“Against you?”
“Oh yeah.”
“So what did you do to piss him off?”
“It wasn’t any one thing. We just kinda took shots at each other over a number of months. First, I eluded capture a few times, more by luck than by anything else, and then I managed to take out a couple of his crew. Later, I banded together with some other clanks out there and we started taking the fight to Wraith’s crew. We freed some captives, cornered them when they were alone, that kind of thing. Killed a few, enough to get their attention. Hell, we even had Wraith himself trapped and outnumbered once, but he tore through us like a demon. Like a madman. He turned the tables on us in the blink of an eye. I’ve never seen anything like it.
“Eventually our resistance faded out. Their numbers were too great. They killed or captured most of us, and the rest became scattered. In the end we just ran for our lives. But he wouldn’t have forgotten me. If he’s still out there somewhere, he’ll be looking for me. I’m sure of it.”
“Well, he mustn’t know you’re here,” Arsha said, “or he’d have already come for you.”
“He doesn’t know exactly where I am, no, but he probably has a vague idea.”
“Well, if he comes this way, let’s hope Ascension puts him in the ground before he gets close.” She indicated over her shoulder. “Come on, let’s go.”
Back in the workshop, we stood at the windows looking out over the city, searching for signs of the Humvee as the first hint of morning touched the sky in the east. Arsha stood close to the edge, her hand on the rusted silver window frame, staring down at the gloomy street five stories below. It was deathly quiet out there again. Reaching up, she wiggled a jagged piece of glass from the frame and idly tossed it out into the air. A few seconds later it chimed distantly on the concrete below.
“We have to change some things,” I said.
She looked back at me, curious. “What are you talking about?”
“I mean, do you feel secure in this city in light of what happened?”
She turned away from the window to face me squarely. “Probably about as secure as I ever felt. It’s not uncommon for stragglers to come through here, even Marauders now and again, although they’ve never found us.”
I thought of the mysterious watcher in the city, how uneasy it made me feel. How vulnerable.
Don’t tell her about that. Not until you’re sure it’s not just your imagination.
“What is it?” she pressed, sensing my unease.
“Well, it seems that we’re in the middle of…” I hated to use the term, but I felt it was justified. “A war. Ascension and the Marauders are fighting north and east of here from what we can tell, but what if they turn their attention south?”
“As long as we keep out of sight and don’t draw attention to ourselves, they’ll keep moving through, just like they always have.”
“But Arsha, things are changing now.” I glanced back at the lab. “What we’re about to do… that will change everything.”
She considered me evenly. “It won’t if we’re the only two who know about it.”
“Sure, if we can keep it to ourselves, that’s one thing. But it’s already becoming difficult for us to hide what we’re doing here. Think about it: when we have larger fields of wheat, fruit trees and crops, those things are going to attract attention. Out in the wasteland, the only things growing are weeds and grass. Anyone passing through is going to see what we’ve created and realise something’s up.”
“Maybe.”
“And think about the value of these children. I guess that some of the clanks passing through would have no interest in them, but you can bet that others are going to understand the value in possessing them. They’ll want to control the only living humans on the planet, because, as far as we’re concerned, they’re the future of this world. When you get down to it, the Marauders, Ascension, and everyone else out there amount to a horde of dying machines. The technology and the means for us to build new synthetics, or to extend our lives, has been lost.”
She placed her hands on her hips. “Where are you going with this, Brant? What’s your point?”
“I think we need to take greater steps to protect ourselves.”
Her tongue dug into her cheek and she looked away, contemptuous. “Right. I see where you’re headed now.”
“Do you?”
“Yeah,” she said flatly. “You want guns.”
“That’s a little simplistic. I want to be able to defend myself and these children. And you.”
“I don’t like guns.”
“Okay, but you admit that we need to start thinking more seriously about our own protection.”
She shook her head disdainfully and turned away, moving back to the window to stare out at the city again.
“I agree that we need to protect ourselves,” she said eventually. “I just wish there was a better way.”
“We don’t have a lot of options, do we? We could collect a few kitchen knives and leave them within easy reach, but I don’t think that’s going to stop the Marauders.”
“Of course not. I didn’t say they would.”
“If they come, they’re going to come at us with greater numbers, at the very least. Maybe rifles and shotguns too. How are we going to stand up to that?”
“We keep out of their way.”
“And if we’re cornered?”
She sighed. “All right. I agree that we’re going to have to reassess a lot of things once the children arrive. This is going to be just one facet of that.”
“Right. I mean, think of how you’ve handled threats in the past. You ran away, you hid, or you just kept your mouth shut. That’s not going to be feasible with screaming infants under your arms. You won’t get very far with that strategy. We can’t just head for the hills with children to feed. They’ll starve.”
“Yeah, I know.” She chewed her lip. “It’s a good point. A valid point. You were right to raise it.”
“So, you’re okay with it?”
“Yeah, I guess we can look into it. Do you already have the gear?” She looked me over expectantly as if waiting for me to pull a pistol out of my pocket.
