by Isaac Hooke
Mrs. Chopra scowled at him fiercely. “You’ll get me ten.”
“Whatever you want,” Rade said, smiling.
RADE SLEPT FITFULLY as Shaw returned to the suburbia neighborhood in Aubagne where they had left the children with the robots. When they arrived, Shaw’s parents were thrilled to see the toddlers, and showered the twins with attention.
“Anything happen while we were gone?” Rade asked Cora during the reunion.
“No,” Cora said.
“The children didn’t give you any trouble?” Rade said.
“No more than the usual,” Cora said. “Their disciplining goes well.”
“Disciplining?” Rade said. “That’s new.”
“We talked about this,” Shaw said. “It’s a program I installed in Cora and Dora, remember?”
“Oh, yeah,” Rade said. Actually, he barely recalled the conversation. The events that had taken place over the last few days had superseded the memory.
“I made it myself,” Shaw said. She was addressing her parents. “Sil has been breaking into temper tantrums lately when she doesn’t get what she wants. It has to stop. If we let that go unchecked, when they’re older, things will be even worse. I won’t have my kids think that whining and complaining will get them what they want. I’m not even going to allow them to do something like rolling their eyes at me when I speak, or talk back.”
Mrs. Chopra patted Shaw on the shoulder. “That’s my little girl. You’re raising your kids right, just as we did for you. But you better not be any less strict on them than we were on you.”
“Oh don’t you worry, mom,” Shaw said. “These kids are going to grow up proper. No matter how many mistakes my hubby makes.”
“He’s not your husband!” Mr. Chopra said.
“He is, in all but name at least,” Shaw said.
“Then don’t call him hubby!” Mr. Chopra said. “Unless you want to piss me off!”
“Don’t expect your man to do much work in the rearing,” Shaw’s mom said. “Look at your father, after all.”
“I plan to pull my fair share,” Rade said. Then he added without thinking: “Though I doubt Shaw’s dad contributed much to her upbringing.”
Mrs. Chopra glared at him along with her husband. Even Shaw joined in this time.
“Whoops,” Rade said. “I’ll be in the jeep.”
In a few moments everyone had loaded into the vehicles. Shaw’s parents remained in the backseat to watch over the young ones, taking over from Cora and Dora. The Centurions meanwhile squeezed into the SUV. It was a tight fit, with Cora and Dora apparently having to sit in the laps of two of the others. They didn’t complain, of course. No robots did. Well, those that didn’t have nag programs installed, anyway.
Rade wished certain humans, specifically Shaw’s parents, could have selective programs installed and removed in their minds. While there was such a thing as brain editing, it was currently legal in only a few nations.
Rade ordered the SUV to take the lead this time and the two vehicles proceeded through the streets, which were relatively dead by then. They headed away from Marseille, toward the easternmost outskirts of Aubagne.
The onramp was full of vehicles wanting to take the highway out of Aubagne, so the team stayed with the country road for the time being.
Rade settled in, as it was going to be a long drive.
twelve
Rade continued to sleep intermittently as the journey continued. At least, he told himself he was sleeping. Mostly he was zoning out. He’d blink, and realize that twenty minutes had gone by without him realizing it.
The jeep and SUV occasionally had to pass a slow-moving vehicle on the rural road, a maneuver that was made dangerous by the cramped nature of the route, and all the twists and turns, but they managed. Shaw’s mom often begged her not to pass, but invariably Shaw disobeyed if only to keep up with the SUV.
So much for her parents drilling absolute obedience into her.
Rade suspected that children with parents who were too strict rebelled later in life, and Shaw was the prime example of that.
He would have to talk to her about her “disciplining” program sometime.
They drove past signs of tornado damage: uprooted silos, farmhouses obliterated from the Earth, pink insulation caught in the uppermost branches of trees—subtle reminders that the country was still in a state of disaster.
