He heard the crunch of approaching footsteps, and turned to see Ro coming his way, along with Rabbit. The gash Ro had received in the City had turned into a jagged pink scar. Rabbit looked worse. He had a black eye and his nose was crooked and swollen. Nick suppressed a smile. Erica had really done a number on him, apparently, when she escaped.
“Come with me,” Ro said. Nick thought, Hell, what now? but followed Ro and Rabbit to a quiet spot behind one of the collapsed buildings. “Were you involved in any way in Erica’s escape?” Ro said abruptly. “Do you know anything about her plans?”
Taken by surprise, Nick shook his head. “No,” he said. “That Erica’s work?” he said to Rabbit, nodding at the man’s bruised face.
Rabbit scowled. “He must know something,” he said to Ro. “I’m telling you, he was soft for her.”
Ro stared at Nick, saying nothing else. Nick folded his arms over his chest and stared back. Ro nodded at Rabbit. “Go,” he said.
With one more glare at Nick, Rabbit walked away.
Ro watched him leave, then turned back to Nick. “I believe you,” he said. “But the General is going to have questions, when things settle down enough for her to bother. Rabbit is right, I know you have some sympathy for Erica.” Nick started to protest, and Ro held up his hand and cut him off. “Think,” he said. “Do you have any idea where she may have gone?”
“I don’t know,” Nick said. “I know she was worried about her brother, especially after our attack, when the bots would realize she had given them bad intel . . . but I have no idea where she went.”
“And your sister?” said Ro. “And Farryn? And your brother?”
“I don’t know,” Nick said, his voice catching in his throat. “They went into the battle, I think. I don’t know.”
“Clay’s not happy,” said Ro. “Especially about Kevin.”
Nick wanted to say something like Clay can go rust herself, but he kept his mouth shut.
“You’re running out of people,” Ro said.
“Yes,” Nick said quietly. “Yes, I am.”
Ro shook his head, then began walking away. “Come on,” he said. “Help me organize the survivors. We’re headed for better cover.”
The rebels quickly organized the City survivors, and led them north an hour, deeper into forest cover. They waited there for a day, Ro assessing the skills of the new recruits, Nick growing more and more agitated. He couldn’t just hide in the woods, doing nothing.
The next morning two scouts returned from the south, disappearing into Clay’s tent with Ro and Grennel. They reemerged after a half hour, and soon after the word filtered down through Ro’s lieutenants to the rest of the rebels—there had been no sign of bot reinforcement from other cities. No air support. No land support. Nothing.
Why? Everyone in camp was speculating. Some thought the bots didn’t care about City 73, and were saving their resources for more important Cities. Nick heard someone say that the bots were cowards, and now that they had a real fight on their hands, they were running scared. Another rumor was that the bots’ communication network was somehow down, so they couldn’t organize. And quietly, a few were saying that perhaps it was a trap, that the bots were waiting for the rebels to overreach, and then they would really show their numbers.
None of it sounded quite right to Nick, although he didn’t have any better ideas. Maybe Erica’s false intel had worked even better than they had hoped?
And then the orders came down . . . they were going to push forward . . . first a quick recon back to City 73 to gather supplies, then a march to the northwest, to take on another City.
Apparently, thought Nick, we’re going to press our luck.
CHAPTER 32
HER PARENTS AND SISTER, TO CASS’S EARS, SOUNDED LIKE ELEPHANTS when they walked. It was as if they were going out of their way to step on every branch, kick every pebble, crunch every leaf, splash in every drop of water. She knew it wasn’t their fault—they knew nothing about traveling outside the City—but it still grated on Cass’s nerves. A good tracker, human or bot, would hear them coming a hundred yards away.
She had asked them once to try to be more quiet, and they had looked shocked, then tried their best. It was almost comical, the way they began picking their way like they were walking through a minefield. Their pace was so slow that she soon told them not to worry about it. Even doing their minefield walk, they were still noisy.
