Arm coming up, scarved head turning. Iguo made his body rigid and snapped off another shot, feeling it into the chest but hitting belly instead. The hunter fired back but the retort was lost in the dust and Iguo had no idea how close he’d come to dying so he did not falter. The hunter’s scarf ripped free, oscillating wildly, as the next bullet splintered through throat and jaw.
Iguo stumbled to the bodies and scrabbled for their guns, but one had already been swallowed by the sand and the other was locked tight in a dead hand. He tried to throw up but only hurt his ribs. He crawled instead to the imfizi. Its red eyes were starting to blink back on. Iguo put a hand on either side of the carapace and leaned close. He stared hard into the cameras.
“Joseph Rufykiri,” he said, mouthing carefully.
The drone shuddered. The top half of the chassis rocked back. Rocked forward. Iguo mirrored the nod without really meaning to. He squinted back to where Belise was crouched, covering her eyes against the dust. Her skin was stark white against the black jeep. Tears were tracking through the grime on her face.
Iguo realized he had the gun pressed up against the rusty husk. “Do your penance,” he mumbled. “I do mine.” Then he stood up, almost bowled over in the wind, and turned to go.
The ghost girl said something to him but he still couldn’t hear. It might have been thanks. Iguo nodded her on, and she dashed towards her father, now getting to his iron feet. Iguo went to the jeep and found the two little boys on their bellies underneath. He put his head down.
“I have a taxi,” he said. “Come with me.” They exchanged looks with their dark eyes and shook dust from their dark heads. Then they wriggled out from under the vehicle and Iguo shielded them as best he could with the rain jacket.
He looked back only once. Belise was clambering into the drone’s arms, sheltered from the roaring wind, and then they were enveloped by the dust.
The Radio
Susan Jane Bigelow
KAY SCANNED THE LIFELESS, SHREDDED bodies of her unit, the sensors embedded in her hands and torso coolly picking up data as her eyes flicked over each of them in turn.
Jasar, X, Lt. [deceased]
Purte, D, SSgt. [deceased]
Leshandre, S, Pvt. [deceased]
Oudar, V, Pvt. [deceased]
The roadside bomb had spared only her, stranding her in the middle of ten thousand kilometers of the flat, featureless desert that covered most of Ianas. She kept trying to connect to the Sovene Army’s net, but there was nothing. She couldn’t transmit, she couldn’t receive. Her communications hardware had been too badly damaged by the blast.
There was nothing left to do but follow protocol. Once everything was documented, she sat by the road and waited to be retrieved, like the piece of equipment the Army considered her to be.
§
Time passed: hours, days, even weeks according to her internal clock. She watched as the corpses bloated and began to rot.
She could wait almost indefinitely. She didn’t need food or water, and her power cells were kept from draining by the sunlight and near–constant wind.
It did surprise her that no one came. Their course hadn’t been too different from the routine patrol sweep the base had ordered. Lt. Jasar had had a funny idea about the roads being sabotaged out here, even though things had been quiet lately, and had demanded that Leshandre turn down a random one to check it out. They’d driven for nearly a day before the bomb had proven the lieutenant right.
Still, it was strange. There were tracking satellites in orbit. They’d been in nominal contact with the base right up until the explosion, this stretch of desert wasn’t supposed to be terribly dangerous, and the Army swore it never left anyone behind.
So why was Kay still here?
§
On the thirty–seventh day, she registered something moving fast across the dusty flatness of the desert. She crouched behind the wreckage, cautiously assessing the situation.
The truck drew near, but it was soon clear that it wasn’t Army. Instead of a reassuring green and yellow, it was painted bright blue, and was old and beat–up.
She readied her weapon but held her fire. She couldn’t positively identify them as enemies, not yet.
The truck slowed to a stop in front of her, and three women and a man got out.
“Bomb work,” said one, a tall, thin woman, examining the remnants of the vehicle.
