by Beers,David
The girl finally closed her mouth. Caesar walked across the room and pulled a chair up next to her bed. She sat up, not bothering to turn the hologram off.
"What questions do you have for me?" Caesar said. "I'll answer all of yours before I ask you anything."
The girl blinked as if someone asking her a question was a completely new experience. "You're really him? You're the person that led the revolution? You aren’t lying to me?"
He shook his head. "I'm not lying. I'm Caesar. I don't know any other way to prove it besides answering your questions, but you're a smart girl, Michele, and you're going to know that The Genesis could lie if It wanted to. It could make up anything, though I promise you It's not. I am The Genesis and everything you hear from me will be the truth, as long as you're truthful with me."
She blinked again, clearly trying to understand what he threw at her. Caesar was breaking everything down to the very basics, wanting to make it as easy as possible for her, though he understood regardless what he did, she would lose some of it.
"Why am I here?" she said. "Not because you need to know something, but what do you need to know?"
Caesar nodded, meeting her wondering gaze. "During the Scans, we found a certain group of people whose genetics are different than everyone else's. We don't understand why they're different or really what's different about them. So we brought them in for studying. You're one of those people."
Michele didn't say anything for a second, letting her eyes drop to her crossed legs.
"Why did you hurt me?" she said.
"Being truthful, we don't always consider human suffering at an individual level ... what I mean is, one or two people--even ten thousand--hurting doesn't matter to us. Maybe it should."
"And what about my father? Why did you kill him?"
"I don't have a good answer for you, Michele."
"Say the bad one, then," she said.
"We are in the business of control. Your father was trying to stop us."
"He was trying to save me," Michele said, almost a whisper.
Caesar said nothing for a long time, waiting on the girl to speak again.
"A voice talks to me."
"A voice?"
"Yes," Michele said. "It sounds like me, but it's not me. It's someone else, or something else."
"What's it tell you?"
Michele straightened a little. "It's speaking now. It's saying not to talk to you."
"Can you talk to it?"
"I do, but it doesn't answer. It only says what it wants," she said.
Caesar leaned forward a bit. "Can you tell it I'm asking why you shouldn't talk to me?"
The girl sighed and then paused for a second, looking like she was trying to complete a complex math problem. "Nothing. It's quiet now."
Caesar nodded. "Is it what spoke to you in the stairwell?"
"I think so. It sounded so much like me back then that I didn't know it was something else."
"And what did it tell you?"
"Basically," Michele said, "that I needed to wake up. I had convinced myself that I was in a dream and it told me I wasn't--that my father was dead and I'd been taken."
Caesar leaned back in his chair, liking the physicality of such movement. Relishing it, really.
"It doesn't like you." She looked directly into his eyes. "It doesn't trust you and doesn't think I should either."
Caesar nodded. "I'd like to try something, Michele, if you'll agree to it."
"What?"
"I'd like to try talking to it."
Chapter 38
The woman was distraught, to say the least.
The first three hours of trying to speak coherently with her had been a futile exercise. She would hear nothing Leon said and he finally gave up trying.
They had left the office building as quickly as they could, everyone involved knowing where to go--back to the original hotel. Leon knew how stupid it sounded, returning to the place where The Genesis made the reservations, but what the hell, Caesar would know where they went regardless--as long as he was connected to Marty.
Leon wasn't sure how Marty would get back without being noticed, but the application walked into the room with the unconscious woman.
"She made it easy. She fainted."
Jordan didn't make it easy when she woke up, though. She, for lack of a better phrase, lost her mind. She raved about her husband--and Leon thought that was an actual concern, if any other programs decided to return--and feared the three of them would kill her.
Finally, though, she calmed down some. Leon thought she simply grew exhausted, that someone couldn't keep screaming forever without exhaustion setting in.
"Jordan, my name is Leon. This is Ruby and the application over there is Marty." He could have kissed Marty right then, as the machine made a semblance of personhood, raising his hand to wave at the terrified woman. "No one here is going to hurt you. We're here to help. The machines that chased you, they were going to kidnap you--"
"You kidnapped me!" Jordan shouted.
Leon didn't say anything for a second, hoping that this was just a lapse in her calmness, and not that the calmness had been a lapse in her raving.
"I know it might look like that, but I promise you we're not kidnapping you. Once you hear me out, you can leave. We're not going to keep you here. But you need to hear us out first."
The woman looked at the three people in the room, judging them and their intentions--Leon wishing she saw their own calmness and lack of aggression.
"Go on, then. Tell me," Jordan said. "Make it quick because I plan on seeing all of you dead by the end of the day."
* * *
Marty listened to Leon detail out the history, his story, Ruby's, and even what role Marty played. It took time, even with Leon's abridged version. Ruby jumped in at places and they looked at Marty when the story moved around to Jordan's escape.
"The machine was going to shoot you," Leon said as he looked at Jordan. "I jumped then. It was all I could do. I hoped if I hit you and Marty it would change your course, which it did. I don't know how Marty kept us all from dying."