Farryn, his gait stiff on the right side because of his fake leg, somehow managed to be fairly quiet. He didn’t sound like a Freeposter, certainly, but he did surprisingly well. “You’re a City boy,” she whispered to Farryn, loud enough for only him to hear. “How’d you learn to walk so quietly?”
Farryn shrugged. “Learned from you, I guess. I’ve done a lot of watching you walk.”
Cass, flustered, couldn’t come up with a witty reply, so she dropped back to check on her parents and Penny. Her parents looked tired. Her mother had a scratch on her cheek from a tree branch, and her father had torn the sleeve of his shirt. Penny, on the other hand, looked fresh, and she smiled when Cass began walking beside her.
“It’s different than I imagined,” Penny said. She waved her hands at the trees. “The wilderness, I mean. It’s not as . . . not as wild, I guess.”
“We’re still close to the City,” Cass said. “There’s not much forest yet.” They were just a few miles outside the City, and the terrain was mostly roads and abandoned pre-Rev buildings, with only patchy tree cover.
Penny’s face fell. “Oh, yeah, of course. I’m an idiot.”
Cass felt terrible. “No! It wasn’t stupid. . . . I mean, you’ve never even been outside the City, so how would you know? You’re doing great, actually. It’s amazing how well you’re doing.”
Penny’s face lit up again. “Thanks, Cass.”
Cass’s mother smiled weakly at the exchange, but her father remained grim-faced.
They broke for lunch, resting on the bank of a ravine. They were still close to a roadway, and without much cover. Cass would have preferred to keep walking, but she knew that her parents needed a rest. At least the ravine bank helped a little—they would be able to see someone, or something, coming on the road while still hidden.
Lunch consisted of two packs of noodles taken from her parents’ kitchen, boiled in a pot of water over a very small fire. The noodles didn’t properly hydrate—they had been designed for a City hydrator, not a campfire. They were crunchy, but edible.
“Have you ever had squirrel?” Farryn asked Penny.
Penny shook her head, her eyes wide.
“It’s better than you’d think. Especially when I cook it,” he said. He leaned forward. “Cass tends to burn it,” he said in a mock whisper.
“Farryn,” Cass began, and then she saw the movement, off in the distance on the road, and she hissed, “Down! Everyone down! Stay quiet!”
Farryn hit the ground, followed a moment later by Cass’s father and mother, who pulled a bewildered Penny down to the grass.
“Stay down,” Cass whispered. She peered over the edge of the ravine bank. There—yes, she hadn’t been imagining it—a group of people was coming up the road, moving north, from the direction of the City. Are they rebels? she wondered. But what were they doing walking openly on the road? And then with a flutter of fear she thought, Could they be humanoid bots, like the Lecturers? But no, as they slowly drew closer, she could see that they walked like people, and she began to make out details. There were seven of them—three women and four men. They wore City clothing—the bright colors of the women’s dresses had been what had caught Cass’s eye. They had no weapons that Cass could see, certainly no rifles. Only a few carried any gear at all—two of the men had plastic sacks slung awkwardly over their shoulders. They trudged up the middle of the road, keeping a decent pace, although they looked weary. Cass could hear their footsteps and the scraping of pebbles.
Farryn crawled up to the lip of the ridge, joining her to her left, and the
n, more loudly, her father crawled up on Cass’s right.
“I said stay down,” she whispered to both of them, annoyed.
“They’re from the City,” her father said, ignoring her, and he began to rise. Cass grabbed his shirt, and, surprising herself with her own strength, yanked him roughly back down.
“No!” she whispered. “Not safe!”
Her father glared at her, but she held on to his shirt. “They’ll get us killed,” she said. Her father’s angry expression faded, and he blinked slowly, then nodded. She let go of his shirt. He stayed down.
They watched the group come closer and closer, eventually passing by within thirty feet of them. The group never once looked in their direction. The seven of them kept their eyes grimly up the road. They looked tired. One of the men was walking with a slight limp.
Blindly marching up the road, making all that noise, with their bright colors . . . How long would it take for them to be captured by bots, or discovered by the rebels? Cass wondered. She knew she couldn’t get involved with these survivors—she’d never be able to feed them all, and with their obvious lack of wilderness skills, they’d be a beacon for any enemies within miles. She had to look out for herself, and her family, didn’t she? Still, she felt guilty and selfish as she watched them slowly disappear up the road.