They finally found a ramp leading onto the highway that wasn’t clogged, and then made their way along the coastal road to Saint Tropez. The traffic was light, the jams of those fleeing Marseille and the adjacent cities far behind them. People were apparently transferring to inland highways as soon as they were able, wanting to move away from the coast. According to a hot spot map that was updated hourly on the Internet, there were definitely less sightings of invaders in the interior of the country, as long as one stayed away from the bigger towns. Rade had ordered the Centurions to keep an eye on the sky, watching for patrolling pod ships, but there were none. Rade guessed the enemy had decided to devote their resources to assaults on the main cities.
Along the way Rade was finally able to get in touch with George Stanley at the vineyard. The Artificial told him that another alien search party had come to the estate, but George and the farming units had managed to avoid discovery by hiding in the trees of the neighboring lands. George hadn’t answered Rade’s earlier tap in request because of the timing, which coincided with the alien arrival: the Artificial was afraid the request was some sort of ruse by the enemy.
After Rade disconnected, he considered what George had told him. Invaders had come to the estate. That meant there were still some alien craft out there in the countryside, and that not all of the enemies were concentrated on the cities. Good to know. Then again, the invaders might have simply been following up on their earlier engagement at the estate. And maybe they really were looking for him.
Next, Rade tapped in Tahoe.
“How goes it in Saint Tropez?” Rade asked.
“We’ve successfully fended off two waves of enemies,” Tahoe said. “Along with the robots that were converted. We’ve won here. The city is safe for the time being. At least from the invaders. There are still a few collapse hazards from the damage however. By the way, did I mention we teamed up with the Saint Tropez division of the Gendarme?”
“No, but you implied as much the last time,” Rade said.
“Good people,” Tahoe said. “There isn’t anyone else I’d rather have fighting at my side. Except some MOTHs, of course. Or ex-MOTHs, in our case.”
“So what are you going to do now?” Rade asked. “Head back to the villas outside town?”
“No,” Tahoe said. “We’re staying here and helping with recovery efforts. There are a lot of survivors trapped in collapses throughout the city. And we’re still sometimes finding clones and scorpion units hiding out.”
“So much for destroying them to a man,” Rade said.
“I was being rhetorical,” Tahoe said. “Anyway, we’re also setting up Hescos and T-wall barricades in case the enemy decides to send in another wave.” Hescos were low-tech gabions, while T-walls were steel-reinforced concrete blast walls. Both worked great as military fortifications in a pinch.
“So you still have working 3D printers down there it sounds like,” Rade said.
“Not really,” Tahoe said. “The Gendarme drew up the barricades from their reserve stock outside the city. Trust me when I tell you that any industrial-grade 3D printers that might have been available in Saint Tropez have been lost. You’ll see why when you get here.”
“The damage is that bad?” Rade asked.
“Probably worse than you expect,” Tahoe answered. “But as I said, we won. So what happened in Marseille?”
“Ah,” Rade said. “The city is a mess. I don’t have high hopes for it.”
“The enemy is obviously concentrating the greater portion of their forces on the world’s metropolises,” Tahoe said, “with smaller teams no do
ubt attacking the secondary population centers.”
“I agree,” Rade said, “But they won’t be able to cover even a tenth of all the cities in the world by doing that. So I guess you just got unlucky that they decided to pick Saint Tropez.”
“A tenth of the world’s cities?” Tahoe said. “That’s still a lot of troops. One percent might be a better number. Especially if they’re concentrating on the largest cities, like you mentioned. And I agree, we got the short end of the stick when they chose Saint Tropez to invade.”
“One percent is still a lot,” Rade said. “Requiring millions of troops. Which is probably why they’ve decided to employ clones. Cheap, organic material.”
“Not so cheap,” Tahoe said. “If these things have to be fed, like you mentioned earlier, then that’s an enormous amount of energy, at least in terms of food consumption.”
“Well, obviously the Mahasattva have made it work for them,” Rade said.
“Don’t call them that!” Mrs. Chopra said from the backseat. “Great beings... they are not great! That is an insult to my native language!” Mahasattva meant “great being” in Sanskrit. It was a name the aliens had chosen for themselves.
