“We still use those here,” Kim says.
Grampsʼs face whips to her. “God love ya.”
She smiles again.
Hmm.
He snaps his fingers. “Can we get to your house easily?”
“Undetected,” Uncle John adds.
Gramps scowls at John. “Right, big for britches.”
John sighs. “Someone has to err on the side of logic, Mac.”
“That's me—so illogical.” Grampsʼs scowl turns to a glare that he directs at John.
I bristle. Gramps has single-handedly saved our skins. At least, that's how he would say it.
Everyone's just grouchy.
I could use some food. My stomach takes that opportunity to voice its emptiness.
Mitchell raises an eyebrow at the sound.
Gah. I hate being me. On my period, in the stupid bot world, talking about having sex to get pregnant.
In front of my parents.
Could anything epic and spectacular happen? Probably not.
“If I don't eventually shift planets, Brad will find me.” Kim's serious enormous brown eyes move over the small knot of us.
She's kind of pretty in an old-girl, doe-eyed way. I look at Gramps. He thinks so. Ick.
“We call it blinking,” Pax says.
Kim doesn't seem to care about the difference in terminology. “If I don't escape in a really permanent way, he'll make an example out of me, and Clem will allow it. They're very big on control.”
I can tell. Brad was big on control in our world. Now we accidentally moved him to one where he and his tyrant dad can have unlimited dominance.
“Let's shelve the breeding commentary for the moment,” Jonesy says, holding up a surprisingly pink palm in contrast with his dark-brown skin.
Sophie gives a disgruntled squeak, and he ignores her. “Mac's plan rocked. We head to Kim's hood and get some chow, drink beer.” Jonesy gives a casual lift of his shoulder.
“No.” Mom's flat voice echoes the stance of her crossed arms and tapping foot. She's hard to take seriously with the lips all over her legs.
Jonesy blows out an exasperated exhale. “Right. I'll drink beer.” He waggles his brows. “And catch some shut-eye. After I've gotten sufficient beauty rest, I'm ready for the beat-down back home. You guys feel me?” He rubs the middle of a super-toned chest.
And I'm underage?
“I actually don't have beer,” Kim mentions.
Jonesy frowns as though he’d never imagined she might lack beer. “Well, that blows. What about other booze?”
Kim's brows fold between her eyes.
“Jones,” Dad pleads.
“Joy-sucks,” Jonesy mutters.
“Joy-what?” Kim and Ron repeat (Ron's version is unintelligible).
“Where is your domicile?” Clyde asks smoothly.
“Is he always like that?” Mitchell asks quietly, giving a less-than-subtle glance in Jonesy's general direction.
I nod. “Always.”
“Follow me,” Kim says, trying to smile at Clyde and not quite managing.
Could be the smell.
I look closely at his gaping, nearly toothless mouth and peeling gray skin.
Or maybe it’s the dead look.
We follow her, and Kim uses an actual key she retrieves from her small purse to unlock the door from the inside. I only know what the strangely-shaped metal key is because I actually paid attention to history, and my Devices for Daily Living pulse book was fascinating. The things everyone did to just exist seems like so much.
Once outside the building, I don't know about the others, but I feel lucky Brad didn't locate us while we were yakking about having babies and escaping, instead of actually getting out of there so any of that would even be possible.
Pax stands close to me, and we look out over the nightscape together. This is the part of my ability that he and I share. Both our second eyelids allow us to see everything in near-microscopic detail.
The moon is exactly half full, and that's really lucky for us because a full moon would be blinding with our night vision.
With a half moon, we see everything.
My eyes sweep left, and Pax's look right. After Brad took us prisoner, by poisoning us into a numbing coma, we didn't know how we got where we ended up. The guys had been beaten into submission, but the girls had gotten some kind of horse tranquilizer. I touch my neck, still feeling the scabbed over pinprick of that flying needle that nailed me.
I'd assumed we were being held in the thick of bot city or something because of all those legs sweeping past the semi-subterranean windows. But I'm wrong. We're in a rural location.
