The Lumis War

by Lisa Jade

  The bullets haven’t hurt it. Of course they haven’t.

  The mecha is hulking and solid. It’s built to defend the city from outsiders. Of course it’s not going to be damaged by a few dozen bullets. It stopped while it was being hit, but now it seems to have started its journey again. It trundles forward, clearly taking its time on the approach.

  Someone runs up behind Max and passes him a box of bullets. He opens it, fumbles, then drops to the ground where he hopelessly tries to cram the bullets into the gun with shaking hands.

  “Fuck,” he growls, “fuck, fuck, fuck…”

  I drop to my knees and help, but as I reach for the bullets I’m starting to get scared. This isn’t going to work. We can throw every bullet we have at it and beat it with sticks but that bot is made to kill. It won’t back down so easily.

  Suddenly, I’m back in the infirmary. I’m younger, more naïve. Dr Newton is treating one of the Scout’s injuries. He has him sprawled across the table, and the man is wincing as he treats his wounds.

  “You need to be more careful,” Dr Newton reprimands the Scout. The other man sighs.

  “That’s easier said than done, Doc. When one of those big guys shows up…”

  “I found a book, you know. A while back. It has a great bit of information about bots. Did you know that a bot will always defend itself? You could argue it’s the most basic instinct that a bot has.”

  “So what?”

  “A bot is always reassessing the situation and trying to decipher the best course of action. If it deems an action to be at too great a personal risk, it won’t attempt it. In other words, if it sees you and it thinks that it will sustain too much damage by fighting you, then it will back off.”

  The Scout scowls.

  “What good is that to me?”

  “Put quite simply, you have to make yourself strong. Be big, be loud. Be deadly. If you trick the bot into thinking you’re more dangerous than it is, then you stand a chance at knocking it back. If you make it hesitate for even a moment, then you might just be able to get away.”

  I jerk back into reality, my hand frozen half-way to the bullets. Max looks up, then down, then at me. I blink slowly, purposefully. I know what I have to do.

  “For the love of… snap out of it!” he yells, pushing at my shoulder. The movement snaps me back to consciousness and I stand, clenching my hands and hoping that I can do this. Max stares at me for a moment, and I can only assume he thinks I’ve gone mad.

  He raises his gun and aims it at the bot – but without thinking, I reach up and place my hand over the barrel.

  “H-Hey!”

  He stops just before pulling the trigger and tries to pull the gun from me, but I hold fast. I’m sorry. I don’t know how else to get this through to you.

  I look at him and slowly shake my head, then point at the others and make a ‘stop’ motion with my hand. He looks at me like I’m crazy; but I simply do it again, then tap an invisible watch on my wrist. The moment he lowers the gun I’m off, vaulting off the wall and sprinting into the building.

  I’m racing up the stairs when Minni comes down them. She tries to speak, tries to ask what’s going on, but I push past her and keep running. I burst into the hospital and scoop my launcher up from the floor. I throw it over my shoulder.

  “What the heck do you think you’re doing?”

  Nicholas is awake again; he scrambles to his knees, looking from me to the launcher and back again.

  “There’s no point, you know!” he croaks, “this is all for nothing!”

  I ignore him, tighten the strap and go.

  I emerge onto the rooftop garden and barge into the blazing sun. I can hear voices below; the men crying out, argumentative, and Max trying to calm them. I can’t hear his words, but I can only hope he’s telling them not to shoot. While it won’t do any harm, it’s a waste of bullets.

  Grabbing the pulse mines from the wall, I check them. They’re not full charged – but they’ll do. I cram them into my pockets, pause, and then gather a few of the metal pans that they leave to collect what little rain we get.

  The mecha is far too close by the time I clamber back onto the wall. Max whips around to look for me, and his face fills with confusion as I throw a pan at him.

  “Where have you been? What the hell is this?”

  I respond by smashing my fist into the pan. It creates a massive thump which echoes across Street. I do it again, and again, until all I can hear is the ringing in my skull.

