“Don’t be ridiculous, Hob, that would make her as old as Phineas,” Orson quipped form his guard post.
The others, including Teague, laughed.
“Earth you!” Phineas replied.
They laughed even harder.
“Keep it down,” Norma said as Phineas passed the bottle around again.
J-1 smiled. He liked this good-natured talk of people and things. It made him feel warm. Not campfire warm, but something deeper that he longed to be part of. He snuck a peek at Teague, whose eyes were on the thick forest surrounding them. J-1 quietly hopped on his good leg toward the campfire. As he approached, Matilda poked her elbow at Prudence, who was next to her, and nodded in J-1’s direction. The others followed Matilda’s line of vision. They grew quiet.
J-1 approached Norma.
“Can I help you?” she asked.
“I’d like to sit with everyone.”
“Why on Earth for?”
“Sorry about that, Norma,” Teague said from his post. “Robot, get back here.”
Norma held up her hand. “Go on, automaton.”
J-1 glanced at Coco, who was lying motionless in the dark. The lifter seemed distant, isolated. J-1 felt the same way. He looked at Norma and said, “I…I don’t want to be alone.”
“Maybe you can hook him up with Hortense,” Orson shouted. The group laughed harder than they had all evening.
J-1 was confused. The merriment, which he had thought was supposed to make him happy, made him feel worse than he had felt looking at Coco.
“Quiet down!” Norma said.
The squadron hushed, though the smiles remained on their faces.
“Get back to where you belong,” Norma said to J-1. “I don’t want to see you again until morning. Got it?”
J-1 nodded. He hopped back to Coco.
“Rough go, eh friend?” Teague quietly said to him after things had again settled down.
“How did I offend them?”
“By existing.” Teague kept his eyes on the surroundings. “Don’t take it personally.”
“How should I take it?”
“I was going to say like a man, but…well, you know.”
J-1 took a heavy breath and slumped against Coco.
Teague glanced down at him. “You really do feel bad, don’t you?”
“If you mean I’ve developed an emptiness inside of me that seems unfillable, then yes, I feel very bad.”
Teague grunted. “I’ve never heard it put like that before.”
“Do you feel bad for Norma?”
Teague winced. “Why would you ask something like that?”
“You keep your eyes on her whenever she’s not looking and she watches you when she thinks no one is looking.”
“You little gateworm,” Teague said. “Have you been spying on us?”
“Did I do something wrong?”
It was Teague’s turn to take a deep breath. “I suppose not. Just don’t say anything to anyone.”
“Why?”
“Because she’s, well…it’s complicated, okay?”
“Yes, but…?”
Teague shook his head. “Go to sleep or shut down or whatever robots do.”
J-1 lay on his back and stared at the silhouette of Mount Kwieetus looming over them. He tried to make sense of what was going on inside and around him, but couldn’t. And that, to use human terminology, scared the bejeezus out of him.
~~~
By the time night had slipped into the somber cloth of morning the campfire had become embers, Norma had fallen asleep by it, the others had taken to their tents and J-1 had found something he liked watching better than Mount Kwieetus: Phineas. Phineas had relieved Teague some time ago. On the opposite side, Matilda had replaced Orson.
What attracted J-1’s attention to Phineas was that every so often the man’s eyes would droop and his head would flop down as if it had become unhinged from his neck. This would produce a reverse action where Phineas would snap his face up, widen his eyelids and snort.
Though the spectacle lightened his mood a little from the other night, J-1 was haunted by more troubling thoughts. Foremost was, that his purpose for existence was to anatomize and supply answers or solutions. That he could no longer do it properly questioned his own reason for being. If Norma found out he could no longer provide his dedicated function would she dismantle him? Absorbed in these dreadful thoughts, J-1 barely noticed the ground quiver beneath him.
Phineas jerked his head up, snorted, and said, “What the landerbyss?”
The land groaned.
“Incoming! Incoming!” Phineas screamed. He turned the knob on his electro-rod.
