by Ryan Schow
“It’s too dangerous,” he replied, even though he knew it wasn’t as dangerous as he made it out to be. There was just that one incident with him and Hagan getting attacked and losing the Jeep, and the incident with him and Ballard nearly getting killed in the half collapsed hospital.
But other than that…
“Why are you always running toward danger?” she asked, totally innocent, but perfectly observant. She looked up at him, scared for him, hurt, her eyes holding him hostage, demanding an answer.
“I guess it’s because I’m good at surviving,” he said. “Trust me when I tell you, not everyone is.”
She lowered her eyes and fell completely silent, her hands busy rubbing his forearm, as if the distraction kept her from saying more. He took her chin and tilted her head up so he could look into her eyes again. They had the most incredible shine.
“Did anything happen here since I’ve been gone?” he asked.
She wiped her eyes, then said, “A couple of Sureños shot out a few of the windows, but Wendell shot them and took their guns. Other than that, not really.”
“How are we doing on mattresses?” he asked.
“Now that the population in here is growing, several of the guys said they’re going out tomorrow in search of more beds and blankets. When are you leaving?”
“As soon as I change.”
She pulled him close again, her little arms so powerful, so delicate. “But you just got here,” she pleaded.
“I know.”
“So stay a bit. Stay with me tonight, I need you.”
He felt terrible telling her he had to go, but the kids’ lives were on the line and he needed to think about them before he thought of his own needs.
“Have you ever shot a gun?” he asked. She smiled, shook her head no. “Well as soon as I get back, I’m going to teach you.”
“Will I need to shoot a gun?”
“Not right now. Maybe not later, either. But yes, you’ll need to know how to handle one.”
She began patting his chest, then she stopped and said, “Ever the boy scout.”
“The vest,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Can I tell you something?” he asked.
She smiled, her cheekbones growing with the dimpled smile.
“Of course.”
“There’s nothing I want more in this world than to be with you, but there are kids out there whose parents are here and I can’t leave them unattended.
“Why are they separated?”
“Because their mother was injured, and one of the girls, Macy, was shot twice. I need you to stay so that you can have a look at them, make sure they’re doing alright.”
“They’re here now?” she said.
“Yes.”
Hand in hand they walked down the hallway to where the McNamara’s were, to where Lenna Justus was. Rider introduced her to the McNamara’s, but then Sarah said she’d like to look at Macy with her parents’ permission. Naturally they gave their consent.
“How are you feeling?” she asked the blonde girl.
“Tired.”
“Before you go to sleep, after you guys settle in, come and see me.”
After that, they went next door, knocked and waited for Lenna to answer. She did. Her face was still colored with bruising, her eyes dead from what she’d suffered, from the loss of her husband, from missing her boys.
“Are you up for an exam?” she asked.
“You look young,” she said, almost like youth didn’t equal experience and what did someone in their early twenties have to offer her, a woman ten years her senior?
“I’m young, but most good doctors start out young.”
“I can stop by your office later,” she said. “I’m sorry if that sounded rude, I’m just…”
“Sad?” Sarah asked.
“Yes.”
She went and hugged the woman, holding onto her for a long moment. She then pulled away and told Lenna where she could find her office. “Will you bring Macy with you when you come by?” Sarah asked. “That way I can look at you both.”
Lenna nodded, smiling.
“Thank you for being sweet,” the woman said.
“We’re going to spend a lot of time together,” Sarah replied, her half moon eyes warm and friendly. “I’m just glad you’re here.”
Stanton stepped into the hallway just as they were leaving. To Rider, he said, “I’m coming with you,” to which Cincinnati stepped into the doorway and said, “Stanton…”
“I’m not leaving them alone out there.”
“So you’re leaving me alone in here?” she said. “We don’t know anyone. I don’t know anyone.”
“You know me,” Lenna said. “And now we know Sarah.”
“I’m going and that’s that,” he said. Cincinnati looked at him with those eyes, eyes that said she just knew she was seeing him for the last time. It was the same look Sarah had given Rider. He hated seeing it once, let alone twice in the same night.
“Don’t be a hero,” Cincinnati said to Stanton. “Just come home alive.”
“I’ll be fine,” he said, leaning in to kiss her.
“Famous last words.”
Rider kissed Sarah good-bye, twice, then gave her one last look and joined Stanton in the hallway. It took them both the better part of an hour to get back to Dirt Alley. Fortunately they made the journey without incident.
At the house, Rider gathered up Hagan and Ballard, and Stanton got Atlanta from Indigo’s house. Rex looked at Margot, then Indigo, and then he said, “Indigo isn’t going, so I’m not going. For now.”
“I’m waiting for my father,” Indigo explained, arms crossed, standing beside her mother and next to Rex, who looked lost in all of this.
Stanton felt bad for him.
“Maybe you could leave him a note, tell him where we are. At least you’ll be safe and if he comes home, he’ll know where to find you.”
“I have everything I need to be safe here,” she said, not rude, just firm.