  Then, I pause. I glance back at the bot – and to my surprise, it seems to have worked. The treads have slowed, the scanners are bleeping, and the whole machine seems to be thinking. I push the rest of the pans to the side and the men gather them quickly, somehow understanding what I mean for them to do. I whip around and raise my hands to the people in Street, urging them to shout and yell and make noise. For a moment they hesitate, but then Max clangs his fist into a pan and yells.

  “Oi, ya big ugly machine! Come and get it!”

  Immediately, the hesitation is gone. Chorus upon chorus of yelling breaks out amongst the crowd, and those on the wall lower their guns and join in. The noise is deafening – the sound of a hundred people screeching in unison to ward off a great threat. My throat aches for a moment and I wish I could join in… but that’s not my role.

  I pull the pulse launcher over my head and load it. The mines are old and weakened, and they barely fit inside the launcher. But I don’t care. I cram them in, lift the launcher onto my shoulder, and aim squarely at the bot’s core.

  Fire one. It lands near its tracks, slowing its movement.

  Fire two. It lands on its scanner, inhibiting its senses.

  Fire three. Fire four. Fire five.

  I shoot eight rounds in quick succession, and each one hits the mark. A mass of metallic tentacles spring out, wrapping themselves around the bot and releasing a single, massive pulse. I clench my teeth. Please work. Please, please work.

  The bot grinds to a halt, and for a moment I wonder if we’ve done the impossible. But no. I can still hear the beeping, still sense the whirring, still feel the vibrations of it through the ground. It’s still alive and it’s still conscious. I stamp my foot in frustration. No. Please. Please.

  The others continue to yell, and suddenly the bot jerks. It tilts its head, aims its sights, and shoots a small number of rockets at us. They miss entirely, shooting overhead instead, and I find myself grinning. It can’t aim. Its systems whir, unsure of the best course of action.

  I move my hands a little, encouraging the people of Street to keep crying out, to keep warning it off. I load my final pulse, and I can feel everyone behind me. Their eyes are fixed on my fumbling hands, their expectations resting on my shoulders. I set my jaw, pull the launcher over my shoulder – and fire.

  The final pulse buzzes through the bot, and it seems to come to a decision. As we watch, the deafening roar still going on behind me, it seems to reverse a little, then turn away. The others shout profanity at it as it leaves; it simply clunks in response.

  The reaction is instant; Max grabs me by the shoulders and spins me around, an expression of pure delight on his face.

  “You did it! You actually did it!”

  He runs his hand through his hair, his face flushed with excitement.

  “How on earth…”

  A great cheer rises up around us, the celebration of life, and for a moment my heart feels so light that I might just float away…

  The party rages on until the small hours of the morning.

  I don’t even hear the HT bursting into life until Thomas grabs it and launches it at me. I snatch it out of the air and grin into the speaker. I know they can’t see me, can’t hear me, but as I push the button and allow the sound of laughter to crackle down the line, I hope they can.

  “What the heck?” comes the voice. I let out a silent guffaw – it must be crazy if Sparrow is surprised.

  “Hey Birdie!” laughs Minni, snatching the HT from m
y hand. The two girls chuckle for a moment, and I realise that the two of them would probably get along well.

  She covers the HT with her palm and turns to me with a haughty expression.

  “This call’s for me. Hope you don’t mind!”

  I reach out for it – but it’s too late. She whisks the HT away and prances off into the crowd, a grin on her face. I try to follow, but someone passes me another drink and I lose track of the time.

  Chapter Seventeen

  I’m woken by Minni’s gentle singing. Moonlight streams through what remains of the window frame, filling the hospital with grey light. The others lay motionless around us, curled up comfortably in their concrete beds. I can hear the light snuffling breath filling the room.

  I sit up slowly – Minni is standing at the window, her elbows on the frame, her head leaning out. She sings into Street, her voice as soft and sweet and sugary as ever. I don’t understand the words; I never do. It sounds Latin, perhaps, or maybe Italian. The song is like a lullaby, and I find myself wondering how many times Minni has stood there and sung to us. The guys on the wall must be able to hear her. I’m willing to bet that everyone hears.

