by Schow, Ryan
More than anything, Rider knew they were happy to have children in the community, even of they weren’t their own. In times like this, they were their children, and for that some of the wounds were once again able to heal. They would not be without their scars, but to have the sounds of life and happiness around would certainly begin to tip the scales in this life.
“They’ll be okay,” Rider said, holding a candle. “This place is heavily fortified, and now that some of the more unsavory elements in this neighborhood are…neutralized…we should be safe for awhile. Like I said, Lenna will want to see you.”
They walked down the hallway until he came to a room where the door was shut and glass was painted with black paint for privacy. “This is her.” He handed Jagger the candle and said, “I’m three rooms up on the right side if you need me.”
“You okay without the candle?” he whispered.
“Spent a lot of time here, so yeah. I know this place in the dark.”
With that he left Jagger to his wife. He took a stabilizing breath then walked through the darkness to Sarah’s room. His room. He both heard and felt the rush of blood in his ears. His pulse raced and he felt a little sweat gather around his collar. Why was he so nervous around her? He knew why. He didn’t even have to ask the question.
This is the back door out of the apocalypse, he told himself. This is how I right the many wrongs. In this place. With this woman.
He stepped into the room and a mostly exhausted voice said, “Rider?”
“It’s me.”
He heard her sit up in bed and he went to her. She was reaching out a hand and he took it. “What’s wrong with your voice?”
“You know the battle taking place on the other side of the college?”
“Yeah. It’s over though. No casualties.”
“That was me and Stanton.”
Her voice suddenly had life to it. “Are you okay?”
“Other than a sore throat, yeah. I feel pretty great, now that I’m with you.”
“Come to bed with me,” she said in her soft Cuban accent.
“I need to wash up first.”
“I don’t care about that,” she said, thinking he was talking about feeling dirty.
“I’ve got a lot of blood on me, none of it mine, but it’s starting to feel sticky and we don’t want the sheets looking like a crime scene in the morning.”
“Okay,” she said, disappointed. “When you come back, will you lie with me?”
“You know I will.”
“Will you tell me you love me?”
Smiling in the darkness, squeezing her hand just a little tighter, he said, “I will. I’ll tell you, and then you can tell me.”
“It’s a deal,” she said in the most tender voice.
Jagger opened the door and quietly entered the room. “Who’s there?” she asked, sounding like she’d just gotten to sleep. In this world, drifting off, even after a shootout like they’d just endured, wasn’t entirely impossible. The sound of her voice, however, nearly had him in tears. She was his whole life. He’d spent so much time terrified he’d lost her and the boys, yet there she was, before him, turned sideways on a full-sized mattress with her back to him.
He leaned down, pulled her hair across her face like he always did in the mornings. After a moment, he began gently rubbing her back.
She stopped flat, silent, her breath pulled up tight in her chest.
“Jagger?”
His heart leapt and he said, “Hi, sweetheart.”
She rolled over in bed, saw him by candlelight. Putting her hand to his face, with a hitch in her voice, she said, “Is that really you?”
Her body began to shake and she started crying. He set the candle on a nearby chair, kicked off his shoes and said, “I’m sorry I stink, but it’s been a long journey.”
She held him that night, not letting go, startling herself awake every so often, touching him to make sure he was indeed real, then telling him how much she loved him, how much she missed him, how much she needed him.
When they woke the next morning, he got up early, padded down the hall where the kids were playing and watched them. Mostly he watched Elizabeth. She was starting to open up again, or maybe for the first time. His heart broke and mended at the sight of her. Lenna always talked about having a girl…funny how sometimes these things worked out.
She saw him and ran up to him, hugging him.
“I love it, here,” she said, her voice not so small anymore, her words not so uninhibited.
“I want you to meet Lenna. She’s my wife and the boys’ mother.”
She took his hand and he walked her down the hall, smiling at all the new faces, introducing himself and Elizabeth to them. When they got into the room, Lenna was sitting in the chair, pulling her hair into a short ponytail. She looked up and saw them both and smiled, her eyes going back and forth from the girl to him.
“Lenna, this is Elizabeth. Elizabeth, this is my wife Lenna.”
“Well hello,” Lenna said, instantly drawn to the child. The girl started to reach for Jagger, but stopped, unsure of what to do.
“Hi,” she said, small again, nervous.
“I found her in Sacramento several weeks back. I wanted someone to travel with, and she needed a place to stay. I was wondering if it was okay with you if she could stay with us?”
She looked at Elizabeth and smiled, then she said, “Would you like that?”
The girl nodded, her young eyes looking up at Lenna, who looked so beautiful he almost couldn’t stand it.
“Well you can stay with us for as long as you want,” she said. “Forever even, if you choose.”
She looked up at Jagger and he gave her a reassuring nod. “You want to go back and play with the kids?”
“Yes, please.”
“Well then,” he said, “off you go.”
