a scream out of my throat, but my common sense pushes back. I can’t let it out now; someone might hear me.
Is Cyrus going to feel as scared as I do?
Without Eden, the Luddites have no hope of keeping our supplies stocked. She ran missions almost daily to make sure there were enough clothing and weapons to protect us from anything. She instilled bravery in every human she led out of the tunnels by making sure we knew we were safe in her hands.
Will Cyrus feel as lost as I do?
I woke Eden up every morning. She visited my hideout between jobs, sometimes sitting and just watching in silence, sometimes reading a book. She stood up for me when some of the older boys said I was too small to benefit the group. It was Eden who proved my worth and gave me reason and Eden that picked me up off the street and saved my life.
We are two different hemispheres, as di
fferent as a right and left arm. She can’t imagine being trapped; I spend constant hours in my room bathed in semi-darkness. She memorizes poems her parents used to read to her. I memorize lines of code and commands until they crowd my brain and I dream in binary.
And yet, this is how I repay her? By running away scared?
My fingers graze the edge of a cool metal ring, and I grip it in triumph. With a groan, I pry the manhole cover up and use my entire body to shift it to one side. I throw my legs over the edge, using my bare feet to feel for the rungs of the ladder. When I find them, I slip down and close the lid behind me.
The descent is short, and when I stand on solid ground again, I lean against the wall of the tunnel. The grime coating the walls sinks in at my touch like putty, squishing through my fingers. I ignore the shiver I feel building up and sink down to crouch on the ground.
What have I done?
Eden was our motivation, and I just left her behind.
I left my best friend behind to die.
No, they won’t kill her. Her body is perfect for modifications and testing--strong, sturdy, and young. Physically, there is nothing wrong with her. She’s just the right age for breeding as well.
A sob escapes my mouth, and I bury my face in my hands. The darkness wins, pulling me over the edge with it. My entire body shakes as I begin to cry. The adrenaline of the run crashes down around me.
How in the world am I going to tell Cyrus?
The ground trembles above me, sending crumbs of dirt down around me. The brown rain settles on my white pants and only adds to the filth covering them. I brush a few flakes off, but the movement smears them instead. The pounding of heavy feet cross over my head once again, and I glance up.
My hand comes up to clamp my mouth shut, but my short gasps of breath still seep through my fingers.
If they come down here, I’ll have no chance of outrunning them. In the shallow water, my footsteps will allow the Artificials to track me with ease. They will follow my breathing and heartbeat, too, if I don’t get a strong head start.