A sudden blinking of the lights creates urgency. Standing, I turn a tight circle as I try to choose a direction, a path. The boxes seem to come from everywhere, so it would seem that any direction is as good as any other. That any path should end in a container room where trucks are being unloaded.
Choosing a direction, I run as fast as I can. It’s like I’m trying to reach the top of the hill at the cutoff so I can make the jump. Wanting to free those I pass is an urge I resist. Each face is different, but I see them all.
I run on and on. After a while, the faces begin to blur but I still can’t help looking. Looking brings hope.
The curving wall ahead brings hope too. I know what must be beyond. I will it to be, but Luke’s all I can think about. Stopping, I turn around and shout, “Luke, where are you?”
Shouting is a mistake. The lights start blinking, but the blinking isn’t everywhere as I thought before. It comes from one direction. I start walking in that direction. I don’t know why, but it’s where my feet take me.
When the blinking stops, I shout again, “Luke, where are you?” The blinking lights lead me on, until I am standing in their epicenter.
My eyes scan the stacks, but I don’t find what I’m looking for. I turn and scan again, my heart seeming to skip a beat when I see a face I know. “Luke?” I say, my voice coming out as a whisper.
Spider crawling, I make my way to his container. “Luke, is it really you?”
Before even thinking about what I’m doing, I find myself inside the box, freeing Luke from his chains and wires, leaving the thick tangle of wires fixed to the base of his skull for last. Pulling this cord of wires free is like wrestling with a snake. A snake that arcs and hisses until finally Luke collapses into my arms.
Holding Luke there, I know what my heart feels for him, what my heart felt all along even if I did not know. Brushing back brown hair from his eyes, I rock him in my arms. “I’m here. I’m here,” I whisper.
Chapter 6
Node: 010
Luke is barely alert when I lead him from the cage, but somehow I know we can’t wait any longer, that danger is closing in on us. What comes for us, I don’t know, but the grim shadows I see at the edges of my thoughts are terrifying.
Luke’s bright tawny eyes are full of questions as we reach the floor and then he does something unexpected. He embraces me and kisses my cheek. “I missed you.”
The sensation I feel is like when I tried to pull the cord from the back of my neck. My cheek flashes with fire and a tingling sensation radiates outward. Even the touch of his fingers on my back makes my skin tingle. I don’t know why. It’s a sensation unlike any I’ve felt before.
“How long?” he asks. “What of the others? Did the machines find Central?”
I step back, beading my eyes. “The machines want to find Central?”
Luke looks worried. “I don’t know what they know, but I know they were in my mind. I tried to fight them. I did.”
“I came for you as soon as I dared. I wanted to know and now I do. Somehow, not knowing, never knowing, would have been so much better.”
Knowing there is no time for more questions, I take his hand and start running. To where, I don’t know, but somehow I’m certain we’re heading away from whatever is coming for us.
The boundless stacks surround us, spreading out endlessly. Behind us, in the distance, I hear something. Faint whirs and clicks.
Glancing back, I glimpse arcing red beams probing side to side. Behind the beams are great eyes with red irises. They’re not just in our row but in other rows too, like a wave and at many heights.
“Run, Luke, run!” I shout as I urge myself to race faster and faster.
Our hands grip each other’s more tightly as we run. At times, Luke starts to lag behind and I have to pull him along. At other times, he pulls me. It’s in these moments that I steal a look at his face. His face tells the story of his thoughts. He’s confused, disoriented, and a little angry.
Perhaps it’s odd that I recognize these expressions, but this I dwell on only fleetingly because the anger and urgency of the moment focus my attention. I know why Luke is angry. He’s angry because he told me that Central is where I belong, that if one day he was gone I was to carry out his work. But if he wanted me to stay why did he want to remember? Did he really think I would stay knowing what I know?
Luke squeezes my hand. “I tried not to tell them. I tried. I created new memories to mislead them, but I couldn’t keep them out. I don’t know what they know.”
Winded and tired, I can scarcely breathe. Luke is a weight I tow. “Not now. Central is safe,” I say, but suddenly I worry. The machines were in my thoughts too. Did I tell them something I shouldn’t have?
There’s an opening in the curved wall ahead, but I don’t know if we’ll reach it. The machines are close, so close I can see them out of the corners of my eyes.
I hear buzzing, whirring. The red beams are cutting wide swaths through the air. I don’t know what they’ll do to us if they catch us, but even if being caught only means going back to the metal boxes I want no part of it.
Luke continues, “You need to know this in case I’m caught. We can fight them. Their strengths are their weaknesses.”
In all of this, I can’t believe I found Luke, that he is with me. So many questions can be answered, but now is not the time. “Keep up. Stay with me. You don’t know what you’re saying.”
We dash into the container room and see the outside world beyond. Luke lets go of my hand but I run on for a time before I realize it. When I stop and spin around to face him, my heart sinks.
It’s fleeting, yet I see a decision in the corners of his eyes. I know what he’s about to do. I step toward him, but I am powerless to stop him.
