To Dream

by Lowy, Louis K;

  Another round of bullets sprayed the office. Kaye moaned and went silent.

  Acevedo ran through the misty room to Niyati. She was doubled over, coughing violently. He dragged her to the window.

  “It’s now or never,” Acevedo said to J-1.

  The SWAT team ploughed through the door with armored shields. J-1 gripped the iron bars and tried to separate them. The SWAT team fired. Acevedo shoved Niyati to the ground and ducked. He returned the volley with his submachine gun. The room crackled and smelled like a Fourth of July fireworks extravaganza.

  Acevedo felt a blow to his torso. The force of it jerked him backwards and caused the MP8 to tumble from his hands. He waited for the blood to flow from his chest from where the bullet had penetrated it before realizing that he had been grabbed from behind by J-1. The Humachine lifted him with one arm, and Niyati with the other. J-1 turned toward the window, which he had stripped bare of the iron bars. He leapt through it and raced with the pair toward the Everglades.

  ~~~

  Acevedo awoke to the sound of a cough. It was pitch black. If it weren’t for a glint of starlight on the foul swamp water surrounding them, he would have thought his eyes were still shut. “Where are we?”

  “A small island that J-1 managed to find.” Niyati coughed. “That is, if you can call it an island. It’s more like a marsh.”

  A mosquito stung Acevedo’s neck. He slapped at it. Another landed on his eyelid. The last thing he remembered was the robot carrying them through the pitch-black swamp and coming to a dilapidated dock.

  “Take this,” Niyati said. “But go light, there’s not much left.”

  He felt something jab his chest. He reached for the object. It was a can.

  “Bug spray.”

  “Don’t tell me the robot made it.” Acevedo felt for the flat side of the nozzle, turned it toward him and sprayed the repellant over his skin.

  “Even he’s not that good,” Niyati said. “Before I go outside for a smoke I spray myself to fend off the mosquitoes. I keep a small can in my smock.”

  “How long have I been sleeping?” He handed the can back to her.

  “About three hours. I patched your shoulder and arm as best as I could. Fortunately, both were only grazed.”

  “How did we get here?”

  “Do you remember the bass boat with the hole in it?”

  He shook his head. “No.”

  “We found it by the shore, half-sunken. J-1 pulled it out and you and I got in. He somehow managed to kick us forward and at the same time keep it afloat. We barely made it here before it ripped apart.”

  Acevedo felt near his clavicle. There was a cloth wrapped around it. As his eyes adjusted to the dark, he could see Niyati’s silhouette. Even in this awful smelling shit of a mess, he thought, her willowy form and silken hair were beautiful.

  A butane lighter sparked. He watched her bring it to the cigarette dangling between her lips. In the flame’s glow Acevedo saw the tangled, stilt-like roots of the mangrove trees surrounding them, and the reflection of her black eyes like a star sapphire. There was worry in them, but there was also beauty. He smiled at her. She looked at him, lowered her eyes and shut the flame down. The cigarette’s glowing orange tip remained. When she exhaled, the tangy smoke momentarily drowned out the swamp’s rotten-egg stench.

  “What do we do now?” Niyati asked.

  Acevedo didn’t have a damn clue. “Let’s ask the robot.”

  “His name is J-1.”

  Acevedo didn’t need a lighter to see that he had upset her. “Sorry, Doc. I didn’t mean any harm by it.”

  There was silence. Acevedo thought he heard her sigh.

  “Niyati,” she finally replied. “My name is Niyati.”

  “Miguel,” he said.

  “I know…Miguel Acevedo.” Her voice was gentle.

  He thought she was going to say more, but the only thing that filled the quiet was an occasional alligator yerp and the distant hum of helicopters. “What’s our next move, J-1?” Acevedo said.

  “He’s not here,” Niyati said. “J-1’s gone.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Date: 2250

  Takáts Prefecture (formerly Haiti)

  Takáts Manor: garden grounds

  Rebeka Takáts clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. It produced a repeating sound resembling ta-ta-ta-ta. A brown-plumaged crane-like bird, a limpkin, waddled over to her. “Hey-hey, Frosty.” Rebeka was dressed in purple leggings and a breezy, white silk blouse. She motioned to a stooped, saggy-skinned man standing slightly behind her. He wore burgundy riding breeches and a matching muscle-tee. The elderly man reached into a burlap sack and handed her an apple snail. Rebeka held the mollusk above Frosty’s head. The bird lifted his long, thin bill and seized it. “Good baby.” Rebeka stroked his head.