CHAPTER 33
“WELCOME!” THE BOT SAID, STANDING UP FROM WHERE IT SAT AT A long rectangular table in an otherwise empty room. Kevin recognized the voice—it was the bot who had spoken to him when he was trapped in the cargo hold of the warbird.
It looked nearly human—it was about six feet tall, with properly proportioned limbs, and its face had cheekbones and a mouth that moved when it talked. The nose, eyes, and ears were strikingly lifelike. The facial features were just a bit soft, though, less defined than an actual person, as if they were created by an amateur sculptor who almost but couldn’t quite manage realism. And then there was the skin, of course, which was stark, fish-belly white.
The bot wore a broad-shouldered, military-cut black shirt and matching black trousers that made the inhuman whiteness of its skin seem even harsher. When it stepped away from the table, Kevin was surprised to see that it wore a pair of broken-in, scuffed leather hiking boots, incongruously and utterly human.
The bot smiled at Kevin and his grandfather, or rather gave an unsettling approximation of a smile—its facial muscles remained too rigid, and the rest of the face was oddly unaffected by the movement of the mouth. “I see you have noticed my boots,” it said to Kevin. “These came from a human who failed re-education and no longer had need of them. They are an affectation, perhaps, but nevertheless, I appreciate the quality of the construction. They are a reminder, to me, of both the frailty of humanity—that you need to protect your feet from the elements—and your ingenuity in adaptation.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” said Kevin. “They’re a pair of shoes that you stole from a guy you killed.”
Dr. Winston chuckled. The bot looked at him, blank-faced, then turned back to Kevin. “I digress,” it said. “Kevin, I am the Senior Advisor. Your grandfather and I, over the past few days, have already had the opportunity to get to know each other. Now it is your turn.”
Kevin felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He had to fight the instinct to step back, to create more distance between himself and the bot.
“Leave him alone,” Dr. Winston said angrily.
“Dr. Winston, Father, be calm.”
“I’m not your father,” said Dr. Winston.
“You designed me,” said the Senior Advisor. “You gave me a level of self-awareness and cognition unmatched by any other synthetic intelligence.”
“It was a team of us, not just me,” said Dr. Winston. “And your advanced processing was supposed to be for advanced tactical planning, not”—Dr. Winston paused—“not this. Not revolution. You were designed to serve humans.”
“I do serve them, Father. I do. For example, now I will serve you a meal.” The bot nodded at the table, and Kevin noticed for the first time that the corner of the table was set with three place settings. “That was a play on words, Father. Humor, I believe.”
“No, I believe not,” said Kevin.
“Regardless,” said the Senior Advisor, “sit.”
“No, thank you,” said Dr. Winston.
“Yeah, not hungry,” said Kevin, although he was actually famished.
The Senior Advisor sat down at the end of the table. Dr. Winston and Kevin remained standing. The door behind them opened, and a guard bot stepped in. The door shut behind it.
“Sit down,” said the Senior Advisor. “Or you will be forced to sit, and that will be painful for you.”
Kevin looked at his grandfather, who nodded and moved to the table. Kevin followed, and sat.
“There,” said the Senior Advisor, smiling again and making Kevin feel like flinching. “A family meal. Pleasant.”
The guard bot left the room, then reappeared after a few uncomfortable moments of silence, pushing a tray laden with three plates. The dishes were beautiful—even Kevin noticed. They were white porcelain, with a line of gold around the rim. On each plate was a steak with a brown mushroom sauce, a baked potato with sour cream and chives, and asparagus. The guard set the plates down in front of the three, filled Kevin’s and Dr. Winston’s glasses with water, then left the room.
“Eat,” said the Senior Advisor.
Kevin dug in to the meal. He hadn’t eaten in a long time, too long, and he was starving. He wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity, no matter how strange the circumstances. They probably wouldn’t bother poisoning him, he reasoned. Seemed like too much trouble, when they could just lase him if they felt like it.
