Rebirth (Archives of Humanity Book 1)

by Justin DePaoli

  He shook his head in disbelief. “No kidding.” The crystal-blue coloring of a Vaunton cube stared up at him.

  Orissa went to pinch it out, but she stopped suddenly. “It’s soldered on.”

  Leon squeezed in beside her. “Let me see.” He gave it a gentle tug. “That’s bizarre.”

  “Not if you don’t want someone accessing the data inside. It’s a lot more difficult to decrypt a Vaunton cube when it’s still in a computer. Can’t exactly plug it into a decrypter.”

  Leon took stock of the room, rubbing the rough whiskers on his chin. “What was your mother doing that was so important to need a Vaunton cube? And how did she afford one?”

  Orissa shrugged. “Don’t know.”

  “Don’t know, or don’t want to tell me?”

  He expected her to stare daggers at him and that wicked tongue of hers to lash out. Instead, she said with uncharacteristic softness, “I don’t know.”

  She stared at the Vaunton cube, lost in thought. Her eyes flicked up, wily and lively.

  “I have a theory,” she said. “If you care to hear it.”

  “Oh, I care.”

  She paced the room. “I think Rogue Hunters are chosen from a certain… group of people. I think we meant something to humanity.”

  Leon considered that. There were crazier theories. But still. “I don’t know. Why would the Machines be interested in people like that?”

  Orissa rapped a finger on the headboard. “I haven’t gotten that far.” She came back for the laptop and slid it into her backpack. With another shrug, she said, “It’s just a theory.”

  Leon let her walk by as he considered his words. “Is that why you came here? To—” He seesawed between completing his thought or not.

  She turned. “To what? To learn if I’m someone special?” she asked, putting air quotes around the word.

  More or less what I was going to say, he thought.

  “I came here because I want to learn more about my past.” She walked up to Leon and put a finger to his chest. “That you don’t disturbs me.”

  With that, she twirled around and left the room.

  Leon belched a mordant chuckle. “The past is the past. It’s done.” He went to the doorway, ensuring his words chased her. “Forgotten. I don’t care if I was a god among men. You know what disturbs me? That you’re more concerned with your past than finding another living soul on this planet. You—”

  “Shut up,” she snarled.

  “No. I won’t shut up. I—”

  She lurched into the doorway, shoving a gun in his face. Shut up, she mouthed, nodding into the living room.

  Leon unshouldered his rifle and kept pace behind her. Not two steps beyond the bedroom, he heard a whirring and clicking.

  Don’t be a Prime, he prayed. Don’t be a Prime.

  Emerging into the living room, he saw a Machine in the doorway. A spherical drone of sorts, fluttering in the air.

  “It’s good to see you, Doctor Servoni,” said the drone. “And Major General Imus.”

  Leon and Orissa looked at one another, a shared expression of bewilderment.

  Chapter Nine

  Orissa had knowledge of nearly every Machine in existence, and this thing that hovered before her did not count among them.

  She aimed the barrel of her submachine gun at it. “What are you?” she demanded.

  “Don’t make the wrong move,” added Leon. “We’re former Rogue Hunters. We’d love nothing more than to kill Machines that made us suffer.”

  The drone fluttered to and fro, as if fidgeting. It had a spherical body of brushed silver—nickel, maybe—and a large lens that frequently shuttered like a blinking eye. On its back were two triangular-shaped wings with extensive freedom of motion. A small antenna jutted from its head.

  “My name,” it said in a youthful voice that was neither fully computerized nor human, “is Droll. I belong to the possession of Doctor Mattias Varugus.”

  Orissa’s heart thrashed at the mention of that name. This can’t be a coincidence, she thought. Her mother was the Rebecca mentioned in Varugus’s emails that she and Leon had found in the Pittsburgh lab.

  Could the doctor who helped cover up the murder of her father also be Varugus?

  He must be.

  Orissa was too far in her own head to keep the conversation flowing. Fortunately, Leon stepped up.

  “How do you know our names?” he asked.

