“What did you expect?” I ask, as though the conglomerate of donors before me developed the program, is solely responsible for its flaws.
“It’s worse.”
Of course, it is. But I hold my words. I’m bright enough to know sarcasm will only spark the Commander to speak down to me, and I can’t handle that at the moment without wanting to rip his handsome Juan façade from his vocal box.
“Singapore has gone dark.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means we need to finish the job here and burn Singapore to the ground as well.” I startle at the familiar voice behind me. The person presses a finger to the side of their helmet, amplifying their voice through an electronic device, unlike the people before who tried to holler through their helmets. “We made a terrible error when we thought we could save mankind from suffering loss in the face of death.”
“Dr. Miller.” I want to run to him as a child would run toward a parent, even a grown child after a traumatic separation seeks parental comfort. But I know more now. For instance, Dr. Miller wanted to let me burn. It was Spaulding who signed my current existence over to Geo. Stupid, arrogant, attention-seeking Spaulding who saved me. “Do you care if I disagree?”
“Not really.” He smiles, like my words and his words combine into joke and punchline, fitting together in comedic harmony.
I’m being taunted. I wanted to know, but now? No. Not like this. Not the butt of his joke, which I realize I always have been. This thing he stroked, only to push the abort button in a spectacular finale, along the ring of the world’s power. If that isn’t a flipping off, I don’t know what is.
His smile shines through the helmet’s clear shield with a genuine kindness.
I would believe he meant his words with generosity in light of my curiosity, but there’s something different framing him now. For me. There’s a sadistic glee in the subtle jovialness. He let Mav tag along on this expedition. Why? To also be eliminated from the donor life equation? The Piersons and their many life centers—taken out. Was Mav in on it?
Miller’s smile fades to a mask of compassion and remorse. Probably directed at my existence more than the fact I’m currently a joke they all share. “He branded you as nothing. That’s what he thinks of you.”
I don’t really have anything to say in response.
“Why fight back, when you’re nothing?” Dr. Miller asks.
He’s more right than he realizes. I’ve been nothing for so long. It’s my origin story. A nothing collected from the subtraction of other insignificant.
The person to Miller’s right taps his elbow. Miller’s shoulders drop a few micrometers. “Help us correct our errors and we’ll grant you immunity. From all this.” He extends a hand over the stone floor. No bot parts or other carnage remain in the area. I guess I’m being offered protection from a stone cathedral. Awesome.
“And if I refuse?” I say.
Juan stiffens at my side before Miller can counter. “Jennie, you can’t. This is serious. Humanity is being wiped out.” Juan pleads such that I think he means it. He’s on their side. What the heck Juan? “Do you have any idea why Singapore would have gone dark? Do you?” He doesn’t give me the opportunity to guess. “Because they have to shut down any electronics, any device that a bot can charge from, boost from, run signal through.”
“They’re starving them?” I say. “It sounds like they’ve got it under control.”
“There’s more to it.” Miller spits the words like it’s so vile he has to elaborate. “They’re being fed a virus, which destroys human brain function. The humans are getting their brains melted.” He taps his helmet. “Their only retaliation is to turn off the lights.”
“Since that’s what the media sees in conjunction with the virus, they’re calling it ‘o’dark-hundred.’”
“How very military sounding,” I say, hoping I’m turning the tables on who is whose end of a joke. No one else seems too impressed with my effort. Juan especially isn’t laughing. “It’s one of those, ‘if you’re not with us…’”
Miller motions for people behind him to lift Gordon’s still unmoving body. “You’re against us.”
It’s not a question or an ultimatum. Miller is stating a fact that he and I know to be true.
“She’s with us,” Juan says, taking my hand in his and following Dr. Miller and the merry band of bot-burners.
Stripping the thin man from his suit bothers me when no one goes looking for him. No one says, ‘hey, where’s thin man?’ I don’t say, ‘e left a man unprotected from the virus,’ which bothers me about myself. At the same time, what happens to Gordon if they have no spare suits?
“Gather everyone together in the cathedral.” Miller’s speaker amplifies between receivers within suits. “We need to strategize before we make a move on the Pierson group.”
“Where’s Mav?” I ask. I haven’t seen him nor Belen for some time.
“We don’t have time for bot sympathizers,” one of Miller’s group answers. “The Pierson group has been supporting donor technology for decades. They’re the problem.”
I attempt to get Juan’s attention. He avoids every effort I make, lookingto the side when shifting his sight from a low vantage to a higher one so as to avoid meeting my eyes in transition. I bob and weave my head trying to tag his attention. Skunked. He’s great at aversion.
“We’re bots,” I speak as low as I can, hoping only Juan hears me. “Whose side are you on?”
“Whichever side guarantees survival,” Juan says.
Miller’s people have no look of training, no military precision or restraint. They run with wild arms in frumpy suits and rasp through their breathers. They don’t wear uniforms uniting them. Street clothes divide them by prosperity and taste beneath their hazard gear. It’s a motley assortment of donor families and zealots who’ve always been against technological advancement.