Dense forests are claustrophobic around the building where we stand on the highest step of at least twenty stairs, with narrow walkways circling the building.
Low sparkles appear on the treads of the steps like steel-colored diamonds mixed with ivory. Granite, I recognize.
Like gravestones.
That's an expensive material in our world. Pax and I slowly turn around to look at where we just came through.
Tall, gallery-height (illegal) wood doors stand three meters tall by two wide. Ornately carved with grapes and leaves, they appear to be very old. Original to the building, if I had to guess.
The building itself mimics Roman architecture, and I'm instantly transported to the world we just came from, where the Reflectives used mirrored surfaces to springboard everywhere. Like that jerk Ryan.
Fat fluted columns rise like spears to catch a marble gable-pitched hunk of roof that has cupids and grapes carved at its apex.
The sight should be awe-inspiring. But it's just creepy.
“Weird,” Pax whispers.
Yeah, I answer him in my head.
There's a sign at the top, wedged between the cupidsʼ distended bellies. It's worth a shudder.
“This used to be a church,” Mitch says, breaking the silence like a hammer to glass.
Pax and I jump.
“Giver of Life,” Gramps chortles. “No irony there.”
“Yeah, those buttmunches were keeping us there and trying to torture and maim. Giver of Life, my ass,” Tiff says, giving an indelicate sniff.
“There are no beliefs of any kind here. We have a completely neutral world.” Kim's eyes skate over the words of the building dispassionately, then she looks away.
I follow her gaze.
Below us are a million twinkling lights.
Her version of Kent.
“If I use my transport, it'll be catalogued. Hardly anyone walks. Only bots.”
“I saw people walking,” I say, remembering all those restless feet streaming past the glass.
“Handlers.” Kim gives a sad laugh.
Gramps puts a hand on her shoulder, and I notice how big it seems on her body.
“What's a handler?” Dad asks.
She lifts the shoulder where Grampsʼs hand rests. “It's perfunctory role, really.”
“Per-what?” Jonesy bellows in what is his normal volume.
“Shh,” Sophie says, and Ron makes a noise of fear in his throat.
We look at him.
“Cyborgs,” he says like a slap.
“Yes,” Kim agrees, eyes tight. “Anyway, a Handler is someone who manages one hundred bots. It was a failsafe measure implemented in the first part of the twenty-first to maintain human primary.”
I'm not lost, but I don't like what I'm interpreting. My mind makes a bunch of leaps, and for one of the first times, I'm glad I'm a numbered IQ.
Time savings for understanding is great.
“So over time, what you're really saying is these bots have overtaken humankind in a matter of sheer numbers.” I search everyone's faces, but before I can get feedback, Kim begins to walk, taking us and the conversation with her. “No one is producing kids anymore, and these bot things—”
“Cyborgs,” Kim says.
“Yeah—cyborgs—are doing everything rudimentary for people. All the tasks that we do in
my world are now being performed by them.” I flip a palm in the broad direction of where all the lights sparkle a couple of kilometers away.
“There are no rudimentary disciplines left, so why make more people?” Clyde reiterates in his unique way.
And he's right. That's exactly it. All the simple stuff is getting done by a bot.
“The Handler is just supposed to assure Compliance within the cyborg community.”
As soon as our toes enter the border of the forest, the darkness seeps toward us. Pax and I automatically move to flank Kim. We should be at the front of the pack. No one here will see better than we can. But we don't know where she lives.
“Assurance?” Mom asks in a quiet voice.
Kim nods, though I don't think anyone sees her, except my zombie.
I look just as Mitchell blinks. A second eyelid descends and he smiles. His teeth are very white in the dark.
The appearance of the eyelid startles me so much that I jump back. Attempting to counterbalance my fall, I succumb to gravity instead. I’m not known for my grace.
Mitchell reaches out to snatch me back, but I roll down the hill.
