Artificial

by Jadah McCoy

  “The weapons?”

  I nod.

  “The memory drive?”

  I nod again.

  “You’re going to get close enough to the master computer to wipe it?” His expression is tight and wary.

  “I plan to.” Maybe there’s a way this can end well after all.

  I pull Micro’s memory chip from my pocket while I wait for Michelo to gather the things I’ve asked for. I flip it between my second and third finger, back and forth, back and forth, as I lean against the wall at my back. It’s blackened and bent. I’ll be lucky if it works at all. A percentage of me hopes it won’t work, that I can let it pass from my own memories and allow the guilt to recede. But I probably deserve this.

  I deserve to live her memories—live her death—for what I’ve done to her. Lexion’s words eat at me: What were you thinking, sending the poor thing in here to follow your whims?

  What was I thinking? I was thinking of Syl—of helping her, fixing her, saving her—so much so that I didn’t think of the others I put directly in the path of danger.

  I reach behind my head and press the tiny disk into the information port at the base of my neck. With a click, it snaps into place.

  The memories flip through my mind like pages of an old, weather-worn book. They’re staticky and warped, some of the voices distorted.

  She’s on her way to get the information I asked her for. Her heels click in a steady rhythm through the sterile halls. She plays with the keycard on a lanyard around her neck. She picks it up, drops it, picks it up again—a nervous habit. She smooths back wisps of hair into the crease of her ponytail. Fiddles with the edge of her perfectly sculpted nails. Studies her makeup in the almost mirrorlike glass corridor.

  Even now, in the midst of a memory recall, there’s still a sharp pang in my chest.

  The door to the information annexes clicks shut behind her. The back of the building hides the information banks, now splayed in front of her in a grid pattern of tall black machines, blue lights glimmering in intervals down their lengths.

  She’ll connect to them. She’s one of the few who know how to sift through the massive amounts of data stored away in the machines. It’s difficult, not to mention dangerous. But she’ll do it because I’ve asked her.

  With nervous fingers, she pulls a cord from her pocket, plugging one end into the tall device and the other end into her port. It takes her to another world, a world of data and computer speak. It’s easy to get lost there, and she does for a while—lost in holograms of green fields and snow flurries that catch in her fire hair—but she comes back eventually.

  Back to the dark parts hidden away in the information banks. The parts she dreads to go.

  She starts with the war, working her way forward in time. She collects the blood on her hands, sifts through the shrapnel, and dives deep into the beginnings of CorpEx.

  There was once a scientist, a man, an Organic man who led many other men. He desired to be like us. And there was a way to make him like us, but he had to die first. Into his dead flesh wires were woven, cogs were set, metal was welded. He was revived like us, with electricity, cold and calculating and more efficient than ever.

  Project Surgeon General.

  The computer pushes against her control, all of the information on the outside fighting to make its way inside like osmosis. She pushes back, but the data streams in. Black eyes staring down at the body. Gushing blood and gray skin laid flat on a table, newly implanted metal spine protruding. Shivering, dripping, pain, screams. The strength that comes at first, then the weakness of a degenerating Organic body. He needs another, someone to pass his knowledge to—but not just anyone.

  Flashes of dark hair. A name. Project L—

  With a shiver and a gasp, the system releases her: a failsafe protocol. She awakens again in the cold room, only the hum of the machines breaking the silence. It seems much too still in this room after that, and all the data still buzzes beneath her skin.

  However, this time she isn’t alone.

  She senses him before she even turns. It’s never hard to sense the weight of his dark gaze on you. Slowly Micro revolves, pressing herself against the machine, trying to make herself as small as possible. It doesn’t work.

  “Are you lost, little lamb?” Lexion asks.

  “I suppose I may have taken a wrong turn somewhere.” She edges toward the door, but he steps to the side, following her movements.

  I want to urge her to run, to get away from him, to flee. To do anything but stay there with him.

  “I suppose you’re probably right,” he says, his words lacking their usual hint of false sweetness.