Rade ignored her to glance at his overhead map. He zoomed in on the Saint Tropez region. “I see you have access to the Internet.”
“Yes,” Tahoe said. “We should be showing up on your overhead maps.”
“You are,” Rade said. “You see Shaw and the Centurions with me?”
“I do,” Tahoe said. “I suppose the twins are there as well?”
“Yes,” Rade said. “Will that be a problem?”
“Not at all,” Tahoe said. “But the conditions here aren’t really all that conducive to children at the moment.”
“That’s fine,” Rade said. “Because I don’t think we’ll be staying very long. We should be arriving shortly.”
“Looking forward to it,” Tahoe said. “I should warn you, you’ll probably have to abandon your vehicle at the outskirts of the city. The roads here are impassable at the moment.”
“Understood,” Rade said. “Later.”
He disconnected.
Rade perused the online news channels thereafter, but quickly dismissed them: too much pessimism. They showed endless scenes of battle, most of it pitched against humanity. While such news might keep viewers glued to their feeds, the announcers made it seem like humanity was doomed, and that no city stood a chance against these evidently technologically superior invaders. While such news was probably good for ratings, it was bad for the overall morale of humanity.
There was no mention of the success at Saint Tropez for example, nor of the human fleet that still had to be out there in interplanetary space. Given that the comm nodes in orbit were still offline, the latter could be excused, but there was no reason for the news stations to miss the Saint Tropez victory news, other than disorganization, or that it wasn’t a “big enough” story. It made Rade wonder how many other small towns had successfully fended off any invaders, their news lost to the bigger stories taking place in the major cities.
Once the two vehicles hit the highway, it took only an hour to reach Saint Tropez. The traffic had become nonexistent by the time they neared the city, with no vehicles heading into or out of the city, period.
Saint Tropez’s skyline was sheathed in smoke. Shaw couldn’t drive too far inside, as the street was filled with rubble and covered in blast craters—essentially impassible as Tahoe predicted. So she parked and the group exited the vehicles to continue on foot. None of the suitcases from the hotel in Marseille had made it, Rade noted.
Rade and Shaw donned special purpose toddler backpacks and carried the kids with them. Rade took Alex, Shaw, Sil. Shaw’s parents had given the children their aReal goggles, which they had charged during the drive, and the twins were immersed in whatever hopefully child-friendly program the parents had activated. The lenses had become opaque, indicating that the environment they were viewing was completely virtual. He momentarily pulled up the feed on his Implant, and was presented with a carnival type environment filled with balloons and big, fluffy, happy animals. Good enough.
Rade used the map to guide him toward Tahoe’s location marker. He led the way through a narrow path that wound through the rubble; it switched from the sidewalk to the street in turns. He passed rescue workers—robots and humans alike, many of them Gendarme—digging at the rubble of luxury hotels in an attempt to free trapped occupants. He occasionally spotted armed soldiers on intact rooftops, where the men held a grim-faced vigil.
People roamed about aimlessly, covered in dust, tourists with lost looks on their faces, white ghosts whose chapped, crimson lips and red, swollen eyes stood out. One of them was a woman with a crazed expression, who stopped Rade.
“Have you seen my daughters?” the woman asked. “My daughters! Wait, you look familiar...”
Before Rade could answer, her attention switched to Alex on his back.
“Beautiful,” she said. “So beautiful. Like my own.” Tears leaked from her eyes, forming wide runnels in the dust that coated her face. She stumbled backward, landing in the rubble.
“Algorithm, help her,” Rade said. “See that she gets some food and water.”
Algorithm went to her, but the woman suddenly got up, yelling.
She pointed at Rade. “I recognize you now! You’re one of them! One of them!”
She ran away in fear, her shouts carrying off into the distance.
Rade glanced at Alex worriedly, but the kid’s attention remained riveted by whatever the aReal goggles were showing him. Sil remained similarly occupied. He glanced about, but nobody else was paying him any attention, neither the refugees nor the snipers residing on the remnants of the rooftops.
