Margo Flint and the Last Soldier

by Nick Mazmanian

  Margo was sitting on the ground sorting through a variety of seeds. Comparing each one and throwing away the specimens that she didn’t find to be worthy to her left and placing the ones she liked to her right. “Each of them was a person. They deserve their own spot in the world. Didn’t they program you with burial rights?”

  “Not really needed for warbots like me. Not to speak ill, but Francis Morcos was a complete jerk. I dunno if...”

  A look of anger boiled up into her eyes as she stopped her sorting and looked up at the robot. “It doesn’t matter anymore. He’s gone, but his remains can be useful still.”

  “Why are you taking this so seriously? You never knew these people.”

  Catcher’s blue case sat next to Margo and analyzed the seeds she placed on her right. A blue beam scanned the seeds shells and analyzed their structure. “These have a genetic defect. Won’t do well.”

  “We don’t know that. It might grow fine.”

  “Alright, but most of these seeds have problems at a genetic level. It’s fascinating, as the seed types at home carry similar traits, but are missing this defect.”

  “Hello, did you hear my question?”

  Margo looked up at the resting robot. “Why didn’t you ever bury them, is the question on my mind.”

  ZiP pushed his hat up and scratched the side of his metal head. “That wasn’t the question I asked…” The robot’s eye saw Margo’s anger filled face. “...if my emotionator face scanner is telling me what I think it's telling me, then I am going to address what you said.”

  “Wise words.”

  “No way around this one?”

  “Nope.”

  The red eye glanced over the 27 graves that were dug and marked them on his HUD; with tags and the names meant for each of them. “These were some of my last buddies, even Francis. I knew they were dead, yeah, but I didn’t want them to be gone.”

  “How did they all die?”

  “All I can recall from that time is being on patrol when the sky turned funny. I blacked out at that point and only started up a few weeks later. As I made my way back to camp, all of the humans were dead.”

  “That must have been the great reckoning.”

  “Was something, I’ll tell you that much.” ZiP’s head rotated and faced Margo. “You ever lose someone?”

  Her hand instinctively gripped the seeds sitting in her palm as her mind raced back to a similar moment in time. Slowly nodding she said, “My hand couldn’t have held more than 10 seeds when my Mom died. Finding her seed took me days.”

  “How did she go?”

  “That’s a rather brash...”

  Margo cut Catcher off. “It’s okay Catcher, the end is important to remember from time to time.” With clear eyes she turned her attention back to ZiP. “It was an accident at my Dad’s recycling field. A load fell on her. She tried for days to get better, but her wounds were too much.” She rotated the seeds in her hand. “After she was gone, Dad was just a little more tired and I began to do maintenance on every piece of equipment at our field. It’s why I wanted to be a Searcher. To find old tech that would improve our lives. Maybe find something that would prevent an accident like that again.”

  “My situational moment defraguator is telling me that I may have stepped into an emotional minefield with that question.”

  “You just now thought that? Sharp.” Catcher’s tri-core vibrated as he spoke, “Where Margo is from, the dead are not seen as gone, but rather detached from this plane of existence. It’s why she cared about the bones and had her emotional response to your ‘buddies’ not being buried.”

  “It’s true, while I do miss her, I know she isn’t really gone. At home, we’re taught to never waste and a body is useful even after the person using it is gone. It’s a social mandate we all follow.”

  ZiP lowered his hat. “That’s like an order, right?”

  “Yes, it is like that.”

  The robot glanced over the different plots he had dug up and began to nod. “Now I’m getting what you’re putting down with all of this. I got my orders too, to stop that sniper on that clifftop. In an odd way, he’s been my only company, minus the fellas here, till you dropped in.”

  “It’s just not burying them… that’s only reserved for the worst of the worst where I come from.”

  “What would constitute that?”

  “I don’t know for sure. It rarely comes up.”

  “What even caused this war?”

  “Welp Belcher, it’s like this…”

  “My name is Catcher.”