  “My mistake. I should just get back to work now. Break is over.” Her chest fills with the weight of panic.

  Lexion’s smile doesn’t falter, and he steps toward her. She yells and then there’s the black bag, then nothing.

  She reboots in the same room I was taken to, wrists shackled in place. I recognize the glowing tubes on the wall, filled with what used to be humans.

  This is where the chip begins to truly become warped. One moment no one’s in the room with her, the next I’m staring at the crook of her elbow. The skin there is torn open. Hands grasp the widget and pull it from her flesh. Wires, stained black and slick, strain against the force of the hands pulling. Finally, they fall slack and trail the ground as they’re ripped from Micro’s cortex and arm. The sound of her screams warps in my ears.

  I grit my teeth in pain, my hands fisted, but it’s not possible to look away from her memory. I’ll have to endure it as she endured it.

  The memories begin to speed up, the voices within becoming higher and higher pitched until they’re indecipherable. In my mind’s eye, they begin to bubble and disappear in patches. A burning sensation starts at the back of my neck.

  The chip ejects and bounces against the wall behind me. From the ground, it trails tiny plumes of opaque smoke. I pick up the chip, even more blackened than before, and stare at the offending object.

  “Bastion?” calls Michelo’s soft voice. “It’s finished.”

  Nervousness pools inside of me.

  “All right,” I answer after a long moment.

  Syl

  he coughing wakes me. It’s a tickle in my chest at first, which rouses me from what must be the deepest sleep I’ve ever had in my life. The tickle becomes incessant until it’s a weight pressing my torso into the floor. I turn onto my side, hoping to alleviate the irritation, but it doesn’t help. I just want to go back to that place of nothingness—my body is exhausted. I’m even too tired to address the hunger that gnaws at me.

  My nose runs even though it’s not quite cold down here. I sniff, and when that doesn’t help, I wipe it on my sleeve. The material comes back wet and stained.

  I push the blanket away and sit up, my heart beating faster and faster, reality slamming into me as I shatter like glass and into a million nervous pieces. As I sit there on my hands and knees, the liquid drips in a steady succession from my face. It falls to the floor, black in the dim light. When I glance behind me, there’s a small puddle where my head rested as I slept.

  In a panic, I reach up and touch my face. Flakes fall away—dried blood. I’d know that anywhere. I’ve been covered in it too many times before not to know. The blood pours from my nose in a steady stream now. The tangy copper of it puckers my mouth.

  I plug my nose with my fingers, covering my hands in the flow, and tip my head backward.

  Suddenly I realize I’m alone. The candle flame still flickers against the walls, no movement in the room to create shadows other than mine.

  “Bastion?” My voice is nasally. Maybe he’s in the next room. Then louder, “Bastion!”

  I get up and stumble across the room in the darkness, trailing damp and sticky hands along the walls as I try to find my way. I glance out into the next room but see nothing. As if I could really see in here. I can’t even find the light switch.

  I scratch at my already d
irty scalp, smoothing back the clumpy mess of hair. My finger catches in the shell of mud and filth that I haven’t yet washed away, and the hair collects in a heap in my palm. I stare down at it in the darkness, my hands stained with blood and matted with blue hair. My limbs begin to tremble, my brain inducing a fog of panic over me. I sink down against the wall, not caring that I bring down half of Michelo’s collection with me in a resounding crash.

  I press my head against the wall behind me as blackness, darker than what’s around me now, creeps into my vision. Breathe, I tell myself. Just breathe.

  Can I get out of here? Maybe I can make it up the stairs through this dark maze and despite my light-headedness, but what if the PICs are up there with Michelo? That would be just my luck. And I have no idea where Bastion is or if and when he’ll be back.

  What’s my other option? Sit here and bleed to death? Yeah, that’s a much better plan, Syl. Great idea.

