Condemnation

by Kell Inkston

  "Well, I suppose that..." she faulters. She was about to say "Makes sense"— but it doesn't, really. The thought had flickered through her mind that perhaps the founders of Everhold had a town below, like a camp, while constructing the city— but these structures seem more permanent than that.

  As she reaches the door, she shines her light through a few of the holes, checks around to make sure they aren't being watched, and then pushes into the entrance. The water inside the house stirs from the movement of the door— flushing out a vile concoction of ancient, biological foam. She starts back with a hop, almost falling over again— but this time she maintains her balance and withstands the sensation of the heaping wave running past her knees.

  "Y-yup," she mutters before shining the light into the home.

  The pitch-black room is illuminated by her blue personnel light, adding a ghostly effervescence to the living room. Rotten books— decayed, curling paint— and at the corner of the room, a human skeleton; all display the same sad, ancient gray.

  "That’s..." Clare throws her beam around the area, making sure it’s safe. "That’s an actual person." She swallows sharply. She’s never seen a skeleton before; it's terrifying to know that something like this is all she'll leave behind one day.

  There's a lengthy set of clicking noises as Carrie produces its most thoughtful answer. "It is a collagen and calcium alloy deposit, not a person," the automaton offers helpfully, causing Clare to scoff.

  "Yes, duh, of course." She waves her light around to another room, looking to be the kitchen, and then she sloshes in. "What... what happened here?"

  " 'Carrie' system does not know."

  "Thanks," she says with steadily improving spirits as she shines her light over the cupboards. She riffles through a few of them. Whatever was once preserved in the jars is now an incomprehensible pile of mold. "…Doesn’t look very well stocked," she notes to herself, "– maybe they… were in the middle of a famine?”

  Suddenly, Carrie clicks in interruption. "There is something approaching,” it advises bluntly. “ 'Carrie' system recommends silence."

  Anything resembling a smile on Clare’s visage fades into a cold, calculating, animal gaze. She pauses, waiting for the water around her calves to still so that she can hear.

  There's nothing but the steady ambiance of the mold and ash brushing along her ears— a posthumous orchestra of a single, terrifying noise.

  Clare still takes no chances. She remembers the feeling of that automaton's grasp upon her neck before the adrenaline overwhelmed her. She subconsciously strokes the spot of the pinch on her neck, now red with hematoma. She waits quietly with Carrie for almost a minute until, from the very edge of her hearing, she perceives a faint, slow, sloshing noise outside. She casts her emerald eyes over to Carrie, upright and unshaken, staring dully forward into a wall. Of course, an auto wouldn't move until it were necessary; they're not quite smart enough to prepare for reaction.

  The sloshing sound picks up in volume— perfectly steady, like one of the mixing machines from the processing quarter of Everhold. She visited the creamery vats as a girl during a school trip holiday; she couldn't believe so much milk existed in the kingdom, let alone the whole world. She's fairly certain it’s not a cistern making that noise this time, though.

  She keeps quiet, and Carrie, as expected, remains motionless in the room. Her light does, however, cast faintly out of the kitchen's singular window— just enough so that she can see outside.

  The watery sound continues to grow ever closer, creeping up around the side of the house— and then, it passes by the window. Yet, Clare sees nothing pass them by; likely just because of the angle of her view.

  Her original tenseness re-firms, and her already tired body calls upon another burst of attention and energy. The span of time while the unknown something passes by their house and down the street feels like an eternity— her heart rate so unbearably high that it feels like it could fail her at any moment.

  The presence passes onward into silence— and Clare looses a long, wonderful sigh. The high of the adrenaline feels good now that the threat is gone, an unexpected feeling of reward for keeping her mouth shut and boots planted.

  "Okay, what was that?"

  Carrie is still quiet for some reason.

  "Carrie?"

  Silence.

  "Carrie!? What’s going on?!"

  Carrie turns to its user sharply. "Our position has been triangulated."