  Somehow the idea fills my chest with warmth. Every night she gets up and sings a lullaby to the people of Street, and every night they sleep soundly or listen to her. And yet in the day, nobody mentions it. It’s like it’s a different world once the sun goes down and the bots shrink back. Kind of like how the world used to be.

  I stand up and walk over to her – she jumps a little when I touch her arm, but manages to keep singing regardless. She hooks her arm through mine and I join her at the sill, leaning down with her and staring into the road. The moment is soft and pale and sweet; and I find myself wishing harder than ever that I could talk. I think I’d have a lot to thank her for.

  But then the moment is gone, and she falls silent. Street is silent, the city is silent. But it still feels warm, despite the cold evening. Minni pushes a lock of dark hair away from her eyes and turns to look at me.

  “I bet you’ve had a good night,” she whispers. I shrug a little, but I can’t contain my smile. She crosses her arms and sighs.

  “I bet you think you’re a big cheese now, huh?” she scolds, “letting it go to your head.”

  I shake my head hard. No. I don’t care about that.

  “Now I’m reminded of why I didn’t trust you. It’s because you’re unlikely. Face it, what are the chances of one person showing up who can do what you can do? It’s almost unfair. You’re a doctor and you also know your way around a weapon. You have to admit that’s suspicious.”

  I bite my lip, then slowly nod. She’s right. I can understand why she didn’t want me around, and I could see myself feeling the same if things were changed.

  She gazes up at me, and for a moment I wonder if she’s going to get mad. But then she smiles, a small, tearful thing that makes me want to reach out and embrace her.

  “I should hate you,” she says, her voice breaking, “I should hate everything about you and everything you stand for. You’re a convenient mess, someone who’s both strong and weak and knows how to use both. I can’t figure you out, lassie. You’re either incredibly smart and you know how to manipulate people… or you’re so thick you don’t even realise it yourself.”

  Some part of me feels like I should be offended by that, but I can sense she’s building up to something.

  “But I still trust you.”

  She shifts uncomfortably, like my very presence is making her doubt.

  “I think that you are who you say you are. Everything supports it. You tried your hardest to protect us earlier, even though we wouldn’t stop to listen to you. You still cared enough to try.”

  She walks away now, sitting at the desk and pulling her journal from the bottom drawer. She holds it gently, stroking the leather cover with one hand.

  “I want to show you this. I’ve been working on it for years now, for as long as I can remember. I don’t know how much you saw earlier, but basically…”

  She lowers the journal to the desk and fixes her eyes on me in a moment of sobriety.

  “I know how to shut off the bots.”

  I don’t react immediately. Instead, I poke at my ear and wait for her to correct herself. Nobody knows how to shut off the bots. It’s impossible. Is Minni crazy? It wouldn’t surprise me to find out she’s crazy. Maybe I’m the crazy one for even considering hearing her out.

  “I mean it.”

  Her quiet voice breaks through my blank mind, and I snap back to reality. She lifts the journal to her chest and sighs.

  “I mean, it’s not a foolproof plan. It’s a theory, really. I found some old blueprints in the basement of the building. Looks like this used to be an old government office. Look…”

  She pulls open the journal and spreads it out in front of me, pointing to an uneven sketch in the middle of the page. I recognise the building; it’s the one that’s always lit at the top, the one that shines through the night sky like a star.

  “This is the Network Tower in the middle of the city. The building was designed to be a control tower for the system that controls the bots. It’s basically a massive computer, and the tower is the power source.”

  She flips the pages, and as she does so I can see how her sketches become more and more detailed. Things are crossed out, rewritten, stuck on or cut out of the page. I can almost see her brain whirring away for the hours she must have spent poring over this book.

