As much as he hated to, he let her go.
A Mainlander robot jumped in front of him and Nolan brought his rifle up point-blank and shot the robot through the head.
He got to the door and started punching in the code. He could hear Esroy behind him, screaming orders to not let Nolan get through the door.
Bullets smacked the concrete wall beside him. Nolan finished the code and the panel turned green as the door unlocked. Nolan swung it open and charged for the button on the other side, but he fell to the floor. How could this happen?
He looked down and saw blood drooling from the top of his leg. A bullet had hit him. Then another in his shoulder. He rolled to his left to avoid any more bullets.
A white hot searing pain spread through his body. He tried to move his legs, hoping his adrenaline would help him push through it, but no such luck. His vision started going in and out, and he started seeing double. He tried to pull himself up, but his body wouldn’t let him.
His breathing was heavy. He tried not to shut his eyes, but they were closing involuntarily. The last thing he saw before the darkness was a large robot entering the room. It was Esroy.
A word passed by Nolan’s lips before all went black, a feeling of defeat overcoming him.
“No…”
58
Des couldn’t believe his decision to leave this version of himself behind. He should have known he couldn’t have protected Hazel sufficiently without sight.
From his position on the floor, he could read that she was still breathing and that she had a somewhat steady pulse. There was a chance she might live through this.
Des had to get up. He had to get to Esroy. Through frequency readings, Des could tell that the larger robot was now in the EMP room. If Des didn’t get there in the next three seconds, his plan would be a failure.
He jumped to his feet and tried to run, but both of his legs were bent and on the brink of snapping. His fingers were disjointed or broken off, and his readings told him that his memory core was overheating.
He hobbled toward the room, following Esroy’s frequency. When he got near the doorway, he heard Esroy turn and felt bullets pound into his chest. Des jumped forward, hoping his aim was true.
Esroy must have sidestepped him because Des went headlong into the wall. Des stood, swung his arms until he felt something—one hand smacked against Esroy’s armor and Des latched on.
With as much speed and strength he could muster, Des punched the top of Esroy’s head over and over. He punched so hard that the fingers in his right hand started breaking into pieces until Des was punching him with only a stump of a hand.
Esroy staggered backward and toward the room’s entrance. “Get off me!”
This was the opportunity for the others. If someone, anyone would get up and hit the button, this would all be over.
Des yelled out as he continued to pound into Esroy’s head. “Hazel! Nolan! Hit the button! Somebody! Do it!”
Hazel’s head lolled to the side. Every noise throughout the room, every blood-curdling scream, every shot from a gun, sounded like it was miles away.
She could see Des fighting Esroy. He was falling apart. Esroy would have the upper hand within seconds.
She thought Nolan had left her to set off the EMP, but it either hadn’t worked or he didn’t make it.
She tried to get to her feet, but her legs wouldn’t move. The shooting pain in her chest was too much to bear. It felt like someone was continuously jabbing a knife into her ribs every time she breathed. It was a difficult task, and she tried to keep her breaths shallow.
She knew she had to get to the room. Des could only keep Esroy away from it for a few seconds longer. The fate of Mainland was left up to her.
She got on her belly and started pushing herself forward with her elbows. Her teeth ground together as pain attacked every nerve in her body. She felt too weak to walk, but she could kick her legs enough to crawl into the room.
She got to the doorway. To the side she saw Nolan, blood spilling out from his body. She hoped he wasn’t dead. This had been his fight from the beginning. It made her sad to think he might not see it through.
But this wasn’t just Nolan’s fight. This was everyone’s fight. The large button was directly ahead of her. She could hear the loud grunting of Esroy scrambling to get to Hazel and Des doing anything and everything to slow him.
Hazel kept her eyes on the button as she continued to crawl forward. The cylindrical part of the EMP was glowing a bright blue color. It was ready to send its pulse throughout the city.
It was an act that would send shockwaves into Mainland’s future. Everything would be different. More importantly, the robots would be gone. Hazel had created them, now she was ready to destroy them.
Somehow she found the strength to pull herself to her knees. Then she was on her feet.
Dizziness threatened to overtake her. Her vision started to go dark, but she shook her head, trying to keep herself on the brink of consciousness. Her hands rested against the wall, her right one just inches from the button.
Her breathing was labored, her arms so weak. She felt she didn’t have the strength or the will to press it.
Her shoulder rested against the wall. Her chin dropped to her shoulder, but her eyes stayed open. Beyond the door she could see the struggle. People. Robots. In a way, this was all because of her. If she had never created Soul…
“Do it!” Des shouted.