“No, I have nothing. I mean, there aren’t a lot of weapons lying around out there, not in working condition. I’ve taken down a few Marauders who had guns, but they tag their weapons. They can trace those from a click away, or possibly more. So stealing them wasn’t an option.”
“Yeah.”
“From now on I’m going to keep my eye out, though. If I find something I’ll hang onto it.”
“Just keep it reasonable, huh? I don’t want you tearing through here with assault rifles on each arm and grenades falling out of your pockets.”
I laughed. “You ruin all my fun.”
She smiled back and even allowed herself a chuckle. We’d had plenty of disagreements over the last few months, but this felt like a moment where we connected on something. It felt good. It felt like progress.
Her expression soon became serious and her eyes drifted back to the lab.
“We better get back in there and check that everything is still okay.”
I nodded. “Sure.”
6
We made frequent trips inside the lab during those early hours of morning. I felt like I was carving out tracks with my pacing along the line of a-wombs, their soft radiance both reassuring and wholly compelling. When I wasn’t walking, I was sitting on the edge of the stool watching the touch panels, at times making small talk with Arsha as she came and went, and at other times just sitting in silence.
It was not demanding work in the least, but I found it incredibly fatiguing, and eventually I sat hunched over with my elbows on my knees, fingers pressed to my temples and my eyes shut as I attempted to rest. A synthetic like me couldn’t sleep – we had been designed to go without it. However, we’d been made to mimic humans in practically every way, and we were capable of both emotional and physical fatigue. At times I could enter a
state of repose where I tuned out the world around me and gained some much-needed mental rejuvenation. That was how Arsha found me some time later.
“Hey,” she said softly, nudging my shoulder. “You okay?”
I turned to her, snapping out of it, instantly alert again. “Yeah, what’s going on?” I said, alarmed.
“No, nothing. Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you.”
Out through the windows of the workshop I could see light filtering in. The night was finally over.
“That’s okay. I should be up and doing something, anyway.”
“It’s all right, Brant. I rested for a while myself. It was a big day yesterday.”
I swung my legs off the stool and got to my feet. “Sure was.”
She glanced at the a-wombs. “There’s been no change overnight. We’re going to be playing this waiting game a while yet.”
“It’s killing me, it really is. Waiting for these hCG readings to come in is like some kind of Hell.”
“I agree, but there’s no point sitting here. We need to keep occupied.” She turned her back on the touch panels. “At least one of us should head back to Somerset today, maybe both of us. There’s nothing much we can do here anyway. For the next couple of weeks the a-wombs will be doing all the work. We’re just spectators at this point.”
I considered, then nodded. “I guess you’re right.”
Arsha reached out and touched my elbow lightly to pull my attention away from the a-wombs. “Say, why don’t you come with me? I know something we can do.”
“What is it?”
She gave me a crooked little smile. “I’m going to give you what you want. Come on, it’ll only take a little while.”
We made our way down the stairwell, through the steel door on the ground floor and into the alleyway that ran alongside the M-Corp building. The chill of morning was crisp on my skin, and the clumpy clouds of a mackerel sky were painted in hues of red and orange that heralded the imminent arrival of the sun. Arsha led the way through the hollowed-out dumpster at the entrance to the alley, waiting for me to crawl through the hatch before closing it and replacing the debris that disguised the entrance.
“So which way?” I said, getting to my feet.
“It’s a little way south. Come on.”
She led me through a zigzagging path of streets and laneways that eventually led into a place I knew well, Hume Terrace. It was a significant arterial thoroughfare back in the day, but now it lay clogged with rusted cars and the wrecks of shuttles, like there’d been a major traffic jam where everyone had simply abandoned their vehicles. Arsha seemed to have been through here before, unerringly selecting the quickest and easiest path amongst the wreckage like a sugar ant following a pheromone trail. I’d travelled this street many times before the Winter and could guess where we were headed.
“You taking me over the river?”
“Yeah,” she replied over her shoulder. “Across the Hume Bridge. It’s not far after that.”
“Hey, remember the traffic jams they used to get along here?”
“Sure do. Worst in the city, more often than not.”
“Most days it moved about as fast as it is now,” I said drolly.
Arsha laughed. “Maybe not even that fast.”
We rounded a curve and the bridge came into sight, an older truss design with thick, utilitarian steel struts instead of the exaggerated curves and twists of the West Street Bridge further along the river. It had been around forever, and must have seen millions upon millions of vehicles pass over in its time. The stream of decaying cars continued unabated across the span as far as I could see.
“Arsha, what do you miss most?”
Coming to a place where a car had crashed into the side of a shuttle, she vaulted across, turning back to me on the other side.
“Huh?” she said.
I followed across. “What do you miss most? About the old world.”
She placed her hand to her forehead to keep the morning sun out of her eyes.
“Traffic jams,” she smiled.
I grinned back as we walked side by side. “No, what do you really miss?”
“I’d have to think about that.”
“Well, there must be something.”