As he charges at the machines, he shouts, “Run, Cedes! Don’t let them inside your thoughts. Don’t let them control you. Fight. Fight or you’ll lose yourself.”
Chapter 7
Node: 011
Without Luke, I am lost. Though I reflect on his every word, I don’t know whether he ran back to save me or for some other reason. I like to think he faced the machines so I could escape, but as I stagger around a city of buzzing and whirring machines I just don’t know.
There are machines in the sky, on the ground, in the buildings. They are of all shapes and sizes, from great ships floating amongst the clouds to tiny pods that whir about.
There are humans too. It’s how I move about the city and believe I’m unseen. But these humans aren’t like me. They move rhythmically, looking out with empty eyes as they stare blankly ahead. In this way, they are like the humans in the metal containers. In other ways, they are different.
Some wear jumpsuits. The suits are of the same sort as the black ones with the white stripes but they are of many colors. The colors make no sense to me, though they seem to recur in patterns. Four dressed in white, followed by two in black and two in gray. Three in red, followed by two in gray and three in red. One in yellow, followed by two in gray and one in yellow.
Not all of the humans wear jumpsuits. Some are wrapped in metal, almost like cages but tight against their skin. Others float by wrapped in transparent pods. The pods often move between levels of the buildings. Sometimes though the pods land, split open, and the human within steps out. Other times, the pods whir up and up into the sky and enter one of the sky ships.
Odd though it is, when the humans pass me I can sense them. Not them as they are on the outside; them as they are on the inside. It’s like I can see the tiny flames on the inside of their minds where they exist, but there are no images within the flames. There are only the flames, as if they are nothing but shells. Nothing but mortal coils wrapped around darkness.
If they see me, there is no way of knowing. Their only reaction when our paths intersect is to veer off one way or the other for a short span before correcting their paths and going back to the lines they were following originally.
Crossing paths with a mac
hine is different. The machines don’t veer away. They expect me to. I’m unsure what would happen if I didn’t, but I don’t think I want to find out.
At times, I’m afraid, very afraid. In these moments, grim shadows are at the edges of my thoughts and I’m certain they hunt for me in this urban sea.
The trucks carrying humans converge on a massive structure at the center of the city. Tall buildings spread out in ever expanding circles from it. In this way, the structure is like the city hub and the paths from it are like the spokes of a wheel I can see this in my mind’s eye even though I’ve never truly seen such a thing with my own eyes.
I carry with me many things that I’ve never truly seen. I don’t know where the images come from but they’re there. There too are thoughts, words, more, which become clearer with each step. Like the pictures of a hand in mine, of golden curls and bright blue eyes, I don’t know where these things come from, but they are with me.
It’s where the word building came from. It’s how I know the word path isn’t quite right and that the word street is better. I believe it’s how I recognized Luke’s anger and confusion, how I knew he was going to turn and run back to the machines.
But I don’t know if his act was meant to save me from them or me from him. Was he trying to warn me when he told me not to let the machines control me? Was he himself being controlled? Are they coming for me?
As if in answer, a large cylindrical machine rushes down the street. I hear it before I see it and jump back to the safety of the sidewalk. The human I was following into the intersection isn’t as lucky. The machine strikes him, running him over and leaving a bloody trail that runs up the street until what’s left of the body finally peals away.
I’m mortified and want to sink to my knees, to sob in great fits, but the overwhelming sense of danger flooding through my every thought keeps me rigid and upright. I hope I’m hiding the terror from my eyes. Somehow I doubt that I am because every fiber of my being wants to run, to run until the machines and their city are so far behind me that all this is nothing but a distant memory.
A flurry of activity follows. Machines come from many directions, as if curious to see what’s happened. They disperse quickly though when one of the red eyes descends onto the scene from a much larger sky ship. The body, the broken pieces, the blood are all swept clean in moments, cleansed away by fire spewed from the red iris of the great eye.
Having made a circuit up one side of the street and down the other so I could watch without being conspicuous, I turn down a different street and hurry away. I’m chilled by what I saw and don’t want to be anywhere near the great eye.
I desperately want to get away from the machines, but they are everywhere. I wait until I see an alley and then head into its shadows to do a thing I’ve never truly done before: cry. I cry in great fits and sobs until it seems there are no more tears in me. My back is pressed against a wall. I’m on my haunches, hugging myself, but it gives me no comfort.
I’m snot-nosed and wet-cheeked, broken, I realize. The machines have been inside my head, and they’ve broken me. I don’t know how or why, but they have. I feel things, sense things, know things that I’ve never actually felt, sensed or known.
I regret ever wondering what we were to the machines. I regret ever leaving Central.
I’m so alone, so empty inside. I feel like I’m standing stark naked in a barren field, buried up to my neck in thick white snow.
If I could, I’d race back to Central and never leave again—except I know that if I did, I’d never see Luke again. Somehow, I can’t bear the thought of that. I can’t.
