“Who says that?”
Dad/Jack shrugs. Moves past me to the weapons racks.
I mutter to myself. “This ain’t happening.” Sit up.
Mom/Catarina says, “Yeah, it’s definitely happening kiddo.” She bounces Rugrat. Picks the baby up. Plants a big kiss on her forehead. “She’s adorable. Where’d you get her?”
Both these people with Brooklyn accents.
Ah, fuck.
Those kids who beat back the end of the world were from Brooklyn. Three said my parents were from Bay Ridge.
I say, “What do you mean ‘get’? You make it sound like I picked her up at fuckin the store or something.”
Jack says, “Watch your fuckin tone.”
Catarina cocks an eye at me. Literally like a disapproving mother. “You’ve got a pretty shit attitude. Don’t talk to me that way. And I ask cuz I’m guessing you didn’t fuckin give birth here in the tank thirty-six hours ago.”
My parents have goddamn dirty mouths.
Figures.
I say, “Cut the baby out of a dead woman in Newark. Plissken told me—wait, where is he? Where’s Plissken?”
If he’s dead, I’ll go apeshit again. Maybe drink myself to oblivion.
I can work on my parents later. Where they’ve been my whole life. Why they’re apparently my age. How they’re here. Now. And why.
Plissken’s more important.
Jack says, “The drone? Your metal ‘Escape From New York’ reference? He’s outside. On the ground. Those precision EMP blasts pack a wallop it looks like. Tank’s still under, but she’ll be okay. Only took her out cuz the hatch was open. Dunno about your boy.” He plays with Lovelace and Turing a little. Curious. “My brother’s the one who’s good with tech.”
Both baby tanks:
Catarina says, “You two go get the drone. Bring him inside. I’ll watch the babies and see if I can figure out how to restart this lovely tank. We’re gonna need it.”
* * *
It’s a well-documented fact that my brain’s broken. There’s the voice and my general behavior. Should be proof enough on its own. Then toss in the given sociopathic tendencies. Psychotic determination to do what I think I need to. Dependency to alcohol and nicotine. Plus a guilty conscience.
Well, then you’ve got me.
But Jack and Catarina. Them telling me they’re my parents... It feels right even though it shouldn’t.
My blood tells me to listen to em.
I’m gonna get Plissken running again. Do a little test.
My bot’s there on the ground. Crumpled next to Juliet’s treads. Casing cracked. Thrusters bent. No lights. Nothing. Just a cold, fat flying saucer.
It’s pathetic. Cuz here, he looks like what he is: A beat up robot.
Oh, ho! Some self-reflection, I see.
I wince.
Jack notices. “You all right? I know your healing power takes care of the body parts. What about the brain parts?”
Well, why not tell him? He’s my dad, right?
I say, “There’s a voice. In my head. Absolute dick.”
He says, “Yeah. Call that a family heirloom. You’re not alone on that front. I had it a while. Felt like a long while.” He looks at me. Kinda sad. “You’ll get over it and it’ll go away.”
“Or it won’t.”
“Or it won’t.” He exhales through his nose. Points to Plissken. “How much your friend weigh?”
I get the feeling machismo runs in these veins too. So there goes that highly sensitive conversation for now. I say, “Dunno. He’s always, y’know, been not-fucked since I’ve met him.”
Plissken has repeatedly told me his weight and his maximum carry weight, but I can never remember. Never really need to.
Jack puts his hands on Plissken. Rocks the drone a little. “Hundred fifty, give or take. Shouldn’t be too bad with the two of us.”
He goes to punch my shoulder like we’re old buddies. Reconsiders. Since we ain’t.
And I still got a murderous look on my face. “This is a hundred-fifty pounds of my only friend for the last few years. Get me?”
Jack adjusts his hat. “Yeah.”
“Real nice family reunion we’re having.”