“Bolus’s,” said the shortest woman, spitting into the sand. “Sloppy.”
“Sovene Army,” said the third, a shrewd–looking middle–aged woman. “Had to have been here a while.” She glanced at Kay. “Their Synthetic’s still alive, though.” Her features suddenly shifted. “Oh… oh, no.” She leaned in close. “No. It can’t be.” She snapped a finger in front of Kay’s face. “Hey. Hey! You reading me in there?”
Kay didn’t respond. She wouldn’t, not to a civilian. That was against protocol.
“Musta been caught out here before the evacuation,” said the man. He was also short; he had a scruffy beard and talked slowly. “Probably still waiting for orders.”
The first woman didn’t respond but kept staring at Kay. She exchanged glances with the tall woman, who shook her head slightly.
“Jassalan, no,” the tall woman said.
“We could use a new radio,” said the short woman. She gestured at Kay. “Get your metal ass into the truck.”
Kay stayed put.
The short woman crossed her arms, annoyed, then reached out to smack Kay on the helmet. Kay reached out, quick as lightning, and grabbed the woman’s wrist.
“Hey!” she squawked.
“Let her go, Synthetic,” said the third woman. But Kay held fast as the short woman pulled and grunted and swore. “That’s an order. Recognize Captain Macrandal Jassalan. Serial number 2789–KK–CN.”
Kay’s internal Army database recognized the number. There was a caution next to it, and her first impulse was to disregard her command. But she hadn’t had orders in thirty–seven days. She released the short woman’s arm.
“Shit!” cursed Shorty. “Tin–can zombie!”
“Back off, Liss,” said Jassalan sternly. “Yago, clear out some space in the truck. We’re taking her with us.”
The man shrugged and went to do as he was told. After a moment, so did Liss.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” asked the tall woman, whose name Kay still didn’t know.
“Fuck no,” said Liss, still rubbing her wrist. “Leave it to run out of batteries or whatever.”
“They don’t run out,” said Jassalan distantly. “Synthetics last forever.”
“Then blow it up!”
“No,” said Jassalan firmly. “She’s coming. Get back in the truck, Liss. Payl, look around the wreck, see if there’s anything else we can use. Then we’ll get going.” She turned to Kay. “Go to the truck and sit in it,” she said.
Kay began to obey, but hesitated. “You’re wanted for desertion,” she said.
Jassalan smiled tiredly, wrinkles forming around her eyes. “I know. Did you want to bring me in?”
Kay did. But these people might be able to help her get back to the base. That was all she cared about right now. “No.”
“Thank you,” said Jassalan. She studied Kay again for a moment. “Get in the truck. I’ll be along shortly.”
Duty satisfied, Kay went and sat in the truck. Soon, everyone was ready, and they left the blast site behind.
§
They drove across the pancake flatness of the desert in silence. Jassalan was preoccupied, Liss fumed, and Payl kept sneaking looks at her. The man, Yago, was blessedly uninterested in Kay and looked out the window at the featureless scenery instead. After a few hours they came to a small rise. Kay’s sensors detected slight emanations coming from it.
“You have a power source,” she said. She calculated their location and plotted it. “You aren’t on my maps.”
“We wouldn’t be,” said Jassalan dryly. The truck pulled into a
little gully next to the hillside, and everyone clambered out. “We’re home.”
§
Liss headed to her workshop, still grumbling about her hurt wrist. Payl and Yago started unloading scrap from the truck. Kay followed Jassalan into the cramped, dark kitchen, unsure of what to do next.
“We can’t use too much power here,” Jassalan said apologetically, putting water on to boil. “So we cook things the hard way. Takes time. Do you eat?”
“No,” said Kay.
“You have a name?” Jassalan asked.
“My identification is MSID–609872–K,” said Kay. “But I call myself Kay.”
“Right, right,” repeated Jassalan, as if lost in a mantra. “Right.”
