Feed the Machine

by Mathew Ferguson

  When she was blacked out the cold had seeped into her bones, had taken a hold of her heart. It was slowing down, she could feel it. It would be so easy to rest, to close her eyes for a moment.

  She forced them open with great effort and pulled the bomb close. She pressed the button. Numbers lit under the shell.

  5

  “We are receiving excellent experiment data from global test sites two through to eighteen. Would you like to review it?”

  4

  Silver slammed her hand on the button, desperate to stop it but that wasn’t how it worked.

  3

  “Shut down all test sites!”

  2

  “Remote shutdown not possible at this time.”

  1

  Silver closed her eyes. The world rushed at her.

  And gone.

  Chapter 78

  Nola

  The Gap was green with new shoots of grass. It stretched out to the horizon.

  “That is so fucking weird,” she said, her foot on the edge.

  “Yeah.”

  Ash unfolded the hand-drawn map and counted through the supplies one more time.

  “Will you fucking relax? We have plenty of bugs and cubes. And it’s a straight damn line.”

  Nola hitched her pack. It was fluorescent orange. The conversation had gone:

  Ash—you’ll be seen for miles.

  Nola—fuck, I don’t fucking care.

  Ash—what about Scabs?

  Nola—we have guns, relax.

  Ash had quit arguing about it. They’d survived—why not wear an orange pack? Besides, the world was different now.

  Nola picked up a rusted can. It was covered in a thin slime of mold. Since the glow had died a week ago the world had become a very green place. Mold sprouted on bread left out, meat spoiled and every bit of dirt produced a weed or blade of grass. Presumably the nanoscopic machines had all died with the glow. Or so Silver claimed via the message she’d transmitted to them. It had been full of strange things—like an adult dead version of her behind unbreakable glass. Another adult version of her, old, who took the bomb and detonated it, wiping out the source of the glow. Silver alive in a mansion on the other side of the Gap. It all seemed to Nola a fever dream rapidly fading. A story that happened to someone else. It had only been a few days but already the events were slipping out of order, becoming hazy. She had killed Fat Man and then found a robot? Or was it the other way around? No matter… as the blood and fury faded so did her care about it.

  Ash had managed to download plants and animals before the information vanished. Everyone in Cago was pretty much going crazy printing trees and plants and other seeds. There was a city-wide ban on animal printing at the moment after someone made a panther. It had run away towards the hills but not before swiping its maker with sharp claws. Actual hills of dirt, not junk. Now that bugs could be duplicated without limit they were flooding out from Cago, eating the junk down to nothing. The bugs were rapidly rebuilding a new Cago, accessing plans Ash had downloaded. Fat Man’s palace was the only remnant of the old Cago and the debate about whether to keep it or raze it to the ground raged on. Despite the animal ban, people were printing birds—real creatures of flesh and blood that chirped and sang and were totally organic. They hadn’t found any more sourcecubes yet but it would only be a matter of time. Fat Man had ordered all of his destroyed—including the junkcube that made cubes.

  In the end they’d saved Art and History, Visual History (a billion videos), Plants, Insects and Animals, Telecommunication and Electronic Technologies and (some) Weapons.

  They still had their bugs, heal and food too.

  Nola tossed the can into the Gap. It landed and rolled to a stop. She watched it for signs of immediate dissolution but nothing happened. She jumped off the edge.

  Still alive.

  “Alright, it’s gonna take a while so let’s go.”

  She marched off without waiting for a response from Ash. She heard him jump down a moment later, Kin padding alongside.

  The day was warm and the air was clear. As they walked they came across tiny flowers just opening. They had yellow petals.

  “So weird,” Nola said. “You think everything grows that fast?”

  “Maybe. There’s probably a video about it.”

  They walked on, sometimes talking. Their mother had gone to Char with some others and found it still there, the streets littered with dead bugs and sealed white boxes. In each one was a person. They discovered if they pierced the boxes, they dissolved and the person awoke thinking it was ten years ago.

  The Machine in the center of Char was dead, like the bugs.