Oedipus stuff notwithstanding, since I didn’t know she was my mom, so eat shit, there’s always a schism with males and females in families. I mean animalistic stuff. Dad’s are always supposed to be kinda jealous of babies when they’re sucking on the mom’s tit cuz to the dad, the titty’s sexual. To the baby it’s food. But he still wants to keep the boy under his thumb.
Lions’ll eat their goddamn cubs. Moose will get into days-long fights with the younger of the herd to make sure they keep their place at the table.
Read that as: They’ll kill each other to make sure only certain dicks are put in certain holes.
Men are really, really stupid.
And we’re totally aware of it.
Doesn’t stop us, though.
I’m not gonna let my prodigal poppa come back and assume he’s in charge.
Jack and I lock eyes.
I take a swing. Connect with his jaw. His cowboy hat flies off.
Jack shakes off the hit. Sneers at me.
I put my hands in front of my face. But he doesn’t go there. I feel a hammerblow on my solar plexus. Another on my left kidney.
I catch him with an uppercut as he backs away. I kick his left knee from the side to keep him off balance. Jump. Plow down with another shot to his nose—
Which he slides away from.
He comes in again with a haymaker. Hits my temple. All I see are stars in the corners of my vision. My head spins.
I hear the tank start up.
Then gunfire.
Me and Jack duck.
Catarina stands in the hatchway. Hellion assault rifle in her hands. She says, “Knock it off.” She shoots Jack a look: “You’re fighting an already-beat up kid covered in bandages. His fingers haven’t grown back yet.” Then, me: “And you take after your father a little too much.”
She pops the mag outta the Hellion. Clears the breach. “Get the drone inside. Juliet says she knows how to get him back.”
I look to Jack.
He shrugs. “We all listen to mom.”
Flush the machismo.
* * *
We plug Plissken into Juliet. Wires that go into his hard drives. Motherboard. Central processing unit. His random access memory. Propulsion systems. Guidance.
Lovelace and Turing zip around Plissken’s form. Their dad on a slab. Hopefully moments away from being revived by their mom. becomes on their faces.
I watch Jack watch Catarina.
Two weird families in the tank now.
Juliet rumbles. Her generators work overtime—I guess it would take some extra juice to revive a dead bot.
Static fills the holographic screens around us. A low whine plays over Juliet’s speaker system. Images flash across the holopanels. Little pieces of Plissken’s life.
Shots of the assembly line where he was created. Machine arms move pieces of other machines. Sparks fly. There’s a constant stream of data pouring down the right side of his vision. And more drones just like Plissken farther out. Hundreds of em. All brand new.
That’s what we need. An army of Plisskens.
Another scene. Images inside a processing plant. Barrels of toxic shit that say WARNING: EXTREMELY ACIDIC on the side. Plissken moves em from the backs of trucks into big funnels with big arms I’ve never seen before.
Something goes wrong. Plissken spins. A load of the caustic crap spills across the screen. Warnings flash in the data stream. Fast blinks of WARNING. DAMAGE. CRITICAL SYSTEMS FAILURE.
The robot’s version of screaming shows in the data feed:
!// 01000110 011
10101 01100011 01101011 00100000 01100110 01110101 01100011 01101011 00100000 01110011 01101000 01101001 01110100 00100000 01100111 01101111 01100100 01100100 01100001 01101101 01101110 00100000 01101001 01110100 00100000 01001001 00100111 01101101 00100000 01101110 01101111 01110100 00100000 01110000 01100001 01101001 01100100 00100000 01100101 01101110 01101111 01110101 01100111 01101000 00100000 01100110 01101111 01110010 00100000 01110100 01101000 01101001 01110011 //!
It hurts to watch.
The screens go dark... Then pop back to life.
A pudgy guy’s face fills the panels. He talks to himself. Maybe someone else. Maybe to Plissken. “—saved a lot getting this bot on auction. Boards and CPU were still intact. Poor guy got fucked up on work detail. Lost his arms, but the rest is fine... Oh, you’re awake.” The pudgy guy’s palm comes down at the top of the screen. “I’ll get you fixed up. Gotta disco you for now though.”
The screens go dark again.