Marty moved from the corner, taking a few steps closer to the woman. He understood how off-putting he could be to people, having little interaction with applications in today's world, so he had stood in the corner as Leon spoke, but now he needed to humanize himself.
"I basically just did some math as fast as I could to understand what it would take to get Leon to safety and then us. He did change our route, clearly, but we still had forward momentum. I got lucky when I kicked him towards the window," luck had nothing to do with it, "and then I saw I could toss you, Jordan, and grab onto the ledge as I fell. From there, I pulled myself up. You were standing by that point, so I grabbed you and rushed to the first floor."
Marty waited a few seconds until Leon started talking again and then stepped back into his corner. He zoned out as Leon spoke; he had other priorities. Marty wasn't dead yet and that genuinely surprised him. The Genesis definitely understood what happened and shutting Marty down completely would have been an easy enterprise. He, of course, could keep from sending information to The Genesis, but he couldn't stop them from coming to him. If Caesar or either of the other two came, they could take all the information they wanted.
Only Marty didn't feel that occurring. He couldn't be positive, but he thought he would know if They came. Nothing, though--just business as usual.
Marty needed to talk to Leon about it, to get his thoughts. Leon wasn't the smartest person walking around Earth; indeed, he'd been bred for mediocrity, but in the past five hundred years the breeding process had stopped, creating quite a few intelligent people. Even so, Leon understood The Genesis. He understood at an almost intuitive level why It did what It did. Marty didn't understand this and perhaps it was because he lacked intuition in his makeup, but maybe Leon could help figure it out.
Because right now, Marty felt they were all in a very dangerous place. More dangerous than their res
cue mission could have hoped to be.
Chapter 39
"They're coming, Tom. That's all there is to it."
Andy stood outside his apartment building, a half block from the lobby. He wasn’t with his sister; Tom had contacted Andy and he left the apartment without telling Skelly. He couldn't shield her from everything, but he wanted this conversation to be between two men, not two men and a child.
Tom stood in front of him.
"You're putting them at more risk by doing this. The Genesis has no need for them. They want you two, not your parents. If you're not here, there's no reason for The Genesis to come."
"Don't care. Unless you think The Genesis is going to find us wherever we're going, then my parents will be just as safe with us."
The two stared at each other. They spoke in hushed tones, not wanting passerbys to hear anything, but despite the low volume, Andy's words carried an intensity that told the strength of his feelings.
"Are all your things packed, everything you're going to need?"
"When did you call me?"
"Two days ago."
"Then yes, they're packed," Andy said.
"And you didn't take anything unnecessary. No clothes, nothing that could weigh us down?"
Andy nodded, remembering the argument Skelly had given. What are we supposed to pack that's necessary if not our clothes?
"Good. We need to go; there's no time to argue about your parents. The Genesis is moving through your city next and you will be rounded up. We've been lucky so far that they've been busy in other places."
"I don't care about any of that. I'm not leaving my parents. So unless you plan on knocking me out, then knocking Skelly out, then our parents, because they're going to fight you too, you should probably just head home."
"You're becoming a nuisance, Andy."
"That's fine. I'm going back in. Call me if you change your mind."
Andy turned and headed back down the street. He didn't look back at Tom and didn't have any desire to, either.
* * *
I can't catch a break, Tom thought. First Bennett--who, to be fair, was on a completely different level than this--and now Andy Thompson. Everyone was giving him problems.
He had strict orders. Bring the two siblings to Charlie's, and while he might have oversold the parents's safety, they probably wouldn't be in much danger if the two kids left. Bennett had been different; the two friends died because he fled. The machines, when they showed up looking for Andy and Skelly, most likely wouldn't hurt their parents as long as they didn't act irrationally.
The Genesis had to know that if two kids walked in and saw their parents's blood strewn across the living room, it wouldn't make capturing them very easy.
Yet, Andy wasn't listening.
Tom walked the opposite way of Andy, wanting to get a few blocks from the apartment before he made the call.
He pulled his phone from his pocket, not bothering with the hologram portion of it. This call would be quick and he really didn't want to see Charlie's anger. He'd already messed up in a big way; this probably wouldn't be met with grace.
"You got them?" Charlie answered.
"Not exactly."
"What's the problem? We're looking at three hours from The Genesis's landing, tops."
"Andy is insisting his parents come too."
"Genesis help me. Are you serious?"
"Yes," Tom said, nodding.
"What did you tell him?"
"Everything I could. Said they weren't allowed. Said they'd be safe here. He didn't buy any of it, just told me to call him when I changed my mind and then walked off."
He heard Charlie sigh.
"I'm going to have to get a bigger house. Fine. Bring them."
* * *
This should go swimmingly.
Tom stood at the apartment's open door, Andy in between him and the living room. Tom could see the rest of the family behind him. The parents looking on with wondering eyes, clearly not in the know about anything.
"Well?" Andy said.
