Robinson Crusoe 2246: (Book 3)

by E. J. Robinson

  “The problem as I see it is you have too much time on your hands,” Joule said. “‘Idle hands are the devil’s playground.’ Have you ever heard that one? You need to cut loose and get down. And since you’re too square to jitterbug, what’s better than an old-fashioned workout?”

  “You want me to exercise?”

  Joule laughed giddily. “You make it sound like castor oil. Exercise is easy peasy. It improves your health and your mood. It raises endorphins.” She drew near, whispering, “and endorphins can really heat up your love shack. So, what do you like?”

  “Well, we do a lot of running,” Robinson said.

  “Lame-O, Bobby Boy,” Joule said. “You’re killing me! Do you like basketball? Gymnastics? You must be good at something.”

  “I can fight,” Robinson said.

  “Say, that’s tops! Wait here.” Joule grinned mischievously. “

  She blinked out a moment before lights turned on in the far corner, illuminating a section of padding, followed by what sounded like turbines revving up. Robinson felt a momentary buzz that disoriented him. Two panels slid open next to the mat.

  “C’mere, Bobby,” Joule’s voice intoned.

  Robinson crossed to find the small closet with a life-sized mannequin inside. It was hanging from dowels and made of dense but flexible material. The limbs resembled muscles with metallic joints. Somehow, Joule’s face was projected on the head.

  “Carry me over to the mat, will you?” Joule asked.

  Robinson picked up the mannequin. It was heavy. He estimated it weighed forty-five to fifty kilograms—as much as a small teenager.

  “Oof. What is this?” Robinson asked.

  “An automaton. Of sorts. Superconducting magnets under the floor and inside the walls create a field by which pseudo-levitation or mechanical constraint can occur. Watch this.”

  The automaton sprung from Robinson’s grasp, did two backflips, and hovered in the air in a ballerina’s pirouette. Its face—Joule’s face—smiled. “Tell me I didn’t just blow your top.”

  “My top is definitely blown,” Robinson said.

  Joule laughed. “Eighty thousand smaller conductors help manipulate this form through electrodynamic suspension. It takes a crazy amount of energy, believe you me. That’s why the lights above us are popping like kernels.”

  Robinson hadn’t noticed, but now that she mentioned it, the lights had gotten very low. The music and airflow had cut out.

  “How long can you keep this up?” Robinson asked.

  “Used to be indefinitely,” Joule answered. “But these days … my batteries aren’t what they used to be.” She looked melancholy for a moment, then grinned. “So, let’s get this party cookin’! I have training modules for every style of marital arts.” The automaton began making moves according to the discipline Joule called out. “Karate. Aikido. Wu Shu. Pa Qua. Varjamushti. Hwarang-do. And, of course, Kung Fu. Or we can always do it freestyle.”

  “Freestyle sounds good,” Robinson said as he peeled off his shirt. “Are there any rules?”

  “My core programing does not allow me to harm or bring cause to harm any human being. This is the first law of Artificial Intelligence, and it is unassailable. But in certain situations, I’m allowed a little flexibility.”

  The automaton lashed out with a jab and struck Robinson in the face. It surprised him more than it hurt.

  “You should see your face,” Joule teased. “I need time to gauge your speed and skill level. I haven’t done this in a while.”

  Robinson bounced around on his feet, keeping both his hands up.

  “I thought you said you’ve never had guests before.”

  Joule shrugged, slipping in two punches and a kick before circling away. “I haven’t. But in the testing phase, I did train with some of the human elite.”

  Joule fired off a roundhouse, which Robinson blocked before coming back with an upper cut that barely grazed the automaton’s chest.

  “You’re quick for someone your age.”

  “Outside, people don’t reach my age unless they’re quick.”

  “Even more reason to stay inside.”

  This time, Robinson faked a punch and transitioned into a jump kick. Joule lifted the automaton’s leg and launched forward with a superman punch that stopped an inch short of Robinson’s face.