I say, “Stabby. Nice to see your face.”
Jack and Catarina give me a look.
I say, “Guy who took care of Plissken before me. ‘Stabby’ was his nickname online before it all went bad. Sort of a legend in my head. Never knew him but, uh, he did a lotta good for Plissken... I’ve never seen this shit before.”
I’m gonna cry over here. Plissken’s too important to me.
Then it’s Stabby’s face in the screen again. He talks about the upgrades he gave Plissken. Faster hard drives. Faster CPU. But he apologizes for the case. Says, “It’s dinged up. Beat up. But you’re a survivor, right?” Stabby’s hands pat the screen again. A guy talking to his loyal bot.
Stabby says, “I played with your programming a little. Just cuz you’ll need to help a lot of people at the library. But it won’t be like dealing with acidic stuff. Worst that’ll happen is there’s an old dude using the computers for porn.”
Stabby chuckles.
Then it’s… It’s nice. Plissken swoops between bookshelves of the New York Public Library. Always comes back to Stabby. There’s smiling faces. Happy. Books upon books. Laughter with children. Plissken gets an upgrade that lets him read to kids.
That’s where he spends most of his time.
In the kids’ room. Reading to all the faces with braces.
The screens go dark again.
Then it’s just blood.
Plissken hovers above the bodies. The chaos. Screaming infected hobble through the front doors of the library. They chew on the children. Howl. Smiles turn into torn lips.
The kids get back up again. Infected.
There’s Stabby. One more time. Reaching up to Plissken with palsied hands. Wounded. Bitten. Right before he turns.
Then it’s...Sean. And Ben. And Momma Bear.
And me.
All of us emerging from the subway. Beat to hell.
Before I lost em all. Before I couldn’t save em.
Momma Bear.
I reach out. Touch the screens. Run my fingers along her face.
The screens turn to me. Plissken asks me in the video stream if I know that Momma Bear’s pregnant. And I don’t say anything. Cuz that’s when I decided not to tell her.
I cry. Like some idiot child.
I can’t see her like this.
I can’t.
Then there’s nothing.
* * *
You still feel strong?
How bad do you want to survive?
You can end this.
Think about it.
But think long term.
You idiot monkey.
* * *
I wake up to Plissken’s not-exactly-smiling face.
I blink. A lot. “You’re dead. Wait. No. You’re alive.”
Plissken says, “You need more drugs.”
“My mom and dad would probably disagree with you.”
Plissken makes a humming noise. “Yes. They are curious creatures.”
I lean my head against him. “Shut up.” I hug him.
“Shutting up.”
And I guess if there’s such a thing as being robosexual, this is it. There’s no way for me to describe the feeling of losing my friend. Then waking up to him. Letting my tired, messed up head rest on his body.
Nicest thing I’ve felt in a long, long time.
I whisper to Plissken. “There’s something I need you to do. Jack and Catarina? We need to do a blood test. I need to know if they’re really my par—”
“I did that already. While you were asleep, actually.”
“So you’re still a dick. What’s the answer?”
“They’re your parents. You’re their son.”
I grunt. “Damn it.” Possible I could learn to like these folks, long as they don’t tell me what to do. Hard to take orders under the circumstances.
Actually respect em as my mother and father? Impossible. That’ll take some mental gymnastics I ain’t capable of.
Jack crouch-walks back to me from the front of the tank. Offers me a cigarette. Which I grab. He says, “You all right?”
I say, “Take a wild guess.”
“It’s kinda funny, in a way. Your gift makes you the ultimate infected. You can’t be corrupted. Your body heals itself. But the mind your body’s got to use is all scrambled.” He smirks.
“You think this’s funny?”
“I’m your dad. I think all kinds of weird shit’s funny.” He looks me over. “We should probably discuss that.”
“Weird shit or you being my dad—somehow.”
“Isn’t that ‘weird shit’ all by itself?”
“Fair point.”
* * *
The New NY Bridge was designed to last a hundred years when it opened. Least, that’s what Plissken says. And I admit: I’m kinda impressed by it.
