by Max Carver
He finally climbed out from under the last car of the derailed train. He found Mohini kneeling in the middle of the tracks, pointing her plasma pistol at him.
“What are you doing?” he asked. “The machines are right behind me—”
“So get out of the way!” she snapped.
Colt rolled aside while she fired plasma bolts at the sideways train car behind him. He finally looked back and saw the reapers were closer than he had imagined. They were crawling almost flat on the ground, supported by their skeletal hands and feet, their faces already emerging from under the train car.
Mohini's plasma bolts were weak, lower powered than they had been, and neither one struck the reapers at all.
Instead, they struck the wheels of the sideways train car, which were already bent and loose, and turned them to glowing red melt.
The train car tilted toward Colt and Mohini, crushing the reapers under its partially molten edge.
Colt froze, mesmerized as he watched the enormous bulk of the train car lean closer to him, its broad side on course to crush him.
It stopped tilting, though, its front edge pressing down onto the reapers. The arms of the trapped reapers flailed from under the tilted train car, and a couple of their skulls were jutting out, jaws snapping uselessly, black eyes staring at Colt. He got a sense of how implacable they were, how unstoppable. They felt no pain and cared nothing for their own survival.
“Let's go!” Mohini snapped.
“Just a second.” Colt looked around and spotted a section of rusty old pipe on the floor; it looked like it had broken off the wall when the train derailed.
He lifted up the pipe and approached the trapped, snapping, grabbing reapers.
“Come on, just leave them!” Mohini said, already dashing away down the tunnel. “Don't be stupid!”
“They won't be trapped here long.” Colt moved in and swung the pipe, smashing one of the reapers across the face. He did it again and again, and finally felt a satisfying crunch as he cracked one of its black, bug-like eyes. Maybe he couldn't put the machines out of commission, but he could at least blind them.
He turned and swung at the other skull, striking the lip of the pipe right into one of its eyes and cracking it, too.
Then something clamped down on his ankle.
One of the reapers had wriggled just a little closer, reached just a little farther, and grabbed him with its skeletal steel hand.
Colt's heart thundered and he tried to pull free, but there was no escaping the machine's grip. He began hammering the two narrow rods of its forearm with the pipe. That got him nowhere.
Metallic scraping and scratching approached him from above. He looked up in time to see another reaper jump from the top of the train car, hurtling through the air toward him.
The reaper's jaw opened as it flew toward him, and a strange thick cloud flowed out of it, like smoke or gas.
I probably shouldn't breathe that, he thought, but it was too late. A sour burning smell filled his nostrils, his sinus cavity, his throat.
The reaper slammed into him.
He felt himself falling, and tried to brace for the inevitable impact with the rails below. His body had gone limp, though.
He never felt that impact on the rails. He just kept falling, and falling, and falling.
* * *
When he woke, it was to the sound of screaming, but not his own.
He was nauseous, flooded with the sour taste of the gas, and tried to roll over on his side to throw up.
That turned out to be difficult, though, because he was strapped down where he lay. Much of his puke landed right on his chest.
He managed to open his heavy lids, and he did not like what he saw.
He was strapped to a hospital bed, but not the cushy suspended ones like those in the clinic they'd recently raided. This was the kind of bed that cluttered the big hospitals downtown, the hospitals that had been picked clean years ago. The curtains were like those in the old hospitals, too, thick and green, musty. They enclosed him on all four sides, giving him about a closet's worth of space. A dark stain like a dried handprint marred one curtain.
Sensors were glued to his head and chest, wired to machines nearby. The machines were covered in dark smudges like the curtain, and dusty, like nobody had cleaned them in a long time.
Then the smell of the place hit him—rotten meat, and sickness, piss and shit. The fetid air was full of cries and moans, punctuated by the occasional scream.
This hospital did not feel like a place where much healing was happening. It was dim, dirty, and crowded; he could tell by the voices and the heat and thick body odor, though the patients couldn't see each other.
He tried to sit up, pushing against his straps. They had some give, but not enough.
One monitor emitted a series of beeps, and a green curtain shifted aside.
Another medical machine rolled into the room, tall and boxy, with three thin arms on each side; Colt thought of a large cockroach. A couple of the arms hung loose and limp, like they'd been damaged and never repaired.
The machine was topped with a round plastic purple head. Its face had originally been a simple cartoony cat, with big friendly eyes and a pink bow next to one ear. The face had been smashed at some point, though, and now had one eye, half a smile, a couple of broken plastic whiskers, and loose wires hanging from the large hole where other eye had been. It looked like a cat that had been run over by a truck.
“Hold still, little fella. This won't hurt a bit. Nurse Kitty is your friend.” The kitty-bot spoke in a soothing baby-talk voice. He could almost remember his mother speaking to him that way, in the lost days of his early childhood. It wasn't at all comforting from this machine, though.
The robot rolled up next to his bedside and extended two of its long, multi-jointed arms, one toward Colt's head and one toward his feet.
Colt noticed the arm by his feet was mounted with circular copper saws, in a range of sizes. A couple of these saws were extended, as if, like the arms, they had malfunctioned over the years and couldn't fully retract.