  Clare looks on dumbfounded, as if reminded of a secret rule to a game she only thought she was winning. "What?"

  She knows what triangulation is— but she never, ever thought it would be used for something like locating a person.

  "So it's an auto?" she demands, her breathing picking back up.

  "Pursuing entity is in fact autonomous in nature."

  She stares at the robot with a look of pure astonishment. Of course, an auto could still hear her talk from that far away if Carrie could hear it coming before she did.

  She chuckles dismissively just as the sloshing sound returns from where it had only moments before left, now traveling at a faster, more deliberate pace. It's coming for them.

  - Chapter 12 -

  Only two years prior, everything is fine:

  Clare's seated safely— warm and caffeinated in the Royal Academy's classroom number three. The usual class of statistics, managraphing code, and practical engineering applications has been lifted today; the class is coming up to its new block of instruction on automaton navigation dynamics. In sight of such an occasion, the strapping Jack Elwood has decided a visual presentation would be the best way to get them interested.

  Clare of course is already interested; she's not doing this for the paycheck, but rather she loves what she believes was her mother's line of work.

  "So here," Professor Elwood starts, adjusting his glasses with a nod to the open testing area, "is an automaton with a mono-audio sensor. Can anyone tell me what a stereo-aud-"

  Her hand shoots up just a fraction of a second before Jeremy LeJean’s.

  Jack nods his head to her. "Airineth."

  "It means that it has receivers at different parts of its body so that it can find something from two directions instead of one," she explains.

  Jack squints. She realizes that wasn't quite enough, but Jeremy takes the initiative.

  "It means that the auto can triangulate its target from just one sound," he states with his classic sneer. She wishes she could punch him in the face, but non-violence is a sometimes-unfortunate requirement for civil society.

  Mister Elwood nods gently, firing off a little finger point to LeJean's direction. "Right. Clare is technically correct, but triangulation is the word I'm looking for." He turns his attention back to the testing area with a lone automaton, standing resolutely at the side nearest to the class. "Alright folks— so this auto has a mono-audio sensor in its right arm, but that's not what I'm interested in in this particular case. What I really want to show you is how an auto with a triangulate-source managraph can build a more accurate picture of a target based on multiple inputs."

  The platinum-blond, uncommonly cute Isri pokes her hand up.

  "Miss Layman."

  "Wouldn't it make more sense to have it in its head?"

  Jack gives a good-natured smile and a few of the students look over to her with incredulous gazes. To them, only an idiot would ask a question that was covered in previous material; nothing is more embarrassing to them than catching up with the class publicly— but Isri doesn't seem to share the same emotion.

  "If it were a human, yes— but like we learned in block one of your first year, design fits function. Form must adhere to function, always. We build it based on what it’s going to do, and nothing else. For example, it might need an audio sensor inside its chassis to make sure everything's running correctly— or in one of its feet to listen to ground vibrations with the most accuracy."

  Isri Layman squints in thought. "So like, we're making them do w
hat... I don't think I get it."

  "Your grades show that, too," Jeremy mutters under his breath, not so unlike a total cunt.

  Almost everyone hears what he said, but it was just quiet enough to treat it like a whisper. Clare will always wonder if Isri heard it or not, because her expression doesn't even flicker from his words.

  Jack Elwood sharpens his gaze, but his smile grows. "That's okay. I can go over purpose of design with you after class," he turns back to the class in general. "So, is everyone ready to see this lad run?"

  Muted, semi-excited responses emerge from the socially-stunted class— with the exception of Clare, who draws in over her desk with wide, ready eyes.

  He takes this cue to begin, and walks into the testing area.

  Instantly, the mood in the room shifts. Uneasy glances among the students and a pair of gasps overtake the classroom while their professor walks up to no more than five paces from the automaton.

  "S-sir!" Clare exclaims, only to be met with Jack's hand, signaling for everyone to be quiet.