  The man’s left pinky nail began to glow orange. He rubbed it and it returned to normal. He said to Rebeka, “Madam, it was a reminder that in exactly three months Hurricane Volition is set to strike here in Haiti. You asked me to—”

  Rebeka stopped stroking Frosty. She turned to him and smiled tightly. “Pardon me, Toussaint?”

  Toussaint took a step back and swallowed hard. “My ardent apologies. I meant to say Volition is set to strike Takáts Prefecture in three months. It will land on the western shore in the town of…of…” He spread his hands, palms up, as if they were holding a large question mark.

  “It’s still referred to as Port au Prince,” Rebeka said. “I haven’t had time to rename the cities, yet.”

  “Yes, Madam,” Toussaint replied.

  “Inform Viceroy Mompoint that I expect all necessary hurricane precautions to be taken. If I lose so much as one window it’s on his head.”

  He half-bowed.

  Frosty squealed, clAAAar!

  Rebeka held her palm out to Toussaint. He reached in his bag and handed her another snail. She waved it in front of Frosty.

  Toussaint’s left thumbnail blinked green. He glanced at it and said, “Madam, it’s Xia Ruffet on the line.”

  Rebeka let Frosty snag the snail. She petted his head one more time and waved him off. The limpkin trotted behind a clump of papaya shrubs. Toussaint slipped a spray bottle from his pants pocket. Rebeka held her snail-slimed hands up to him. He spritzed them with the bottle’s contents. The snail slime disappeared. Rebeka ran her fingers through her hair. “Open the line, please.”

  Toussaint pressed his blinking left thumbnail with the fleshy portion of his right thumb. An image of a stocky man who looked in his early thirties with playful green eyes, thick red hair and mutton-chop sideburns appeared in front of Rebeka. He was dressed in a double-breasted charcoal Chesterfield coat with a blue velvet collar. He removed a cigar from his mouth. “What’s this guff about the GTS mining disaster?”

  “A small mishap. We’ve shipped out construction bots. We’ll be back to full capacity within a month.”

  “Hmmph.” His lips went taut. “I also hear the president’s opening the reserves. How in hell did you get Congress to go along with that?”

  “I’m impressed, Xia. You have good sources.” Rebeka smiled. “I merely suggested to them that it would be in the country’s best interest to have no interruptions in supply.”

  He rolled the cigar between his fingers, flicked a tobacco bit from his mouth and said, “I know you better than that.”

  She shrugged. “I also stressed that those most upset by a GTS disruption are also their wealthiest campaign contributors. In any event, the government wants to keep their citizens happy, don’t they?”

  “Yes, and you want to keep your stockholders happy, starting with me. I don’t like mine explosions, Rebeka.”

  “No one does, Xia dear.” The irony of his proclamation wasn’t lost on her. If unhappy, the more prone he might be to selling his shares.

  “This didn’t have anything to do with those Truatta rabble rousers, did it?”

  Rebeka laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous. They’re
harmless. An unprecedented carbo-oxide storm hit the building. It probably caused a container of Yudeli gas to explode. Even I can’t control the weather.”

  He studied her. She hated that, but was too savvy to show it.

  He cleared his throat. “We still on for dinner next week?”

  She smiled again and widened her eyes briefly in a way that made her look seductive and dangerous. “I’ve been looking forward to it.” Shit, she thought. I suppose that means I have to reschedule my masseuse.

  His eyes grew lively. “How about that kosher steakhouse in Tehran?”

  “Sounds perfect.”

  “See you at six.” He toked on the cigar twice. A smoke plume rose.

  “Make it seven.” She wanted to establish who was leading the dance; particularly at this stage of their relationship.

  “Seven it is.” His image dissolved.

  Rebeka turned to Toussaint. “Please remove that awful tobacco stench.”

  “Yes, Madam.” Toussaint waved his palms until the image of Xia’s cigar smoke disappeared.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Date: 2250

  Planet Truatta

  GTS Warehouse