  “Your heart rate is escalating,” Joule said. “And I spy sweat on your forehead. Are you laming out on me already?”

  “Just warming up.”

  Robinson surged in again, ducking under a high kick and aiming an inside kick of his own at the automaton’s leg. Then he spun with a back fist that narrowly missed.

  “Unreal!” Joule exclaimed. “You’re in the pocket now, Jack. Let’s take this jam session to the limit.”

  The strikes came faster and faster, each halting a fraction of a second before hitting its mark. Robinson knew he was being toyed with, and it frustrated him. He grew winded.

  “This is just like the twist. Only we need Hank Ballard and the Midnighters to break it down for us. Whatsamatter, Bobby B? Can’t hang anymore?”

  Robinson was gasping. He took a step back, hands lowering. Joule’s automaton slowed, but as she raised her hands, Robinson threw a sneaky uppercut that slammed Joule’s head back. The punch was so fast that it threw the automaton back. But almost immediately, it defied gravity and came back with a vicious punch that sent Robinson flying. When he looked up from the floor, he saw Joule glowering— only for a moment, but there was no mistaking what he’d seen. Anger. Then it was gone.

  “I am so sorry,” Joule said, kneeling. “Are you hurt?”

  Robinson touched his mouth. Blood.

  “I’m fine,” he said, stripping his gloves off.

  “I don’t know what happened. The energy fluctuations must have caused a momentary glitch.”

  “Right,” Robinson said, his skepticism obvious.

  “As I said before, I could never willfully hurt a person. Especially when that person is you.”

  The automaton’s arm reached out again, but Robinson pushed it away.

  “I said, I’m fine,” Robinson growled. “At least I got you once.”

  “Yes, you did. Very clever playing possum like that. I sometimes forget how capable humans are of deception. Are you sure you don’t need to visit Doc White’s?”

  “Yes, I’m—” Robinson stopped. Joule’s automaton stood rigid, looking intensely at the door. “What is it?”

  The automaton fell and the hologram returned. The sound of the conductor magnets started winding down as the air and lights snapped back on.

  “One of the AWBs outside your door heard something within your room,” Joule said. “It sounds like Friday is in distress.”

  Robinson ran out of the room.

  Friday lay on the floor, the bedsheets stained red with blood. She appeared to be having a seizure. Robinson shouted her name as he rushed to her side, gently lifting her head. She mumbled incoherently. He picked her up and carried her outside.

  “Where’s the infirmary?” Robinson asked Joule.

  “This way!” Joule said, rushing down the hallway.

  From the outside, Doc White’s looked like a humble cottage, but the moment Robinson pushed through the door, he gasped. The facility looked state-of-the-art, with intricate machinery and monitors built into the wall.

  “Place her there,” Joule said.

  She pointed to an elevated leather table at the room’s center. Bright lights flickered on above her as soon as her head hit the table.

  “Step back,” Joule said.

  Robinson did, but he refused to release Friday’s hand. A mechanical arm descended with a hypodermic needle. A bewildered Friday saw it and started to struggle.

  “She doesn’t like needles,” Robinson said.

  “I need blood work if I’m to understand—”

  “Do something else!”

  “Fine,” Joule conceded. The needle-bearing arm reversed course. “I can at le
ast initiate a full-body scan. It will hopefully give me an idea of what’s ailing her.” Joule learned down toward Friday and said, “Don’t worry. It won’t hurt the fetus.”

  Friday groaned but couldn’t pull away. A laser, not unlike the blue one from Sweethome’s entrance, scanned Friday’s body as data spilled across the wall screens.

  “What does it say?” Robinson asked.

  “The initial chest scan reveals small cystic radiolucencies called honeycombing in her lungs. Have you travelled through prairie lands recently?”

  “Yes,” Robinson said. “We came through Oklahoma. There was a dust storm.”

  “That would explain it. The dust there has a high silica count. And the particles are very fine, less than fifty microns. When it accumulates in the lungs, it can rupture the air sacs, creating a condition known as Silicosis. Here, nodular lesions have formed in the upper lobes of her lungs. The good news is it has yet to affect the baby. The bad news is there is no verifiable cure.”