Norma leapt to her feet and whisked a tiny periscope from her belt pack. The others scrambled from their tents, armed with their weapons. The rumble increased. Coco tumbled against J-1. Norma pressed a button on the scope. The scope shot up fifteen feet. She put the periscope to her eye, the upper part spun and stopped in a westerly direction. “Mother Earther!” Norma said. “Slavers! At least thirty.” She pressed the button again and the scope shot down.
Slavers? J-1 thought. What are those?
“What are they doing this far out in the wilderness?” Orson asked. “And so many?”
The rumble intensified. Cinders tumbled from the fire pit.
Norma said, “Ring formation. Blackstorm Ops.”
Matilda reached into her backpack and removed a small stack of five-bladed orange objects resembling shurikens.
“Orson, Phineas, cover the left quadrant,” Norma shouted. “Prudence, Hob, to the right. Teague, circle behind the incoming. Matilda and I will stay here and cover the front.”
Matilda handed the squad members a portion of the star-shaped objects. “Use the stormthrowers wisely,” she said. “Other than the three left for me and Norma, that’s it.”
A surge of lavender laser arrows—needle-sharp monochromatic rays—sliced through the woods toward them. The squad hit the ground. When the arrows died down, Norma sprang up. “Move it!” she said.
Teague sprinted into the brush. Orson and Phineas, and Prudence and Hob split into pairs and disappeared into opposite sides of the forest.
“Matilda, hand me a stormthrower,” Norma said.
Matilda reached into her pouch. The ground beneath the campsite caved.
“Run!” Norma yelled. A crack widened beneath the women. As they jumped from the divide, a scoop-shaped carbo-metallic claw rose from the dirt.
J-1 was astonished. A DiggerBot! This particular mechi-device—what Norma called a Slaver—was built to burrow into collapsed GTS mines. What was it doing here?
The silver DiggerBot rose up from the ground. It stood ten feet high. It resembled Maria, the art deco female robot from the 1927 film Metropolis. J-1 knew that was done on purpose because the robot’s designer, Haruki Shue, was a fan of ancient robot cinema.
Built to burrow, DiggerBots had claws instead of hands, and bulldozer tracks instead of feet. It trundled toward Norma and Matilda.
“Matilda, I need that stormthrower,” Norma said, her voice overly calm to hide her fear.
Matilda froze. Her eyes locked on the DiggerBot’s claw inching toward them.
“Matilda?”
Matilda reached into her backpack. In a flash the claw grabbed her. She screamed. The DiggerBot lifted and squeezed Matilda’s torso until purple ooze spilled from her face and groin. Norma whipped the electric-spear from her belt, turned the knob to maximum and fired at the robot. A white arc crackled from the tip of the rod to the DiggerBot’s metallic torso. The DiggerBot shuddered, but held tight to Matilda. It wheeled toward Norma.
J-1 watched in horror. This is impossible, he thought. All mechi-devices other than WarBots had the same prime directive: to enhance life, not destroy it. Even WarBots can’t kill without evidence of an existential threat to society.
The DiggerBot swiped at Norma’s electro-rod. It flew from her hands. The robot snatched Norma and squeezed. She gasped for air.
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J-1 jumped on Coco’s tray and shouted, “Maxtravel to rear of DiggerBot!” Coco rose from the ground and wobbled behind the robot. J-1 sprang onto the DiggerBot’s back. He wrapped his arms around its neck and scissored his legs around its sides.
“What are you doing?” Norma wheezed.
“I’ve got a plan,” J-1 managed to say before the DiggerBot spun madly, knocking Coco against a tree and lodging her between two limbs.
The DiggerBot whirled faster and thrashed its torso down and up as if it were frantically bowing to a queen. J-1’s legs slipped from the mechi-device. His body flailed in the air. He clung to the robot’s neck with everything he had. Swifter and swifter the DiggerBot repeated the motion. Sparks flared inside J-1’s head. The bottom of J-1’s jaw slammed against his teeth, his grip around the robot slipped. His thoughts muddied. The world faded.
“Automaton,” Norma gasped, “if you’ve got a plan, now’s the time to carry it out.”