  Last they heard before they departed people were traveling out to every town carrying bugs and all the cubes loaded with unlimited reproduction. No one had strayed into Scab territory yet and people wondered if the same thing had happened to them. An argument arose along the lines of: leave them there to fucking rot.

  Nola knew their mother would never stand for that. Only one Scab needed to be freed and they could free the rest. If they had unlimited food perhaps they wouldn’t need to eat people.

  The day drew on but the horizon stayed firmly in place. They’d have to camp out tonight. In her message Silver had estimated the distance to the former glow but said it might be further than she thought. It didn’t matter—they had food, water, time and most importantly, no quota choking them. There was no pile to dig into so sleeping outside was a terrifying thought. The hazels were all gone so there was only the roaming panther to worry about.

  The bird who delivered the message was called Bug. He’d flown all the way from Silver at “the mansion” to Cago. He told them Silver had been trapped behind a barrier but it was gone now.

  “So what’s up with you and Emi? Huh, huh, loverboy?”

  “Shut up is what’s up.”

  “You love her, you want to sex her and have babies.”

  Ash threw a banana peel at Nola. She dodged it.

  “You can talk.”

  “Yes, yes I can talk. La la lala la… ouch! Fuck!”

  “I want tuna.”

  “Don’t fucking bite me then.”

  “Give me tuna. I’m hungry.”

  “Will you feed your cat and get his teeth away from me?”

  “Good job buddy.”

  “Didn’t you hear her? She said give me tuna.”

  Chapter 79

  Epilogue

  Test site #6: Silver

  She shoved the dead toaster aside and returned to the hasdee chip. It was giving all sorts of ridiculous answers. Hello shuffled around the table pecking at anything bright and shiny.

  “Can you sit down, I’m working.”

  He mimicked her sarcastically but did as she asked.

  She returned to the hasdee chip and her green two-line screen. Something was wrong with this chip. The information flowing out of it kept turning into gibberish. Maybe something nearby was putting out a signal or something?

  She looked around the room. Nothing obviously apparent.

  Silver typed more code but the hasdee wouldn’t listen to her. The gibberish grew, pushing aside her clean flow of information until that was all she could access. She was about to disconnect it and find another when the screen cleared.

  Hi Silver. My name is Silver too.

  Who is this really?

  Your name is Silver and you have a bird named Hello.

  Are you spying on me?

  No. I need you to build this tablet so we can talk properly. We only have six months until Feed and we’re going to help you stop it. Connect an old tempcube.

  Silver grabbed a blank tempcube and plugged it into her keyboard. Code flooded across the screen. The tempcube turned green.

  Tell me who you are. Where are you?

  There was a long gap then, as though the person at the other end was considering what to say. Bright green text skimmed across the screen.

  I’m a copy of you. We have shut down five test si
tes already. Yours will be number six. Don’t listen to that voice yelling in your head. Mine is just as dumb. Trust me and we can fix it.

  She’s lying!

  Silver sat back in her chair. Her back was itching again. The heal was running out and this time there was no money for more. Not unless Ash found something amazing in the Scour.

  Plug in another tempcube. I’ll send you unlimited heal.

  She did as the message asked. Soon she had a blue tempcube.

  Try it out! Say hi to Mom (Dia) for me.

  It’s a trick!

  Silver picked up the heal tempcube and weighed it in her hand. Maybe it was a trick. But if this was unlimited heal then maybe she should ignore the voice. Test sites? What did that mean?

  She left her workshop with Hello following close behind in case they happened to come upon any food or shiny objects. They went inside and she pushed the tempcube into their rickety old hasdee.

  “You have to trust sometimes, don’t you?” Silver said to Hello.

  A new button appeared on the hasdee. She pressed it and a minute later had a bottle of black heal.

  She opened it, the scent of vanilla and berries rising into the air.

  Then she drank it down.

  And was healed.

  Thanks for reading my book. If you enjoyed it, please let the world know by writing a review! Indie authors live and die by reviews and every little bit helps.

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  Cheers,

  Mat

  mathewferguson.com

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