It’s big. Real big. Spans the whole damn Hudson from shore to shore. Six lanes for the eastbound, six for the west. With rail lines between. All set between these funky H-shaped towers that hold the suspension cables where the bridge’s at its most elevated. There’s a little industrial feel to it. A little brutalism.
Dunno if it’s gonna last that promised hundred-year lifespan, though.
The thing’s standing. Yeah. But it might be fuckin luck. Cuz someone definitely tried to take it out. It’s got holes. Lots. Dead cars, too. There’s the question of whether or not it can support the many many tons of awesome that is Juliet.
Jack says, “Just keep rolling.” He motions to Catarina, with Rugrat in her lap. Says, “Please keep Baby Boop there cooing.” He points to me: “Join me up top.”
I don’t say anything. I look to Catarina. Wonder right off if her attachment to Rugrat is cuz she never got to hold me when I was a baby. Like she’s making up for lost time. Or shattered memories.
I follow Jack.
Topside is nice. Breezy. Juliet’s moving at a solid clip. The sun’s up. I dunno what time it is. My whole sense of it is fucked. When it matters, I’ll let ya know.
The Hudson stretches out around us. A dirty, shimmering mirror. It reflects dirty sunlight and tree tops and half-sunk boats and thousands of bloated corpses.
Jack and I sit our asses down near Juliet’s tri-barrel turret. Old Glory snaps in the wind on the antennae behind us. The tank’s metal is cold.
There’s a group of Keefs following us. Brought by the fight. It’s just...lame.
Never thought I’d say zombies are boring. But there it is. So we ignore em. No use making more noise. And we’ll outrun the whole damn bunch soon anyway.
Jack says, “For what it’s worth? I don’t like this shit either.”
I say, “Oh, gee whiz dad. Don’t be like that. You’ve got such cheerful sights around you. We’re riding on a bridge that was supposed to last a hundred years and it’s crumbling. New York City’s on fire over there. There�
��re corpses everywhere—corpses that’d be happy to eat you.”
He lights a cigarette. “Shut up and listen. Wasn’t supposed to be like this. Your mother and I and your uncle Caleb... We thought we had it under control.”
“Before you get all nostalgic sad-Yoda on me, can you explain what you’re talking about? Y’know, context?”
Prick.
Jack says, “I’m talking about some seriously weird shit.”
“Spit it the fuck out.” I light a cigarette too. But not cuz I’m copying my dad. Fuck you. “There’s a whole lotta build-up here and—” I make a jerk-off motion.
“Smartass. I remember being that age.”
“You are that age.”
“You met Three?”
“Sure. Big guy. Size of a building. Lotta legs. Looks like a squid mated with a lobster. Name rings a bell or seventy Hard to miss.”
“Three is the last of his kind. A species called the Hroza.”
“I know.”
“Our family is related to them. We share their genes. Pheromones released by the Hroza and by other infected are what ‘activate’ the gifts.”
“I know. Well...I didn’t know about that pheromone thing.”
“And everyone along our bloodline carries a unique gift.”
“I fuckin know. I already know all this shit!” We’re halfway across the New NY Bridge. It’d be beautiful if everything wasn’t so awful. “Can you tell me something I don’t know?”
Jack nods. Sure. “Your ass was birthed on a space station run by a sort of alien United Nations called The Collective—which is not to be confused with the Combine, which tried to blow up Earth on a slightly different timeline. Intergalactic cab driver saved the planet on that one.” He arches his eyebrows at me. “We brought you to this place. At a specific time. So that you could help ensure the survival of the human race. We actually hoped you would have stopped the infection at the source. Killed that politician before it bit your pal and the planet went tits-up...” He shrugs.
I say, “I should kill you. Wait. Should I kill you? I really want to.” I suck down the rest of my cigarette. Flick it over the side. Grab my hair. Like I need more guilt in my life. “Do you have any idea how much fuckin pain—”
A Man and His Robot Page 14