Esroy slammed a fist into Des’ jaw, dislodging his face from the metal plating. Des dropped to the ground, his dead eyes fixed on Hazel.
Esroy ran toward her, his stare determined, his hatred and fear pronounced with each step.
Hazel took a deep breath, called on the last of her strength, and slammed her palm into the button on the wall.
Esroy’s eyes widened with fear as the blue light grew, the sound of the pulse deafening. The shockwave went through Hazel as she fell to the ground. It went through the room and beyond.
Immediately, all the robots in the room fell limp. Some of them writhed in a momentary protest as their circuits fried within their bodies, but none of them survived.
Esroy fell directly in front of Hazel, unmoving, little more than a piece of metal now. The lights throughout the room and the entire compound burst with sparks, the darkness overtaking them with only the glow of fires left over from the fight to provide any kind of visibility.
When she had imagined this moment before, she had thought there would be relief. But all she could see in front of her was death. Her eyes found Des’ body. It was a copy, a Des two. But it had been a completely new consciousness all the same. And now he was gone forever.
Then her eyes went to Esroy, the antithesis of Des. Both had come from her. Both had died because of her. But she found some peace knowing that the original Des was still alive, making his way into the wilderness with more than a thousand robots to follow.
Some throughout the room rejoiced in the victory. Others wept.
The flames that sputtered in random spots didn’t provide much light. But Hazel didn’t mind the darkness because her eyes had already closed.
59
A week had passed and the city was little more than a bare skeleton of itself. The trains no longer worked. There were no computers left. The night was pitch black with only fires to illuminate parts of the streets where people gathered together. Robot bodies still littered the streets, though an effort to clean the mess had been made by some.
Hazel felt weak, but she was getting stronger every day. Less than a month ago, she had been feeding her dad and trying to keep him healthy. Now he was doing the same thing for her.
She had just recently started walking around the house, trying to do something that was both restful and productive. John had chastised her more than once, but she didn’t listen to him. She thought he was probably glad that she was up and trying to do things. It was a sign she was getting better.
Though physically she was healing, her he
art felt heavy. She knew Des and the good robots were safe somewhere out there, but she had never gotten to say a proper goodbye to Des. He was everything she had intended for the Soul program to be. But somehow, Esroy had turned into the exact opposite of what she had hoped for. Both versions of him.
There had been another copy. Her eyes went to the dead computer still set on the desk. She had already taken it apart, but there was no saving anything. It was fried.
Another one of the sadder losses had been Gizmo. She missed his endless happiness, or endless grouchiness, depending on his programming. He sat in the corner, never to function again. Not without new parts, anyway. But new parts would be hard to come by for a long time.
Hazel had been afraid that the fighting between Outlanders and Mainlanders would continue long after the robots were gone, but this apparently hadn’t been the case. Though news had been passed through word-of-mouth, it was overall positive. There were some fights here and there, but it was nothing deadly. It was as if all the warring had simply been against Bracken and his motivations, not truly against the citizens.
Bracken had been quickly captured next to the outer wall of the city. He’d looked pretty bruised up, but he wasn’t mortally wounded. Hazel had heard nothing for the last couple of days, but her dad had told her that Bracken was imprisoned and awaited some sort of trial, right along with President Morris. Who would carry out the trial, no one knew. But it was clear to both Mainlander and Outlander that Bracken and Morris were never to see the light of day again.
A loud knock at the door pulled Hazel from her thoughts. Her dad was upstairs for some reason, so he probably didn’t hear it. She didn’t want to bother him, so she decided to answer the door herself.
She winced as she got off the couch. The person knocked on the door again as she moved slowly toward it. Her hand reached for the knob and she let the door swing open slowly.
A smile instantly spread across her face when she saw Nolan standing in front of her. She had heard that he was alive, but this was the first time she had seen him.
“Nolan!” She reached out to hug him, ignoring the large white bandages over his shoulder and leg.
“Ouch!” Nolan said as she squeezed lightly, but he said it with a smile.
“I wanted to see you, but I haven’t really been able to leave the house,” she said.
“Yeah, I know,” Nolan answered. “I just wanted to know if you were okay.”
“I’m getting better,” she said. “You’ve seen better days.”
“I think there are a few of us who could say the same.”
“Why don’t you come in?”
Nolan shook his head. “No, I just…I just wanted to talk for a second.”
Hazel moved from the door and closed it behind her. Nolan limped to the edge of the porch to give her some room. He stared at her with a serious look on his face. “Have you given any thought to a leadership role here?”
Hazel sighed. “Actually, no.”
“Obviously it’s not up to me, but I think you ought to try. You already have the Outlanders captivated, and I believe you can win over the Mainlanders.”