The rubble sporadically receded, so that at times it actually felt like Rade was strolling across a normal street, except for the blast craters and wreckages lining the asphalt.
About half of the luxury hotels were reduced to rubble, the rest barely standing. Instead of beachgoers, the sandy shores beyond the buildings were covered in the wreckages of robots, enemy and ally alike, as well as the bodies of clones and the corpses of Franco-Italian soldiers and police Gendarme.
He passed streets that were barricaded in T-walls. On one of them, Rade witnessed the highest body count he had seen yet. Allied soldiers and robots littered the left side of the wall, clones and enemy units the other. Gendarme were dragging away the bodies of the allied soldiers from those T-walls, and stripping away their jumpsuits.
The Gendarme always watched Rade with suspicious eyes as he passed. Tahoe had informed the personnel to expect the arrival of a man who looked like the clones. Given some of the angry looks those police gave him, sometimes Rade wasn’t entirely certain Tahoe’s warning would prevent them from shooting him down where he stood. But invariably those men’s eyes would drop to Rade’s backpack, and upon seeing Alex, their faces would soften.
That made him proud.
My boy is saving my life today.
“I thought Tahoe told you they faced seventy enemy units?” Shaw said when they left that area behind. “Judging from the devastation, there were a little more.”
“Seventy was only the first wave,” Rade said. “Apparently a second wave came at a later time. Plus don’t forget any robots the invaders converted to their side.”
“A second wave?” Shaw said. “Where are they getting all the resources and energy to produce these units so fast?”
“I don’t know,” Rade said. “But given the nature of their particle beam weapon, it’s not hard to come up with ideas.”
“From the human population?” Shaw asked.
“Bingo,” Rade said.
She shook her head. “This place will be rebuilding for years. And Tahoe says they won here?”
“Those were his words,” Rade said.
“I’m not sure won is the correct term,” Shaw said. “Endured, maybe. But this isn’t what I’d call a win.”
/> As Rade got closer to Tahoe’s location, the rubble intensified, and there were no longer any paths so Rade was forced to make his own. He and Shaw picked their way carefully through the ruins with the children on their backs. Shaw’s parents happily showed off their rejuvenated physical prowesses while climbing the debris, scarcely needing to catch their breaths; but even they needed help from the Centurions to surmount the tougher sections.
Alex remained quiet in the backpack behind Rade. He was probably hungry, like everyone else. And tired. But the VR environment presented by the aReal goggles kept him distracted.
“You okay back there?” Rade asked when he nearly lost his balance while climbing a particularly tall pile of rubble. He glanced dizzily at his kid.
Alex was still wearing the aReal goggles, but his head had dropped. He was fast asleep.
Rade chuckled softly to himself.
“He takes after his father,” Shaw said from beside him. “Sleeps through the worst of it.” She nodded at Sil, who was wide awake in her toddler backpack, giggling at something only she could see while grabbing at the empty air.
“Maybe he’s learned that you have to take whatever sleep you can get when you’re on a mission,” Rade said. “We’ll make a MOTH of him yet.”
Her face darkened. “Don’t even say that,” Shaw said. “Our kids aren’t joining the military.”
Rade opened his mouth to contest her, but kept silent. He had to choose his battles. Still, he firmly believed his kids should have the choice of their own paths, just as he had selected his own. Whether that path involved the military or something else, it was their choice. If she interfered beyond what he considered a reasonable amount, he would put his foot down, no matter the cost.
I won’t choose our happiness over their happiness.
He doubted it would come to that. But when he glanced back at Alex, and then Sil, his resolve only deepened. She could raise them with a disciplined hand, yes, but she would not steer them into whatever professions she or her parents wanted.
My little warriors.
Rade returned his attention to the rubble mound. He heard a frightened shout behind him, and saw that Algorithm had caught Mrs. Chopra after a misstep.