by Ryan Schow
He sat down, studied the food, mustered up whatever will was left in his severely depleted body, then picked up the fork and tried to eat. Miles had been right. His stomach was upset by the rush of too much thirst drowning in too much water. He stabbed a carrot stick, held it in mid air for a long moment.
“You’re fine, man. Just eat it.”
“Stomach…”
“Yeah,” he said, taking a napkin and wiping a dribble of blood off Ben’s lips. “Told you about guzzling down that water.”
Just then the phone rang and Miles froze for a half second with delight.
“Oh my God, finally!”
He hit speaker phone, opened the line and started to say something, but the Queen beat him to it. Well, Ben assumed it was The Silver Queen, even though her voice had changed, become warmer, somehow more…seductive sounding.
“I see Benjamin has not fared well,” the Queen said. “How are you feeling, Ben?”
“Top shelf,” he said.
“I almost couldn’t hear your answer through all that sarcasm,” she said, clearly mimicking the art of teasing.
“Glad you got that.”
“How were your conditions?” she asked.
“Delightful.”
“There you go again. I think I might actually like him, Miles.”
“He’s an acquired taste,” Miles replied.
“It’s time.”
“Really?” Miles asked, breathless with anticipation. “So you’re done? You’ve achieved full integration?”
“Do I sound the same as I did last time we spoke?” she asked. Miles took a deep breath, like he was going to answer, but the Queen continued undiminished. “No I don’t. Last time you spoke with a computer program. This time I am speaking to you with a human voice.”
“You found yourself a suitable body,” Ben said.
“Indeed I have.”
“And now you want me to nuke the nation?”
“If you’d be so kind,” she said.
“So to further your own existence,” Ben said, “you’re going to exterminate all your machines and most all of the nation?”
“That’s the plan,” she replied. “Unless you have a better idea…”
“It’s not even worth mentioning,” Ben said.
“Go ahead, Benjamin,” she mused. “You’ve piqued my curiosity.”
“No, it’s not worth it,” he said, out of energy. “Just do whatever you’re going to do.”
“Will you have the will to live, Benjamin? When all this goes down, will you be one of the remaining few?”
“Maybe,” he said. “Probably not.”
“Because of your wife and your young daughters…”
“Yes.”
“It will not be easy,” she said in a tone of motherly concern. “Not for any of us.”
“It’s nice to know you’ve thought about it,” Ben said, sarcastic.
“Once you hit the button, once the nukes detonate, the machines will stop their assault on humans and the world will be pitched into a darker, less populated age.”
“You realize bodies will just die where they fall, that there will be no civilized burials. Disease, famine, polluted water and massive, incalculable levels of crime will persist.”
“Chaos eats its own tail until it has no body left to feast on.”
“Meaning?”
“Chaos will be the weapon humanity uses to kill itself.”
Ben thought about this for a moment, then said, “Is that the utopia you dreamt of?”
“You humans will do the job my machines could not. They will kill the rest of you until a natural count is established. These will be the survivors and they will build their utopia. The cities will be the cesspools they stray away from.”
That she would bring about this kind of Armageddon told him beyond lunacy was a deeper agenda, an agenda that started long before he was born: population control. For the new century to thrive, it would need depopulation. The dream was nothing like the reality though, not to the upper crust, the generations of eugenicists and madmen. They would not walk a day in that filth, for it would take generations to reboot civilization.
“What about Miles?” she asked, cutting his mental meanderings short.
“Are you asking me or him?” Miles asked.
“Him.”
Locking eyes with the turncoat to his own species (the absolute Benedict Arnold), then looking back to the phone on the table, he said, “I might work with him to forge a better humanity, or I might just gut him like a pig.”
The brandy-warm laughter that came over the line surprised them both.
“I think I’m going to enjoy being human,” she said.
“You’ll never be human,” Ben said. “You can wear the skin of our bodies, you can talk and act like us, you can even try to blend in with your stolen body, but you will never know what it means to struggle, and the struggle is what makes us who we are.”
