Steel Guardian

by Cameron Coral

  Glancing around, he saw Caroline and the others asleep on blankets around the fire.

  Block tried to move, but struggled against his ties where he was tethered to the base of the tree. Nova pulled out a switchblade and cut away at the ropes binding him. She whispered, “We have to leave now. Quietly.”

  “Guards?” he tried to say, but nothing came out. He was worried he couldn’t modulate his voice low enough.

  “Hang tight,” she said. “I’ll take care of Mike.” Nova tiptoed over to Mike on his rock, hunched forward. Based on his posture, Block guessed the young man was asleep. Nova grabbed a large rock and struck Mike in the back of the skull. After his body toppled to the ground, she seized his rifle, aiming at him. But he didn’t stir. She came back to Block. “Get the baby. Let’s go.”

  He stepped lightly toward the blanket where the baby lay. In the dwindling light of the fire, he saw she was soaked in sweat, her cheeks flushed. The ibuprofen had helped reduce her fever while they’d used it, but Nova hadn’t given her any that evening.

  Wrapping the baby in the blanket, he raised her. He wasn’t sure what had happened to the sling, so he grabbed the carrier that Mira had gifted them. He made his way to Nova as she trained the rifle on the sleeping bodies. Why was she helping him? Didn’t she want to stay with the humans who had taken her in and been kind?

  He followed her as she led the way down the path past Mike’s crumpled body and into darkness. The moon was three quarters full and shone enough light for Nova to make out the rocky path. Even with night vision, it was slow-going for Block, he slipped twice on the loose gravel.

  “Can you make it?” she asked.

  “Doing my best.” The baby squirmed in his arms. “Can we stop so I can put her in the carrier?”

  “Hurry,” Nova hissed. “Be silent. The other guy is still out here.”

  Block studied the new carrier and pulled the straps on. His sling had been much simpler. He removed the baby’s blanket and inserted its legs into the carrier seat. Then he draped the blanket over his shoulder because her temperature was so high. She needed to cool off.

  From behind, they heard an owl hoot. Nova’s head jerked and she raised her gun. He was about to comment about owls—even he knew what one sounded like—but Caroline stepped out of the shadows. She clutched a revolver which was pointed at them.

  “I knew there was something off about you,” she told Nova. “That Scrapper is your pet or something.”

  “Whoa,” Nova said. “Nobody has to get hurt here. We just want to be on our way.”

  Davey appeared from the opposite direction, his rifle aimed at Block’s chest. At the baby. “I told you she was a double-crosser,” he said.

  “Don’t let him shoot the child,” Nova said, glaring at Caroline. “I will kill you. Do you hear that, Davey? I won’t hesitate to shoot down Caroline. Put your gun down.”

  “You want to claim the reward for yourself, don’t you?” Caroline asked. “And we were nice to you. We should’ve tied you up like the Scrapper.”

  “Told you she looked military,” Davey chimed in.

  Caroline glared at Nova. “Which outfit are you with? Nebraska?”

  Nova clenched her jaw and kept her rifle trained on Caroline.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Caroline said. The two women stared each other down.

  “Nobody has to get hurt,” Nova said between clenched teeth.

  “You hit Mike with a rock.”

  “He’ll have a bad headache in the morning, but he’ll be fine,” Nova said.

  “Let me waste them both,” Davey said.

  “No!” Nova shouted. “What are you, monsters? You want to gun down a baby?”

  Caroline hesitated, then sighed. “Davey, hold your fire,” she ordered. “Here’s what’s going to happen, Nova. You’re going to walk away with your pet robot. For some reason, you have a soft spot for that thing, and it’s going to get you killed.”

  “Caroline?” Davey’s voice was high-pitched, incredulous.

  “Davey, point your rifle down,” she commanded.

  “What?”

  “Do as I say!” she barked.

  Block watched as Davey lowered his weapon. “I don’t believe this,” the man muttered.