  “Data of all living humans was uploaded into my core memory four hundred and ninety-four years ago.”

  That stunning—if true—revelation freed Orissa from the trappings of her own mind. “What happened four hundred and ninety-four years ago?”

  The drone flitted to the left, then zipped back. “Broadly, the war between humans and Machines ended.”

  “Be more specific.”

  “I am afraid I cannot.”

  Leon sighed. “Why?”

  “I have a block on that data.”

  “A block?” Orissa questioned. She looked at Leon, who shrugged.

  The drone continued to flutter about. “Doctor Varugus installed blocks on certain segments of data in my memory.”

  “So,” mused Leon, “you can’t access them without… what? His approval?”

  Droll’s lens shuttered. “I access them just fine.”

  “What’s the problem, then?”

  In a voice both impatient and annoyed, the drone said, “There is a block on the memory.”

  Leon looked at Orissa while pointing at the drone. “Do you wanna”—he gestured at her submachine gun—“or should I? You know what, I’ll just take the butt of my rifle and—” He mimed bashing Droll.

  The drone retreated into the dark hallway.

  “We’re not going to do anything to you,” said Orissa, finally lowering her gun. She motioned for Leon to do the same with his rifle, which he did, but not before shooting her a disapproving glare.

  It was good to be cautious, particularly around Machines, but this one posed little threat. And it had broached a conversation, rather than opening up talks with guns-a-blazing, so that instantly set it apart from the other Machines.

  Orissa beckoned Droll back in. Hesitant, the drone shuttered its lens and slowly oscillated into the apartment.

  “What needs to happen for you to bypass the block?” she asked.

  “Doctor Varugus must authorize it.”

  “Well,” said Leon, “there goes that. Say, you belong to Varugus and you’re here. Which means—”

  “Varugus must have died here was well,” said Orissa. “In this complex.”

  Droll lifted a wing like an insect flicking a bead of water from its leg. “I have a block on that data.”

  “Surely you can tell us what you’ve been doing here for the past four centuries,” Orissa suggested.

  Like a puff of dandelion blowing in the wind, the drone rushed past them. It stopped in the kitchen, reorienting itself. “I do not have a block on this data, although I believe that is an oversight on behalf of Doctor Varugus. However, I deem you trustworthy and not compromised by the Machines.”

  “You know you’re a Machine yourself?” Leon pointed out.

  Droll stiffened his wings, as if insulted. “I am not.”

  “You are.”

  “I am not.”

  “You are.”

  “I am—”

  “Enough!” barked Orissa. She narrowed her gaze on Leon and shook her head. “What is wrong with you?”

  Leon shouldered his rifle. “Beyond sleep deprivation, the ever stressful reminder that we’re being chased and hunted by Machines, that we’re going to perform a heist of a highly combustible fuel, and this drone who clearly has too much personality for his own good? Beyond those things? Nothing.”

  “Major General Imus was well-regarded in the military,” said Droll. “I cannot understand why.”

  There it was again. Major General Imus. That would explain Leon’s expertise in battles. And it also furthered Orissa�
�s theory. She’d come back to both of those things later.

  “I’m going to shoot it,” snapped Leon.

  Orissa disregarded his threat with a wave of her hand. “You were saying, Droll?”

  The drone neared Orissa, keeping its distance from Leon. “I have spent the past four hundred and ninety-four years cleansing this city. Machines often descend upon these streets, but soon after they find themselves blind. I disrupt their quantum entanglement states, paralyze their processing capability through electromagnetic pulse hits and remote feeding of junk data, and—when I locate them—temporarily sever their connections to the global Machine Network.”

  After a moment of silence, Leon piped up. “I guess that’s impressive.”

  “Thank you,” replied Droll.

  “But why do it?” asked Orissa.

  “The Machines are Dr. Varugus’s sworn enemy, and thus they are mine. Without my master here, I will continue his mission anyway I deem permittable.”

  He keeps talking of Doctor Varugus in present tense. Surely the doctor’s dead, and surely a robot as intelligent as this one knows that. If she questioned that, however, Droll would shut it down with a claim that he had a block on that information.