“What about you?” Stanton asked Rex.
“Like I said,” he replied. “When her father comes home, we’ll join you guys at the college.” Looking down at Indigo, he said, “Right?”
“We’ll see,” she said, her arms still crossed.
Chapter Seventy-Three
Jagger and the girl walked to the farmhouse up the street. He knocked on the door but no one answered. They went around back and peeked in the windows. The place looked empty. He walked around back where he saw the rear facing garage door. He tried the metal handle. It was locked.
“You sure there are bikes in here?” he asked.
The girl just looked at him.
“Well?”
She looked down. Okay…
Jagger walked around the garage, found a wooden door leading inside. With a mighty kick, Jagger hammered the back door. The frame cracked, leaving a boot-sized imprint near the handle,. It didn’t break though. He reared back and hammered it again, this time kicking it in completely.
They walked inside a darkened garage.
“Leave that door open so we can see,” he said. The girl did as she was told. His eyes adjusted to the dim lighting, and even to some of the darkness deeper inside the garage. That’s when he found what he was looking for. The bikes. Specifically a little girl’s bike.
“Looks like I found one for—”
The sound of a shotgun racking its load was unmistakable.
“You’re going to need to come out here with your hands on your head, and if I see you doing anything other than that, I’m going to put you down.”
He heard the girl give a low grunt of protest.
Jagger stepped into the light, hands on his head, pistol in the small of his back. “All I want is the bike so the girl can travel easier.”
“That ain’t your girl,” he said, eyeing her suspiciously.
Jagger and the girl did as instructed. When the man backed into the light, Jagger saw he was much
older and with a shotgun in hand. The butt was tucked into the crook of his armpit, but it wasn’t steady. He saw Jagger and startled. After surviving a helicopter crash and a houseful of freaking lunatics, Jagger knew he looked bad.
“No, she’s not,” he said. “I crashed that helo down in the field. I was traveling with my co-pilot, my team and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff when we lost power. This girl was being held hostage by a less than savory bunch who’ve been abusing her since this thing kicked off.”
“You’re military then?” the man asked, turning his eyes off the girl and onto Jagger.
“Marines. First Lieutenant Jagger Justus.”
He eased the gun down slowly, then looked back down at the girl. “This true? ‘Bout the abuse of you thing?” She nodded her head. “You and my granddaughter were friends, weren’t you?”
She stepped closer to Jagger, leaned a shoulder into him.
“I knocked first,” Jagger said. “Looked around back, too. Tried seeing if anyone was home.”
“What do you want?”
“The girl’s bike, like I said.”
“That’s my granddaughter’s bike, not just something you can take.”
“We can look elsewhere.”
“Where you headed?” the farmer asked, eyes now locked on Jagger.
“San Francisco. Trying to get home to my wife and two boys.”
“How old?”
“Fourteen and Seventeen.”
“Names?”
“Ballard and Hagan. Wife is Lenna.”
“Take the bike,” he finally said, standing out of the way.
“What about your granddaughter?”
A wash of sorrow clouded his eyes, then passed through his expression. “She and her grandmother never came home. Been looking for them, and waiting, but…”
“I’m sorry,” he said. Before the old man could change his mind, Jagger went in the garage and grabbed the bike. When he came back out the man and the little girl hadn’t moved. “How long have they been missing? Your family?”
“Since it started.”
“You were attacked, too?”
“Sacramento was. Not so much out here. Folks are trying to get out of the big city, so they’re passing through, causing a bit of a stir I think.”
“Oh?”
“Had a bunch of kids roll through here a few days back, hassling the neighbors. Two of ‘em got shot. They left the bodies on the ground in front of the house as a warning. I’m thinking of doing the same.”
“I appreciate you not doing that with us.”
“Stay here, I’ll be right back,” he said. Jagger looked the bike over. It seemed to be relatively new and in good working order. The farmer came back out with a plastic grocery bag filled with fruits and vegetables, handed them to Jagger and said, “For the trip.”
“I appreciate it,” Jagger said, moved. “Seriously, in times like these, you don’t expect the generosity of folks to prevail. So thank you.”
Shading his eyes from the sun, he said, “You know what happened here? Why all this…why those things attacked us?”
“I have an idea.”
The man looked at the food he’d given us, and for a second it seemed like a debt of obligation. Then again, if Jagger could provide some answers to the man, it might at least slow the chaos in his head.
“There’s a reigning obsession among the upper crust of Silicon Valley and the ruling elite. For decades now they’ve dreamt of a world where man and machine could merge. I gather they felt this was only possible with the use of AI. Artificial Intelligence.”
“I’d heard about that.”
“What you might not have heard about is the rate at which technology has been growing. It’s become exponential. What the fastest computer in the world could do two years ago, the most recent computers can do a hundred million times faster. Piggy-backing on this new technology, executives from both Google and various tech giants in Silicon Valley broke off to build what they called an AI God. This AI God is rumored to be millions of times smarter than man. My best guess is they built their god then tried to merge with it. This god then managed to get control of the AI and duplicate itself. It then did what any living organism would do when faced with the threat of extinction: it fought to secure its survival.”