  “The tower was set up with a control room, right at the top. Although everything was controlled by the system, the idea was that if there was ever a glitch, we could go up and do a manual override. But of course it’s the most densely populated area when it comes to the bots, so anyone in the area was in the first wave of the attack. Since then it’s been too dangerous to get up there.”

  She nibbles on her lip, and I can tell she’s worried about showing me this. Perhaps she’s worried I’ll think she’s mad or that I’ll try to tell people. I rest a hand on her wrist and she breathes out slowly – it seems to give her some confidence.

  “That tower is the key. We’d need more people for it. Even if we gathered everyone from Street and your theme park, we probably still wouldn’t have enough people to storm the place. That’s really the only way this would work. We’d need hundreds of people to fight.”

  I narrow my eyes at her, and she seems to consider something before speaking.

  “Well, I suppose that’s not strictly true. It’s possible that one person could get in and shut them off. It’s not something that could be done head-on, though. It would involve a ton of strategy and sneaking. That’s why I’ve never dared to tell anyone about it. That’s not the way we work here.”

  She runs a hand through her hair and lets out a frustrated growl.

  “Max and the others operate on a ‘hit first, ask later’ method. If I showed this to Max, he probably wouldn’t take me seriously. But if he did, he’d probably assume we had enough people to storm the place. He’d run in, taking most of us with him, and it’d be a massacre.”

  She looks up at me with pleading eyes, and I feel a pang of pity.

  “It’s nice to have finally shared with someone, but I still need you to promise not to show anyone. This journal is important to me. When the world is ended and we’re just bones in the rubble, and the bots have rusted away to nothing, people will come here. When they do, I don’t want them to have to make up the story of what happened. I want everything to be here, written for them. This book isn’t just my plans. It’s my stories, too. This book tells of each and every event in Street’s history. How we settled, went from leader to leader. How people fought and lost and died. Anything of importance to this group is here in this book. I want to make absolutely sure that we’re remembered.”

  With that she hands me the journal. I take it slowly, my hand quivering a little as I do so. I turn it over in my hands, stroking the worn spine, feeling the softened, aged edges of th
e pages. I open it, and I can feel her eyes on me.

  The pages are exquisite. Despite their rough and haggard appearance, they make perfect sense. Every action has been considered, reconsidered, reworded and redrawn. I can tell she’s put so much thought into each sentence that it truly baffles me that Max has never picked up on her genius.

  I settle down against the wall and she takes a seat next to me. We pull our knees up to our chins and sit in silence, reading and rereading each and every page of her little black book.

  From then on, everything is great. I wake up in the morning – more often than not with slight headache from the night before – and set to work in the hospital. I’ve learned that the trick to getting Nicholas to eat is to pin him down and feed him by force. A little unorthodox, perhaps, but the method works. Minni is growing more confident in her own skills, too. She treats all types of injuries and soothes the sick, and I can see how she changes every time, growing more familiar with it. Her expression is softer, more gentle, and I feel a strange pang of pride every time I see her sitting with someone, talking in a hushed voice.

  I, on the other hand, grow stronger every day. I can feel it when I’m on watch on the wall, when I’m helping them build. It’s no longer a struggle to help with a structure – I can hold the weight.

  Max even allows me to go out with them on trips into the city. Initially he seems concerned, perhaps scared that I’ll get spooked and run, but I don’t. The city feels natural to me now, and as I feel my arms and legs growing stronger, I finally learn to ditch the gun.

  The guys in Street are fighters, not shooters. While they carry guns with them, they prefer to use their hands or anything they can reach. After a few terrifying experiences, I’m forced to fight that way too. The bots’ bodies, which once seemed so solid and impenetrable, now bend and cave under my weight. Muscle builds on my limbs, and when I catch sight of my reflection it’s not the same person who stares back at me.

  Apart from my stronger physique, my hair has grown. No longer tied back or neat, it falls around my face and sticks up at all angles. My once-pale skin is constantly smudged with dirt, and I seem to be more than just eyes now. I can also see a small nose and a pointed jawline, features I never really noticed or cared about.