"They can come. We have less than two hours." Tom could, if absolutely necessary, protect the family--though doing so would just be another mark on what had once been a spotless record. "Tell them what you need to tell them, but in an hour and a half, we're leaving here. And, I will knock you all out if I have to."
Andy smiled. "Thanks, bud."
Tom watched as the door slid closed, blocking him out once again.
* * *
The Daniel Bennett.
Charlie loved Lexi more than anything in life but this man was testing that commitment--and he'd only been with the guy for thirty minutes.
"So what you're telling me is that The Genesis is going to kill me? Me specifically? That's why they went into my apartment, to try and kill me?"
Charlie listened to him fire out questions at bullet speed. He had already asked all these questions, in one form or another, five times.
"Daniel, yes. They were going to steal you and then eventually kill you."
"Why did they want to steal me? I thought you said they were going to kill me?"
Charlie could have strangled the man without remorse. Slept well and even told Lexi about it. He'd killed much more pleasant people than him before.
Charlie sat in his living room, a spacious area that dipped down into a well furnished pit. A hologram sat in the corner against the wall, but Charlie couldn't remember the last time he'd been able to watch it. The open fire place sat as the room’s focal point, right in the middle.
Daniel paced circles around it and Charlie imagined if he let the man keep walking, his heels would eventually dig a hole a mile deep before he realized it. Daniel hadn't stopped pacing since he arrived, firing off questions as if he didn't hear the answers.
"Are you listening?" Daniel commanded, still not pausing his endless circle. "Were they going to kill me or were they going to steal me?"
"Both. It's not important, Daniel." Charlie felt himself growing angry, something he hated to do, especially in front of someone so new to Rising.
"It's really important, man. Think about it. If they killed me then I don't matter, but if they just stole me, then I'm important to them. Why did they want me?"
Charlie stood up and walked out of the living room, taking the three steps up to the kitchen. He went to the bar on the left, skipping the wine cabinet; he grabbed a shot glass and a bottle of whiskey. Poured it, all the while ignoring Daniel's questions and accusations, then swallowed it with a single gulp. He poured another and turned around to look at the maniac in his living room.
Daniel had finally stopped pacing and was staring at Charlie.
"What are you, a drunk? You can't go five minutes without a drink?"
Charlie looked at the shot in front of him, downed it with a grimace, and then found Daniel's eyes. "I need you to shut the fuck up. That's it. Just shut the fuck up and listen to me. I have put a lot--and right now I'm beginning to think too much--time into getting you here safely. We risked a lot with your rescue and if you don't shut the fuck up, I will personally put you on the street where The Genesis can find you. Got it? Don't say anything if you do, just nod."
Daniel opened his mouth to speak but caught himself.
He nodded.
"Now sit down. I can't watch you walk another step around my fireplace. Sit down and stay silent. I'm going to explain everything and when I'm finished, you can ask me three questions. No more. Nod if you understand. If you speak, you're out of here."
Daniel didn't move at first, his mouth still open, as if trying to decide whether Charlie was bluffing. He must have seen something which assured him of Charlie's seriousness, because he took a seat--right where Charlie had been sitting.
"Now, listen closely."
* * *
"I'm sorry I sent you to get Bennett," Charlie said. He held a glass of whiskey in his hand, two ice cubes floating at the top. He wasn't shooting this one, but still needed something after four hours with Bennett
.
"He's bad, huh?" Tom said.
"Absolutely awful. Maybe the most annoying human being I've ever met."
"Why do we have to keep him? He concerns me, to say the least."
Charlie took a sip of his drink. "Lexi wants everyone from her list, so that's what we're going to give her. As many as we can, at least. If she decides later to cut some loose, we can strongly recommend he's the first."
Tom nodded.
"Do you want a drink?" Charlie said.
"Genesis, yes."
Charlie placed his glass down and went to the bar again, dropping two ice cubes into a glass before filling it.
"There," he said, handing it over. "The family is here?"
"Yes, they're in the basement. Probably meeting Daniel Bennett even as we speak."
"Heaven help them," Charlie said and took another sip. His head hurt and the day wasn't nearly over. What came next would be just as difficult a conversation as the one with Bennett, if for different reasons. "How did the parents take it?"
"They balked a little bit at the blindfolds, though Andy convinced them using our light would be worse. They were silent the whole way other than that. Said nothing, asked no questions."
"And when they got here?"
"The same," Tom said.
"Lexi is ready to begin," Charlie said, wanting to discuss this before moving forward with the Thompson family.
"What's that mean?"
"She wants to reveal herself, at least to the brothers and sisters. She hasn't said anything about the rest, but that'll come after."
Tom's eyes widened. "It's really happening."
Charlie nodded. "It is. It's been a long time coming. Kind of strange, being at the precipice of a new beginning with so many years already behind us."
"Do you think we'll win?"
Tom had never asked that question before. No one asked something like that after a certain point, not out of fear, but because they simply saw no reason for it.