We reached the foot of the bridge and she stood over by the railing, pointing down at a pathway that cut along the riverbank and led to a paved esplanade that was overrun by weeds and grass.
“Do you remember the markets they used to have down there?” she said. “Every Sunday morning.”
“Not really. I didn’t go there much.”
“Well, I was a regular. There was always a nice, relaxed atmosphere there. Everyone was happy. Friendly. It was like the rush and hustle of the world was put on hold for just a little while, and people could forget about deadlines and climbing over one another, and whatever was happening on the Grid.”
“Sounds nice.”
“Yeah.” Her face softened as she reminisced. “An old lady was there every week, sitting on a fold-out chair with a knitted shawl across her knees. Every week without fail she’d turn up, always welcoming, always happy. She had this leathery olive skin, and wrinkles from her eyebrows to her mouth that bunched up whenever she smiled – which was all the time – so you could hardly ever see her eyes. She sold these little figurines she’d built from old discarded bits of tech: miniature people with silicon wafer bodies and copper wires for arms and legs, tiny sheep with silver coils for wool.” There was a faraway look in her eyes as she remembered. “I never bought one. Now I kinda wish I had.”
“You liked trinkets?”
“Not particularly. It was more about just taking part in something. Supporting people and being part of a community.” She looked at me, the wind from the river tugging strands of hair across her face. “I guess that’s what I miss the most. Community.”
“Too bad the Grid got smashed. That kinda killed off most people’s sense of community.”
“Well, the Grid going down had its bad points, but overall it probably wasn’t such a bad thing.”
“What do you mean?”
“I appreciated the connectedness of the Grid in some ways, I guess,” she began, “but too many people became wound up in relationships that weren’t real. The Grid feeds told us everything about each other down to the last detail. We were given information about people we hardly knew, about what time they got out of bed in the morning and what colour socks they were wearing that day, except none of that stuff really mattered. None of it told us about what those people were really like. I had a more meaningful bond with the old lady at the markets, just passing a smile and watching the way her hands danced as she made her toys, than with all of the other people whose useless data was sent to me on the Grid.”
“Well, yeah. The Grid did have a kind of duality, I guess. We had an incredible source of information at our fingertips, but much of it was irrelevant. By its nature, those two sides were just inseparable.”
“Well, the bad outweighed the good by a long way.”
“You sure about that?”
“Yes, I’m sure. No Grid, no conflict. No White Summer.”
I gave her a quizzical look. “You’re saying the Grid started the war?”
“I believe that’s what began the White Summer, yeah. The Grid underpinned everything. Whoever controlled it also had control of whatever was built on top of it. Forget nations and governments and coalitions. There was only one true power by the end.”
“I never heard this theory before.”
She shrugged. “I figured it out over the years. The fighting was always ostensibly about other things, but the true purpose was disguised. The people controlling things were far above us, Brant. They had us fooled. While it was happening, we never knew their real agenda.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter now,” I said. “It’s done. We can’t change it. And the Grid isn’t coming back.”
“Unless the Marauders figure out a way to get it started again.” She
pushed away from the railing and started across the bridge. “I saw the Grid spire in the north flash for three or four seconds the other night.”
“They’re making progress with it, then.”
“Yeah. If they keep going and gain access to old data repositories, old surveillance systems… I don’t think Ascension or anyone else will be able to stop them. They’ll be one step ahead of everyone else.”
On the southern bank we found ourselves surrounded by the ruins of fancy restaurants and high-rise apartment blocks, in a precinct that once was home to some of the richest and most influential people in the city. Vines and creepers grew freely here, many snaking up the sides of buildings as far as the second and third floors, obscuring doorways and windows alike in a green latticework. Arsha kept walking for another block before turning into an adjoining street and stopping before a modern two-storey house. It was an angular place, its glass facade appearing like a set of interlocking pyramids, a fanciful, artistic arrangement. Most of the panels had been smashed by now, and the few still intact were encrusted with grime.
“A doctor lived here, back in the old days,” Arsha said, looking up at it. “I came here years ago looking for medical supplies that I could stockpile in preparation for the arrival of the children. Every hospital I checked had been either bombed or ransacked, so I figured he might have kept some here that no one knew about. When I searched the place, I didn’t find any supplies. But I found something else.”
She pushed through the broken and shabby doorway. The sun was shining through the burst windows and onto the black-and-white checkered floor tiles, which were now barely visible through the dirt. Tall weeds shot up out of cracks in the floors where the dirt was thickest, and I had the notion that, with all those walls and ceilings of glass, this was like a decrepit old greenhouse. A broad staircase in the centre of the room led up to the second floor, its thick and luxurious wooden banisters now withered and mottled in a palette of lifeless greys.
“Through here,” Arsha said, and she led me beyond the foyer and into a twisting series of corridors, eventually locating a glass cabinet that lay in pieces at the end. “It wasn’t easy to find, first time. He had it disguised. Just watch your step.”
The Seeds of New Earth Page 5