To the Mainlanders, the Outlander cause was nothing more than raids and murders. To the Outlanders it was survival. Maybe some lives had to be lost along the way on both sides before the two societies could live in peace, but how many more would die if the fighting continued? Yet Nolan didn’t only want peace. He didn’t want the two groups to live with agreements. He wanted them to converge—to become one people. For all of them to be Mainlanders. Simply living in peace would never work. Outlanders would still go hungry while the Mainlanders were well fed. But it wasn’t as simple as just merging the two groups either. The whole government had to be revamped. Gone would be their secretive ways. All of their past dealings would be brought to light and future ones would be open to the public. Sure, they would have to deal with the nuclear weapon problem, but it would be up to the citizens to deal with it.
But there was still more blood to shed before they ever got to that point. Nolan hated that fact, but it was a fact. No war was fought without victims. No revolution was won without resistance. At first, the Mainlanders would see it as a takeover or conquest—a seize for power.
Over the speakers, Bracken continued on and on about how great the robots were going to be for their future. Nolan knew exactly what sort of future he meant. He spoke about securing it, but he never specified for whom. What he meant was security for the government. For himself.
A loud and sudden explosion broke through the air, silencing the loudspeakers. Still Nolan stared at the floor. Even as the building rocked and the guards set themselves in a defensive position, Nolan didn’t move. He already knew this was his squad getting Gus out first, as was the plan. The next explosion deafened him, but even as the guards opened fire on their new attackers, he stared at the floor. All of it was just noise to him. Bracken’s voice over the speakers. The attack. His mind only started to focus when he saw Sparks hit the floor, droplets of blood sprinkling Nolan’s face as the youngest guard fell.
His eyes traveled upward to see Phil leading three men through the once well-guarded corridor. Two of them, Cal and Brooks, were still teenagers, but their devotion to the cause was no less than Nolan’s. They were young and had fire in their eyes. Not unlike the fire in Sparks’ eyes but for a different reason. The last in the group was Gus.
Nolan felt no surprise at seeing them. Things were moving quickly. He knew they would. And the hardest part of his mission was yet to come. He could hear Phil snatch the keys off of a dead guard, but his eyes fell back on Sparks. He’d been shot in the chest, but the bullet must have missed his heart. As blood pooled around him, the young guard started to reach for his pistol at his side.
Gus moved to the front of the group and set the barrel of his rifle against Sparks’ head. Nolan wasn’t sure what had gotten into him, but he stood abruptly and set his hands against the bars. “Let him be.”
“He was going for his gun,” Gus said.
Nolan bent down and reached an arm through the bars. Sparks offered no fight as Nolan’s fingers wrapped around the pistol and took it from Sparks’ grip. He stood and tucked the gun under his belt as Phil unlocked the cell and slid it open. Nolan stepped over Sparks’ legs and with the others.
“We really shouldn’t leave him,” Gus said.
“He can’t do anything,” Nolan answered.
As Sparks looked at him, Nolan wondered if the soldier felt any gratitude within him, but he quickly shoved the thought aside. Sparks would do anything to kill Nolan in that moment. But Nolan knew something Sparks didn’t.
“You’re on the wrong side,” Nolan said to the guard. “You may not know it now. But soon you will.”
He motioned for the rest of the group to follow him out. Gus did so reluctantly. This wasn’t about killing every Mainlander in their path. It was about the message—the reason they were in that cell block in the first place.
Bracken’s voice was still muffled in the background as Nolan led the group out of the corridor, a free man once again, each step made with a purpose.
26
Des knew very little about human emotions and that included his own programming. He believed the emotion he felt was nervousness or fear, but what were these emotions with minimal physical effects? A little research in his archives told him that a person might sweat or feel shaky from this emotion, but Des did not. He felt nervous, but could not release any of these feelings physically. Did he not feel the full effects of human emotions then? If all he felt was the emotion of it, did that meant he was nothing more than a…machine?
“Machines!” Bracken said, “are here to stay. These robots are the best machines you will find. Not the one standing here beside me, but the one he wants to introduce to you.”
Bracken looked at Des with a full smile and nodded. It was his turn to talk, his turn to give the speech that had been prepared for him. He knew every line, every punctuation mark he was supposed to deliver. As he stared into the camera lens, he couldn’t let the words escape him.
“Go on, tell them,” Bracken said.
“Mainlanders,” Des said. His voice sounded hollow. Empty. He could hear the metal reverberations that were nowhere to be found with Bracken or Hazel. He was a machine—a tool produced by the humans to be used by the humans. The nervousness fled from him but was replaced by a sense of dread and sadness. He had the mental awareness that crying would make him feel better but he had not been equipped with tear ducts. In that moment he knew he would never be anything more than a machine. He now realized why Bracken could so easily deactivate him without another thought. Because Des wasn’t a person.
But what about Hazel? She had stuck by Des from the beginning. She was the creator. She had done everything she could to make sure Des was never deactivated. She feared releasing Esroy into a new body because she didn’t want to lose him. She knew Des and Esroy had a consciousness and that consciousness is what made them more than machines. To her, for Des to die would be the same as for a human to die.