I travel, ass-over-tea-kettle, all the way down the slope. My heart beats against my ribs as I hurtle into a mound of something so brittle, it shatters when it breaks my fall.
Every piece of me instantly bruises, and I lie there for a moment, gauging if maybe I'm not completely broken, listening to everyone crash through the brush after me.
I blink, my second eyelid retracting then descending. The moonbeams claw through the canopy like determined talons of bluish-silver light. I stare into the night sky that manages to peek through pine needles so dense, shape and form are stolen.
I wiggle my toes.
My zombie having the blink and what that could mean worms its way through my brain.
It's not possible for a zombie to take on the attributes of its AftD host.
But I saw that iridescent second skin descend over the bright blue of his eyes, making the irises into shrouded sapphires.
I sit up, pressing my palms to the ground on either side of my body.
I yelp, bringing up my left hand and a shard of something white and sharp has pierced the meatiest part of my palm. I pluck it out and toss the unidentified piece away from me.
Have to have Pax figure that newest wound out.
Everyone finally makes it down the embankment. My eyes roll over their expressions. Embarrassment seizes me for my klutzy spin in front of Mitchell. Relief pours through me because I'm not actually hurt.
Kim covers her mouth with both hands. Eyes like melted chocolate stare back uncomprehendingly.
I know Mitchell is brave. His feet make sounds like he’s crushing crackers as he walks to me.
But I don't know how brave, until after he comes down and pulls me up by my armpits, and I see what I landed on.
What speared my hand.
Bones.
Bones of the dead lay in a littered graveyard without markers. Not sanctified, merely abandoned.
“What is this?” I whisper, rubbing my bleeding palm on the ugly borrowed leggings.
“The dead,” Mitchell restates the obvious.
Like knows like, Dad always says.
But nothing had pinged on my undead radar. That just means I can't raise them. And everything on this planet is so screwy, it's hard to know why I didn't know I'd landed in a literal graveyard.
“I'd give my left nut for some AftD juice about now.” Jonesy's eyes are sharp, taking in the uncountable number of dead.
The sea of bones spread endlessly, no shore in sight.
“But hunger calls,” Jonesy says, looking around for voices of assent.
I have no voice; my stomach has quieted. There's something wrong with these dead.
Pax and I look at each other. Tiff's tears solidify the sight. She sinks to her haunches and reaches out. She snatches her hand away then reaches out again and, with a sucking inhale, picks up a skull.
The head is so tiny, it barely fits inside her palm.
“Babies,” she whispers. “It's not that you guys don't want babies.” She looks an accusation Kim's way, “It's that when ya do—somebody is killing them all.”
Tiff carefully sets the fragile skull on top of so many others and cups her elbows, silent tears streaming down her face. “There's not enough booze on all the planets for this.”
The monstrous silence between us eats up the oxygen, making it hard to breathe.
“It's those fucking bots,” Gramps says, giving Kim a hard look.
I don't believe for one second that Kim's the bad guy here. I think this world is just that bad. And I don't think I've ever heard Gramps drop an F-bomb. From the look of it, neither has Pax. This infanticide is worth an F-bomb. Or a hundred.
The women are crying.
Mitch turns my face to his, and his hand comes away wet.
There's some horrors you can never unthink, never unfeel.
Never unremember.
But wanting to undo what's happened burns into a person's very soul.
“I can't raise them,” Pax says into the stillness of our witness.
I peek from Mitchell's embrace, his large hand cupping my head like he'll never let go.
“Why?” I ask.
“I can't stomach it,” he admits. “It's too horrible, even for an AftD.”
“I want answers,” John says.
Jonesy shudders for all of us. “Not me. This is awful and creepy and just wrong. But it's not our world. I'm starving, and I want to get out of here before we're added to the skull heap.” Jonesy jerks a thumb at the dead, eyes sweeping the dark for bots or some other threat.
Kinda cold.
Then Tiff launches at him like a leaping cat, claws and teeth extended.
“Ah!” he wails, trying to cover his head as Tiff pounds him. “Fuck me!”
