Another rock landed at the small of Bernard’s back. This time he felt it and he involuntarily screamed out in pain. More rocks came down. Another hit his head again and he fell limp. His eyes were open, but everything went dark. He wondered if the flashlight had been covered by rocks and crushed or if he had simply lost his vision. This was his last thought before he died.
2
The pressure sensors throughout Des’ body indicated that he was decidedly trapped. There were no injuries to his extremities, or more importantly, his core functionality. Apart from a few scrapes and dents, there seemed to be no damage. However, he was still trapped under a pile of rocks so heavy even he wouldn’t be able to lift the dead weight.
After a brief systems check, his next thoughts went to Bernard. He had been running just a few feet ahead of Des, but he couldn’t see what had become of his friend. There had been so much commotion and very limited visibility. But there was a chance Bernard had survived. Perhaps there was a wall that had separated them. That was why Bernard wasn’t calling out to Des.
But Des feared the worst.
If the same force that was on top of Des was also on top of Bernard, there was no chance the village leader survived. A quick calculation told Des that even half as much weight would have meant certain death. Skin and bones were not made to withstand such trauma like Des’ high-entropy alloy. His metal was stronger than these rocks. Sure, he was pinned down, but it was only a matter of time before he could wiggle his way out from under the enormous weight.
With little more than a thought, Des called out to his friend. “Bernard! Can you hear me? Are you with me?” His voice sounded strange within the enclosed space. That meant his voice didn’t carry very far, so Bernard wouldn’t be able to hear him.
Des shifted under the rock. With his hands, he started moving back and forth. He dug his elbows into the ground beneath him, pushing up with all his might, trying his hardest to move to the side. Inch-by-inch the boulders crunched together, moving slightly with each push Des made. His left arm came free under the rocks, and soon his head and torso were out as well. This enabled him to lift the rock just enough to scoot his legs. Some of the top rocks rolled down the side of the hill as Des gained more and more mobility.
Then, Des was free.
His eyes had already adjusted to night vision. Everything in front of him was a shade of green, lit like there was a lamp in the cave. What he saw brought fear and realization. Fear, because he was nervous about what might have happened to his friend. Realization, because the probability of Bernard’s survival was very low.
Another thought came to mind—one that was there before the rocks came tumbling down. Whatever this earthquake was, it wasn’t natural. This was no seismic shift in the plates beneath the earth’s surface. When Des had placed his hand against the ground, what he had felt was deliberate and from a single source far away. He wasn’t sure what it was, but a natural earthquake would have felt different.
He scanned the room, searching for something, anything. His head turned left to right, up and down. He carefully stepped over small pebbles and climbed over rocks that were taller than him. He was sliding off of one boulder when he saw something that made him freeze.
Liquid. It wasn’t water. It was thicker, and according to Des’ sensors, warm. He knew immediately that it was blood.
“No!” The word passed by his synthetic lips as he rushed to the spot. He picked up rocks quickly, throwing them to the side. Some were so heavy that he could barely lift them a few inches, but he managed anyway.
After only a few more pieces, Des stopped. The blood had come mostly from Bernard’s head. His arms and chest had been crushed by the rocks. Des’ sensors indicated that his body was already cooling, and would soon be the same temperature as the cave around him.
A sudden feeling of sadness overcame Des when he realized he wouldn’t be able to help Bernard. There would be no resuscitation, no trying to get his heart pumping again. Too much damage had been done to his weak human body. The two were once friends, and now Bernard was dead. Just like that. The end had come without any warning.
Then came the need to let go of his emotions. This was a feeling Des hated almost worse than sadness. In a moment like this, Des had no way of releasing his feelings. He couldn’t cry. He couldn’t dry heave. The closest he had ever come to showing his emotions physically was getting angry and punching things.
He felt his pressure sensors become tense. His fear and sadness always turned to anger. It was his only way. His brow turned downward and his fingers clenched around a large rock next to him. With a loud scream, he picked up the rock, held it over his head and heaved it as far as he could. It smashed into small pieces against what was left of the cave wall.
He knew there was no logic in his actions. In fact, logic told him that such an act was foolish in this fragile cave. Causing more quakes might bury him deeper. But the release he felt seemed to make it right for the moment. It wasn’t enough. It was never enough. Anger wasn’t the appropriate response. Des had the desire to curl up into a ball and cry like a human might. Not that he knew what that felt like. But he knew there was a reason humans did it from time to time. He knew that it made them feel better.
If there was a flaw in his design it was that he was programmed with true human emotions, but without the ability to express them fully. This was as true in times of happiness and joy as it was in sadness. His creator must have never considered giving him that.
But the inability to release his emotions gave him more time to act. Instead of sitting here and crying about his lost friend, Des knew he had to get out of the cave and figure out what had happened. The quake’s source was not from within the cave; it had come from outside. And if something happened outside the cave that had enough force to rock the entire hillside, then that meant the other villagers were in trouble, and it was up to Des to help them.