“I need to contact Ianas Alpha,” said Kay. “As soon as possible.”
“We–ell,” said Jassalan, drawing the word out as she dropped pods of bluish vat–grown meat into the boiling water. “You can try. Won’t be anybody there, though.”
“I don’t understand,” said Kay.
“You must have been cut off before the evacuation,” said Jassalan.
“What evacuation?”
“The Sovene Army’s gone, hon,” said Jassalan matter–of–factly. “Headed back to space.”
Kay reeled, shocked. The Army was militarily superior to the small pack of rebels making trouble on cold, dry Ianas, and the planet was not yet fully pacified. “You’re lying.”
“Afraid not,” said Jassalan sympathetically. “They’re gone.”
“Why?” Kay asked, still processing. This had to be wrong, some kind of trick.
“Hm,” said Jassalan. “The usual sorts of trouble. Politics. Money. A government that can’t make up their minds about who they want to massacre this month.”
“I see,” said Kay. “May I use your communications equipment?”
“Go ahead,” said Jassalan, pointing. A screen and touchpad was mounted on a wall. “Doesn’t reach off–planet. Liss might be able to fix it up, but we have no reason to call anyone who isn’t on Ianas.”
Kay, still certain her host was lying about the evacuation, punched in the code for the base.
The connection established, and something that might have been joy filled Kay’s belly for a brief moment. But then a message flashed across the screen: Ianas Alpha Decommissioned | Contact Sector 15 Command.
Something fell away inside her.
It was true. The Army was gone. Her companions, both human and Synthetic, were gone. The base she’d called home for two years was… was…
A terrible aimless feeling penetrated her half–synthetic skull. If the base was gone, the mission was canceled. There were no orders, no missions, nothing.
She had nothing to do.
A hand hesitantly touched her shoulder. “I’m sorry,” said Jassalan. “I don’t like the Army much these days, but I remember being in. They’re like your family, when you’re a part of it. I guess that’s true for you, too.”
“They may have just regrouped,” Kay said firmly. “They will return.”
“Maybe, but I hope they’re gone for good,” said Jassalan with a spark of anger. “The Sovenes have been nothing but trouble for this place.”
“But you’re a Sovene, too,” observed Kay.
“Well,” shrugged Jassalan. “Used to be.”
“You’re a deserter,” said Kay archly. To her there was very little worse than deserting.
“Sure,” said Jassalan, and waited. “Aren’t you going to ask me why?”
“I assumed you didn’t want to fight anymore,” said Kay.
That seemed to annoy Jassalan, and her frown deepened. “You have any idea what the Army does, Synthetic? The kinds of things they do here? I saw all kinds of horror. Civilians bombed. ‘Terrorists’ targeted, even when there was no evidence against them. Rape. Murder. Torture. You haven’t seen that?”
Kay had, though she quickly reminded herself that she’d seen many good things as well. She accepted the situation as… complicated.
“The worst part of it is that it’s all in service of a government that lies to everyone,” Jassalan continued. “That controls every aspect of their lives without giving them any kind of say at all!”
“That is not true,” said Kay tartly. She had done a lot of study of the way Sovenes chose their leadership. “There is the yearly vote, and the local—”
“Don’t bother explaining the system to me,” said Jassalan. “I don’t want to hear it. People back home think they have a voice, but they don’t. I saw the light. I left. I’m no coward.”
“Are all of you deserters?”
“Just me,” said Jassalan. She poked the meat bubbling away in the pot. “Everyone else is family. So you don’t have to follow their orders.”
Orders. She tried to think of what hers would say now. “I must report in to Sector 15 Command,” she said after a moment.
“You don’t have to,” said Jassalan intently. “And you can’t, we don’t have the equipment. Come have dinner.”
“I said I don’t need to eat,” said Kay brusquely.
“I’m not saying you should,” said Jassalan. “Just… come be with everyone.”