We are all machines, Hazel had said, we just have different wiring.
Des turned his head to look at Bracken for a brief second. Their eyes met and Bracken’s smile faded. Des turned his head back toward the camera. “My body was created by the Mainland Military. But my consciousness…my being… was created by Hazel Hawthorn.”
“Stick to the script,” Bracken whispered, surely to be heard by the viewers.
“This man next to me wants me dead because I can feel fear.”
“Stop it! Stop it! Stop the camera!”
Bracken shoved Des hard, but he caught himself with his foot. He upped his volume, drowning out the yells from Bracken.
“So, he’s made a new robot—a Prototype E to feel no fear. This dangerous act bodes well for no one!”
“He’s lying! He’s lying! Cut it off! Cut it off!”
“Future robots will dominate Mainland and bring a threat that none of you can fathom!”
Des wanted to say more, but the red light next to the camera dimmed and the camera man waved his hand in front of his throat. “We’re off! We’re off!”
Curses flew in Des’ direction as Bracken spat wildly. “What do you think you are? You think this will protect you?”
“I don’t have to answer to you,” Des said.
“I own you!”
“No!” He pointed off stage. “She does. Hazel created me and I will do as she asks, but I don’t have to answer to you. I didn’t choose to be part of the Mainland Military! I didn’t choose this life!”
Bracken stared up at Des like the robot had gone crazy. He turned toward Hazel, pointing with his index finger as he marched toward her. “You! This is your doing! You put something in his programming.”
Des rushed next to Hazel and took a step forward, standing as straight as he could to put a wall between Hazel and Bracken. Bracken stopped short, his face burning bright, veins bulging from his neck. Three armed guards got up on the stage, holding their rifles ready. Then, out of the corner of Des’ eye, he spotted the red-painted robot, f
ully armed with his weapons and jetpack, walking slowly to the edge of the stage. It would have been Prototype E’s shining moment, spoiled by Des. Des wondered if the robot even had a clue what was happening considering he had only been alive for the past few hours.
“I didn’t do anything,” Hazel said. “You think I want to put my career on the line just so I can have a robot defy you?”
“Your career is already over,” Bracken came back.
“You can’t program the robots without me,” she said.
Bracken snorted. He seemed half-humored, half-frustrated. He waved a hand toward Prototype E. “I’ve got your program. You don’t own what’s inside of this one. We can copy it a million times over and you can’t do anything.”
Hazel didn’t say anything back. Des wondered if it was true, but it didn’t matter. The look on her face told him that her career was over whether Bracken wanted it to be or not. She’d made a mistake getting in with the military. And now, like Des, she probably wondered how much Nolan’s story was true and how much of it was false. If they were capable of what Nolan accused them of, then they would take Hazel’s program from her without batting an eyelash.
“And you,” Bracken said, pointing at Des. “If you think your little stunt on camera bought you any time, then you’re sadly mistaken. I have a remote switch. All it takes is an order.”
“You wouldn’t,” Des said. “You wouldn’t because people with more power than you want me alive.”
Bracken let out another wheezing laugh. “You wish I was bluffing. The only reason I haven’t pulled the plug on you yet was because I wanted to be more diplomatic about all this—to make an easy transition for all of us.”
“The president won’t let you deactivate me.”
Bracken shrugged. “Better to ask for forgiveness than for permission.” He reached behind his belt, pulled out a radio, and put it to his mouth. “Roger, pick up.”
If Des had a heart, it would have been pounding. He felt Hazel touch his arm and when he looked down, he saw her holding on to him like a small child, tears forming in her eyes. Small vibrations transferred from her skin to his metal frame as she stared at Bracken in shock and fear.
“This is Roger, go ahead.” His voice was low and crackly over the radio.
“I’m ordering a C-942. That’s a remote shutdown on Prototype D.”
A long, quiet moment hovered in the air and Des instantly felt relieved. Again, Hazel had been a step ahead of them. Only a short time after Des’ first moments of consciousness, Roger had attempted to deactivate Des remotely. However, with a few commands, Hazel made sure that could never happen.
“Did you copy that?” Bracken said through clenched teeth.
“Did you say C-942?”
“That’s right.”
Des felt a pull on his arm. “Come on,” Hazel whispered to him. “Let’s go.”
Des didn’t argue with her. They wouldn’t want to be there when Roger gave him the bad news of being unable to deactivate Des from his office.
“Stop walking!” Bracken called out to them.
Hazel didn’t stop, so Des didn’t either.
“Well, Sir, it’s kind of a funny thing,” Roger said through the radio. “I’m not sure that’s going to be possible.”
As Des’ legs moved him forward, he could hear Bracken arguing with Roger back and forth, Roger keeping the details of Hazel’s plan a secret because it would get him into trouble.
“Prototype E,” Des heard Bracken say. “Don’t let them leave!”
Esroy stomped forward, Des and Hazel within his sights. All of this was so new to him and it felt awkward to go after his creator, though the order to apprehend Des gave him some pleasure. It wasn’t that he hated Des. Des hadn’t done anything to Esroy besides existing as an exact copy but one with more privileges.