The plan… J-1 pushed the thought forward from a murky distance inside his head. Summoning all his strength he again wrapped his legs around the DiggerBot’s sides. J-1 tightened his arms around the robot’s neck and pulled his own head closer to its nape. He clamped his teeth to the DiggerBot’s right earlobe and tugged the ear upward. An opening appeared. J-1 stuck his tongue in it, felt for a switch, found it and slid it forward. The raging machine went limp. It emitted a hum that lowered in pitch and faded out. Its claws loosened. Norma tumbled to the ground along with Matilda’s crushed body. Neither one moved.
J-1’s head reeled. He shimmied down the DiggerBot. He turned around to summon Coco and stopped. A hundred feet in front of him trees were falling by the wayside. In their wake a troop of WarBots marched toward him.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Date 2050
Everglades, Florida
Suwanee Gopher residence
The glossy vermilion F-150 stretch pick-up glided to a standstill in front of a tired lime-green home. A sign on the house’s front window read “Seamstress.” The house and the dead-end gravel road it resided on were the only things preventing the surroundings looking like nothing more than primordial swamp.
The pick-up’s chauffeur—a young, hefty Seminole woman with long, shiny black hair—stepped from the front cab. She wore a black leather newsboy cap, black leather vest, black button down shirt and blue jeans. She removed a wheelchair from behind her seat and unfolded it. It was midday, June: scorching and humid. The woman wiped her brow, opened the cab’s rear door and kicked down two steps leading from the sideboard. She carried a bony man dressed in a rickrack trimmed Seminole jacket from the truck.
The man clung to the chauffeur’s arms with his shaky hands. His skin was loose, scaly and the color of pale corn. A whisper of snow-white hair at the top of his head was the only growth on his scalp. His ears and nose appeared large compared to his thin face. A nasal cannula was plugged into his nostrils. The air tube was attached to an oxygen generator the size of a book, strapped to his waist. He groaned in pain as the woman placed him in the chair.
The house’s front door opened. Suwanee Gopher, a thin, hunched woman with shoulder long gray hair, brown eyes wrinkled in the corners and dark circles beneath her eyes, stared at the pair. A cigarette dangled between her thumb and fingers. Dressed in leather sandals, a pink housecoat with the bottom of a patchwork skirt peeking beneath it, Suwanee placed on her nose a pair of bifocals hanging from a lanyard around her neck. She lifted her chin to adjust her vision, and shouted in a raspy voice, “Náken mēcetv cēme”
The man’s eyebrows rose at the words spoken in Muscogee. “All we want is a few words with you,” he answered back in English. The effort caused him to moan. The chauffeur quickly turned up the portable oxygen unit and wheeled the man up the narrow walkway to the woman. Suwanee took a drag of her cigarette and coughed a single time.
The man glanced at his chauffeur. She said, “Ma’am, I’m sorry, but I’ll have to ask you to put that out.”
“It makes me nauseous,” the man added.
Suwanee studied the pair. She said to the man, her voice maintaining its cigarette-induced frogginess, “A’yetv hopíye.”
“No, I won’t go away,” the man replied. He added, “Cēme ker’retv vn’en?”
Of course I know who you are. You’re Tribal Chief Daniel Panther.”
Panther nodded. “May we come in?”
The skinny woman took a final drag of her cigarette and flicked it in the yard. “What do you want?”
Your help.”
My help?” She studied the man’s eyes. They were tinted the same sickly shade of yellow as his skin. “What can a seamstress do for you?”
Panther smiled. His chapped lips resembled a grub worm baking on a sun-drenched flagstone. “Ms. Gopher, I’d like to enter and talk. I’m afraid the heat isn’t wearing well on me.”
Unless you need a shirt to mend, I can’t be of service to you.”
Panther shot the chauffeur another look. She stepped up to Suwanee, removed a switchblade from her vest, flicked it open and held it to Suwanee’s chin. “Maybe you didn’t hear the chief. The heat isn’t wearing well on him.”
Now, now, Lulu,” Panther said. “I’m sure that won’t be necessary, will it Ms. Gopher?”
Lulu kept the blade nipped to Suwanee’s chin.
Suwanee coughed and waved the pair inside.
~~~
Suwanee Gopher’s living room was a tight area with margarine colored walls. It reeked of cigarette smoke, and was dominated by a sewing machine, a mannequin in a prom dress, plastic baskets of clothes, a TV, several ashtrays and three laptop computers resting on separate TV trays. The screens all faced a small sofa. The temperature was crisp; thanks to the air conditioner.