  More ice fell. The chunks plummeted with greater force and were thicker now; daggers instead of scalpels. A portion of the warehouse wall that had fallen on J-1’s right leg was the only thing blocking him in. Several feet away, Norma yelled, “Everyone undercover!” She removed the vine-woven body shield from her pouch. As she unfolded it, the armor expanded to its full size. Norma raised it like an umbrella. The others squeezed tightly beneath it as the ice spears arrowed down around them. Hob screamed. His arm was sticking partially out and an ice spear had lacerated it.

  Trapped in the open, J-1 was jabbed in the forehead. Another rumble. A WarBot’s blazooka blast beamed through the falling ice and ignited a large hunk of metal not twenty feet from them. “Mother Earther!” Norma yelled. “Let’s get out of here!” Before leaving she said to J-1, “Sorry, automaton.”

  The group scrambled down the dirt road and disappeared into the woods as another round of ice ripped down from the sky.

  With his good right hand, J-1 tugged on his leg. It wouldn’t budge. The icicles had slowed, but were now log size. Each one fell with a thump that resembled the sound of the approaching WarBots. One ice block rammed his torso. The impact produced a blunt shock that hurt his abdomen and sent hotness through his wiring. He wiggled his torso back and forth to avoid being hit again. It was an impossible task. They were coming down too quickly and in too great a number. He grunted and tugged at his leg again. It still wouldn’t budge.

  A louder sound from above. This one was deep and sharp. It was more like a fissure, as if the sky were being ripped apart. Not wanting to see what was coming next, he covered his face with his good hand and waited for the worse. And then nothing. No cold blast, no whipping noise of plummeting ice. Only silence.

  He lowered his hand. The ice logs had stopped. The purple sky had brightened to lilac. The ice storm has passed! J-1 inhaled deeply. Now that there was no immediate danger, he could think more clearly. Instead of trying to force his leg out, he scooped the rubble beneath it away. Moments later he cleared enough to wiggle his ankle. Progress!

  A deafening thunderclap roared above him. Oh, no, he thought. It can’t be. As quickly as the sky cleared, it darkened again. The ice daggers rained down anew. At the same time the thump, thump of approaching WarBots grew louder. J-1 heard the hum of a blazooka beam. The ground exploded near him.

  Another portion of the warehouse wall tumbled against the side of his trapped leg and wedged his foot in deeper. His leg made a sizzling noise. He moaned in agony. Ice boulders pummeled his stomach. His insides felt as if they were going to spew. A sour sensation hopscotched into his throat. He looked around for something within his grasp to dig himself out with. Other than Coco partly buried in a dirt mound far beyond his reach, everything was in shards. An ice spear grazed his left eye. His vision flashed with pink sparks. He yelled in despair at the damaged lifter, “Coco, I need help!”

  Like before, there was nothing. Another rock swiped his chest. His polyflesh rippled. Something beyond a burning sensation filled him. He screamed.

  “Please, Coco.” The despair in his voice was replaced with pleading. The pummeling ice barrels and the growing thump, thump, thump of the advancing WarBots overwhelmed his senses. Silently he pleaded one last time for Coco to activate even though he knew it would be useless because he could no longer transmit internal commands. Then it struck him. I had reset the lifters’ link-com system to verbal command, but never had the chance to finalize it because of the warehouse explosion! A blazooka beam came at J-1. It singed his hair. From the intensity of the beam, J-1 calculated the WarBot whose forehead it was fired from had to be less than a hundred feet away. “Coco, reset yourself to verbal response!”

  There was a short pause. “Reset. Awaiting instructions,” came from a tiny speaker imbedded near the top of Coco’s handle.

  “Dig me out. Hurry!”

  Coco forced herself from the dirt mound. Despite her warehouse injury the lanky lifter managed to avoid nearly all of the ice barrels. She shoved her tray under the debris trapping J-1’s leg and forced it up enough for him to slide his foot out. He stood, but his injured leg was wobbly.

  J-1 hopped on Coco’s lifter tray, and yelled, “Go!”

  Coco didn’t move. “Specificity?”