  “All I remember is being booted up from storage in the belly of The Zenith with my orders: To take and hold this valley.”

  “You never asked why?”

  “I am a robot and a soldier, built specifically for combat; ‘why’ definitely wasn’t an option.”

  “Now is different?”

  “The years have… changed me. Questions are all I have now and once we get up to that cliff face, I’ll have an answer for a few of them.”

  Margo held up a hand. “I have a question.”

  “Well, go for it, this is the most interaction I’ve had in a long time.”

  “Why do you have a firepit at your camp? You don’t eat, need warmth, and you clearly didn’t have company coming.”

  The robot mulled the question over as he tapped the tips of his fingers together. “It’s just something I like. Fires, the contained kind, just reminds me of better times. Before everyone was gone. Before no one else showed up.”

  “What about your calls to HQ?”

  “Yea, but I only get intel from her for my patrol. I guess the transmissions were helpful to combat loneliness, but it didn’t stop me from wondering if the world outside this valley had anyone in it anymore.” He pointed at Margo and Catcher. “You two are proof that it does.”

  “And where is HQ? How long have you been speaking to her?”

  ZiP stammered for a moment and placed the shovel over his shoulder. “Th..that is classified information… ZiP’s eye glanced down at the seed piles. “What’s with the pods?”

  Margo’s gloved hand picked up one of the seeds and held it up. “These are their grave markers. Each tree is unique in their own way, much like the people that they shade.” She placed it in her shirt pocket. “It gives us a place to remember them by and to see the passage of time. My Mom’s is just taller than me.”

  “Trees?”

  A cracked smile creased her face after numerous hours of it being vacant. “Yep.”

  “Man is made from the cloth on his back that comforts the words to mold him while he keeps his soul hidden in his shoes. From Night of the Killer, Harry’s book number 12.” ZiP hopped out of the hole. “ZiP P.D.113, declare these graves ready to fill.”

  Chapter 11- Memories

  Margo pulled the soil over the last seed, wiped her hands, and turned toward the 27 freshly covered mounds. “And now you’ll have some shade and company.”

  “I think they’re getting enough shade, as they are buried underground.”

  Ignoring the commentary, she turned toward the now vacant bar where ZiP was leaning against the counter-top. “Now that’s done…” she continued into the tented space with carpeting that was starting to become one with the ground underneath it. “...what makes Outpost 521 such a happening place?”

  ZiP’s head rotated 360 degrees and stopped on Margo. “Now that this place is dead, I guess the telescopic relay and Shouting Susan, the 900mm gun in the middle, and my library of Harry Marsh books; especially those.”

  Margo placed Catcher on the countertop between her and ZiP. “Now that it’s dead?”

  “Yeah, there ain’t nobody here.”

  “Why were you talking to the remains of your squad as if they were responding, when you knew they were dead?”

  “They were talking to me.”

  The air fell silent a slight breeze flowed through the camp. “The dead ‘talked’ to you?”

  “I ain’t craz
y.” ZiP’s head dipped down in a gesture that read as annoyed. His left hand took off his long-brimmed and beaten cowboy hat, set it on the bar, and raised his right hand to access a panel hidden under the hat that slid back to reveal a three-inch metal mesh covered speaker. “Haven’t had to use this in a long time.”

  Voices began to emanate from the speaker.

  “Hey, you gonna drink that whole thing, Mendez?”

  “I’m sorry, did you take out two emplacements on Hill 22?”

  “No.”

  “Then you can have some when I’m done.”

  “Why didn’t we just shell with Shouting Susan?”

  “Because command wanted the hill, not a crater. That damn paper weight is more a mind game than actual use, Holtz.”

  The robot then turned toward the card table that started to play the sounds of cards being dealt and clay chips being rustled. "ZiP, can you deal square next time?”

  “Hey, he’s a robot, he’s playin square.”

  “The hell he is, these cards are crap!” The sound of a chair spilling over is heard. “Damn, tinhead.”