Chapter 8
Node: 100
The sun is no longer overhead. The city streets are increasingly blanketed in shadows. In places, the pall is so deep that street lights are turning on to illuminate the way. The lights seem to follow me, with those ahead turning on as I go while those behind slowly wink out. This isn’t something I dwell on though because it’s happening all over the city.
The city itself is growing quieter. There are fewer machines, fewer and fewer humans. My feelings of desolation and loneliness grow. With each passing moment, I feel grim shadows grow closer. “Why, Luke? Why?”
Worry sets in and despair with it. If the city goes silent when night comes, where will I hide? I wonder about this but my thoughts increasingly focus on plots and schemes to get Luke back, of how I will march right into the hub and take him from them. I imagine also that I never left Central, that I’m asleep and dreaming.
Dreams. The very thought of dreams makes everything spin. “Sierra, Celeste, my sisters, how I miss you. How much time has passed since I left?”
The passage of time, I realize, is the same thing Luke wondered about. In the box, it’s impossible to know how time is passing, whether the sun is rising or setting, or whether the sun has risen and set many times.
At Central, we mark time mostly by the passing of days and seasons. The rising sun brings a new day. The setting sun brings an end to the day. During the warm season, we gather as much as we can as a safeguard against coming cold. During the cold, we wait for the snows to melt and the rains to mark the start of the wet season.
I walk with no destination in mind, not seeing much of what I pass. There’s a thought, faint and fleeting, about how I might use the sun to help me find Central, but I pay it little attention. I’ve already traveled this road in my imaginings. Central could be just beyond the city, just over the next rise, or it could be so far away that I’ll never find it again.
Besides if I’m to find Central, I need supplies. Food. Water.
Food. Yes, food. The machines were tube feeding me, but the rumbling in my belly is hard to ignore. Hunger isn’t unknown to me. It’s ever been a constant since the day I fell from the sky. In truth, our gatherings brought in little. Never enough to feed or fill us all, but enough to make it through until we found more.
At an intersection, I find myself stepping into a grouping of three red, two gray and three red, momentarily dissecting their line. It’s fleeting, but in that instant, we are one. I see through their eyes; they see through mine. They have no free-flowing or extraneous thoughts but they have thoughts.
The humans are a collective, a unit of work, returning from their day’s labors. A standing room where they will power down and recharge is on the 42nd floor of a building ahead.
Turning on my heel, I step back into their line and become one of them. We are three red, one gray, one black, one gray and three red when we enter the building. A labyrinth of intersecting halls and corridors greets us.
An elevator lift takes us to the 42nd floor. Afterward, we march down a series of long, straight corridors lined with doors that are marked with numbers and letters. The doors come one after the other with barely any space between them.
There are hundreds of doors, I realize.
We come to door 30842CD. The door slides up into the ceiling and we step into a room so narrow the walls are at our shoulders. As we pivot to the right, wires and connectors come out of the walls, attaching themselves around our orifices. Feeding us, relieving us, connecting us.
I’m thankful as my hunger is relieved, thankful as I urinate into a vacuum tube that whisks everything away, thankful to be part of 30842CD-8. I sense the others are thankful too.
The automatic door tries to close but for some reason can’t. I know it’s because there’s one too many of us and the one too many of us is blocking the door. There’s some confusion about this.
We identify ourselves by our colors.
Red. Red. Red.
Gray. Black. Gray.
Red. Red. Red.
More confusion follows. We are a unit of eight, but there is a ninth among us. One of us is extraneous. One of us is an anomaly.
They identify themselves by their internal designators, starting with the human who holds the unit’s token. One by one the others acknowledge and reply with their designators.
I sense danger and offer no
number or acknowledgement and instead simply allow the discovery requests to relay through me. Their voices fill my head.
It’s decided the red on the end is an anomaly. I don’t know who or what decides, or if we all somehow decide, I only know the result. Through us, the anomaly is given instructions: “Report for recycling.”
I sense the human in red leave the room. When she clears the door, it closes behind her and our confusion ends.
There’s a cue to disconnect from the red as she’s not part of our unit, followed by another cue to power down for the night so we can recharge. I try to resist the prompts, to stay alert while the others disengage one by one.
I want to know what is happening. The sense of danger has not passed. It has instead, intensified. I want to know what recycling means. I want to know will happen to the red.
I follow the red in my thoughts, back down the corridor we walked earlier. She enters the elevator lift and exits on the 54th floor. The connection weakens the farther away the red gets. Still, as she walks down a long hall and turns a corner, I sense a change. I wouldn’t call it a feeling, but it’s a deviation, like the red knows what’s going to happen when the orange door at the end of the hall opens and she steps in.
It’s not something shared along our connection, but I know the instant the orange door opens, revealing a round chamber with metal walls, and the red steps inside. “Luke,” I think as she is flashed to dust. I want to scream out, but the feeding tubes fill my mouth.
Somewhere in the depths of my mind a tiny flame flickers—a tiny flame I know is Luke. “Why, Luke, why?”
To cry for the red would bring relief, but there are no tears for my thoughts are no longer entirely my own. They are of my work unit and how I must power down for the night so that I can recharge.
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