The look in Jassalan’s eyes gave Kay pause. She’d seen it once or twice before in the eyes of people who wanted her for some reason of their own, and those situations had never ended well.
But she had nothing to do, and the thought of standing here thinking about how cut off she was felt like staring into her own personal abyss, so she followed Jassalan to the table.
§
The dinner conversation flowed around her, avoiding her as if she stood on a rock in the middle of a stream. They talked about the food, the weather (still dry), and the paramilitary groups that were steadily taking power from the provisional government.
Liss glared at her, while Payl gave her little smiles. Yago ignored her, scarfed down his food, and quickly left the table. Jassalan ate very little, and studied Kay when she thought she wasn’t looking.
After the meal was done Kay helped Jassalan clear the table, and the others left to do other things. Payl went outside to fiddle with the moisture collectors. Liss went into another room and started banging on something metal.
“So tell me,” said Jassalan, a little too nonchalantly. “What’s your function? All–purpose communications, that sort of thing?”
“You should know that,” said Kay, stacking a load of dishes neatly on a table. Her internal sensors whined that her arms and legs could use maintenance. She ignored them.
“I do, I suppose. So. Do you like it?”
Kay turned to her. “Yes,” she said, in what she hoped was an assertive enough tone to forestall any further inquiry. She knew where this was going. People liked asking her intrusive questions like:
Are you happy?
Don’t you want to be free?
Do you have feelings?
Do you miss being human?
When she was new, she had tried to answer, but the answers were never what people wanted to hear.
“But it can’t be satisfying,” said Jassalan. “They don’t care about you.”
“I’m satisfied. I have friends.”
“They didn’t even come back for you!”
Kay shook her head, not wanting to think about that, but Jassalan pressed her.
“There’s a part of you that must remember that this isn’t what it should be like. You must remember being human. Don’t you?”
“I don’t,” said Kay shortly. “I’m not human.”
“You are,” said Jassalan, suddenly intense. “Part of you is human! You—you look like her. You even sound like her.”
“Who?” asked Kay, confused.
“My sister. When she died—she gave her body,” said Jassalan. Kay, frustrated, groaned to herself. One of those conversations, again. “We—we think she became one of those—one of you,” continued Jassalan. “And here you are. Deeslyn.”
“My name is Kay, and I am not your sister,�
� said Kay evenly. “Military Information Services have produced a film that explains how Synthetics are created, I could show it to you. It does a good job—”
“I don’t need to see a film,” said Jassalan, cutting her off. “I know my own sister!”
“The reuse of patriotic citizens’ donated bodies helps keep costs to the taxpayer low,” continued Kay, quoting from a standard explanation. “Bodies are outfitted with implants, and given power plants, and facial features are altered before we are activated. We are sculpted to give an attractive human appearance, so as to better interact with the populace and our fellow soldiers. You have no way of knowing if my donor body is related to you.”
“But you might be. When were you activated?”
“Four years ago.”
“That’s when she would have been processed!” said Jassalan, eyes bright with certainty. “It’s possible!”
Kay shook her head, her slow–burn anger finally beginning to kindle. “You aren’t listening. I am not your sister.”
“Can you check? Do you know whose body that is?” asked Jassalan hotly.
“I can, but I won’t,” said Kay.
Jassalan’s face screwed up in rage. “Get out, then. Get out! You’re just a brainwashed tool of the Sovenes! You’re nothing but a bunch of wires and processors lugging a corpse around!” A tear slipped down her cheek. “You’re unworthy of my sister’s body—or any human body. Get out!”
Kay wanted to tell her that it didn’t matter. The human or humans who had donated their bodies would be just as dead if she weren’t here.
But she didn’t say that. Instead, she left without saying another word.
§
The flat expanse of desert seemed to go on forever. Kay trudged through it, one step at a time, one foot in front of the other. She was painfully aware, thanks to the constant readouts from her internal sensors, that her body needed some serious repairs.
War Stories Page 5