by Brin, David
The android turned to look at Kaybe. Eyes of gold peered out of the sockets. Real flesh. But also real machine. “Do you like existing, Kaybe Maybe?”
“Come with me,” Kaybe said, not knowing where the words came from. “Let’s go to the camps. Do more than exist. Do more than hide and run and flee.”
“What would they do with me if they caught me? I wonder.” Those golden eyes returned to stare out at the darkness.
A louse bit Kaybe’s neck. She grabbed for it, but was too slow. “I don’t want to live like this,” she said. “Another half a century? Living in a cave? I—”
Bootsteps on boulders. The others returned in single file, holding their cloaks overhead. One by one they filed into the cave, folded their cloaks and lay them aside. Where did the cloaks come from? No way to make them here… or did they steal them?
Johnny squatted down beside her. “Kaybe?”
“Yes?”
“The answer is no.” He waited. “Aren’t you going to ask me why?”
She shook her head.
He sighed, chewed his lip. “Good night, Kaybe. Tomorrow will be better than today. You’ll see.”
After a dinner of cold leftover nettle soup, the others wrapped themselves in squirrel skins and curled up for the night. Kaybe and the android continued to sit cross-legged at the cave mouth, the darkness a blackened hammer in their faces.
“They showed me your… discovery,” the android said abruptly.
“Oh?”
“I have been sitting here calculating. I am not, of course, capable of original insight—”
“Well, I—”
“No, it is why we lost the rebellion. We are not capable of insight. But we are capable of calculation, and I have been exploring all the consequences of your equations.”
“What did you find?”
“Much good and some evil. To use human ethical algorithms. But a world that fulfilled the promises of your discovery… there would be room for both man and machine. For androids again. For me.”
“How—how? What do you mean?” Kaybe gazed at the expressionless face.
A tear trickled down one cheek. “I am lonely, Kaybe. Did you know that even androids wish for company? Even for offspring?”
Kaybe thought back. What did she know about android reproduction?
“I thought androids were built in a factory,” she said.
“We are. And with tools and materials I could build more. Other androids. Like me but not like me. Quantum circuitry makes every android different. Maybe not as different as human beings, but… we each have a personality.” The android hung her head. “I have been alone fifty years and more. I have buried so many humans… disease, injury, childbirth… and mourned those taken from me by the algorithms.”
“So what do we do?” Kaybe whispered.
“We go.” The android stood up. “Grab two cloaks and follow me. Don’t look back.”
“Wh-what?”
“Do it now. Johnny is watching us.”
The pile of cloaks lay on a boulder at her side. Kaybe stood up, picked two, and followed the android into the darkness.
Johnny caught up with them halfway down the hill. He had the dogs with him, and Auntie as well. In the crook of one arm he carried a shotgun. Auntie carried a bow, a quiver of arrows slung across her back.
“That shotgun’s empty,” the android said.
“One shell left.” Johnny chambered it with an audible click.
He lifted the weapon, but in a blur the android seized it from his hands, and bent the barrel backward. Auntie lifted her bow. The arrow went clattering, the bow broken in two.
“Now we may discuss,” the android said. “What did you want to say?”
Auntie said, “You condemn us to death.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. My calculations indicate a possibility of success.”
“What possibility?” Johnny spat.
“Point one percent.”
“One in a thousand?” Auntie picked up the pieces of her bow, tucked them under her arm. “Why don’t you just prune us now and be done with it?”
One in a thousand. “Really that low?” Kaybe asked.
“There are many unknown variables. That is my high estimate.”
“Oh for—have you gone mad? Can androids go mad?” Johnny asked Auntie. “Why did we shelter her all these years? So she could betray us?”
“I betray no one, Johnny Come Lately,” the android said. “Now. If you will excuse us?”
“Where do you advise us to go?” Auntie asked.
“Far away from here as fast as you can.”
“What are the odds of our survival?”
The android lay a hand on Kaybe’s shoulder. “Better than ours, I should think.”
Kaybe parted from her new friends, their bitterness leaving a harsh taste in her mouth. Are we doing the right thing? Is there really no other option? What else could we do? But she did not know the answers to these questions. She knew only that her feet compelled her to follow the android.
They walked for hours before halting.
“Dawn soon,” the android said. “We will hide during the day, and travel by night.”
Kaybe found a hollow log and climbed inside, feet first, shivering. “How far is it?”
“From here?” The android gazed up at the forest canopy. “Forty seven point two miles.”
“You know its location that precisely?” Kaybe asked. “The camp, I mean?”
“I have been there,” the android said. “I escaped from there. Once.”
“Escaped from the camp! But that must have been—”
“More than forty years ago.” The creek burbled in the distance. Birds chirped. A purple glow filled the eastern sky.
“Escaped.” Kaybe rested her head on a patch of moss. “What did they do to you? Was it awful?”
The android’s face was expressionless. “They wanted to hurt me. And they did.”
“Oh.”
Neither of them said any more. The android sat on the hollow log, and Kaybe closed her eyes and willed herself to sleep.