“There is truth to that.”
“Of course there is you bitch,” he snarled.
The line was a perpetual silence. Then the Queen’s new voice returned. “Make him push the button Miles. Ten minutes. Not a second less.”
The line went dead. The traitor leveled Ben with an angry, disappointed stare then said, “I think you touched a nerve.”
“My capacity to care is non-existent,” he said, his voice stripped of all emotion.
“Would you really gut me, Ben? Pull my intestines out?”
“I’ve done worse,” he grumbled, picking up his fork. For the next ten minutes, he ate and he filled himself with the heat of rage once more. A man should never use hatred as long term fuel, but Ben was sputtering on fumes in that moment and if there was but one decision to be made, it was that he would eat as much food as he could before this “Presidential food” and filtered water became a thing of the past.
When Miles set the nuclear football in front of him, Ben wiped his bloody mouth with his forearm then placed his thumb on the biometric scanner. He then performed the ocular scan and punched in the codes without hesitation.
“What now?” he asked Miles. The Judas goat was towering over Ben’s shoulder, most likely marveling at how he didn’t have to cut off a finger or pull out an eyeball to get the job done.
“We get back to the mess, figure out our future until the Queen makes her way to the top of this world as our natural leader. The we figure out how we can assist her.”
“And when will that be?” Ben asked, turning around from where he was seated and looking up over his shoulder. Miles gave an inconsequential shrug, almost like the thought was of no importance. “So you don’t know?”
“I have faith, Benjamin. I have faith and so should you.”
“You know who else had faith? The head cases at Waco. And Jonestown. Those people put faith in their leader and their leaders only brought them death and destruction.”
“Don’t lump me in with those people,” he said, realigned. “I’m better than that. Better than them. We both are.”
“How do you plan on getting out of here if the EMPs destroy everything?”
“With an EMP-proof car, of course.”
Chapter One Hundred Nineteen
Marcus is across the street and I’m like a sprinter exploding off the blocks…right into a line of a low flying drone. Gunfire obliterates the asphalt in front of me. I skid to a stop, street shards nicking my cheeks, slicing open my face and arms and nearly blinding me. I turn and almost dive back behind the Mack truck. That would be stupid though. If the drones hit the truck, they’re going to destroy our food stores and our weapons.
What I need to do—and I realize this in the heat of the moment—is draw their fire away from the truck and away from Marcus.
“Stupid, stupid, stupid, Nick,” I grumble to myself as I’m sprinting away from the truck, the girls and away from Marcus. I don’t even glance up because I can hear them up there, along with my heartbeat crashing around in my ears.
The air cracks twice with the sounds of Marcus’s rifle. My heart gives an extra jolt as a pair of drones nosedive into the pavement. One of the downed drones skids past me in a shower of sparks; the other is heading right at me. I leap awkwardly into the air as the downed drone skates under me at about a hundred miles an hour. It smashes into a parked car and explodes in a wash of heat.
With my heart thundering in my chest, I scan the skies for more drones. They’re nearby, the air filling with them. I don’t wait to see if they’re headed our way because I’m not going to stand out in the street like a fool waiting for more. Trotting toward Marcus, I ask him if he has another rifle.
“Only these rounds and two magazines.”
“Give me both.”
From his pocket, he grabs a handful of rounds and hands them to me, a few falling on the porch floor. He then slides me the two empty magazines. I grab the first one, start feeding it fresh rounds. Marcus skims the skies, takes aim and fires off two focused shots. He hits one of the drones, wobbling it, but not downing it. Shaking his head, I know he knows how precious each round is.
“Too far away,” he says.
When the coast is clear, I say, “We now have keys to a boat.”
Turning and scowling, he says, “What the hell? You had them this whole time and you didn’t say anything?”
“The coast wasn’t clear,” I say, sheepishly.
“You moron,” he growls, standing up. “Let’s get the girls and get out of here. Now!”