  “You can’t do anything?” Robinson pleaded.

  “I didn’t say that. There were experimental treatments under study before the plague, but they are just that—experimental.”

  Robinson looked at Friday, and she was shaking her head.

  “How long can she survive like this?” he asked.

  “With careful supervision, a month, no more.”

  A month. Time enough to watch her and our child wither away.

  “And this treatment—what would it entail?”

  “Friday would be put an induced coma; at which time I would introduce aluminum and other compounds into her lungs to filter the silica out. If I had to estimate her chances for survival, I’d put it at fifty percent.”

  Robinson’s stomach dropped. He felt Friday grip his hand. She continued to shake her head. In any other case, he would have honored her wishes. She had a right to choose her fate. Even the fate of their child. But in this case, he felt her superstitions were clouding her judgement.

  “Do it,” he said.

  Friday moaned. As the needle lever extended once again, Robinson held her down, whispering in her ear. But as the needle slipped into her vein, she could only look away.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Hunter and Hunted

  Vardan Saah hated the rain. He hated it in New London, and he hated it here. Back in the northern regens of the Isle, it never let up. The Sunderlands. North Hub. He hated them all. Every year floods resulted in petitions to lower export lumber and grains. Saah was forced to fly to those territories and assess the situation, when in fact there was little he could do but stand around, ill-tempered and miserable.

  It wasn’t the imposition of the weather that bothered him exactly. Saah honestly believed he was biologically ill-suited to the cold and damp. His mother used to say it was because he had a warm heart, but any time he encountered a drop in the temperature, his fingers and toes would tingle and go numb. When the other children played in the biting waters of the Tongue, he often made excuses to sit off on the rocks, looking and feeling miserable.

  Thirty years later, he still wished he was somewhere else. Despite it all, he rode on without complaint. What else could he do? Giving up was not an option. The ghosts of Janelle, Jaras, and Tessa would haunt him forever.

  They had set out immediately after Crusoe and the girl left the city of the children. Saah still couldn’t believe that rusted scrap bucket he flew made it into the sky. They knew from the child they’d captured that Crusoe was heading for Denver, but on foot, they were forced to navigate the old roads, which took far longer than he expected.

  It rained on the way west. It rained on the way north. Only Cassa’s nose offered any hope they were headed in the right direction. Because of the rain, animals were sparse. Most stayed burrowed away, forcing the pack to stay out longer and longer to keep the party fed.

  As days bled into weeks, the group tarried on. A collapsed bridge cost them one of the augmented. Another disappeared in the night. Then, five weeks after leaving the city of children, they found the wreckage of the airplane. It had crashed, but there were no corpses inside. No dried blood. When the pack caught Crusoe’s scent, Saah felt his spirits rise.

  A week later, Denver. The skeleton towers sickened Saah as they always did. A reminder of the ancients’ vanity and excess. He swore when the day came that he ruled this country, he would have all the old structures of the ancients razed. Their civilization had failed. His would thrive.

  They made their base at Denver’s old City Hall. Saah had ordered Cassa to keep the pack to the south while they searched the city. It took ten days to find what they were looking for: smoke rising from a vent in one of the old towers.

  Saah was inside the dank parking garage, drying his clothes near a fire when Cassa returned. He sat down and sighed.

  “No sign of it?”

  Cassa signaled, “No.”

  “We’ll need to stable the pack at night then,” Saah said. “They won’t like it, but I prefer to keep them close.”

  Cassa nodded and set off to see the Master’s wishes through. A moment later, a smaller door inside the garage opened and Viktor walked out. He joined Saah by the fire.

  “Well?” Saah asked.

  “I tried, Master,” Viktor said, bemused. “But she continues to insist that we’re the first travelers she’s seen in years—that in all this time she’s lived alone. I don’t doubt that part of her story, but given that her hovel smells of fresh herbs, I’d say it’s safe to say she’s had company recently. But for all my threats, she refuses to talk. She’s a spry old crone, I’ll give her that.”

