American Nocturne

by Hank Schwaeble

  “Lieutenant? You okay?”

  It was Younger, standing a few feet away, just beyond the reach of the tide. Tyler joined him, looking out to sea.

  “Yeah.”

  “You sure?”

  Mitchell felt the water splash past him and suck back. He opened his eyes and looked at the men. He realized they were keeping their distance, avoiding the water.

  The next wave slid by, washing against him, and he saw why. The foam was dark red in places, chunks of bone and hair and gray matter being pushed onto the beach.

  “I’m fine,” he said, pushing himself up. “Honest.”

  Younger gestured to his rear. “We can’t stay here long, LT.”

  A few dozen Zs were closing in, staggering onto the sand, stiff-legged, hunched over. A variety of sizes and shapes, all manner of ragged dress. Slow, but lumbering forward with the patience of things that know they’ll get there eventually.

  “Hey!” Tyler said, pointing. “Is that Eden?”

  Mitchell spun around. A large wave crested and broke toward shore. Just beyond it, Eden was swimming furiously, canted to one side, crawling with one arm through the water. Her other arm was dragging someone.

  Riley. Mitchell’s boots felt like lead as he crashed back into the surf, trudging through the waves as they slammed against his chest. Then one carried her forward rapidly a few yards and he was able to grab one of Riley’s arms and pull him to shore. Eden stumbled out of the water, bent over, and stopped to catch her breath.

  No pulse, no heartbeat. Mitchell pressed on the man’s chest a few times, causing water to belch onto the sand. But he could tell right away it was no use. He was gone.

  Tyler stood over the both of them, looking down with wide eyes. Younger glanced down, but was far more concerned about the approaching Zs.

  Cypher drew close, looking at the body. Other bots emerged from the water, gravitating toward them.

  “Oh, dear!”

  Younger spoke up. “Lieutenant?”

  Mitchell clenched his eyes, pressing his lips as tight as they would close. “Sir?”

  “Grab all the ammo from my pod you can salvage.” He turned to Eden, who was straightening up and wiping her mouth. “Are you injured?”

  “No.”

  “Were you bit?”

  “I’m immune.”

  “Were you bit?”

  Her eyes tightened. She clearly did not like being addressed in such a way. “No.”

  “What the hell happened?”

  Younger splashed out of the water noisily, carrying two ammo cans. Tyler was behind him.

  “Lieutenant, we don’t have time. We have to move before we’re penned in.” Mitchell nodded, holding eye contact with Eden for an extra few beats. He scanned the waves for his rifle, found it a few yards away molding itself into the wet sand with each wash of tide.

  The Zs were twenty yards or so back, dragging feet through the sand. Mitchell checked and cleared his weapon, dipped it into the next wave to wash out the sand, then racked a cartridge into the chamber. Younger was right. They were in danger of being penned in. The throng was just deep enough, the front line just long enough. There were too many of them.

  “Left,” he said, gesturing with that hand. “Try to conserve your ammo. Cypher!”

  “Oh, dear!”

  “You and the R-Bot take the drones and form a wedge. Once you punch through the line, head sharply south. We’ll rally at the street where that mural is. Pick up the pace when you get to the road. Get as many to follow you at first as you can. They can’t hurt you.”

  “But, sir! That’s not accurate! They are quite capable of tipping over a bot of my proportions! Quite capable! Sand in my gears and joints would be disastrous! I could be immobilized! Stranded! Left to have my circuitry overheat in the sun! I could—”

  Mitchell raised his carbine, ignoring the bot’s pleas, and started clearing the left side with a loud series of semi-automatic fire, each a head shot. The sci-bot threw up his arms, exhorting the other bots to stop merely standing there and move for the love of all that was holy please, please, please move! The bots formed an uneven V and began to plow through the throngs. Mitchell and the others fell in a few yards behind them, Younger and Tyler firing to each side. The four of them made it beyond the press and Mitchell turned to take out the Zs that looked the most capable of pursuing. After dropping close to fifteen, he grabbed Eden by the arm and broke into a hurried jog. Younger and Tyler followed suit, slowing down the pursuit with occasional bursts of rifle fire. The terrain helped.

  Bleached bones protruded from the sand, tattered cloth waving from an out-stretched limb here, a lower jaw gaping away from a turned skull there. Eden took off running down the beach and Mitchell called after her. She abruptly stopped and removed something from the sand. A satchel of some sort. She tossed it over her shoulder and began to run ahead toward the street.

  Mitchell reached the street after her, a moment ahead of the other two. He checked his three o’clock, then his nine, then focused on the forward path. Two-lane road, weathered cars still lining it, a few abandoned in the street, doors open, windows shattered. It was blocked by abandoned cars on the beach side, a nice obstacle, but one that a normal person could negotiate without much trouble. The road looked all clear beyond that for a few hundred yards. Good, he thought. Maybe with a little luck, one of the farthest ones would still have gas, take a push start.