  Exhausted, I rise on shaky legs and navigate the heaping rows of human history with one hand out in front of me and the other staunching the flow of blood from my nose. I can see in the darkness now that my eyes have adjusted, but just barely. The mountains of relics, old toys, and electronics and things I don’t even know the name of, loom in heaps around me. I step around them, stopping to nudge items out of the way so I don’t trip. I stumble a bit against one, and a few items avalanche to the floor.

  I move out of the way to avoid being buried in musty old things, and press myself against the other side of the wall. My hand trails against the chilly surface for direction and leverage as I make my way to the stairs.

  I turn the corner, and they loom in front of me. Just looking at them drains all my energy. I climb them on hands and knees, dragging my body to the landing, my breath coming out in short puffs. This shouldn’t make me breathless. My lungs are tight knots resting beneath my ribs.

  There’s a red button on the wall a few feet above me. I stretch toward it, but my arms are too short, and I can’t reach.

  My vision doubles, triples. My eyelids are so heavy. But I have to find Bastion, Michelo, anyone. My arm slips down the wall, and I curl into myself. My body is so cold.

  Maybe I’ll rest. Just for a minute.

  “Syl.”

  My name wakes me.

  Sanders. He wants me to get up. Why can’t I sleep in just this once? What’s the point of going scouting if you get up before the bugs even go to sleep? That just defeats the purpose.

  My eyelids weigh a million pounds. I can barely open them, but I do. A light shines in my eyes, and I cringe away from it. My brain immediately pounds against my skull, like it’s outgrowing the bones and might pour out of my ears in a mushy mess.

  “Syl! Wake up.”

  I’d curse him if I could, but only a muffled protest leaves my mouth.

  “What?” I mutter, trying again. I mean to sound annoyed, but it sounds weak even to my own ears.

  “Syl, you have to wake up.” That’s not Sanders’s voice.

  I pry my eyes open, taking in the world around me—white walls, glowing red light, things heaped everywhere. Not the world I know so well, the damp concrete jungle of sewers, but a new one, a different one—one just as dangerous. My brain struggles to reconcile the information.

  A figure stands over me, legs on either side of my body, blocked by a light shining into my eyes. There’s a whirlwind of shattered glass in my head. Two voices talk above me.

  “You didn’t think to check on her?”

  “For what? She’s a full-grown human. She doesn’t need anyone to check on her.”

  The first voice is agitated. “Obviously that isn’t true.”

  Hands grasp my body and pick me up, my weight distributed between two strong arms.

  Oh, that’s right. Sanders is gone. He died years ago. My stomach sinks every time I realize this. The memories flow into me, the steady march of consciousness returning. The pictures on the wall, Bastion and the piano, all the blood, the restraints around my wrists and the scalpel cutting me open, lifetimes ago. I only wish it had all been a nightmare.

  “Bastion.”

  “Syl.” His tone is relieved. “How do you feel? What happened?”

  He sets me down on the metal table I know to be in the back room of the upstairs area. I shiver when the cold metal touches my skin.

  “Dizzy. Tired. Cold,” I mumble, words slurred. I lick my dry lips, the taste of copper on my tongue. I can’t bring myself to open my eyes yet.

  “Blood loss,” Michelo says. Hands touch my face, pry open my mouth, my nostrils, my ears. “Looks like the bleeding’s stopped now.”

  “Is there anything that can be done for her?” Bastion whispers. It’s quiet, but I can still hear. “Is she going to be all right?”

  “I don’t exactly have any extra blood on hand, and good luck getting any, too,” he says. “She’ll just have to sleep it off.”

  My eyes split open as easily as a skull might split in half. “I’m not going to sleep this off,” I croak.

  With great difficulty, I lift my upper body from the table and lean on one elbow. I look at the both of them. Worry lines dent Michelo’s forehead. Bastion stares back at me, wide-eyed, wild-haired, clothing disheveled.

  “This is it. I’m fucking dying.” I lie back again and sigh. “I thought I’d have more time. I think that’s something people always say before they die.”

  As if any android would know what it’s like to watch someone die, see the lifeblood pour out of them as you hold them, as they struggle to get oxygen into their lungs, push out just a few more words that might mean something to someone.