  “Of course she is,” Saah said. “The woman subsists on rats. That requires a singular constitution. Give it a few minutes, then go in and cut off two of her fingers. See if that doesn’t change her tune.”

  Viktor nodded. “Was that Cassa I heard?”

  “Yes. It seems we’ve lost another one.”

  “I don’t understand it. Even if the pack has adopted some manner of social hierarchy, they would never turn on one of their own. There are no omegas—nothing that would trigger one to run off or be chased off.”

  “Your creations are not the problem.”

  “Then what is?”

  “Isn’t it obvious? We’ve lost two of them in three weeks. Both at night. Both amidst storms that have raged for days. There are no tracks to follow. No remains to be found. It is clear, to me at least, the pack is being hunted.”

  “Hunted?” Viktor repeated, shocked. “By what? Who?”

  “I guess it’s possible it could be men,” Saah mused. “They would need to be shrewd to separate one beast from the others. But they are restless even now—tense. Whatever is out there, they are afraid of it.”

  “But they fear nothing,” Viktor said.

  Saah smirked. “Only the dead fear nothing, Viktor. Because only they have nothing to lose.”

  Viktor sensed the conversation was at an end, so he turned for the old woman’s door, hesitating just outside.

  “What shall I do with her after she talks?” Viktor asked.

  “She’s a forager. Feed her to the pack.”

  They left the following morning, having scavenged what they could from the old woman’s provisions. It wasn’t much. Some winter clothes. A tarp. A bag full of dead rats.

  And an old magazine.

  They arrived at Denver International Airport shortly after. The pack rooted around aimlessly outside, no scent to be found. It wasn’t until Cassa discovered the time capsule tablet that Saah began to have hope. Dusty tracks led to the tower. Fingerprint smudges near a brass arrow symbol there pointed toward a building in the distance.

  Outside, Cassa used his pipes to command the pack inside. They refused.

  “Why won’t they heed?” Saah asked Viktor.

  “It’s not fear,” Viktor said. “See how they only retreat to a distance? Something is interfering with their implants.”

  Saah’s eyes narrowed. “Electrici
ty.”

  Saah and his companions entered, weapons ready. The moved carefully through the first floor. After finding nothing, they headed down to the second.

  Viktor lit a chemical lantern before they wound their way through the empty boxes. Cassa saw nothing, but Saah halted near the back of the room, where he squatted near the uneven floor.

  “Heat,” he said.

  Viktor found ashes a few feet away. “They were here.”

  Viktor and Cassa looked around for a control switch while Saah inspected the gold plate on the wall. He stepped close enough to see the hole in the center. Then he looked up and saw the camera housing. Could it be working?

  “I’ve come for the boy,” Saah said to the plastic eye. “He’s not what he pretends to be.”

  The silence stretched interminably, but Saah’s gaze never wavered. Then the floor beneath his feet jolted, and he began to descend.

  “Keep the pack fed and ready for my return,” Saah said to Cassa. Then he turned to Viktor. “Viktor, come.”

  Viktor shook his head, avoiding the Master’s gaze. “I’m sorry, Master. In the salt mines … I can’t.”

  Saah called him again. Viktor turned away. Saah nodded to Cassa. “If I’m not back within a day, wait for me at the crone’s place.”

  Cassa agreed.

  The platform stopped at a lighted hallway. Saah followed it until he reached a room with hexagonal drawers bearing the images of weapons.

  “No,” Saah said aloud. “Not until I see the boy.”

  “Who is this boy you speak of?” a female voice intoned from above.

  “Robinson Crusoe is his name,” Saah said. “He travels with a girl his age. I have reason to believe they came here.”

  “And what is your name?”

  “Vardan Saah.”

  “Speech patterns suggest you are a long way from home, Vardan Saah. How did you come to this place?”

  “That,” Saah said, “is complicated.”

  “And what business do have with the one called Crusoe?”