  Along the way, though, there were doorways and alleys on each side. No Zs in the street, at least, and that was a good sign.

  “What’s in the bag?”

  “Provisions not meant to be taken underwater.”

  Mitchell eyed her a long moment then turned to face Younger and Tyler. Behind them a hundred yards to the south, the motley gaggle of bots was making its way toward them, a handful of sleepwalking zombies dogging their trail. “Okay, let’s fan out. Younger, right flank. Tyler, take point.” He leveled his gaze at Eden. “You, stick with me.”

  “We can’t go this way.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “We can’t go this way.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Those vehicles. Cars, you call them. They’re... what’s the term... booby-trapped. That’s why there are no creatures roaming this roadway.”

  “You’re saying the Zs set a trap?”

  “No. They do not possess the intellect.”

  “Who, then?”

  “Robots.”

  “That’s crazy. Why would they do something like that?”

  “To wipe out survivors. They’ve been doing it for over a year now. That’s why they chose a corridor Zs did not tend to use, one blocked off by vehicles. Because that meant humans would.”

  Mitchell started to respond, stopped himself. At least some surface bots had gone haywire, that much was true. Riley had worried their programming had somehow become corrupted, that whatever virus that had turned people into Zs had perhaps managed to even affect machines. They’d all helped him re-circuit each bot in the AB before powering them up. And they’d simplified the warbot, removed what Riley had called its AI capacity. They’d also disarmed it.

  They’d have left them hunks of metal if they didn’t need them to retrieve resources and perform exterior maintenance. And to service the fuel cells.

  The street was still quiet. Mitchell couldn’t make out any movement around corners, any shadows or noise other than whispery gusts of breeze puffing every few seconds.

  But he did have to admit that something didn’t seem quite right. Too many cars in the street with the doors open, like an invitation. Too clear a path of roadway just beyond them.

  The group of bots arrived, Cypher leading the way.

  “Oh, no!” the sci-bot said. “Something’s wrong, isn’t it? First Mr Riley, now this!”

  “Quit whining, Cypher.” Mitchell thought for a moment. “Hey, you’re the sci-bot. She says there are surface bots infected with the Z virus. Made them go haywire, kill peop
le. Is that possible?”

  “Oh, dear! That is highly irregular! As I explained to Mr Riley, my programming cannot simulate such an occurrence. Unless it evolved into a microwave transmission affecting all bots everywhere, any sort of infection would have to be engineered. But I detect no such transmissions. Oh, dear! Do you think I’m infected?”

  “Knock it off, Cypher. You said ‘engineered’. You mean, somebody deliberately did this to them?”

  “That would be the sustainable conclusion. Botkins! Do you suppose someone is trying to destroy all bots?”

  “Focus, Cypher. Can you tell an infected bot if you see one?”

  “I’m not sure, sir. It depends on proximity. I would have to pick up on their signal emissions.”

  “How close?”

  “Approximately thirty meters. Oh, dear! You don’t want me to get close to an infected bot, do you? My circuitry is highly susceptible to—”

  Mitchell cut him off, turning away. Okay, Amazon woman...” he looked back at the approaching flock of Zs. “What do you suggest we do?”

  “First, you must send your bots away. Send them far south, or north, traveling up the coast.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they pose a risk. You cannot be sure they are not susceptible to what has infected the bots that did this.”

  “Oh, dear! Lieutenant! You can’t send me away! Mr Riley rearranged my programming! He removed my defensive capabilities! I’ll be helpless! You can’t—!”

  “Calm down, Cypher. Nobody – or bot – is going anywhere.” He turned to Eden. “Look, Your Highness, let’s get one thing clear. I’m in charge. Me. I don’t recognize your Queenship, I won’t follow your orders. I’ll take your suggestions under advisement, but I’ll issue the commands. Do you copy that?”

  “Very well. In that case, I must suggest you follow me.”

  Eden stepped back and glanced to her right. A wide walkway followed the beach in each direction. A hundred yards or so ahead was another street, and a pack of Zs that were just starting to take notice of them.

  She held a hand out, bladed stiff like a knife, and sliced it down as she broke into a sprint. Mitchell blinked, voiced an objection he doubted she heard, then looked at the others. He dropped his head and started running after her.

  Rather than close the distance, she increased it. He realized she was much faster than he was. It barely took her ten seconds to reach the Zs, with Mitchell still almost thirty yards behind. She covered the final yards with two elongated steps and then went airborne, twisting her body sideways and scissoring her legs. She clipped four Zs off at the head before landing, knocking them down. She was facing Mitchell as the soles of her tennis shoes slapped the concrete and seemed to catch his eye for an instant, but she used her momentum to propel herself backward, flipping off her hands once, then twice, and finally rising high in a somersault before crashing down feet first into the skulls of two more of them.

  Six were down. Five still standing.