  So she tired a different tactic. “Where is Doctor Varugus now?”

  “I have a block on that data,” answered Droll.

  “When did you last make contact with him?”

  “I have a block on that data.”

  Leon mouthed the same reply, rolling his eyes.

  Orissa walked to the kitchen and back, chewing her thumbnail down to the skin. “Are there any Machines in this city right now?”

  “Yes. There are fifteen military-class Machines consisting of six Duelists, four Deadeyes, three Primes, and two Ballistics. There are also eighteen knowledge-class Machines and three service-class Machines.”

  Eighteen knowledge-class Machines? Strange. Knowledge-class Machines were the first blueprint that military and service-class Machines arose from. Each knowledge Machine had a specific discipline—science or mathematics, for example—in which it would focus on acquiring information and apply that information to create new technologies or further ones already in existence.

  Once the Rise ended, Orissa hypothesized that knowledge Machines were the foundation from which all artificial intelligence had grown even more sophisticated and advanced.

  That they were here, in Washington D.C., meant there was information for them to find or apply here.

  “Tell me the Machines’ locations,” said Orissa.

  “32.342 North, 14.200 East. Approximately six hundred feet underground.”

  Orissa looked at her watch. Turning the crown, she snorted. “They’re inside the holding facility.”

  “Guards,” answered Leon.

  “It is doubtful they are serving as security,” said Droll. “They arrived only hours ago, along with seventy-five additional military-class Machines that have come to this city in the past twenty-four hours.”

  “What happened to those seventy-five?” Leon asked.

  The drone made a sound. If Orissa heard it right, it was a happy, childlike squeal.

  “They met my network of electromagnetic weapons that I have sprawled across this city,” said Droll proudly. “Unfortunately, I could not catch the aforementioned Machines who eventually did bypass my security measures. I had managed to hook into their networks, until they severed their connection to the far-reaching global Machine Network and established a local one within the underground halls you term a holding facility.”

  Knuckles to her teeth, Orissa considered the flourishing of an idea. “Do you know what’s in that facility, Droll?”

  “No. I have never ventured and Doctor Varugus has never revealed.”

  “A stockpile of mylosynicide that Leon and I desperately need.”

  The drone darted around Orissa. “For what purpose?”

  “We need a ship, and to get it we’ll need a distraction.”

  “An explosive distraction,” Leon added.

  Droll tilted to one side. “Where do you intend to take this ship?”

  “Africa,” answered Orissa. “Atlas Mountains.”

  The drone righted himself but said nothing.

  “Does that mean something to you?” Leon asked. “The Atlas Mountains.”

  “I have a block on that information.”

  Leon smiled. “That’s as good as a yes we’re likely to get.”

  Orissa approached the drone. He reared back in retreat. With a tentative hand, she reached out, showing him her palm. When he realized she had no intent to harm him, he idled.

  She grazed her fingers along his metal shell, and suddenly he vibrated like the purring of a kitten.

  “Will you help us?” Orissa asked, her voice soft.

  The drone’s vibrations ceased. Then, “You are friends of Doctor Varugus. I will help in what capacity that I am able.”

  Chapter Ten

  Droll, the helpful little drone that he was—when not jabbering on about blocks on his memory—revealed an abandoned armory in the southwest corner of D.C. Orissa gunned the Helrider there and stocked up on supplies. She and Leon gathered plasma cartridges, solar grenades, and three lock-on electromagnetic pulse knives.

  After nearly five hundred years, there was the possibility they wouldn’t work. But they’d been kept in special containment units, spared from the weather, elements, and crippling oxidization, so Orissa had reason to hope.

  Back in the driver’s seat of the Helrider, Orissa set out for the location marked on her watch. It was time to steal some mylosynicide.

  “I must confess,” said Droll, stabilizing himself on the floor between Orissa and Leon, “I find it curious there are two Rogue Hunters before me.”