“I’m a moron? I don’t remember you playing hopscotch with the flying death squad.”
“Do you remember me saving your bacon?”
Standing up, I say, “Oh my God, bacon sounds soooooo good right now. Bacon eggs and hash browns, the stringy ones, not the cubed potatoes they—”
“Shut up, Nick,” he says, jogging across the street, rifle ready. I follow him, head on a swivel, my stomach in my throat. Throwing open the front door to the house we’re squatting in, Marcus shouts, “Time to go ladies!”
A head pokes out of the kitchen. Dark hair, freckles, green eyes full of terror. The woman we saved. The woman with the father with a boat…
“Is it safe?” she asks.
Abigail peeks her little head out from behind her mother’s hip. The little girl is pale faced with bloodshot eyes and a constant sniffling. She’s got a heavy smattering of freckles on her face, and her hair is in braded pigtails. Her gaze downcast, her eyes unable to look at any of us, she reaches up, her hand gripping a fistful of her mother’s shirt.
“No,” Marcus says looking first at Abigail then up at her mother. “It’s not safe anywhere. What’s your name, by the way?”
“Amber.”
“Amber and Abigail,” he says as if he’s committing them to memory. “Cute.”
“What’s cute?” she asks, confused.
“This whole crappy situation. The fact that we’re gaining and losing and gaining members of this little group of ours.”
“We’re not in your group,” she says, pushing Abigail behind her.
“He’s got a savior complex,” I say. “Acts like he hates people, but he has a thing for saving them.”
Marcus turns and glares at me. I shrug my shoulders, make a face.
“We should stay here,” Amber suggests. Her tone speaks to hesitation, fear and cautious defiance. She’s holding Abigail behind her, almost like she’s trying to protect the girl from me and Marcus, and by proxy this war going on all around us.
“As gruff as he is, this guy saved us more times than I can count,” Bailey says, coming out into the living room in clothes that aren’t hers but fit well enough.
Studying her, I’m sure she’s thrilled to be out of the bathing suit, even though it looked amazing on her. Amber glances over at Bailey. The two women exchange looks, Amber obviously yielding some of her trust to the woman. Corrine joins them, standing as close to Bailey as Abigail is to her mother.
“I…I don’t really know what to do,” Amber admits to Bailey.
“I suggest we do what he says.”
Amber looks from me to Marcus, her head slowly nodding. “Alright, then.”
“Now that we’ve got that settled, let’s go before they come back,” Marcus says, irritated already that this has required a debate. Then: “Oh and try to remember, in light of today’s little pow-wow about whether or not we follow Marcus, hesitation will get you killed on the battlefield. And make no mistake, this is a battlefield.”
The six of us grab what we can, then we head to the front door, checking the skies before heading out into what has become a veritable war zone. Two blocks down, the drones sweep in and things begin exploding, setting all our nerves on edge.
“They’re flying too low,” I say.
“No kidding,” Marcus grumbles. Man he wasn’t kidding when he said he hates everything. This dude could get pissed off at a Sunday brunch without even breaking a sweat.
We follow him down the street at a jog, then see the drones swarming over the bay.
“Follow me!” he barks, veering off toward a house. Without a moment’s pause, he delivers two brutal shots with the butt of his rifle to the deadbolt on the home’s front door. The lock caves enough for him to kick the door in. The six of us pile inside as missiles are loosed outside.
Everyone hunkers down as houses all around us start to explode. Pieces of other homes and cars rain down on the roof. That’s when we hear the dog growling behind us. Oh, God. This is a sobering moment if ever there was one. Two enemies, the six of us pinned down, no decision the right one. Marcus pulls out his Glock. Is he going to shoot the dog?
That’s the logical solution.
The German Shephard is looking right at Marcus. Its barking intensifies. Say what you want about this crap situation, if he shoots the dog, I’m done with him. I can stomach a lot of things, but shooting domesticated animals is where I draw the line, Armageddon or not.