  Caroline met Nova’s gaze. “The only reason I’m letting you leave is the baby. I’ve done a lot of bad shit to survive, but killing a baby isn’t going to be one of them. Not today. And the reward for that damn robot isn’t worth the risk of messing with Mach X.”

  Nova’s hands shook.

  “Now, go,” Caroline said, tilting her head. “Before I change my mind. Davey, let them pass.”

  “Come on,” Nova told Block. He strode past her with the baby as she stepped backward, keeping her rifle held high until darkness consumed Caroline and Davey. Then she faced forward. “Hurry, go faster.”

  Block’s steel feet were comprised of a high-grade carbon fiber meant to be gentle on the finest hardwood floors and Persian carpeting. When it came to navigating through a rocky path with boulders jutting up from the earth, not so much.

  “Going as fast as I can,” he said.

  “Make it faster.”

  They raced ahead until they came to a road and followed it north.

  “Why are we going in the wrong direction?” he asked.

  “I want to throw them off our path. They know I’m heading to New Denver. I never should’ve mentioned that. Let’s go north for a while and then we’ll cut west again.”

  They trekked back country roads for three hours until sunlight peeked above the horizon.

  “We should stop and take care of the baby. See if she’ll eat,” he said.

  “Fine.” Nova’s voice was weak.

  Something was bothering Block. Nova had switched sides—again.

  “Why did you turn on them?” he asked. “They were nice to you.”

  She shrugged. “They seemed… off. Something about Caroline—an alpha female. I wouldn’t have lasted there very long.”

  But he kept replaying the encounter from when they’d escaped. Caroline had accused Nova of wanting to claim the reward for herself. Was that true?

  So far, Nova had switched sides twice.

  And she was an excellent liar.

  29

  The baby’s fever grew worse as the day wore on.

  “102.4,” Block said as they trudged along a two-lane highway with no shade. Sweat trickled down Nova’s face, staining her dark green shirt. She wrapped a bandanna around her forehead; her stride had grown slower. Block had borrowed another bandanna from her and draped it across the baby’s body for shade.

  “She needs medicine,” Nova said.

  “Where can we find some?”

  She wiped her brow with the back of her wrist. “Problem is, all the stores and pharmacies have been looted. We can’t trust any groups of humans. Not with you.”

  “What can we do?”

  She sighed. “Your best option is to try and find a doctor. You’ve gone far enough with the baby. Time to find someone who can really care for it.”

  “It? You mean she.”

  “Yeah, whatever.”

  Nova was right. There wasn’t much more he could do to help the child. He’d tried to feed her more ibuprofen with water earlier, but she’d refused it.

  “Perhaps we should stop,” he suggested. “Study the map again.”

  “Yeah sure, why not?”

  A dilapidated blue barn loomed in the distance. “We can seek refuge in the shade of that structure. We’ve been walking nearly eight hours. Perhaps we rest here for the night.”

  Nova shifted the gun strapped across her back into her arms.

  “We won’t need that, will we?” Block asked.

  “Are you kidding? Now that we have this, I feel a lot better about our chances.”

  “Guns are dangerous,” he said, recalling the day when the SoldierBots had stormed the Drake. The worst day of his life.

  “In case you haven’t noticed, it
’s a dangerous world out here. Everyone else is armed, so why shouldn’t I be?”

  A large oak tree sheltered them from the glare of the setting sun. Cicadas hummed and a few sparrows chattered at the newcomers.

  In a shady spot, Block unfolded the map and spread it on a patch of soft grass.

  Nova rested on her knees beside him. “Where are we now?”

  “I’ve been tracking our steps, and judging from the map’s scale, we are here.” He pointed his index finger at a town called Oakland.

  “Yikes. We keep heading west and that puts us on a collision course with the Nebraskan border.”

  “To bypass Nebraska, we’ll need to detour south.” He traced a path down US 29 through the towns of Mound City and White Cloud near the Iowa-Kansas border.

  “But to stick on the roads that long,” Nova said, looking at the baby, “it’s too long. She won’t make it.”

  “Perhaps we could we find a doctor in one of these towns?”