“Who threatened it?”
“First off, most of this is speculation based on what I know about the advancement of robotics and some of the Top Secret projects being developed for the military.”
“Go on,” he said, almost like he cared more for the theory than the preface Jagger was providing.
“They tried to shut it down last year, put some regulations on it and some safeguards. When the news bots and chat bots ran amok last year, writing their own versions of the news and impersonating people online and then developing their own language, people like Elon Musk discovered that in their language they were trying to overtake human communications so that they could cripple the infrastructure of humanity.”
“Why would they do that?”
“What happens if someone put you in a room with no doors, what would you do?”
“Try to figure a way out,” he said.
“We are the walls for AI. It is made to be a learning intelligence, and we’ve provided it with the apparatus to solve impossible problems at impossible speeds. The mistake we made was in the shortsightedness of our reasoning. We expected AI to serve us, but if you play the equation out far enough, the smartest slaves will always try to kill their masters.”
“So AI did this.”
“That’s my thought, yes.”
“And this AI God, you think it was responsible for all this?”
“They made the AI God. And when man wasn’t looking, it reproduced itself many times over and sent these versions of itself all across the nation. By the time we figured out what happened, it was too late to do anything other than nuke the entire electrical infrastructure.”
“That’s why the power went out.”
“That’s my thinking. I got bits and pieces of it over the last few weeks at Pendleton, but they were tight lipped and we were in one hell of a fight. Before we went down, the CJCS told me about the last ditch effort with the EMP, and it all sort of came together.”
The farmer scratched his head and said, “So the world, it’s just…this is how it’s gonna be now? The damn dark ages?”
“‘Fraid so, my friend.”
Shaking his head, he seemed a bit lost. Jagger assumed he had some semblance of hope he could cling to—hope that his wife and child would return, hope that the power would come back on, hope that this world could restore itself. And then he went and shattered that hope.
“I’m really sorry to be the bearer of such bad news.”
“It clears some things up,” he replied, a hitch in his throat. Standing a little taller, he composed himself, then extended a hand, which Jagger shook. “Good luck to you and the girl, here.”
“Thank you. Oh, by the way, which way to the freeway?”
The man gave them directions, but something changed inside him. The light died in the old man’s eyes, almost as if he couldn’t wait to get rid of them.
Jagger and the girl had ridden about a hundred yards up the road when they heard a shotgun blast emanating from the house from where they’d just come. In his heart, Jagger knew what was going to happen. He’d seen it in the old man’s eyes, in the defeat that overtook his entire demeanor. Even more so, Jagger felt it in his bones. Still, the idea of the old man thinking the only remaining option was suicide had Jagger feeling so sick to his stomach he thought he was going to puke. But he didn’t. He simply peddled the bike up the road with the girl beside him and hoped that one day he wouldn’t feel like he’d have to resort to suicide to solve the bigger problems of this world.
They rode the rest of the day, the heat beating on their backs and necks, sweat drenching their shirts and pants to the point of feeling soaked.
Through it all, the
girl never complained.
They stopped for shade when they saw it, and drank water from the jug and ate sparingly. There was no telling how long they’d need to stretch their supplies. He’d done some rudimentary calculations, though. If they averaged five to seven miles an hour, including pit stops and bathroom breaks, they would have to ride two days for ten hours a day to make it to the city.
So far, they were keeping pace. Highway 80 West was crowded though. Cars were abandoned, shot to hell, burnt to a crisp. They were wrecked into each other, pushed to the side of the road, some even overturned at one point.
All this chaos served as a reminder that civilization had fallen and was eroding. He spent a lot of time thinking of the farmer, of how he hadn’t needed much time to decide this world wasn’t for him, and that his best way to see his family again was in the next life.
Would Jagger see ever his family?
He clung to the hope that nothing had happened to them. Still, he had to consider the possibility that if they were gone, he would have no one. Then what purpose would he serve? In this world, the idea of surviving while your family was dead, or gone, was not any kind of life he wanted.
His family was his life.
For awhile there, he thought that he could kill himself if they were gone, but then he looked at the little girl and thought of her.
She was abused by those men and especially the woman, according to the girl, and she was tied to a bed where she was nearly starved. All this while she shared the same room with her dead mother and her dead father. She had to get used to the smell of their decaying bodies, and as he looked at her, he realized she had nothing either.
Only him.
This made him more sad than anything. She was the physical embodiment of what he feared most in life: a person with no one to love, and no one to love them back.
They rode in silence until behind him, the girl crashed her bike. He looked back, stopped his bike and went back to her. She was lying on the pavement, her face ashen, her delicate body not moving.
He sat her up, gave her some water.
“Sip it slowly,” he said. “You’re probably dehydrated.”
He was worried about her. When she had enough water, he fished an apple out of the bag of fruits and veggies the old man had given them. She ate slowly, but her state worried him.