  But not for long. Mitchell watched her move through them like a manic dancer, graceful and controlled, elbow to the left, spinning backhand to the right, a continuing motion as she rotated, head dropping almost to the cement as one leg rose in the opposite direction, smashing off another head. She planted one hand on the walk as she completed that move and sprung herself over. She head-butted one of the final two in the face, sending it reeling back, and then grabbed the one next to it by the head, one hand on its crown, the other beneath its jaw, and gave it a violent twist. The thing collapsed into a heap. She dropped its head on top of it.

  Mitchell stood there watching, long having stopped running. He heard Younger and Tyler come up behind him.

  “My sisters were all athletes,” Tyler said. “A couple made the all-state track team. But I never saw a chick move like that.”

  Eden made her way through the remains of the dead, applying precise stomps to the skulls of those still moving.

  “I’ll say one thing, Lieutenant.” Younger patted his officer on the shoulder. “I’m sure glad you didn’t sign me up for that death match.”

  They followed Eden around the corner, weapons in ready-fire position. The bots fell in behind them. Mitchell tried several times to get her to stop, call her back, to no avail. He eventually gave up as a functional formation emerged, Eden clearing the way of Zs as they shambled into the street, Mitchell and his men picking off any who got past her or who made a late appearance after she’d passed.

  He didn’t know what to make of her. But he was not liking it.

  She moved through them like a whirling dervish; an acrobat one moment, a kick-boxer the next. A broom-stick, business end cracked off with a slam of her heel, became a weapon of brutal efficiency as she speared and spun and thrust and swung. The crack of bone sounded out like muted gunfire.

  Two miles into the city, they found an abandoned tank. It was big and green and parked next to a gutted supermarket, angled toward the building with the turret turned toward the street. A bone protruded from what looked like a standard-issue Army boot a few feet away on the asphalt.

  The sight of it made Mitchell uneasy. He wasn’t sure why. He’d seen a lot worse.

  Younger managed to get it started and within a few minutes he was able to figure out how to drive it. The fit was tight. It smashed abandoned cars out of the way, crunched those that were too packed together beneath its tracks, and allowed them to reach the western foothills before it ran out of gas.

  The tank lurched to a halt on a desolate strip of roadway about half a mile short of a truck stop. The first thing Mitchell noticed was that the road was cleared of abandoned vehicles. The second was that robots were waiting.

  Mitchell jumped off the side of the tank and studied the formation of bots. Tyler made his way around the back of the vehicle and stopped beside Mitchell. “Crazies?”

  “I don’t know. Cypher?”

  “Sir, from this distance, I cannot pick up their individual signatures. But, Botkins! They are certainly positioning themselves for a confrontation! Oh, dear!”

  “Cypher, why don’t you head out there, get close enough to pick up on whatever you need to pick up on.”

  “But, sir! What if—?”

  The sound of Eden climbing up to the highest point of the tank cut off the bot’s comment. She reached the top just as Younger popped the access hatch. She straightened her back, feet planted firmly apart, and surveyed the road ahead.

  “They’re infected.”

  A few seconds passed before Mitchell turned his head to look up at her. “You’re sure of this?”

  “Yes. It is like your bot said. A pathogen, engineered to corrupt their programming.”

  “Engineered by whom?”

  Eden said nothing. She unslung the satchel hanging across her torso and set it on the top of the tank. She reached inside and produced a cylinder with a broad, round base and stood it upright on top of the tank’s turret.

  “What are you doing?”

  The satchel arced through the air toward Mitchell. He caught it by the strap at eye-level, the swinging heft of its cargo bumping off his chest.

  “Put this beneath the vehicle.”

  “You know, you’re getting awfully pushy for someone with no rank and no status.”

  “Put it beneath the vehicle. Please.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we need to shield the remaining units.”

  “I don’t—”

  She raised a hand toward the forward horizon, then swept it in each direction. “There’s no time. They’re coming.”

  “Who’s coming.”

  “What you call zombies. Those bots are there to block our path.”

  “But—”

  “Please just do as I say, Lieutenant.”

  Mitchell grunted, shot a glance at the bots in the distance, then stepped behind the tank and shoved the satchel beneath it.

  “Thank you. Now, everyone, cover your ears and please be prepared to run.”


  “Botkins! Lieutenant! You must stop her! She’s—!”

  Before anyone else could comment, Eden knelt beside the cylinder and hammered her open hand down onto its top.

  Mitchell felt a sudden vacuum pressure in his ears, an urgent need to pop his sinuses. Then a blast ring of blue light bathed everything around, traveling like an impact tremor just above the ground. It reached the bots roughly the same time his ear drums seemed to explode.

  Everyone except Eden doubled over, clutching the sides of their heads. Mitchell dropped to a knee, grimacing. Eden merely nodded forward slightly, touching one temple. Then she gave her head a shake and straightened up.