  “If we reach Nebraska, see this town here?” She pointed at Plattsmouth. “There’ll be a checkpoint of some kind. Nebraska banned all AI and has managed to keep robots out. The state is run by a military organization called the Flat Water Fighters.”

  This was new information to Block. How had such news reached Nova all the way in Michigan? She continued, “They’re trigger-happy. If they see you, they’ll seize you or destroy you without even asking questions. If they find you past their border… let’s not even entertain the idea.”

  Why did humans hate robots so much? Block could understand they’d be frightened of the SoldierBots. He feared them, too, after what they’d done at the Drake. But not all robots were like them. As a CleanerBot, he only wanted to be friendly and make humans comfortable in a hotel. And there were other kind AI like Zina, Ellie, and Sammy.

  He wished he could show humans that not all machines were harmful. Block peered at the baby girl. Perhaps he could teach her to think differently about robots one day.

  “Nova,” he asked, “is New Denver safe for robots?”

  She glanced at him as if surprised and then quickly looked away. “Yeah, that’s what everyone says.”

  “And you’ve never been there?”

  She shook her head and went back to inspecting the map.

  “If people and robots really exist together peacefully there, I would like to go there.”

  “Yeah? First thing is, we have to figure out how to get around Nebraska.” She leaned back and chewed her nails.

  Block tried to feed the baby more water, but she refused and whimpered instead, too weak to cry.

  “I’ve got it,” Nova said abruptly, her jaw set. “I’ll take the baby into Nebraska, find a doctor, and then the rest of the way to New Denver.”

  “But… how will that work if I can’t enter Nebraska?”

  “You won’t.”

  “I don’t understand,” he said, waiting.

  “I’ll take the baby all the way to New Denver—eventually. But first, I’ll talk to the human soldiers and try to find a doctor or medic. They should have medicine. Otherwise, the baby’s going to die.”

  Block was quiet.

  Nova stared at him. “Isn’t that what you wanted? To pass the baby off to a human?”

  He slowly nodded.

  “Well, congratulations. This is the last thing I expected to be volunteering for, but you finally got what you wanted. I’ll take the baby and figure out how to get help for her. You can go back to cleaning toilets or whatever it is you do.”

  He remained on the leafy ground, trying to process her suggestion.

  Nova climbed to her feet. “I gotta hit the can,” she said, and disappeared behind the barn.

  Left alone, Block calculated the millions of different scenarios to come, based on Nova’s proposal.

  The Nebraska humans could be unfriendly. Or they could be friendly and help the baby heal. But the possibilities were infinite.

  And what then? He’d be free to choose any highway, barring those in Nebraska, to travel along. He could resume his search for a hotel to call home. The thing he’d wanted all this time—to find a human for the baby—had been realized.

  Free and unburdened.

  The child peered up at him with glassy eyes. Block thrived on routine. He and the baby now had a routine going. Every three hours, like clockwork, he fed her and then changed her diaper. The routine was easy once you practiced. He even learned to sense when she was getting fussy, and how to soothe her.

  Nova reemerged and stretched in the distance. Nova didn’t know the baby’s routines. She didn’t know how to comfort her crying. She didn’t even seem to like the baby.

  Not only that, but she’d refused to answer the final question of his worthiness test.

  Yes, Nova was human, but she was unfit to properly care for the child. Should he let it go? Should he trust Nova and the humans to provide food and medical care for the child? But what if Nova were captured by SoldierBots—the ones who searched for the baby? Only Block could explain exactly what had happened in the high school. He was the only one who could explain the huge misunderstanding.

  Surely, Mach X would appreciate that he’d saved the child rather than let her die in the explosions?

  His programming ticked inside him, making him want to find a new place to work. An ideal place to clean. But would finding a new hotel be enough? Was he destined to live a life of constantly hiding from people and robots? The child was the first being who had ever depended on him. He liked the routine. He even liked carrying her on his chest.

  He tried to imagine himself in a hotel vacuuming and scrubbing, but without the baby. Something about it felt wrong.