As he moved forward, he thought about Bernard. Des wanted to carry his remains with him. He wanted to stay behind and lament. But there were more important things to do. A proper burial would happen at another time. Now, he had to get out of here and see to the other villagers.
Des’ speed was severely hindered by the destruction throughout the cave. He found that most of the walkways and corridors he and Bernard had taken were either blocked off or completely caved in. He was forced to take different paths and crawl through small openings, following the coordinates in his memory to the cave opening.
Like his human creator, Des had been given a sense of smell, and he didn’t like what his sensors indicated: fire. An inferno was just outside the cave. But this one wasn’t just fuel and smoke. This carried something else with it.
He could see the light ahead of him. It was early in the afternoon and the sun was still high and bright. His eyes adjusted accordingly. Even from here, deep within the cave, he could feel the searing heat of what had met the villagers outside. If it felt this hot from here, then his worst fears had already been realized.
He made his way to the front of the cave. For some reason he found himself on his hands and knees, almost too afraid to stand upright for fear of seeing the inevitable.
Alarms went off inside his head. Readings of radiation were off the chart. If Des had been a human, with this much exposure, he would be dead within hours.
When he got to the lip of the cave, his joints froze. His arms and legs couldn’t move. Fear gripped him and threatened to keep him in place forever. In the distance was a giant cloud—the type of cloud that hadn’t been seen in more than a century.
Des had been sure it wasn’t a simple earthquake and this proved to be true. This was a calculated nuclear attack. Des’ eyes traveled to the village below. He watched as the buildings burned. Most of them had been ripped to shreds. The bomb itself had been detonated a good distance away, but the villagers were within the blast radius.
He searched the ground for bodies and there was no lack of them. He looked for signs of life, trying
desperately to use his heat sensors. But all he saw was heat. The whole area was too hot for anyone to survive for very long.
Des had spent a year with these people. He had given his life to them. In turn they had accepted him for who he was. They had become friends. They had treated Des like family. And now they were gone. In the blink of an eye they were gone.
Forever.
This time he didn’t feel angry. A sense of shock took over him. There was no need for release because what he saw before him was too much to process.
In those few moments at the mouth of the cave, he tried to make sense of it. There was no way any of the rival villages had this kind of weapon. Even if they did they wouldn’t have used it.
He knew the only group that had such a weapon.
The Mainlanders.
The people Des had left five years ago. What reason did they have to detonate the bomb? Surely they wouldn’t have been so careless. No. It couldn’t have been them. It didn’t make any sense.
But logic told him otherwise. The evidence was clear.
Anger welled up inside Des. It had to. It was the only emotion that provided release. He slammed his fist against the rocky earth beneath him, his voice screaming as loudly as he could. Curses. Indecipherable howls that no human or robot could ever understand.
Alarms continued to buzz inside his head. The heat in this area threatened to fry his circuits. If he didn’t get out soon, he would be dead like all the others.
No. Not like the rest of them. Des was a machine. He knew this. He owned something that humans could only dream about: immortality. There was no end in sight for Des. He could be killed, but if he were to go on his way without confrontation, he would never die. But what humans didn’t know was that immortality was a curse.
In all of Des’ five years of life, so much of it had been filled with heartache. His first week saw nothing but war and mayhem.
These villagers had provided reprieve from times of trouble. But now, Des was alone again. That is, unless he stayed.
He could ignore the alarms in his head. He didn’t have to move away from the heat. If his circuits fried, what would be the harm in that? Des would simply cease to exist. Would that be so bad?
He thought about Bernard and the hope he had. The two of them had been searching for water. Water—the source of life.
Des owed it to them to survive. For himself he needed to figure out why this had been done.
Since the Mainlanders were the only ones who had such a weapon, Des knew where to start.
He had no ability to grieve. He couldn’t sit and cry. He couldn’t sob with his face to the ground. It would do nothing for him. So, as any robot would, he took one last look at the village that was, set his jaw firm, and made his first steps back to Mainland, the mushroom cloud of death looming behind him, taunting him as he walked.
Des couldn’t cry. But he could get revenge.
3
Hazel couldn’t tear her eyes away from the giant screen that glowed brightly above the city streets. Her reaction wasn’t much different than all the other people who stood in the roads or on rooftops, who hoped to see some semblance of a mushroom cloud on the horizon. Hazel knew those that watched the sky would never see it. It was too far away. It had to be or the bomb would pose a threat to all the Mainlanders. But the destruction on the screen played out all over the city. There wasn’t a citizen that didn’t know what was happening.
Physically, it was the destruction of whatever animals or terrain might have been under the cloud—now blown into nothingness, a vapor. But this destructive force was meant as a symbol of peace. Hazel couldn’t help but see the irony. She wondered if others around her saw it too. These same weapons that brought humanity to the edge of extinction were being used to unify two groups of people: the Mainlanders and the Outlanders.