  “You wouldn’t know anyway,” I mutter.

  I close my eyes again, and a long silence fills the room. When I open them, Michelo is no longer in the room with us.

  “Syl,” Bastion says, hesitation in his voice. “There is a way. Micro found something in the CorpEx building, something that might cure you.”

  “What is it?” I ask after a pause.

  His voice is tight and strained when he answers. “She found where they keep the… er… experiments and all the records on them. There’s a cure that can be synthesized there, but…”

  He stops.

  “What?” I ask.

  “You must take it within moments of the synthesis for it to be effective. We’ll have to break into the CorpEx building.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Just thinking about that exhausts me. “We barely got out last time, and now we have to break back in?”

  “She gave me a copy of her keycard. If we can just avoid the PICs, we should be fine. She’ll meet us there if that’s what you want.”

  I stare up at the ceiling for a long moment.

  “I don’t think I have a choice,” I tell him. “If you think this will work, then I trust you.”

  “I know,” he whispers.

  “Then let’s go.”

  I push myself up on shaky arms and swing my legs off the table. Bastion rushes to my side and intercepts my legs, grabbing my calves and moving them back onto the table.

  “Whoa, there. Fancy a nap, bath, and some food?”

  “I guess I do literally smell like shit.” I sniff myself, but my nose has become accustomed to the terrible smell.

  “Let me help you.” Bastion steps closer to me, hands hovering over my body.

  I bat them away as I sit up and put my feet on the floor. “I’m fine now.” I stand, a bit wobbly.

  “You’re not fine. Now sod your pride for a moment and let me bloody help you.” I’m surprised to see actual anger on his face, his body vibrating with it.

  “Fine.” I hold out my arms to him.

  “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

  He takes my arms, wrapping one around his broad back and one of his around my shoulder, tucking me into his side. My face presses into his ribs—or where his ribs would be if he had ribs, I guess. He supports most of my weight as we shuffle downstairs together.

  I’m thankful for the hel
p, though I’d never admit it. I depend on him for so much. I’d like to at least be able to walk on my own.

  “Do you want me to wait here?” he asks as we pass through the small bedroom area and approach the threshold of the bathroom.

  “Okay, I guess. I’ll be out in a minute.”

  I stumble into the room of cold tile, closing the door behind me with an audible click. I wrap my arms around myself, rubbing them against the skin in the hope that the friction will create some heat.

  I press a button on the wall and the hiss of running water, something I could much too easily get used to, fills the room. Steam follows the sound, heating the air around me. I pull at my clothes, taking off one piece at a time until I’m completely nude. There’s a mirror beside me, but I turn away from it. I know what it will reflect: too-pale skin covered in a rainbow of bruises and caked-on shit, a body that’s too thin, patches of blue hair missing, and probably a sour look on my face.

  Instead, I push past the opaque curtain and step under the running water. I let the heat wash over me, soaking it up as it relaxes my aching muscles. Then I grab the thin sliver of dirtied soap sitting in the bottom of the stall, pick a hair off it, and scrub at the filth on my skin.

  Rivers of brown and red suds flow over the landscape of my body, pooling at the drain and covering my blistered feet. I run the soap through my hair, careful not to be too rough with the lathering and rinsing. Short strands of blue still stick to my hands in a tangle, twining around my fingers as I scrub.

  I sigh, the burn of tears starting behind my eyes. I refuse to let them fall, though. And really, I’m too tired to cry. Bastion said there’s a cure. We just have to get to the CorpEx tower. That’s it. As simple as that, and I can be cured and go on with my life. Thank the three androids profusely, go back to Elite, find Serge…

  And then what? Fight off the bugs for the rest of my life? I try to push away the futility that floods through me.

  The water shuts off. It must be on a timer. I rest my forehead against the cool tile for a moment and then step away from the opaque curtain. There’s a wadded-up towel in the corner, which I grab and use to dry myself off. I’m almost lighter, like I’ve scrubbed away ten layers of dirty skin cells.