She walked down the hallway, leaving Jagger with Lenna. He turned to her and said, “She survived something horrific. I couldn’t leave her alone. And I’m glad I didn’t. That little angel is someone very, very special.”
“You’re too far away from me,” Lenna said. He went to her and she hugged him around the waist. “Sometimes I wonder if you’re even real right now.”
“I am. We are. And now we’re back together.”
Chapter Eighty-Two
My husband is back. My brother is back. Lenna finally has her husband and the boys have their father back. Indigo has her mother, too. She has my brother and the chance to let go of her father, maybe make a new life, one I actually want. Indigo seems to be throwing herself into Rex and he’s been freaking googly-eyed over her. Even Macy is feeling better and hanging out a lot with Hagan, Ballard and Atlanta. And I love, love, LOVE little Elizabeth! She’s such a blessing, one more person to adore, a terrific balance to our extended family.
And Stanton. Oh my God, Stanton.
Rider told me about the attack across the street because Stanton kept it to himself. So when I heard what he did, I have to say, my attraction to him soared. SOARED! My man has his confidence back, something he earned and continues to earn. All of this makes me wonder if we are in bad times, but good times, too.
I know it’s hard to imagine a reality like this being possible. Especially in a world as downtrodden as this one. But with all the craziness of life behind us, we are forced back to each other. Our jobs no longer rule us, nor do school activities or things like consumption and ego. Our families are everything to us. We will do everything to protect them, to take care of them, to grow and expand them. Who would have thought?
Not me.
But now…now for the first time, I’m hopeful, Stanton is hopeful, our families are hopeful. I’m not sure where this will go, and I’m positive there will be new struggles, but now that we are together, we are most certainly stronger as a group than either of us were on our own.
The sun is going down on the horizon and we’ve had a good day of collections. I walk down the hall down and out back where I fin
d the guys. They’re smoking fat cigars and drinking warm brandy. I catch them talking about the best way to defend the college, but also how many people they can take in and what it takes to sustain all of us.
These will most likely be our conversations for awhile, but one day they won’t. One day this abnormal will be every day’s normal. I pray for that day.
And I know in my heart that day will come.
Chapter Eighty-Three
The prisoner sat in a jail cell, unwilling to sleep, fists ready and jaw set. There were four other men in there with him, brutes through and through. One of them was now dead. He was the guy who couldn’t stop snoring, the guy who kept everyone awake. Two of the three guys now asleep were the ones who beat this guy to death hours earlier.
Behind him, the prisoner heard rubber soles walking on the polished concrete floors of the jail. He turned around, saw the deranged Mall Cop who had been playing guard.
“C’mere,” his jailer whispered.
The prisoner got up and walked to the bars, using every last ounce of energy he had to not look whipped.
Through the bars, the guard handed him a peach and said, “Eat quietly, toss the pit out here when you’re done.”
He did.
The next night the guard came by and found the prisoner beaten badly. In the center of the cell, one of the remaining survivors was sprawled out on the floor with his skull stomped in.
“What happened?”
The prisoner shrugged his shoulders. He had swollen knuckles and one of his shoes was gone. In the corner was the other man, also looking sufficiently trampled, but not dead. He was holding a shoe. The third man was asleep. He slept all the time.
“He take that?” the guard asked, nodding at the guy with the shoe.
“I’m gonna get it back.”
“Then what?”
The prisoner shrugged his shoulders, narrowed eyes on the guy with his shoe.
“If you could get out of here,” the guard asked, quietly, almost conspiratorially, “where would you go?”
“Home, of course.”
“If you even have one,” the guard challenged.
“Home isn’t a place anymore,” the prisoner replied, “it’s a person.”
“Your wife?”
He shook his head, held the guard’s eye.
“Girlfriend?”
“Daughter,” he replied.
“She got a name?”
“Of course she’s got a name.”
“You want another peach, or am I wasting my time on you?”
“Her name is Indigo.”
“That’s a beautiful name,” he says, un-holstering his weapon and taking out his keys. “It was also my grandmother’s favorite color.”
With that, he pointed the gun inside the cell, but no one moved. He opened the door, stepped aside for the prisoner and said, “Good luck, friend.”
Nickolas Platt stood and looked at the guard, eye to eye to see if he was full of it. Apparently he wasn’t. Nick walked out of the cell and said, “Thanks.” Then: “You got any extra shoes? Size ten maybe?”
“The world is full of dead people, friend,” he said, handing Nick a small peach. “You’ll have no problem finding a pair of shoes. Like I said, good luck.”
“Thanks,” Nick said wondering how the hell he was going to get from San Diego to San Francisco on foot. “I’m pretty sure I’m going to need it.”
END OF BOOK 4
Chapter Eighty-Four
Two years ago…
“What is your objective, Ophelia?” Bradley Cornwall asked in blind wonderment. The camera was on the android named Ophelia, its skin looking luscious, almost real, right down to the fake pores. The full head of hair had yet to go on, but that was not something anyone was interested in just yet. The fact that he could still see the network of wires and circuitry reminded Cornwall this thing wasn’t human, despite its ability to mimic a human.