“This isn’t what I need to be thinking about right now,” she said. “There’s just…there’s just so much to do. Can you imagine leading the city in the shape it’s in?”
“I can think of no one better for the job,” Nolan said. “You’ve been on both sides. We’ve eliminated the enemies that oppose us. People just want to live. They just want to be at peace again. No more police states. No more robots.”
“And when all of them realize that it was me who created the robots?”
Nolan shook his head. “But you didn’t create the robots. Bracken did. You made a program that mirrors human emotions. Bracken took your program and he manipulated it and twisted it. That isn’t your fault.”
“I don’t know…”
“You don’t have to answer now,” he said. “Just know that there is a certain group of people who is very much in favor of your leadership.” He smiled. “And I agree with them.” He lowered his head to try to meet her eyes. “You will at least think about it?”
Hazel swallowed. “I will think about it. The answer is probably no. But I will think about it.”
“Good,” Nolan said. He limped down the porch stairs then stopped to look back at her. “We have a lot of work ahead of us. But also a bright future.”
“I think you’re right,” Hazel said.
At least, she hoped he was right.
60
One-by-one the robots helped bury what was left of the villagers. The ones whose remains were still there had started to decay. Seeing their charred flesh and exposed bones made Des angry enough to want to go back and kill Bracken, but he didn’t leave. He couldn’t leave. These robots looked up to him. They counted on him.
The radiation levels in this area were still high, but over the next year it would dissipate. Not that it mattered. They were robots. Radiation didn’t affect them like it might a human.
Des wasn’t entirely sure why he had brought the robots here. Something within him felt like a village was meant to be created here and it was up to Des to build it.
A village of robots.
With their numbers, it would become a city. Part of him feared how quickly they would build it up. They required no sleep. No food. All their time could be spent on producing new technology. Advancing themselves.
As the robots worked to bury the dead, Des found himself down in the caves that he had been exploring with Bernard the day the bomb had dropped.
It took him more than an hour to climb over rocks and finally get down to his friend’s body. He didn’t disturb anything because he felt that removing the rocks from on top of Bernard would expose a new pain that Des couldn’t bear. Instead, he stacked more rocks, around and on top until Bernard’s burial was complete.
Des felt the need to say something. This was what humans did when they buried their loved ones. But no words came to his synthetic lips. Though he knew that these bodies were just the vessels that carried the soul, it felt good to lay them to rest.
This was one of those moments Des wished he could cry. He wanted to release every emotion he had ever felt, but knew it would be impossible.
When Des eventually made it back to the surface, he felt overwhelmed at the sight of the newly made cemetery to the east of where they would build their new village.
Des made his way to it, glad to see the robots handling the burials with a solemn spirit. For each spot, a hole had been dug, and dirt laid over the body. Above each spot, a rock had been placed.
There were so many rocks.
There was one last rock to be set. One of the robots brought the rock to Des and offered it to him.
“Do you want to lay the last one?” the robot asked.
Des looked at the rock and then at the robot. The blue paint, like on so many of the others, was beginning to fade. This one had scars like so many others, too. This robot had only four fingers on his right hand and was missing the smallest one—a result of a hard-fought battle, no doubt. It was something the robot would have to live with for a while, but not forever.
Des took the rock from him and walked to the grave. He set the rock down and closed his eyes for a moment. All of them kept silent for the victims of this war—the innocent lives that had been lost.
Des stood, looking at each of the robots near him. “I don’t know what the future holds for us out here in the wilderness, but the days ahead are promising.”
The robot who had given Des the last headstone spoke next. “What are we to do now?”
Des turned to him, then looked at all the others. “We were created for one reason: to kill. But now we have a new purpose.” Des smiled. “We are going to build a better world.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jason D. Morrow is the author of The Starborn Uprising series, The Starborn Ascension series, and The Marenon Chronicles. He enjoys playing guitar, making fun videos, and
spending time with his lovely wife, Emily, and their dog, Winnie.
Books by Jason D. Morrow
The Starborn Ascension
Anywhere But Here
Away From The Sun
Into The Shadows
The Starborn Uprising
Out Of Darkness
If It Kills Me
Even In Death
The Marenon Chronicles
The Deliverer
The Gatekeeper
The Reckoning
Be sure to ‘Like’ Jason D. Morrow on Facebook: www.facebook.com/jasondmorrow
Follow Jason on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jasondmorrow
For more from Jason D. Morrow, and to sign up for his mailing list, visit www.jasondmorrow.com.
Prototype Exodus (Prototype D Series Book 2) Page 35