  A trio of beams drilled past J-1. One grazed his shoulder, the other two blew up a dirt mound next to them. Thunder roared. The ice hammered down. “Follow the road into the forest!”

  Coco bobbled down the dirt road. J-1 clung to her broomstick-like torso as if he were welded to it.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Date: 2030

  Everglades, Florida

  Swampland

  Dawn was breaking in orange streaks. The burring sound of helicopters was drawing nearer. Acevedo looked up. He couldn’t see them or any drones yet, but it was only a matter of time. Worse, there was no sign of J-1. Niyati had explained that while he had been asleep she had sent J-1 to find food.

  Acevedo didn’t say anything to her at the time, but he knew it was a dumb decision to send the robot out. If he were to do something foolish and be caught, it was over. Without J-1 there was no good reason for Ameri-Inc. to keep either of them alive.

  He studied Niyati. She sat slumped against a cypress tree, sleeping. That is, if you could call it sleep. In the last two hours since she had finally conked out, Niyati muttered things in what Acevedo thought was Hindi. He couldn’t decipher them. Other things in English he could make out, like pia mater, mortar caps and cerebral edema. He could understand the words, but he couldn’t make sense of them. He could tell they were agonizing to her, though, because she said them with anguish. Once, she opened her eyes wide and looked as if she was about to scream.

  Acevedo stood and worked his way through the marsh. It was about ten feet to the water’s edge. The wide expanse was a surprisingly pretty blue, not the nutmeg color he usually associated with Everglades’ water. Portions of it were covered in green lily pad clumps and others in clusters of tall, brown, razor-sharp sawgrass. The bass boat that J-1 had used to carry them here lay face down, half in the muck and half in the water. It had a hole the size of a bowling ball in the bottom and a long tear along the back and side of the hull. It was obvious that it would no longer float. Acevedo shoved it in the water and watched it sink. He unzipped his pants to take a pee and jumped back. A moccasin the size of his leg rippled past him through the water.

  “Have you heard the joke about the hunter who got bit by a snake?”

  Embarrassed, Acevedo quickly zipped up. He turned and faced Niyati just as she stepped out of the woods.

  She continued, “The hunter gets bit in the—” she motioned toward his crotch “—and says to his friend, ‘Quick, call the doctor!’ His friend gets on the cell and the doctor tells him, ‘You have to suck the blood o
ut, or he’s going to die.’ ”

  Acevedo had heard the joke before, but he liked seeing her cheerful, so he remained silent.

  “The man hangs up from the doctor. The hunter who was bitten asks, ‘What did the doctor say?’ The man’s friend replies, ‘The doctor said you’re going to die.’ ” She laughed.

  In that moment Acevedo saw the woman Niyati was before there were any burdens. The sparkle on her face; the red in her full, wonderful lips; the clear, optimistic eyes. Even more so, he saw—felt—the idealistic man he himself was thirty-five years ago. Acevedo laughed. “I read you loud and clear. I’ll be more careful.”

  She nodded. “I’ll be back in the woods. Carry on.”

  When she left, her smile lingered in his mind.

  ~~~

  “You wouldn’t by chance have a beer in your smock?” Acevedo asked as he stood up from an uncomfortable jumble of mangrove roots he had been lying on.

  “Sorry. All I’ve got is repellant, cigarettes and my lighter.” Niyati was standing beside the tree that she had earlier fallen asleep against.

  Speckled sunlight pierced the tree leaves. The sun was nearly overhead. It was hot and humid. Around noon, Acevedo thought. “Is there any way for Ameri-Inc. to track the ro—” he stopped himself. “J-1’s whereabouts?”

  “If corporate got hold of J-1’s data drive and uploaded the contents, then, yes.” Niyati removed a cigarette pack from her pocket. “I should really quit these things, they’re—”

  Acevedo held up his hand for her to stop speaking. He tilted his head, listening.

  She furrowed her eyebrows.

  “Do you hear anything?”

  She listened a moment. “No.”

  “Exactly. The copters and drones. They’re gone.”

  “Maybe they stopped looking?” Niyati asked.

  “That’ll never happen as long as we have J-1.”

  “Oh, shit,” Niyati said. “Do you think they found the box with his data drive and used it to capture him?”