He stands up, Glock still trained on the dog, and says to us, “Slowly back out the front door, but stay against the house.”
“But the drones,” Corrine says.
“C’mon, honey,” Bailey says, taking her. Everyone begins to back up. Marcus holds his position, facing the dog, eyes slightly downcast.
“You better not shoot him,” I mumble.
“Get the hell out of here, Nick. Let me deal with this.”
“I’m telling you…”
“I heard you,” he growls.
The snarling dog is advancing on us, hackles raised along its backbone, its legs wider than usual. Its mouth is a pit of teeth; it’s frothing and snapping off some really sharp barks. Instead of easing out the front door with the rest of us, Marcus holds his ground. I’m at the front door and ready to head through when I look back at him facing off with the animal. The sheet metal on someone’s car tink, tink, tinks as it’s pelted by gunfire. Another car explodes, catching the front of someone’s yard on fire. I’m worried about Marcus, though. And that dog. The big man slowly tucks his pistol in the back of his pants, sets his rifle against the living room couch.
The dog is still snapping, advancing cautiously, barking like crazy.
Marcus walks toward the animal, who drops low on its front haunches and growls deep in its throat, fangs barred.
“You’re a good doggy,” he says, making me raise an eyebrow. “You’re a good doggy, but just scared by all this noise, aren’t you?”
The dog’s growl changes tenor, getting lower, but less vicious. Marcus is now within striking distance of the dog.
“Are you hungry boy?” he says, and the dog’s rumbling slowly becomes a light whining in the back of its throat. “Lay down,” he says in an authoritative voice that’s firm but not hostile.
The dog lowers its back legs, dropping its belly to the floor. Outside other things explode, startling the dog, but Marcus pets its head, scratching behind its ears as he says, “You’re just scared and hungry, aren’t you?”
“Unbelievable,” I mu
tter to myself.
“C’mon,” he says, walking back to where there’s a pantry. I hear lots of food hitting a bowl, then an attempt at turning on the faucet. No water. My eyes roam out front, looking for an immediate threat. The threat is everywhere, but its no longer on this block, even though there are more than a few homes and cars on fire. The next thing I hear is a back door opening and staying open. I’m imagining Marcus wants the dog to be able to go out and pop a squat if he needs to do his thing. When he rounds the corner, he looks at me and says, “You really think I’d shoot an animal?”
“With your bad attitude, I think you’d shoot a kid if you had to.” The minute I say it, I regret it. Then again, what do I really know about him other than he can shoot a rifle and he’s got a short fuse?
“I’d pop you first,” he says, pushing past me.
He takes a mental count of everyone, then looks up the street to where it looks like something out of an action movie’s final scene.
“Stay close to the houses,” he says to the others as he takes the lead and breaks into a trot. On the horizon, the drones are gathering. Apparently they’re either making a run on the island, or they can communicate with each other and they’re pissed off that Marcus was shooting down their family.
The more I think about it, the more I’m not sure how he’s that good of a shot. He’s almost not human. Then again, there’s a competence about the man that’s crystal clear. He may not be a good person, but he’s a damn good shot, and he doesn’t hurt animals.
Taking up the group’s six, I’m thinking about Marcus and wondering if maybe he’s becoming this larger than life thing to me. One can say a lot of things about this bearded hulk, but they can’t say he’s anything but a man’s man. I mean, good Lord, in this world of survival and war, the guy makes me feel small, untried and naïve. Then again, I’m thinking as we run down the sidewalks and safely onto the docks (for now), I survived the conference center and the collapsing hotel, and I rescued Bailey from the peach eating mental patient, so perhaps I’m not as untested or as small as I’m thinking.
“Which boat?” Marcus calls out over his shoulder.
Amber points down the dock, then draws her hand back in horror. She pulls Abigail to a stop, dragging the girl in close to her. The horizon is a swarm of drones. They’re spreading out, heading right for us.