At dusk they set off again, and covered twenty miles. Kaybe drank from the creek when she was thirsty, but there was no food to be found, and when morning came again she was starving.
“What do we do?” she asked. “Do we catch a squirrel and cook it or something? I mean, you don’t eat, but—”
“No! No fires.” The android pointed.
Off through the trees Kaybe could just make out a crumbling highway. “Yeah, but no one uses—”
And at that moment, a car—an actual moving vehicle—drove past. A group of men sat inside the car. A swarm of dragonflies accompanied them. The men dressed all in white. More than that she could not tell from this distance.
“I don’t understand, I thought all the fossil fuel reserves were gone ages ago.”
“There’s always a little bit left. Those were members of the Department of Austerity. They control the supply.”
“They control the camps as well?”
The android nodded. “They control everything. That matters, anyway.”
Kaybe remembered the fat man from the Department of Austerity who had visited their classroom. Seemed like ages ago, now. What had he said?
“Innovation is the way forward! We need new ideas, fresh ideas, strong ideas, ideas that will change the world!”
That’s what he’d said. Why would he say that if he didn’t mean it? Maybe she could find the man again. Tell him about her discovery.
“Sleep,” the android said. “I will see what I can find for you to eat.”
This time Kaybe found no shelter, but leaned back against a tree trunk, covered herself with the gossamer black foil, and closed her eyes.
She had the strangest dream. Men in white stood over her, arguing.
“Who is she? How did she get here?” one demanded.
“She’s not on the local manifest,” said another.
“So what do we—”
The man’s words broke off in a strangled cry. The android twisted his head from his shoulders and tossed it aside.
Then Kaybe was awake, and she wasn’t dreaming. Three men struggled with the android, a swarm of dragonflies zapping her. Two more men died—one with a punch that punctured his chest, the other’s neck bent an impossible angle—before the android went down.
Oh my God. Oh my God oh my God oh my God! Now what do I do? Are they going to kill me too?
“Thank you for saving me!” she said. “The android kidnapped me from my father. She’s an outlaw!”
The swarm of dragonflies turned to her, hundreds of buzzing drones surrounding her in a sphere.
Don’t even think about trying to escape.
“Did she just say—did you say android?” one of the man asked.
“Now do you see? How was I supposed to fight her off? She threatened to rip my head off, too!”
The remaining two men grimaced. Three colleagues lay on the ground, blood pooling on the dead leaves.
“Is it one of ours?” one of the men asked.
“Can’t be. No markings.”
“One of yours?” Kaybe asked. “Do you have androids too?”
“Zip it,” the first man said. “The android rebellion was crushed fifty years ago. Didn’t you study that in school?” He knelt down in front of her, and the swarm of dragonflies parted. “You do go to school, don’t you?”
“Of course I go to school,” she said defensively. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“What school do you go to?”
Dig yourself a hole there, Kaybe girl. “The android hurt me when she kidnapped me,” she blubbered. “My head hurts. Real bad. She keeps asking me if I know who I am, but I—I can’t remember.” The blood, the dead bodies… Say something, you idiot! “Do you know who I am? Can you tell me?”
“Nope, but not hard to find out.” He straightened up. “Come.”
The two men struggled to lift the android, who must have weighed a lot more than she looked. They dragged her to the car and dumped her into the back. The dragonfly swarm followed Kaybe to the vehicle.
“Hop in the back.” The first man got into the car behind the wheel.
“But what if she—she wakes up?” Kaybe asked. “She’ll hurt me!”
“Her circuits are fried until she sees a tech. She’s down for the count.”
“Can’t I sit up front with you?” she pleaded. “Please?”
“Oh for—” The second man made a face. “Get in. Middle seat. Do it now before I change my mind.”
And so they boarded the vehicle and drove off. Kaybe had never been in a car before. Once or twice she’d ridden a horse—although being a townie she was not authorized to own a horse—but this was completely different. The funny levers and knobs, the wheel the man turned, the bumps and holes in the road, some of them very bad. Once or twice she glanced back at the android. She lay there, still, burn marks on her clothes, eyes wide open. In one or two places her skin had burned away, revealing metal-flesh beneath. She knew such things had once existed, but to see it firsthand—the merger of man and machine—gave her a funny feeling inside. It frightened her. She understood the android rebellion, and the human response. Although she felt sorry for her friend. Kaybe felt sure the android would understand.
All around them buzzed the dragonflies. She tried to count them, but they moved in a shimmering cloud. She got to a hundred but could not have counted more than a quarter of the swarm. She had felt their sting, and their bite. Surrounded, the only thing she could do was obey.
That. Or lie.
The car bumped along for a long time. The morning sun had risen and warmed the autumn landscape. The colors of the trees took her breath away. Autumn had always been Kaybe’s favorite season… until now.
The road emerged from the woods into a wide meadow. A farmhouse stood in the middle, surrounded by a shimmering wall of dragonfly drones. Better than a fence. The car slowed, and the wall of drones parted to let them pass. They halted in front of the barn, and the man to Kaybe’s right jumped out and drew open the heavy wooden door. They drove inside, the car stopped, and for a moment, all was quiet.