  “Curiosity and artificial intelligence don’t mix,” said Leon.

  “Forgive my attempt to broach a question with tact and mannerisms that humans might find acceptable, rather than to brute force my way into answers with blunt, clinical language that would further reduce me to a worthless Machine in your eyes.”

  Orissa laughed so hard that had she taken a drink, water would have spilled out of her nose. And maybe even her eyes.

  Even Leon found amusement in the jest. “Wow. That was a good jab, little drone.”

  “Droll is my name.”

  Leon chuckled. “All right, Droll. I’m warming up to you. See? All it takes is a few well-placed insults and you’re like family.”

  “A military man indeed,” returned Droll.

  “I’d better be careful to not insult too much,” added Orissa. “I wouldn’t want to turn you on.”

  He raised his brows in as surly a manner as he could. “If you don’t want that, I suggest you quit walking ahead of me.”

  Orissa took her foot off the thruster and narrowed her eyes on him.

  Leon held up his hands. “It was a joke.”

  “You’re getting bold,” she said.

  “Ah. Well, you know the saying. Fortune favors the bold.”

  Orissa gave him a smirk. “So does death, so try not to be too fearless.”

  “To my curiosity,” said Droll, bringing the conversation back on topic. “How is it that both of you are Rogue Hunters, yet you are free and not compromised?”

  Leon rubbed his hands together. “Well, you see. It was a sunny afternoon when—”

  “I freed myself, and then later rescued his ass,” said Orissa. “End of story.”

  She heard the shuttering of the drone’s lens. Doubtless he was pondering why she’d been so abrupt and blunt, but she’d say no more on the subject. Orissa’s escape from the Machines was her tale to tell and hers alone. The things she had done… even a drone who sympathized with humans, who seemed to hold a special distaste for the Machines, wouldn’t understand.

  Worse, she was to blame for the unbending, authoritative containment of Leon. Certain “measures” had been implemented to keep her rebellion from ever happening again, and he suf
fered through them all.

  We all have secrets, she thought. And some of them die with us.

  She glanced at her watch, then nodded ahead. “It’s across that bridge and beyond the marsh. A good time to remind everyone this is a heist. Not an assault.”

  “Right,” said Leon, for once agreeable. “In and out with a vial of mylosynicide. Be best if there’s not a single trigger pull.”

  “Vials of mylosynicide,” clarified Orissa. She steered over a collapsed bridge, water coming partway up the Helrider doors.

  The agreeable Leon was short-lived. “One is plenty to blow a few holes in a wall. And I’d rather not be lugging around more highly explosive, unstable fuels than we need to.”

  The Helrider climbed out of the muck and into a dense thicket. According to Orissa’s watch, their destination was half a mile ahead.

  Orissa didn’t press Leon any further on the quantity of mylosynicide they’d filch. When he made up his mind about something, he wasn’t keen on changing it. Not right away. He needed time. Orissa didn’t care for that little defect of his, but people weren’t Machines. They had deformities, shortcomings, and faults, and you worked around them.

  God knows I have mine, she thought.

  The Helrider idled before a hillside of moss and lichen sheathed in the amber gaze of a late afternoon sun. There, beyond trees wrangled in by aggressive and overcrowding creepers, was a partially open door that led into the mountain.

  Out of the Helrider and on approach, Orissa noticed Machine parts strewn about. She couldn’t take a step without metal and circuitry crunching underfoot.

  “I’d say they’re relics of the Rise,” began Leon, “but these are sitting on top of weeds. They’re fresh.”

  “They are relics of yesterday,” explained Droll.

  Orissa bent down and picked up a red crystal. “The eye of a Prime,” she said.

  “And another,” added Leon, kicking a blue crystal her way.

  She turned the red eye over in her hand, before fisting it and glancing at Droll. “You said you weren’t aware of what this facility held. Yet, you’d set up enough defenses here to take out an army of Machines. Dumb luck?”

  The drone fluttered. Orissa had never believed Machines to be capable of anxiety and consternation, but Droll’s tenseness was palpable.