  "When activated, this auto will target for lifting the cause of the nearest sound. Now you all must be absolutely silent." He hits the remote activator ringed to his belt, functioning much like a chat stone would, with a small jolt of mana produced by the operator to turn on the device. The little, magical *ping* of mana sent from Professor Elwood zips into the remote activator, and it lights up, the small remote device connecting the ethergrain power source with the managraphic plates within the automaton.

  Without further warning and with nary a sound, the automaton looks up from its slouched position; the managraphic symbol on its face blinks up with an alert, cold blue. The whole class looks on nervously, watching with bated breath while a confident Jack Elwood taps his foot to the right of him. The automaton walks forward, completely devoid of any social sense of speed— a lumbering, almost comical walk, though everyone knows that they're not to be taken flippantly.

  Jack lifts his foot to the side and silently steps aside. To the class' great relief, the automaton walks past him, and continues onward. Then, as if it weren't chilling enough, Jack takes a breath to talk.

  "So, it missed me— because it only had one reference point," he says, causing another swell of gasps from the class. The automaton instantly about-faces back to Professor Elwood and walks up to him.

  "Now that I've provided it with a second reference point, it could act off the stored first direction; in correlation with its current and past locations for receiving the data, to triangulate m- whoa!" He stops short, interrupted by the automaton's cold grip around his waist.

  Clare, already on the edge of her seat, dives out into the stairs to come to his aid— just as three or four of the other students have; the rest are either too trusting or too lazy to try and save their professor.

  Nothing bad happens— in fact, Clare wasted her breath.

  Jack is firmly lifted into the air by the auto, holding him like a delicate child for the dumbfounded class to gawk at.

  "What? You kids didn't know you could code an auto to be gentle? That's what social autos are."

  "W-yeah but—" Jeremy sputters moronically, "that's... you're too trusting!"

  Jack shrugs, still held up like a little pup by the powerful grip of his machine. "When you students are nearing your fourth year, you'll make autos so smooth they'll play chess. People hate the idea of it though because of... well, you know— but as the next generation of engineers, you can fix that stigma. They only do as they are told— and there's a big difference in code between 'contact-hands-lift' like the industrials use, and 'contact-halt-lift' like this boy does."

  "So how do you get down?" Isri asks, a question everyone else is wondering as well.

  He grins. "Its lift is based on sound input. Once it stops picking up noises, it will put me down— and finish its routine by walking back to the start point."

  "So if we keep talking, you'll just stay up there?" Isra asks, finally asking the kind of stuff everyone really wonders.

  His grin turns awkward instantly. "Eh, well yes, technically, but that-"

  "So what's everyone doing tonight?" Kimley Gaunter interrupts, pushing her eraser point into her hair with a twirl.

  At once, the classroom is alive with ironic chatter, simply for the humor of seeing their professor dangling like an awkward baby.

  Professor Elwood sighs. "Ahh— then while we're on the subject of tonight, I'd like to talk about homework."

  Just as quickly as they started, the class goes silent. A few seconds pass, and the auto slowly lowers Jack to the ground. It turns around, goes back to its start point, and becomes dormant.

  "That's what I thought," Jack says with a smirk before returning to his desk. "So you all understand that what we're about to cover isn't just important for saving you precious time and keeping your auto from running around without a clue, but it’s also a life or death serious subject. I trust you all can take a wild guess as to what would have happened if we used a non-social for this little experiment?"

  There's a cold silence in the room, the mental vision of a splattered Jack Elwood flashing in a few of their minds— the sounds, the sight, and aftermath of it.

  He adjusts his glasses with a critical, serious vibe. "It wouldn't have ended well. Your managraphs must be bulletproof to get past the safety division, but even approved designs can have flaws. Remember this; take it to heart, and you won't be the designer of the next Porter Mk.2— Got it?"

  Sober nods from everyone. They all remember their parents talking about ‘The Mk.2 Incident’ when they were children: including the days-long cleanup details running around the clock.