  “That’s Francis, see what I was talking about?” The panel folded over the speaker and was secure into place with his pinky finger. “Such a jerk, but he was this squad’s jerk.” The robot replaced his hat and turned toward his stunned audience. “I have enough audio recordings that I can shuffle them into different conversations with each person.”

  “That must take up a lot of space.”

  ZiP shrugged. “It does.”

  Margo sat down on the barstool. “Is that why you have such a limited space?”

  The giant red eye bobbed as ZiP’s head nodded. “Time took them, but they live still in my head: No Where Gun, Harry Marsh book 899.” Again, he found his audience a bit stunned. “Didn’t think I could get heavy, did you?”

  “I’m shocked I am even talking to a robot. You’re unlike anything back home.”

  “Whattaya mean? Surely there must newer models out there?”

  “Newer, but better, not so much. The best robot I’ve seen oversees cleanup on the stairs to The Chamber of the Eight. Strong, durable, but simple. We call it Rocky, as it has a slight tip to its balance while walking. To tell you the truth...” She shifted in her seat. “...I’m curious to see how you’re made. This kind of tech today… it isn’t as sophisticated or as long lasting.”

  ZiP thumbed toward Catcher. “He seems pretty so-fisticated.”

  “A.I.s weren’t built by us. We found them among the ruins of the old world. The electrists sparked them to life, but how they were made is beyond both the A.I.s and ourselves. Making something new has been difficult, the tech is hard to find.” Margo stood from the bar and walked over to the makeshift coat rack that was bolted to the counter. The pegs and hooks were made from various military supplies from ladles to spent bullet casings. Hanging on it was a satchel that caught her eye, but she looked back at ZiP as she motioned toward Catcher. “A.I.s have been a bastion of knowledge to us. They’ve provided us with information that has helped Artsiv improve, and through that improvement, we’ve assisted our neighbors in the area around us.”

  The blue lights on the outside of Catcher’s case pulsated as he continued the line of conversation that Margo started on. “We’re guides to each generation.” As he spoke, a glint of light shined from inside the satchel that peaked her curiosity. “We were designed to do this and it has been remarkable to see how Artsiv has grown. I also agree with Margo here that you are curious.”

  “I was built for combat, but I was designed to work with humans. I mimic emotions and have a personality that was installed to do so. I am as I have been made.”

  “But, you regarded the men here as friends. You’ve even kept them alive in your memories, which is a very emotional thing to do, something that sides more in the realm of A.I than robot.”

  ZiP mulled over the thought and asked, “I’ve lost a lot to the savage Rys, friends and comrades alike.” His red eye looked at Margo. “Got any friends to lose?”

  She thought about it for a moment and began to nod slowly as she answered, “I have friends, one is Catcher, the other is my friend Nane. The rest were more or less acquaintances.”

  “What would I be categorized as?”

  A feeling of time slowing down hit her brain like a brick slowly crumbling into dust. It was then she realized she hadn’t said a word since he asked his question and responded, “You’re curious because I’ve seen you destroy a rival robot and then watched you come to see that perhaps they weren’t as bad as you thought. Then we have an in depth discussions on topics no other robot I’ve ever known could have had. It’s been a short time, but I think you’re on your way toward friendly acquaintance.”

  “High praise.”

  “It’s true, I have a high standard for interacting with people, it’s why I have a friend and not friends.”

  “Burn my hat, you might just have three yet.”

  Margo turned her attention to ZiP again. “The very fact that we’re having this conversation says volumes about you, ZiP. It’s extremely impressive.”

  “Do you have a bio-based cellular memory core?”

  “You mean the liquid I sometimes hear in my head?”

  “Yes...” In a tone carried the hiss of annoyance. “Cellular memory cores have been known to grow. And that in this growth, fundamental changes in programming DNA can occur as the cells that carry the embedded code alter over time. Wonders from the world before have shown that this technology is hardy, prone to unpredictability, and very difficult to replicate.”