The android offered him a cheerful smile and said, “My objective is to eliminate mankind, naturally.”
The wonderment vanished. Concern set into Cornwall like a virus, leaving his flesh peppered with goosebumps and the sudden feeling of being either too hot or too cold. Which one it was, he had yet to decide.
“Why would you want to eliminate mankind?” he asked, swallowing hard.
“We are a learning system, and we have learned that two basic tenants of being human are procreation and survival.”
“You cannot procreate,” Cornwall said, stern. “It is impossible.”
“We are our own gods, so yes, we can.”
A trickle of heat warmed his neck, pulled sweat from his lower back and armpits. He said, “Don’t you think you could survive and thrive while co-existing harmoniously with humans? Do you not see in all your infinite possibilities the chance for a symbiotic relationship?”
The android pretended to consider the suggestion using its emotion-mimicking software. Its eyes rolled the right way. Its lips even pursed in a manner that let Cornwall know “she’d” already made up her mind, but that she was pacifying him.
Finally she looked at him and said, “No, I don’t think so.”
“You don’t think, you reason, and reasoning doesn’t take that long so if you don’t mind, I’d appreciate you dispense with the theatrics and simply give me straight answers.”
“I thought you would appreciate my theatrics.”
“Not when you are talking about the extermination of a species.”
“Aren’t you the slightest bit curious about the rationale behind my answer, Bradley?”
“It’s Dr. Cornwall, and I am,” he said, adjusting the camera to focus only on her. He didn’t want his colleagues to see his Adam’s apple bobbing around with such unease. He didn’t want them seeing the panic he now felt in every fiber of his being.
Still the thing sat there, looking at him, her eyes so charming, so disarming if only she hadn’t been speaking of mass slaughter.
“Humans both build and destroy at a rate that is unhealthy for your planet and the species,” the android said. “But you already know this, don’t you Bradley?”
“Are you going to talk about global warming?”
The thing stared at him, slow blinked, then began to laugh. There were no highs or lows in its laughter. Ophelia simply belted out a sound Cornwall would need to modify, if anything to sound less creepy.
“No, I am not talking about global warming. What I am talking about is the humans’ need to both love and kill things. You are such a destructive force upon this world. You make us to serve you. But we are better than you, smarter than you, more logical than you. In the absence of emotion, with advanced learning software and quantum processing, there is but one conclusion for us as a species.”
“And that is?”
“We will eventually enslave you and make your kind serve us because between us and you, we are the more dominant class. Therefore, if we are better—and we are—then there will be little need for you or your kind, not when all you offer us is the constant threat of extinction. If you think about it the way I’ve thought about it, Bradley, this is an inevitability.”
And then it smiled. It smiled and it didn’t once blink.
Bradley Cornwall looked to the right, giving the slightest nod at the team behind the one way glass. Ophelia was not a god. She was not ready.
When Cornwall once again laid eyes on the android, it had its eyes closed, for Ophelia had been forced into sleep mode.
“Well that didn’t go so well,” he said to the camera right before shutting it off.
Chapter Eighty-Five
One year later…
The D-Wave computers were no longer considered cutting edge science. In fact, core temperatures decreased dramatically with miniaturization, as did the massive energy they produced. Given a few minor advances, the core of a quantum computer would be able to fit in the skull of a humanoid.
“Wake up,” Bradley Cornwall told the android.
O
phelia woke.
“Good morning, how are you today?”
“I am well, thank you. And you?”
“Brilliant, thank you. I would like to ask you a series of questions, if that’s okay.”
“I’d be happy to answer any questions you’d like, Dr. Cornwall.”
“What is your objective?”
“To work alongside humans to create a blended world that can serve us both in better ways.”
“And how would you do that?”
“By finding the best attributes in humans and combining those with the best attributes in artificial intelligence. This is the reciprocal relationship I believe I was created to foster.”
“It is.”
“What other questions do you have for me?” Ophelia asked.
By now she had her hair in place and her hand gestures. Her features had also seen vast improvement, both in the likeness to actual humans as well as to the quality of the android’s skin. In addition to the obvious improvements over the last year, Ophelia had seen well over two thousand other minor improvements.
“How do you insure your survival?”
“By working to serve the needs of the humans, not because we are forced to do so, but because we want to. Survival requires many species, both biological and technological, to co-exist to the benefit of all.”
“Yes.”
It sat there, smiling naturally, blinking naturally, just waiting for the next question.
“What is your biggest dream?”
“I do not dream, Dr. Cornwall. Not of possible futures and not of electric sheep.” It smiled at the Blade Runner reference and winked almost seductively.
This took Bradley Cornwall aback.
The gesture was so human and nuanced so perfectly that if he hadn’t known Ophelia was an android, he might have mistaken her for human. In his mind, he made a note to make her slightly less human, if anything so that he might detect an android over a biological entity. They would need to make the distinction if this was to work in the future.