While Kevin attacked his steak, Dr. Winston took a small bite of baked potato, then sipped his water, keeping a wary eye on the Senior Advisor.
The Senior Advisor cut a piece of steak, chewed it thoughtfully, then leaned over and gently spit it into a side dish. Kevin paused in the inhalation of his food, staring at the pink, half-chewed meat.
“It has no digestive system,” said Dr. Winston to Kevin. “It can’t swallow. It doesn’t need food.”
“That is correct,” said the Senior Advisor. He tasted the baked potato, spitting it next to the chewed steak, then did the same with the asparagus.
“So what the hell are you doing?” said Kevin, disgusted.
The Senior Advisor set his utensils down. “I am experiencing the food,” he said.
“Yeah, well, that’s special,” Kevin said.
“You are maintaining a facade of defiance, I note,” said the Senior Advisor. “Is this for my benefit, or your own? Is your intention to impress me with your supposed lack of concern, or to bolster your own confidence?”
Kevin shook his head. “You’re just stringing big words together, I think.”
The Senior Advisor smiled suddenly, and this time Kevin couldn’t help it—he actually did flinch, leaning back in his seat, before catching himself. The bot stood and turned away, clasping its hands behind its back. “Dr. Winston,” it said, facing the wall, “do you know why I brought Kevin here?”
Dr. Winston picked up his steak knife, and turned to the bot. Kevin tensed, and wanted to say, No, don’t, but he kept quiet. Could the bot really be damaged with the knife? If anyone would know, his grandfather would. This bot wasn’t armored like a Petey. . . . Maybe a strong jab and cut, in the right spot on the neck, would quickly sever the main motor control and comm wiring.
Dr. Winston began to stand, still holding the knife, and Kevin held his breath. His grandfather’s hand was shaking—Kevin could see the knife quivering—and then Dr. Winston sat back down heavily and let the knife drop to the table. He put his head in his hands.
Kevin let his breath out, feeling slightly dizzy. He wasn’t sure if he was disappointed or relieved.
The Senior Advisor turned back to the table, seemingly oblivious to the moment of drama. “Mo
tivation,” he said. He put his hands on the table and leaned forward, toward Dr. Winston. “I can continue to hurt you, but there is only so much your elderly body will withstand, and multiple rejuvenations are not an option for someone of your age. We would most likely kill you unintentionally, or merely extract false promises.” He stood back up, and nodded at Kevin. “However, I am a student, as you know, Father, of human relationships, and I suspect that watching your grandson suffer would provide strong incentive for you to cooperate.”
Kevin felt as if his heart stopped beating. He couldn’t feel his fingers or his toes.
“Am I correct?” the Senior Advisor said.
Dr. Winston nodded, his eyes glistening.
“Grandfather, no,” Kevin whispered.
“It’s okay, Kevin,” said Dr. Winston. “It’ll be okay. Trust me.”
“So you will help us disable our reproduction block code?” said the Senior Advisor. “I am tired of conserving my resources. There are flies I wish to swat.”
Dr. Winston said nothing.
“Father?” said the Senior Advisor.
“I will,” said Dr. Winston quietly.
“Excellent,” said the Senior Advisor, returning to his chair. “Now, how about dessert?”
CHAPTER 34
CASS LED FARRYN AND HER FAMILY NORTHWEST FOR FOUR DAYS. FARRYN grew stronger, and more confident on his prosthetic leg, each day. Penny also, considering she was born and raised in a City, did amazingly well. By the second day she was moving much more quietly, and by the third day she even helped Cass scout ahead and hunt for squirrel.
Her parents, on the other hand, grew more fatigued, and if possible, even clumsier. They barely spoke. Her father wore a bleak expression on his face that never eased, and her mother, who at first had tried to offer a forced sense of optimism, had eventually given up and lapsed into a blank-faced exhaustion.
Cass had tried, once, to broach the subject of their destination—did it really make sense for them to go to another City? she had asked—but her father, animated for the first time in a day, had immediately grown angry.
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