Truth was, Des hadn’t earned those legs that allowed him to run away like he was. Esroy had earned his legs long ago and it was a privilege that was overdue.
More and more it started to feel like Hazel was choosing a different path than the one that got her to where she was in the first place—a path that no longer cared about the human lives of the Mainlanders. For some reason she was straying. He didn’t know how serious she was about meeting with Nolan Ragsdale, but it was a reckless thought and complete nonsense. However, the thought didn’t worry Esroy all that much because to him it seemed to be such a far-fetched idea to begin with.
These were the thoughts zipping through his mind as he followed Hazel and Des. These were his thoughts until someone cut into his comm system.
“Hold up, E,” Bracken’s said. “Something else just came up.”
“What?” Esroy asked.
Bracken swore loudly through the radio. “Forget Prototype D, right now. Come back here. Nolan Ragsdale has just escaped from our custody.”
27
The first thing Hazel wondered was why her office door had been unlocked, but when she and Des walked into the room, she understood why. The second thought she had nearly sent her into a panic. As Phil, Nolan, Gus, and two others she didn’t recognize stood in front of her, their guns glinting in the light from the window, she imagined getting arrested and thrown into prison. A sudden rush of doubt sprang alive in her head and she wanted to run from the room, screaming all the way to alert the soldiers of the escapee in her office. But her feet were firmly planted beneath her. She saw the eyes of each man shoot up above her head as Des stepped in behind her.
“What’s this?” Des asked.
Hazel swallowed. “They already know you’re missing.”
Nolan took a step forward and stood in front of his helpers. “We don’t have much time then. Phil said you were willing to help.”
“They are going to know you’re here,” Hazel said. “There are cameras all over this building.”
“Not for the next twenty minutes,” Phil said. He shrugged. “I know my way around the building. Why else do you think I’m here?”
“All I need is access to the mainframe,” Nolan continued. His eyes went from her to Des over and over as if he was ready for the robot to attack him at any moment.
“Do you trust him?” Des asked, stepping next to Hazel.
The others in the room held more tightly to their guns, though Hazel knew their defense wouldn’t do any good. It would take more bullets than they had to do enough damage to stop Des.
“No,” Hazel said, “but I’ve got no choice.” Her eyes stayed fixed on Nolan’s. “If I’m going to help you, your men are going to leave their guns in the corner next to the door. Des here will take one of them. He’s going to aim the gun at your head. If I give you access to the mainframe and I find out that you’ve lied to me Des will kill you and all your men. Otherwise, I’m going to give you the opportunity to leave right now, and maybe, just maybe you will have enough of a head start on the soldiers who are searching for you.”
“And what if they’ve figured out a way to delete the file?” Nolan asked. He held up a hand. “I know I told you it was unlikely without my authorization, however, that doesn’t mean they didn’t figure out a way.”
“Then you will die,” Hazel said. She sounded tough. Cold even. And she wasn’t exactly sure how much she meant her words. She couldn’t necessarily count on Des to take action either. However, he hadn’t protested and she took that as a good sign.
Nolan stared at her, his eyelids squinted just a little as he studied her face, probably unsure of whether he believed her. Finally, he turned to the others and nodded. “Put your weapons next to the door. Give the robot a gun.” He turned back to Hazel. “If the files aren’t there, I’m sorry.”
The men all walked by Hazel, one-by-one, setting their rifles in the corner of the room. Gus gave his rifle to Des who held it in his hands like he’d never seen one before. Technically he’d never used one, but he was programmed with the ability to shoot. A couple of them pulled out handguns and even a knife or two. They then walked back to their positions
in the tiny room.
“That one,” Des said, pointing the rifle at Gus. “He’s still carrying a gun. Shoulder strap. It’s under his left arm.”
All eyes fell on Gus and he answered with a smirk and shrug. He pulled the gun from under his jacket and brushed past Hazel before tossing the gun in the pile. “You got x-ray vision or something?”
Nolan shook his head. To Hazel he seemed disappointed or annoyed. She wondered how much all of this could be an act—a show of emotion to indicate that he was trying to cooperate fully.
“You got him?” Hazel asked Des.
Des raised his rifle in the air and pointed it at Nolan’s head. The man stiffened at the sight and Phil took a short step in Des’ direction, but stopped suddenly when Des snapped his aim at his head. “I’m not going to kill anybody,” Des said. “Not unless you’re lying.”
Hazel was glad Des was playing along. At least, she hoped he was just playing along. She didn’t even know if she was bluffing or not. When it came down to it, could she just have them killed like that? After all, Nolan did assassinate the last president. If he was just using Hazel to dig into defense secrets or something else damaging to the Mainlanders, she would never forgive herself for aiding him. If it came to that in the end, and she did have to kill Nolan and the others, she would be a hero.
But she didn’t want to be a hero. By this point, she would be happy to be out of it altogether. Bracken wasn’t treating her robots like she wanted. The government hadn’t lived up to their end of the bargain. Finding dark secrets within would be both a relief and a burden. A relief because she would no longer have to subject herself to them and their ways. A burden because if what Nolan had told her before was true—the genocide, the nuclear bomb, all the lies—then she would feel compelled to expose the truth.
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