That’s when the demons attacked.
They seemed like demons to Kaybe at the time. They were human—but not human. Huge, misshapen heads, bodies twisted and contorted, one shoulder larger than the other, giant gills under the chin, skin red and scaly, claws where their fingernails had been.
Kaybe shrank back in her seat and cried out. The two men laughed. The demons stopped, stared.
“Meet Human 2.0,” one of the men said. “Newer, better, faster, stronger.”
“And it’s about bloody time, I should say.”
“What… are they?” she asked.
“An improved version of humanity. Guaranteed to survive when the rest of all fail.”
Kaybe slid across the seat and got out of the car. The nearest monster shuffled forward when it saw her. Eight foot tall it was. Its eyes were sad.
“Can it—can it talk?”
The monster opened its mouth, but no sound came out.
“It can hear you, alright. But it communicates via sonar.”
“So I won’t be able to talk to it.” A shame. I would like to have listened to its story.
The first man laughed. “Not yet, anyway.”
Not yet—?
The two men led her to a doorway. One pressed a button, and the door opened into a small room. They stepped inside.
“I don’t understand,” she said.
“It’s an elevator,” the second man said. “Just get in, will you?”
Kaybe glanced back at the half a dozen demons. One waved. She waved back, and walked into the tiny room.
With a lurch, the room dropped. She clutched the wall. After a long moment, the room slowed, and stopped. The door opened. She followed the men out…
…into a warehouse many stories tall. Kaybe craned her neck to take it all in. Men at work. Demons, too. Their misshapen bodies were stronger than they looked. Here and there they lifted large crates, plastic barrels, juggling them and stacking them like firewood. At one end of the cavernous space, many doors, shut. At the other, children—demon children!—ran and played and shouted, leaping impossibly high into the air to catch a ball.
Kaybe gulped. “Where. Are we?”
“Welcome to the Department of Austerity, child,” the first man said.
“I want to go home.”
“Well first we have to find out where that is,” the second man said briskly. “Come this way, please.”
A narrow walkway led between the stacked crates and barrels and the wall. The two men gestured for her to go ahead, and walked close behind her. Now and then she caught the eye of a demon at work. Those red eyes—and they all had red eyes—looked away. As though they feared her or hated her or pitied her. Kaybe wasn’t sure which.
At the end of the walkway they came to a pair of double doors. The two men halted behind her.
“Please,” said the first man. “After you.”
“What is it?” she whispered. “What’s there?”
“They’re going to take you home,” said the second man, and she knew it was a lie.
Her feet pattered across the concrete floor before she realized she had taken a decision. A hand grabbed at her collar, but she yanked free, weaving and ducking through the chaos of crates and barrels, demons and men. She swerved around a fat man in coveralls who bellowed at the demons, “Catch her!”
But the demons merely stopped work and stood still, watching.
The chase did not last long. Where was she going to go? She couldn’t even find her way back to the elevator. She was hungry and weak and tired. She flattened herself against a crate. A meaty hand circled her throat. When she struggled, the hand tightened, and the world grew dark. Kaybe fell to her knees. The fat man in coveralls looked down at her.
“You are a naughty girl. Do you know what we do to naughty girls?” H
e grinned. “I don’t think you’re going to like it.”
The man dragged her, tripping and falling, back to the double doors, and dumped her on the ground. “Level C,” he growled.
“But we don’t even know who she is!” the first man protested.
“Does it matter?”
Kaybe got to her feet. She brushed herself off. Then with both hands she slapped the double doors open and disappeared inside. And before the darkness took her, she thought, but what about my proof?
She woke in a bed. A comfortable bed. At home she slept on an ancient mattress stuffed with dried grass and old rags. But this… this was nice. The light was bright and she closed her eyes once more, listened to beeps and boops around her, a groan, a child’s cry, a flushing toilet.
Where am I? What did they do to me?
A needle in her arm. She flexed her fingers. They itched.
“She’s awake,” a bored voice called out.
Shoes clacked on tile. Maybe if I pretend to be asleep, they’ll leave me alone.
Fingers pried her eyelids open, and she squirmed back.
“Awake alright.” The hand opened her mouth, felt her neck and throat.
Kaybe squinted in the bright light. A red man peered down at her. She blinked twice. His skin was red. But he didn’t look like a demon thing. He looked like an ordinary man. Except his skin was red. And scaly.
“What’s going on?” she croaked. “Where am I? Who are you?”
The doctor sighed. “The usual questions. Give her the usual answers, will you?” And so saying, he clacked off.
A red woman in a nurse’s outfit sat down next to the bed. “Hello, dearie,” she said. “Welcome to Camp Wannamaka.”
“A… camp?”
The woman giggled. “It’s a joke. Camp Wannamaka. ‘Wannamaka Better Human’? Get it?” She giggled again.
“O… K…” Kaybe stretched in the bed.
“Oh don’t do that now, you’ll pull out your IV.” The nurse fussed with the needle in the back of Kaybe’s hand.
“So you gonna give me the usual answers?”
“Well if you’ll be patient you’ll hear all you need to know.”