Blaring through loudspeakers and blazing from giant screens throughout the city, President Morris had declared peace with the Outlanders and welcomed them into the city with open arms. He then proceeded to tell the people about how the Mainland government would be forever open and honest with its people—something that had been neglected because of the past regrettable fear of the Outlanders.
“But there are no more Outlanders,” he had said. “We are all Mainlanders.” He smiled when he said this, expecting a warm reception. But there were few cheers in the audience where he made his speech, and more than enough grumbles and boos from where Hazel stood.
The ceremony continued with the president explaining why they had the bomb and why it had been a secret. In short, he relayed: they had it because it had been left from the old world and they didn’t know what to do with it. They kept it a secret because they didn’t want the enemy to learn of it.
“It was a foolish and wrong thing to do,” Morris had said. “But the decision hadn’t been mine, nor did I intend on keeping it a secret forever. My administration was still dealing with the aftermath of President Godfrey’s assassination.”
Sure, Hazel had thought, blame it on anyone but yourself.
But she knew the truth. The truth was, the government never told anyone about the bomb because they had wanted to use it as insurance. Hazel had seen the proof. What bothered her the most was that everyone had seen the proof, yet president Morris was still in office. The Mainland government had been corrupt since long before any of them had been born. But even as the corruption was exposed to the public, they didn’t turn on the president. Most of the incriminating evidence had fallen on the now dead President Godfrey. But things worked differently now. The Outlanders were here to stay, though for the past five years they had resigned to live on the outskirts of the city, occupying the empty buildings that had long been abandoned and land that no one wanted to be near anyway. Their area of the city had been designated as the Southern Zone.
It was enough for the Outlanders at first. Most of them were happy to have a steady supply of food for the first time in their lives. Others were happy they could sleep at night knowing they wouldn’t have to fight the next day. But their contentment could only last so long.
Things slowly began to change for the worse for the Outlanders, who were still Outlanders, not only by self-identification but by ostracism. In a way, the outskirts of the city had become the new Outland, and the Mainland had just gotten smaller. But Hazel knew this wasn’t entirely true. Since the forced merger, the Outlanders afforded most of the same rights as everyone else in the city, though they knew their presence wasn’t welcomed by most. It was a division that would continue to escalate in the years to come until there was another war, Hazel knew.
Within the first year, the Mainland government accepted Lester Vaughn as the representative president of the Outlanders. In fact, Lester supposedly had as much power as President Morris, though everyone knew that wasn’t true. If it was true then why were the Outlanders and Mainlanders still segregated?
Hazel knew Lester. At least, she had known him for a short time. As she watched the screen displaying the mushroom cloud of fire and smoke push into the atmosphere from this great distance (a distance the leaders assured the citizens was safe enough for a nuclear blast), she thought about the events of five years before. Since then, so much had happened, yet so little had really changed.
One big change was that Hazel was no longer a government consultant, though her creation was still widely used. This conflict had been in the making years before her time, but she was the one that pulled the trigger, and the leaders hadn’t forgotten that fact. Morris and Vaughn thought it would be best that Hazel leave her employment with the government, even though they were still going to use her program, Soul—the artificial intelligence that mirrored true human emotions in robots.
She had thought that with the conflict five years ago that they would have abandoned the robot program altogether. After all, the robots had been created to destroy the Outlanders in the first place. Of what use were they now? Not to mention, Hazel’s first creation and prototype, Esroy, had go
ne rogue and helped the Mainland government despite the fact that he knew the truth of their corruption.
But Esroy’s takeover had not deterred President Morris. In fact, he ordered his lackey, Commander Bracken, to make an entire army of sentient robots. And for the last five years, they had been serving as a police force throughout the city. If a rumor arose of an uprising or unrest in the relations between the Outlanders and Mainlanders, it was quelled by the sheer number of police.
They were everywhere. One could barely step through an alley without encountering one. They were tall and strong, but built cheaply. Hand-to-hand they were still stronger than any one person, but they were not invincible, especially at the neck. They were shorter than previous prototypes. They were also a lot less human-looking. Their faces were not emotionless, but their features were rigid. They could still smile or stare angrily, but it was not as detailed as previous models. Their core memory systems were protected by a white dome at the back and top of their heads, reminding Hazel of beetles in a way. They had arms and legs like a person. They were equipped with ammunition that would shoot from barrels protruding from their wrists. To most, this might have seemed impressive. But they were nothing like Esroy had been. Or Des.
Des.
She missed him. Their time together had been so short, but she was his creator and he was the first of her Soul program to inhabit a functioning body. Almost every day she wondered what he was doing or if he was even alive. It had been so long. He had set out on a mission to find other civilizations—something most Mainlanders hadn’t known existed until the big government cover up had been revealed. But just like that, he was gone from her life. Half a decade had passed and there was still no sign of him. A year or two ago, Hazel had resigned herself to the fact that Des wouldn’t ever come back—that he had forgotten his promise that he would.
Prototype Exodus (Prototype D Series Book 2) Page 2