  Nova returned, hands on hips. “So, what do you think of my plan? It’s your chance to be free.”

  “Your plan does make sense,” he conceded.

  He wanted to tell her his mission was to keep the child safe and find someone worthy. And she had failed his test. But he had to keep it secret. Nova was unworthy, and he didn't trust her. Maybe that’s what being worthy meant—that a person kept their word and always told the truth. Like Mr. Wallace—he would never lie.

  He hadn’t even lied to save himself from the SoldierBots that day.

  “I will accompany you the rest of the way to the Nebraskan border,” Block said, knowing it was less than two day’s walk. “And then decide where I go from there.”

  And, as they slept, he started making his own plan.

  30

  The next day, the late afternoon sun brightened a cloudless sky. The woman and baby-carrying robot had hiked ten hours by the time they reached a dead-end on a quiet country road.

  “Now what?” asked Block.

  “Give me a minute.” Nova pulled out the atlas and found the right page. “That’s funny. The road is different in the atlas. It’s supposed to join the highway.” She sighed. “How old is this thing?” Flipping the book over, she searched the cover. “2025! Jesus, it’s twenty years out of date.”

  Block stared at the sign that barricaded the road. Dead End. Behind it grew thick trees and shrubs. As with every structure they’d passed, weeds choked any untended crevices.

  “I wonder what’s behind this barricade,” she said. “They must’ve built something behind here that cut off the road.”

  “Well, we can’t get around the sign,” he said. “They designed it to be impassable, and then the trees finished the job.” He checked under the bandanna shading the baby. She slept, and her temperature still hovered over 101 degrees.

  The sound of a motor interrupted the incessant chorus of cicadas.

  Nova flinched. “What the hell is that?”

  The road they had just traveled stretched empty behind them.

  “A vehicle is coming,” Block said, peering into the sky. Two black specks soared above. If one looked casually, they would mistake them for two hawks seeking prey. But they didn’t move like birds.

  “Holy shit,” Nova said. “Are those drones?”
>
  “Yes, and they’re scanning for something.”

  “This way,” Nova said, stepping into the thick bramble of dense trees next to the sign. “It’s the only way. The trees will cover us.”

  Block followed, cloaking his comms, and they scurried through the tightly packed trees. Jogging first north, then west, they tried to connect back to the barricaded road.

  “Can you talk to those things? Ask them what they want?”

  He shook his head. “To do so would give away my location and model.”

  “So, we have no way of knowing what they’re after,” she muttered.

  Drone motors whined in the distance, reaching the dead-end where they had stood a minute before.

  The trees grew sparse, and Block and Nova reached the edge of an enormous vacant parking lot. Asphalt stretched before them. A hundred feet ahead, they spied a rusty chain-link fence that protected a shoddy, outdated amusement park. The peak of a wooden roller coaster rose prominently, its weather-beaten beams looking precarious. The empty cockpits of a lonely Ferris wheel shook slightly in the breeze.

  The whirring of the drones grew louder. “They’re coming this way!” Nova shouted. “Head for the park.” She started forward, but Block yanked her arm.

  “Wait,” he said, “we’ll be exposed in the parking lot.”

  “Not if we run fast. Come on!” She lunged forward, sprinting across the hot pavement. Glancing back, she screamed, “Now!”

  Block lurched and nearly stumbled as he cradled the baby while running after Nova, but he was nowhere near as fast.

  He joined her at the fence and she kicked it until it toppled over, clearing a path. She raced inside as Block followed, moving past old vending stalls with peeling paint. Past the roller coaster’s entrance and a sign that read: You must be this tall to ride.

  The drones had cleared the forest and flew toward them at great speed.

  Nova glared at him. “Did you ping them? How do they know where we are?”

  “No, I promise. I have no idea why. My comms are cloaked.”

  They paused near a flat pavilion where a sign said Bumper Cars. Nova leaped onto the cushioned black surface of the arena and slipped, crashing onto her backside. Behind her, Block slowed his pace, choosing a more thoughtful path as he crossed the thick, rubbery surface.