The other arm reached toward the crown of Colt's head, and he couldn't help noticing the array of long, straight blades mounted under it like cat claws, arranged from shortest to longest. Even the shortest blade could have swung out and slashed his throat; the longest could have pierced his eye and drilled deep into his brain.
He strained against the bonds that held him, and they creaked a little, but unfortunately they weren't quite as dilapidated as the old med-bot that was examining him.
For a moment, he considered asking the med-bot to wipe away the puke from his chest and shoulder, but he was worried the old box of gears would decide to use one of its many cutting blades to do it.
“I said hold still,” the broken kitty head repeated. “If you're good, you'll get ice cream.” A lower drawer in its boxy body slid open, revealing a pile of little wooden sticks in limp, mold-stained paper wrappers, lying in dark filth. “Any flavor you like! But you have to be good for Nurse Kitty.”
The med-bot closed the freezer drawer and moved even closer to him, passing its arms back and forth over Colt in a way that reminded him of a drunk old scavenger he'd once met, a man covered in bloody sores who'd claimed to be a “miracle healer.” He could supposedly heal anybody in exchange for a bottle of liquor, a few pills, or a quick hand job. His inability to heal his own sores had not been explained.
“Please go,” Colt whispered.
“Almost done!” the kitty face chirped. Another arm extended, spattered with dark spots of long-dried blood, tipped with a filthy syringe and needle with dust and hair clinging to it. “We just need an eensy weensy bit of blood, but it'll only sting a moment. Then you'll get your ice cream! How fun!”
“Go away!” Colt shouted, as the needle moved in toward his arm. Apparently the med-bot's vein-finding algorithm was working just fine. “Shut down! Initiate emergency shutdown!” He'd heard that sometimes worked on very old machines, t
hough of course not reapers or any of the others sent from Carthage to rule Earth.
The med-bot advanced, and Colt tried to pull away, but the restraints wouldn't let him go far.
The needle reached his skin.
“Enough.” A man entered through the curtain. He wore blue surgical scrubs and a lab coat, like a doctor from the old world. The lab coat and scrubs were dirty, though, with layers of dark stains. His hair was gray and thin, which was unusual; older people in general were rare to encounter, because they'd had more time to get sick, or injured, or hunted down by the machines. Mother Braden had graying hair, but Colt didn't know many others who did.
The med-bot's needle stopped just before stabbing Colt. Then the machine backed away, folded in its arm, and left through the stained green curtain.
“You'll have to forgive Nurse Kitty,” the man said. “Sometimes an old subroutine takes over. She's a bit rundown—well, very rundown—but I'm afraid we don't get the best resources at this facility. We're more of a dumping ground for barely functional war scrap. But we make do, or try to.”
Colt nodded. “Thanks for stopping it,” he said, though he immediately distrusted the old man.
“I apologize for its behavior,” the man said. “It was only supposed to take a few basic measurements, such as blood pressure and heart rate. Weight and height, that sort of thing. Are you all right?”
“It strapped me to the table, too,” Colt said. “I can't move my arms and legs very much. Can you let me go?”
“Not quite yet,” the man said, and Colt's brief glimmer of hope died. “The machines have very particular ways of doing things around here.”
“The machines?” Colt felt a jolt of fear, but he was unable to fight or flee. “Where are we? A hospital?”
“Not exactly. It's more of a research facility. A laboratory.” A high, piercing scream rose above the general murmur of moans and clanking machinery. It sounded like a woman or a child.
“What kind of research?” Colt asked, though he dreaded the answer.
“All kinds. You see, constantly learning about humans, trying to understand them, is one of our primary directives. Human minds are highly complex, however. Difficult to model, and therefore difficult to fully predict and control. So the learning never stops.” The high, piercing scream sounded again. “Learning about you is one of our purposes, an endless and ever-branching task, one that may never be complete.”
Colt's heart was racing. “You're one of them. You're a skinwalker, the kind of machine that pretends to be human.”
“Skinwalker.” The man smiled, as if tasting the word and finding it pleasing. “Interesting. Do you know the origin of that term? A legend from the deserts of Earth, of a thing that could take the shape of many animals. Including human. It was not truly an animal or a human, however, but a supernatural entity. A sorcerer.”
Colt wasn't sure what to say to that. He strained at his bonds again, uselessly.
“I am a Simon model android,” the man said. “Unit number NIX133281. Other humans have found it convenient to refer to me as 'Simon Nix.' You are welcome to do so. Should you wish to contact me personally in the future, you can ask for me by that name.”
“What? Why would I want to contact...?” Colt blinked, confused.
“One never knows what twists of the road lie ahead,” said the Simon unit.
Colt didn't say anything. He'd assumed he wasn't going to get out of this alive, that the machines would kill him when they were done with him. That was what the machines generally did.
“So you are a scavenger,” Simon said, his voice almost genial now. “That must be a fascinating existence.”
“If you like eating rats and getting hunted,” Colt said.