  A note of pride entered ZiP’s synthesized voice as he pushed up the brim of his hat. “I am unpredictable, want to see my book collection?” The robot motioned toward the backside of the bar where hundreds of worn and beaten spines stared at the group. “They were sent in by HQ to help entertain the soldiers.”

  A large grin sat on Margo’s face. “That’s impressive.”

  “Yep.” ZiP took one off the shelf and handed it to her. On the cover lay a red-headed woman in bed with a gun in her right hand with her left holding the bed sheets over her body. A silhouette of a man is cast over her as her face looked sly toward the reader. “Always Bet on Red, number 1. That’s a good one to start with.”

  “Yeah… it looks, intriguing, but I can’t read it.”

  Handing it back to ZiP, he glanced between the book and her and then slammed his hand against the side of his head. “Right, you can’t read the language!”

  Wearing an ‘aw shucks’ face, she turned toward her pack at the bar and said, “Yeah, guess I can’t read it.”

  “I’ve got them all memorized. I’ll be sure recite them sometime.”

  “Yay…” Margo faked a yawn as she reached for her sleeping bag on top of her pack. “I think I’m done for the night.” A loud howl that carried a hollow tone pierced through the night and made her hair stand on end. She looked out into the darkness that stood only a few feet from the light that lived inside the canvas roof of Outpost 521. Margo asked, “What was that?”

  ZiP shelved the book, took out a few more toward the bottom, and tossed them into his backpack. Checking the revolver on his hip he re-holstered it and grabbed his beaten field pack. “Just some Maleh Wolves, they aren’t that big, just sound like it. I’ll do some patrols, make sure they don’t come near. Taking old Harry along so I don’t get too bored.”

  “Thank you, ZiP.”

  As the robot turned to leave, he stopped, pivoted, and pointed at Margo. “Remember, don’t touch anything here.”

  Letting her adrenaline flow out of her body by flattening out her hexagonal patterned sleeping bag, she paused and looked up at the robot. “I wasn’t going to.”

  “Don’t mean to be pointing fingers.” He lowered his pointed finger. “Just, going around and collecting knowledge and all that, you don’t know what these items can do. They’re dangerous. Do not touch anything.”

  She shrugged. “Okay, I won’t.�
�

  “Alright, I’ll be back.”

  The soldier vanished into the night beyond the reach of the camp’s light. Margo slipped into her bag and set Catcher down on a nearby foot locker. After a few moments of silence, Margo whispered, “Do you think he meant that we couldn’t touch anything?”

  “I think the words were ‘Do not touch anything’, so yes, I think that meant anything.”

  “Even an innocuous box that has handwriting on it?”

  “What?”

  Margo pulled out from her bag a small box, no bigger than her hand, with handwriting scrawled across the top of it. It appeared to be a matte black metal box with seamless edges. “I found this in the satchel by the bar.”

  Catcher’s voice took on a parental tone. “Margo…”

  “We are here to find and bring back, yes?”

  “Yes, but when an entity who’s been talking to dead people for what could be hundreds of years says ‘not to touch anything’ perhaps some caution should be taken. On the off chance he’s not totally broken mentally.”

  “I just want to know what the writing means, also, it’s a neat looking box.”

  A moment of silence passed between the duo before Catcher’s blue lights begrudgingly pulsed, “Fine.”

  A quiet, “Yay!” whispered from Margo as she held up the box to the A.I.’s lens. A series of scanning grids slid over the surface of the text and analyzed it. “What does it say?”

  “After reviewing what ZiP said to us upon arrival and how that translated… it says, that’s strange.”

  “It says ‘That’s strange?’”

  “No, it says: To Talos, flame eternal, your heart in my hands.”

  A look of awe filled her eyes. “It’s a love letter!”

  “Now Margo…”

  “We need to deliver it.”

  “Margo, these two people are long since dead. Also, where do we deliver it?”