  "Good," his smile returns, and everything's back to being fun. "Let's continue by opening him up and showing you all how those managraphs look."

  - Chapter 13 -

  Back in the present, imperiled, cold, and buzzed on adrenaline rather than caffeine, Clare holds her breath; she has come to the horrific realization that, whatever is looking for them, it now knows exactly which building they're hiding in. She's quiet only a moment before she notices with some surprise that Carrie has begun moving freely, positioning itself between her and the noise as it heads steadily out of the kitchen.

  " 'Carrie' System will provide a distraction for 'Clare' User,” it explains. “It is the 'Carrie' System's suggestion to not leave this location," it concludes, not even glancing back to look at her before turning the corner to the doorway leading outside. It does have the courtesy, however, to drop her pack on top of the center table.

  She reaches her hand out with a peep, but swiftly realizes that if she makes any noise, the auto will catch her trail— and that Carrie is about to risk itself to throw the auto off-track. She decides to trust her machine companion, and watches with a trembling gaze as it trudges off through the water, out into the street. She can soon hear something outside seemingly climbing onto a roof, which she assumes must be Carrie. There's no way an auto could be so dexterous, she's quite certain.

  All she can do now is listen and wait for the sloshing noise to reach the house. Now waiting in the miserable, cold and wet dark, she puts every ounce of her being into keeping herself perfectly quiet. She knows those audio inputs are amazing— if not during her studies, then certainly now— and she's not going to take any chances.

  The sloshing noise draws closer, and closer— right up to the side of the house— and then moves swiftly past, presumably in pursuit of Carrie. Its noise disappears— but she knows this time that she isn't safe yet.

  Clare is frozen, a prisoner of her own volition— and way too terrified to move. If she makes any audible noise, that auto could turn around again— this time coming straight for her, and with no Carrie in sight. It’s so cold standing in the water, and her gas mask's filters are so utterly clogged with that acrid mixture of water and vomit, that it takes all she can to pull even a little air through. Her legs grow shaky from the chill and lack of oxygen— but she holds her ground in silence.
>
  The runaway doesn't know how much time is passing, but it feels like stripping nails with one's teeth. She didn't consider until several minutes later what she would do if, King Victor forbid, Carrie failed to return. In her state of frozen misery, she steadily weighs her options with a clouded mind.

  She could move— but she has no clue what might hear her, or how far away they could do so. Even the slightest movement could set one onto her, and it would only be once it got within earshot that she'd know. Also, what would she do? Would she just go up the ladder and wait? Go call for help? Clare winces with a pathetic grin. She knows it would take a dozen people at a minimum to peel her out— especially past that swarm of industrials blocking the way between Everhold and this godless hell. Even if they happened to get her out, then she'd have to live with the realization that she'll never find out what happened to her mother.

  A few more timeless seconds pass, and she takes a deep breath; with it arrives the volition that she's going to see this all the way through. In a moment of increasing clarity and rare personal maturity, she understands that it’s probably going to get worse again before it gets better— but she knows that however long it takes to find out what happened to her mom, it would not compare to the lifetime of regret she would suffer if she cowered away here.

  This decision is easier said than done, unfortunately.

  She waits even longer— and though she's now constantly trembling from the chill, she continues to bide her time. She's certain above anything that Carrie's going to come back; it was made by her mother to do so, like a promise. More minutes pass, however, and the doubts— always waiting with their open door— begin to step into her mind.

  ‘After all, Clare dear— do you know of any automaton advanced enough to track a human being after running away? How could it find its way back without someone to guide it?... Or could you really be so confident as to expect nothing bad to have happened after all this time?’ Her blooming knowledge of automatons runs at full speed as she decides just how it could have taken this long. She bites her lower lip bitterly, coming to terms with the fact that Carrie isn't coming back. She wishes she had brought a watch— but it feels as if it’s been over an hour.