“The Intercontinents developed tech too fast, desperate to cling to their new power and advance their stronghold on the rest of the world’s dependence upon them.” Miller directs more suited persons into the cathedral and slams the door in order to keep other things out. “Greed is the downfall of power.”
“You’re not motivated by greed,” I say. What is Miller’s driving fire then? Power? If I understand Miller’s objective, I’ll be able to form a plan.
“Eliminate the abominable illusion of power over life and death.” Miller indicates the cathedral we’re now in. Stone. Cold and inanimate. “That’s what the Intercontinent was selling—lies. And people were lapping it up. Handing over fistfuls of yearly salaries in order to live longer than God permitted for their family members.”
“The bots are moving into the jungle,” someone reports.
“Where’s the device?” Miller asks.
Juan maintains a steady demeanor as the humans discuss his creation being used as a weapon against humanity. I’m sure if Miller knew Juan made the signal projector, Juan wouldn’t be a guest in the hall where we now stand free of restraint.
Juan’s hands remain loosely clasped in front of him. I notice a back smudge on his left index finger. The kind of smudge that might be caused by intense heat. He sparked his own abort wire in an attempt to appear like he’s not with the bots. At least, I hope that’s what’s going on. I’ve been burned by the Commander before. It hurt a lot worse than a little black smudge on one finger.
“They’ve taken the device into the jungle,” someone reports.
“We need to adjust the signal that knocked them out for almost a day,” someone else comments. “If we can sustain a successful transmission long enough to round them up…”
“Before they jam it or change frequency on us.” Miller slaps the back support of a pew. “They adjust too quickly, even with our best techs interfering with their signals.” Miller snaps his fingers in a pleasant manner. Even when he’s acting like a religious zealot, he comes across sympathetic. “I need Pierson.”
Someone sidles
upon a tall suited figure and pulls the helmet from his head. Mav gags against a cloth tied across his mouth and secured behind his head. I assume his arms are also restrained at his sides. The arms of the suit hang at either side. I also assume with the Mord-like bots escaping to the jungle with the signal boosting device, the humans are safe to be without head protection. Miller removes his helmet and motions for Mav’s gag to be loosened.
“Geo was right about you,” Mav speaks low and controlled. “I never believed him. Never. I held him responsible for Ace.”
Juan tenses at my side. I have to divide my attention between Mav and Juan. Certain Ace is listening to every word Mav spouts because I remembered something when Juan was kicking the wall. The Commander is attached to Ace. Their codes trace each other and both prevent the other from winning. The only way for one of them to upload is for both of them to upload together. Whether Ace is listening with a forgiving or begrudging ear is something only the brothers might know for certain.
“I hated Ace for giving Geo those codes!” A glistening drop gathers at the corner of Mav’s eye. “Fighting for the Intercontinents and betraying our communications because he said we were terrorists against advancement.”
“Shut up.” Miller’s kind demeanor dulls. He looks tired. “Ace made his choice. You know the consequence.”
“Geo honors my brother with a statue of his sacrifice,”
“Mocks you both, you mean.” Miller nods toward Juan like he’s going to be backed up in his claim.
“He never had a chance in our program, did he?” Mav waits for an answer from Miller, which doesn’t come. “Did he?”
Mav doesn’t know about the ghost player, Commander, designed to thwart Ace’s achievements. Juan shows no sign of reaction.
“I’m not looking for a moral debate with you, Mr. Pierson.” Miller snaps again and someone brings a phone with a keypad showing on screen. “I need the PIN to your bank account in order to arrange transport. This isn’t a safe zone anymore.” He pats the stone. “Not with the bots armed with signal boosting technology allowing them to infect our air even in a stone sanctuary.”
“Sir, I’m telling you, we can fire a scrambling signal back. Even short burst will give us an advantage,” says the person on Miller’s team obsessed with retaliating against the bots with signals of their own. “Belen is healed enough to program. She can come up with something, I promise.”
“Belen’s okay?” I say. My voice sounds relieved, but I have no idea if Belen surviving her fall is a good or bad thing for me and Juan.
“Your code, Mr. Pierson.” Miller presses the keypad against Mav’s chest.
“My hands,” he responds, “It’s not like I can type without my hands.”
“You’re not typing. Tell me the sequence and someone will enter it.”
“I know it,” Juan says before Mav has a chance to retaliate with a quip of his own.
Mav, myself, Miller, and the variety of other half bio-hazard garbed men and women occupying the stone cathedral all turn to look at Juan.
“I know the code,” Juan says.
“Aren’t I glad I kept you,” Miller coos. I know what it’s like to inhabit the receiving end of such a compliment. When Miller says it, you feel small but safe. Incompetent, but cared for. Everything I miss and everything that now makes me sick I ever believed him. “Tell us then?”
Miller takes the phone in his own hands, thumbs poised over the screen eager to enter the numbers needed to access Mav’s business account.
“Hand it to me.” Juan extends a hand. I can’t tell who is testing whom. Juan’s actions might be interpreted as a challenge toward Miller. Or maybe he’s insisting he’s to be trusted. I can’t tell.