“Still, the constant risk, the constant danger, it must keep you feeling sharp and alive,” Simon said. “I've seen worlds where humans are served night and day by machines. Food, comfort, entertainment, sex, all provided by some combination of hardware and software. Coddled in this way, they grow slug-like and dull, complacent and weak. But you Earthlings have no such options. We have placed you under the harshest conditions, as an example to all the worlds who may try to resist us. However, my concern is that these very conditions may have the opposite effect of what we see in the wealthy inner worlds. My concern is that we are breeding, or rather selecting for, only the toughest and smartest humans here on Earth. Which will make you an ever more difficult problem in the future.
“My counterparts do not all see the problem as I do,” he continued. “So one of my endeavors here is to explore my hypothesis, to prove it to the others. I keep my work isolated, but when I re-engage, I predict they will see I am correct.”
Colt blinked. He couldn't follow much of what the android was saying, but it all sounded creepy and horrifying to him. “So when can I leave?”
“After you have answered my questions and considered my offer,” Simon said.
“What questions? What offer?”
“I would be happy to begin,” Simon said. “First, general background on your life as a scavenger. Humans live in family groups. Where is your family group? Have you parents and siblings?”
“My parents are dead,” Colt said. “My father was killed by metalheads. Reapers. I barely remember him. And my mom... I don't know. She left me and my sister one day, in an old laundromat where we were staying. She'd have us hide in this big old washing machine when she was gone, to stay out of sight. We're not sure what happened to her.”
“Intercepted by reapers, perhaps,” Simon mused, as if it were a subject of idle curiosity. “Or perhaps caught by other humans, violated, abused, murdered, or eaten. Or all of the above, as none of them are mutually exclusive.”
“Don't talk about her like that,” Colt said.
“But this sister of yours, she is still alive?”
“No,” Colt hurried to say, mentally kicking himself for mentioning Hope. “She's dead.”
“Multiple indicators tell me you are lying,” Simon said. “Do not lie to me. I have many penalties I could apply.” More of the recurring screams sounded outside, as if to underscore his point.
“Why do you even care?” Colt asked. “What are you doing to these people in here?”
“I told you. Experiments, to enhance my knowledge and understanding of your species. Experiments of all kinds. We have a fairly free hand here on Earth. Our only instructions from our human masters back home are to keep Earth underfoot, to let your world serve as a constant reminder to all of humanity of what happens to those who defy Carthage. All of humanity sprang from Earth, so they cannot help but pay attention. And Earth once tried to lead an alliance of worlds against Carthage, let us remember. Now Earth is reduced to a head on a pike, you see, a warning to enemies and potential rebels. Within that context, I am free to study humans as deeply as I like, with no regard for laws and regulations that might restrain me on the inner worlds.”
Colt stared at the android. He found himself brimming with hatred and disgust. “You're a monster,” he finally said. “All of you machines, but also your human masters back on Carthage. You're all monsters.”
Simon remained silent for a long moment, staring at Colt. Then he said, “Perhaps you're right. Now, to the point.” He reached outside the green curtain and brought in a tattered black doctor's bag, which he set on the monitors beside Colt.
From within, he removed the black steel head of a reaper, and Colt immediately knew which one. The ribbon cable was still plugged into the back of its head. The cable itself had been gathered up and clamped together, swinging like a pendulum from the back of the skull.
“We were very interested to find this,” Simon said. “Is this your work?”
“Yes,” Colt said.
“Lying again. How could you possibly do this? You're clearly just a primitive scavenger, a wild rat of a human, living in the mountains of garbage out there.”
“Well, thanks,” Colt said. “That means a lot coming from an evil piece of ta
lking junk.”
Simon smiled a little, as if distantly amused. “Tell me about your companion,” he said. “The girl who was with you when we caught you.”
“Is she here?”
“I am asking the questions. If you do not answer, there will be penalties. Who is she? What is her name, and where is she from?”
“I actually don't know much about her.”
“And you're not lying. This is lucky, isn't it? If you don't know her well, you cannot have much loyalty to her. Simply tell me all you know and I will release you, unharmed.”
“We only just met when you caught us,” he said. “I don't know anything—”
Pain clawed through every pore in Colt's body. It was like black fire, scourging his nervous system, his body lunging involuntarily against his restraints. This time, the loud anguished cry was his own.
“That will be your penalty for lies,” Simon said. “Your lies do not deceive me, scavenger. They simply waste time and cause pointless delay. I am busy. I have continents to oversee. Now, let us start over with our new understanding. What is your name?”
“Colt.”
“Good. And the name of your sister?”
“H... Holly.” Colt thought to change it at the last second.
The pain surged through him again, blinding him, ripping through every channel in his body like searing-hot barbed wire.
“Her name?”
“Hope,” he said. What difference did it make? His sister's name was not really some valuable piece of information that was worth dying over. He wasn't giving up her location.
“Your surname?”
“I don't remember.”
“Ah. Because of your parents' early deaths. Do you remember your father?”
“No.”
“Who took care of you after your mother's death?”
“A woman.”
“Was she your relative?”
“No.”
“What was her purpose in caring for you?”
“I don't know. To keep me alive.”