“Tiff!” John yells, striding over there. Easier said than done when a person is attempting to avoid stepping on infant skeletons.
“Don't you see, you selfish prick!” Hit. Smack. Kick. “They're people, moron!”
Jonesy grabs her arms and shakes her. Her light-brown hair hits him in the face twice before he stops. “I know it, you insane bitch!” His eyes leap at her—all of us. “But you can't save them, Tiff. Ya can't. Ya can't save them all.”
Tiff collapses against Jonesy, and he holds her, stroking her back. “Ya can't save them, girl. Even if you wanna be everyone's baby mama, you can't.” He pats her awkwardly. “It's okay, Tiff.”
“I hate you,” she sniffles, wrapping her arms around him.
John finally gets there, and Jonesy flips him off behind her back and smiles. “I love you, you stupid twit.”
“I love you, too, Jones.”
We stay for a little while longer. When we finally move on, we're heavier than we were before.
Grief will do that.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Gramps
Precious minutes were wasted yammering on about the reality of the bot world killing babies.
Of course they are.
Bots don't have souls. That's why they call it artificial life, candy asses. Cyber technology evolves. It's not meant to remain static. The very technology is fashioned to grow and become more.
Can anyone say Matrix?
Forget it. No one remembers the good old days when implausible science fiction was bullshit entertainment, and that was the extent of it. Pass me the popcorn, guys.
I scan the depths of the forest, wishing for the grandkidsʼ special eyelids. Then I think better of it. Nah. What a trumped-up hassle that would be.
Kim's a cutie. Too bad she's from this world. Maybe she can be redeemed if she gets blinked to our world. That's leaping from the frying pan to the fire, though. Deedie's made a mess of things back home, too. Feels like the four walls of the box we've landed in are closing in.
And the answer to all the womenfolk getting knocked up to avoid sanctions seems lik
e a really bad plan.
I eyeball Deedie.
A really bad plan. If I was a betting man, I would say Pax and Caleb aren't keen on her doing the hanky-panky between the sheets. Especially with Mitch.
There must be another way.
But right now, as horrible as it sounds, I'm with Jonesy. We need to skip out on this little parade and get some food, or we'll all be worthless. Those bag of bolts might run on fuel (and don't ask me what kind, because hell if I know). But I'm of the human variety, so I’ll take regular meat and potatoes.
And a good dark beer. Yeah, that'd go down smooth right about now.
“Mac!” Jonesy says.
“Huh?” I turn to look at him, slide my jaw back and forth, and note that Kim doesn't have as much healing juice as Pax. Thing goddamned throbs like a tooth begging to be pulled.
“I called your name forty-one times.”
I crack a smile. That damn kid. Consistent as the sun rising. A consistent pain in my ass.
“We're getting together a vote.”
I search out the guys. John and Caleb still seem solid. And Clyde—hell, he's the Rock of Gibraltar.
The girls look shaken. Tiff, the toughest broad I've ever met, looks the worse for wear. Poor thing, fresh off the sauce and wanting kids so bad, she can taste it.
John has an arm around her shoulders, and Jonesy, the clod, has a hand on her other shoulder. He's a good kid, even if socially, he massacres everyone around him.
Jonesy moves back to the vote topic. “We go to Kim's and descend like locusts on whatever she has.”
Sounds like a class-A Jonesy scheme.
I spare Kim a glance and she gives the thumbs-up. Now there's a trooper. And she can kiss. Thinking about the stolen moment gives me the second boner of the evening, and I beat it down by thinking about my great-granddaughter having sex with Mitch.
Limp noodle goes into immediate effect.
“Can't believe there'd be a need to vote on this.” I put my hands on my hips, hating the grit of all that we've been through. I have a layer of filth plastered all over me. What I would do for a shower.
Jonesy's eyebrow rises. “Or, we blink back right now. Take our chances. Get the hell out of Murder World.”
Death Series 08 - Death Blinks Page 13