Suwanee turned her chair around and sat across from Dan Panther. Lulu removed a touchpad from the rear pouch of Panther’s wheelchair and handed it to him. He pressed the screen a few times and handed it to Suwanee. It displayed a virtual folder marked “Panther, Daniel Ingram, Pathology Report.”
What am I supposed to do with this?” Suwanee asked.
No more games,” Panther said. “I haven’t the time. Lulu, please wait outside.”
Lulu started to say something, shrugged, and left the house.
Panther leaned forward, propped his elbows on the wheelchair’s arms and interlaced his fingers. “Did you really think that a secret like yours wouldn’t make it to my ears? The bullshit is over, Doctor Bopari.”
Niyati hadn’t heard her real name uttered aloud since the explosion at Connie Swamp’s nearly two decades ago. Trembling, she reached into her housecoat pocket and slipped out a cigarette.
No smoking!” The force of Panther’s voice caused him to flinch from the pain it produced in his chest and back.
Startled, Niyati dropped the touchpad and her cigarette. “What do you want with me?”
Isn’t it obvious? I want to know what my medical records say to you, Doctor Bopari.”
I prefer Suwanee.”
He smiled. “I prefer Doctor Bopari.”
Who all knows about…my situation?” she asked.
Afterwards,” Panther said. “Right now, the medical records.” He motioned toward the touchpad lying on the floor.
Niyati shot him a dismal look, but picked up the device and opened the report.
A mirror image appeared on the opposite side of the device. She held up the pad so Panther could see it. “I’m probably not telling you anything that you haven’t already been told.” She highlighted the pancreas at the rear of the stomach. It was covered in fingers of navy blue that streamed out to other organs. “According to the pathologist’s data,” Niyati began, “the results of the imaging tests and the biopsy clearly indicate you have exocrine pancreatic cancer. You can see the tumors, represented by the navy blue. Unfortunately, the cancer has metastasized to your abdomen, liver, lungs, the peritoneum and beyond.”
Stage IV,” Panther said. “One percent survival
rate.”
“The report indicates you’ve been through established procedures such as chemoradiation, chemotherapy, and aggressive T cell dynamic treatment.”
Panther nodded.
“Has anyone recommended less traditional treatments such as Telomerase, and BRCA5 gene therapy?”
“The cancer ward of Cypress General was named after me, what do you think?”
Niyati placed a hand on his shoulder. “I’m very sorry.” Her voice was filled with sorrow.
I don’t want your sympathy, Doctor. I want your expertise.”
Niyati studied him like he was off his rocker.
I’m serious,” he said. “I want your advice on how to wrestle this thing.”
Niyati laughed: a phlegm-filled rattle loaded with irony that grew into a hacking cough. Panther’s eyes widened. She pressed her hand to her chest until the spasm died down. In an automatic reaction, she reached inside her housecoat for a cigarette but stopped, remembering she couldn’t because of Panther.
Panther stared at her.
My apologies,” she finally said. “But the idea of me helping you is ludicrous.”
Isn’t your expertise anatomy and physiology?”
Among other things,” she replied, “but I’m not an oncologist.”
No. You’re much more,” Panther answered.
That was a long time ago. In medical advancement I’m a cassette player.”
What about those?” Panther motioned to the computers. “You keep up on the Internet, yes?”
She shrugged. “Yes, but it’s no substitute for the real thing. Not even close.”
Maybe,” Panther said, “but I’ve been through every so-called expert and they’ve all drawn snake eyes. You assembled a human robot. You know about the body and how it works. I want you helping me.”
Niyati shook her head. “There’s nothing I can do.” She handed him back his touchpad. “Frankly, from what I’ve seen it’s a miracle you’re still alive.”
“I know that. It’s the reason I came to you.” Panther reached into his jacket pocket and handed her a vial with several bluish-purple pills in it.
She studied the handwritten label: “Genimetrothiasine 40 mgs. 90 capsules/three times daily. Protocol ASPPAN-14.” She looked at Panther. “An experimental drug?”
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