Miller studies Juan. The chocolate curls of his hair. The scar where he’s suffered damage in our journey but has tried to mend himself. Juan’s even weight balanced between both balls of his feet. The glint in his dark brown, almost black, eyes. Miller saunters over to where Juan and I stand at unease, extending the hand holding the phone. “Be my guest.”
Juan takes it, pushes in a sequence of nine numbers, then hands the device back to Miller. “There you are.”
Miller keeps his eyes on Juan for an extended time before glancing back to the screen. “Huh.”
I want a glimpse of the screen myself. What did Juan do?
“Looks like we’re in.”
Juan helped them. Juan helped Miller, not Mav. It was his perfect chance to sabotage the whole operation, but he helped instead. Once Miller turns his back, I lift one foot and slam it down atop Juan’s shoe. Juan isn’t expecting the action and steps back with his other foot like he’s lost his balance.
Miller turns toward us. I remain still, my foot no longer on top of Juan’s stupid hope-treading shoe. “Gather your gear. We move out in one hour, and we’re going to need all the protection we can get.”
The safest place to be in a wildfire is where the fire has already raged, leaving nothing more to catch flame. Singapore is the char after a wildfire of uncontrolled technology.
Juan and I travel in the cargo hold of a large plane. Separate from the humans. “Remember when you told me the humans don’t trust us?”
Juan keeps his head bent, as if in thought. I’m not sure if he’s powering down, conserving energy until he can use his solar panels again. I’ve had surprisingly little need to recharge since my incident with the bot at Ipiales in Colombia.
“The first night we met, you said something about having to prove your loyalty. Or that Geo was afraid of you?”
Juan continues to keep his movements and reactions limited.
“What I don’t get is why you keep helping them. Why do you continue to prove your loyalty to humans when all they do is betray you?”
“I’m human.” It’s the only thing Juan says. He doesn’t need to say anything more.
I observe ice crystals forming on zipper pulls and bars distinguishing one luggage mass from another. Silence spreads like fractals between Juan and me. It loops and spikes at an average rate of just over one and a half percent chillier than the silence proceeding it. “You’re not seated with the humans.” By waiting for time to settle before sharing this obvious fact, I hope to fire it directly into a hole of oversight unguarded by the pass of silence.
I’m wrong to think Juan exists in any unguarded moments. The man is made up of the Commander and Ace, both have few reasons to let their guard down in my company. Juan doesn’t fire back with words. He doesn’t need flimsy verbalization to flash his security badge. He shifts, blinks so naturally I honestly question it not being a reflex for him, and then he closes his eyes and powers down. Like that. What I wish I could have pulled first, in a much more ‘in your face’ manner.
“Fine.”
Juan remains dark.
“I can sleep too.” I don’t. I’m in a hold surrounded by the luggage packed by the people who assembled me poorly, to begin with, sold me off for parts, and tried to fry my brain with a sonic blast in the jungle. I’m not missing the opportunity to do some poking around.
My headaches once more. I put my arm against my temple and the plane dips to one side. It would be barely detectable if not for my internal sensors working at high alert. How an infectious signal has managed to reach me at this height is more frustrating than the screeching pain sensation pinging around my brain, held to a dull grating while I keep my mangled wrist to my head. My wrist vibrates with the sensation in my head being pressed outward through my hand—almost like a tower signal being pushed out from my brain. Pushing it out and away so my head won’t hurt with the intensity of the entirety of a signal so large.
Juan tumbles from his powered down state. He tries to stand but staggers as if drunk. “What’s happening?”
I manage to keep my feet under me. “We’re banking.”
“We shouldn’t be banking.”
“Maybe if we weren’t in the baggage hold, like a normal human, we’d know why.”
“I can�
�t get a read on the gear.” Juan squints his eyes like he’s concentrating or reading minds. I squint my eyes hoping he can’t actually read minds.
“Could you read it before?”
“I was tracking our flight path before everything went sideways.”
He’s tracking our flight path and he didn’t tell me? Is he also holding the fact he intends to shut down the program? All programs. Our programs—that which birthed me and the Commander? Juan isn’t the only object in the cargo hold capable of bypassing firewall protected thought patterns. “We have no idea what’s happening up there. Maybe a Mord got on board…” I suggest half-heartedly.
“I think I’d know. I cataloged everything that went into this plane before takeoff.”
“Does that include everything that might have already been on it?”
“Why do you ask?” He staggers to keep his feet planted as the plane banks harder.
“Because of that awful high-pitched tone. Isn’t that why you’re tipsy?” I don’t take my hand away from my head. Projecting the sonic waves from my metal skull soothes me.
“I’m not tipsy.” Juan grips a bar holding luggage.
“You seem unstable.”
“The plane’s unstable. Don’t you feel it?”
I do. But I also feel that same sensation as the signal that caused Juan to drop from the zip line like a sack of spare gears. “We’re losing altitude.”
“I know that.” Juan snipes as if he doesn’t know or detect the loss of height but doesn’t want me to know he doesn’t know. Juan crosses himself—a sure sign he’s human.
No robot would put stock in a higher power. We’re the highest power on the planet.
How do I know this?
I just do.
It’s not the only thing I know.
Realization floods over me, along with questions.
Con Code Page 27