CHAPTER 2
For the second time in twenty-four hours, Pat’s parents’ car became the stolen property of a person on a mission to prevent at least one life from being lost. Uriah decided to move her body to the passenger’s seat, not anticipating any odorous decay to occur for at least a day. It gave him an excuse to talk to himself, and he wasn’t yet ready to cremate her, even if he knew how.
The Homunculi followed his order to move out of the way any problematic cars left on the road after the event he came to dub the “Housekeeping.” To make the long drive somewhat fun, Uriah tried to infer what each dead person he passed had been doing in their last few minutes. Perhaps that old man over there was heading home to make some progress on his memoirs, or that young lady was on her way to her job on the graveyard shift. Maybe that shabby-looking bloke was just finishing a drunken night on the town, on his way to almost drive over and kill that teenage pedestrian.
How many of them had been thinking about death?
About eighty minutes after his departure, Uriah drove into a minuscule town thirty miles south of Las Vegas. Attached to a post of perpendicular logs was a quaint sign depicting the town’s name, “Goodsprings,” surrounded by piles of mined material.
Passing by the lone general store, a couple of derelict ranches overgrown with desert life, and a post office that looked more like a tourist attraction, he thought, Ghost town, but couldn’t that describe every place now? Where humans had abandoned this place until recently, their android servants were carrying out orders just as the school’s workers had done, indifferently unaware of recent events.
Uriah saw in the street one human overseer of what another vehicle in the way revealed to be Project Autopia. The same unknown affliction had seized her life, leaving her to be trampled upon by the Autopia bots. Some of these brought construction materials to the Pioneer Saloon, others paved the streets. Uriah drove around this project in the prickly grass and dusty peripheral regions, as the robots didn’t seem to mind.
Getting back onto an undisturbed narrow road, Uriah thought, If only I could talk to these ‘droids, they could help me get that password outta Jane. Maybe …
He looked at his own robots, still pushing away obstacles. “Do not regard these androids as hazardous obstructions, Homunculus,” he said to one, pointing at an Autopia bot. “Universal. Confirm?”
“Confirmed, sir. We will not treat the indicated entities with hostility.”
“Great. Keep working, guys.” Not a formal or even recognizable command, but Uriah was almost beginning to miss small talk. When the one he was talking to didn’t judge, at any rate. With that, he entered the saloon.
He wouldn’t have known it from the outside, for evidently robots were not shallow, but something very un-saloon-like was taking shape in this place. Tables for gathering remained, received much-needed renovations, even, and the burdens of the machines seemed to prophesy great advances in the facility’s entertainment media.
Yet some of the first features to go were the restrooms, liquor, gambling materials, and air conditioning devices, which had been foreign to the original saloon anyway. The gift, food, and souvenir shops were cleared out, but most of the memorabilia and idiosyncrasies of the bar stayed.
By far the most striking change in the Pioneer Saloon was the prominent power hub integrated into its walls. Wires, reaching the optimal balance of thinness and resistance to severing, bound the milling robots to their lifeline. It was more than a set of outlets, though. Five or so androids lugged seven-foot-tall cylindrical chambers inside, perfectly centered. The humanoids hooked up each chamber to the hub wirelessly with a few button presses. Every capsule read “Mindscape” across the bottom in wide, blocky letters.
Uncomfortable with the prospect of asking one of the robots about this, Uriah approached one busy android, saying, “Terminate action.”
The automaton didn’t alter its behavior, which was understandable, considering any old schmo could bring this project to a halt with two words. Perhaps the supervisor had a manual for bending worker bots to one’s will.
Uriah left the building and returned to the incapacitated human manager. Respectable lady, wore a suit with a logo – an A with a robot, arms stretched up to meet at the tips, forming a sort of shadow behind it – on one breast and a pocket on the other. He seized a practical-shaped PDA from the pocket, this one thankfully sans password, and there was an EM gun for the taking in her pants pocket as well. The first note in the log he checked read:
Friday, April 7, 2062 – Memo for Cassandra Eigel
First day of Project Autopia: Current focus to build up narrow framework of town, time for broadening later. Police bots should keep the area idiot-proof; you worry about what the construction ‘droids are doing, leave security to security. REMEMBER, recharge any straggling bots working far from hub.
Either Uriah was not, in fact, an idiot, and the security android had seen no harm in his intrusion – or he was, and if he didn’t get out of there in thirty seconds, Earth would become the Planet of the Apes, or worse. He was hardly interested enough in what “worse” was to not dart over to the stolen car and get outta this minefield for the love of almighty Jesus H. Christ.
Moments after he was out of anything one could call a town, no sirens or gunshots greeted his ears. By this time, all the Homunculi were ahead of him, and their footfalls were the only ones he heard. Uriah checked the rear view mirror. What the –?
His heart skipped a beat when the explosion came. A flash of light, a brief wave of heat, a gigantic wall of sound – enough to force Uriah to kick the speed up by twenty more miles per hour. He would catch up with the Homunculi in no time.
His mind reached another terrifying dichotomy. Either Cassandra Eigel was too stupid to charge the police bot before the Housekeeping, and thus God knew how many other hazards could be in his way, or someone else had survived last night and had a thing for blowing ghost towns up.
Don’t know, don’t care, ran his philosophy for the next few dozens of seconds. He got over a small hill on the way and found twenty-four Homunculi, who were slowing down according to their programming, for normally Uriah was supposed to be ahead of them except when they had traffic-clearing duty. Three were definitely behind him, as everything past the herd up to the horizon was devoid of robots. He turned his head.
Nothing humanoid between him and the ruins of Sodom. He was silent, then heaved a bitter sigh. Even if he found a truck, this would be a long shot. It could be worse. They could have been babies instead of animals, and then he’d have to do a hell of a lot more than just feed them.
But then, the Peter Pessimist in him rejoined, if our pyromaniac has any children, they’re probably better off without him, yet still worse without you.
Ignoring both these voices, Uriah led his convoy onward with the greatest respect for Tyler Temerity: Forget about the kids, you’ve got a damned bomber on your hands. Also, you’re bleeding.
Unnatural Page 5