Rebirth (Archives of Humanity Book 1)

by Justin DePaoli

  Must be my imagination, she thought. Machines were hunks of metal, in the end. Nothing more. Even a friendly one was just computer code and utterly meaningless in comparison to human life.

  “I did not know what this facility held,” said Droll, “only that it was of great importance to Doctor Varugus and a bastion of safety.”

  Kicking around overways, Leon looked up. “What makes you say it was a bastion of safety?”

  Besides the fact that the U.S. Government felt it was shielded well enough to hide the most potent chemical known to man? thought Orissa.

  The drone didn’t answer right away. Finally, he said, “I have no block on that data. Another oversight, I believe. I cannot blame my master; his haste was necessary.”

  Orissa waited, but a further explanation never came. Hands on her hips, she swayed with impatience. “Out with it, Droll. What data?”

  Another hesitation.

  “You said yourself we’re not compromised,” noted Leon. “What’s the problem?”

  Droll fluttered higher. “Doctor Varugus had created, in collaboration with medical doctors Ichi Cassau and Ivan Brech, a medicinal chip that acted as a prophylactic, therapeutic, and cure. When implanted beneath a human’s skin, it served as a highly intelligent immune system. A second brain.”

  Leon looked impressed. “So if a Deadeye caught me with a plasma blast in the shoulder and I had this chip…”

  “It would staunch the bleeding and begin immediate measures to isolate potential infections and clear them. It would also relieve pain through non-narcotic means, allowing you to perform without compromise.”

  Orissa wasn’t as taken. “Sounds like a miracle cure.” There were plenty of those throughout history, and they were best referred to as snake oil.

  “A miracle cure was its intent,” said Droll. “The Rise concluded before mass production could begin.”

  “So the chip’s gone?” Leon asked. “Extinct?”

  The drone flicked its antenna. “Presumably. Doctor Varugus had intended to conceal it within this facility, but the Machines moved faster than any models—including my own—had predicted. He would leave this country before stepping foot into this facility again.”

  Orissa stole a look at Leon, wondering if he’d caught the invisible piece of information the drone had revealed. If so, he didn’t show it. He was too busy inspecting the circular doors into the facility.

  He would leave this country, thought Orissa, parroting Droll’s words in her mind. Maybe that wasn’t a violation of Droll’s block, since he never specifically told them where Doctor Varugus had gone, but it was more than he’d revealed in the apartment.

  Which meant either the drone was coming to better trust them, or the blocks were an excuse. Nonexistent. Means to withhold information without appearing distrustful.

  Orissa would think on that later. Right now, there was a job to do. One of the most dangerous she’d ever undertaken.

  “These doors,” said Leon, “were the only things preventing a Machine from entering.” He lifted his eyes, surveying the area. “No fortifications. No bunkers. No… nothing. How did the Machines not find this until just yesterday?”

  “They did not search until yesterday,” said Droll.

  And the million-dollar question is why. What made them start searching this facility now? What woke them?

  Every time she pondered that question, she shivered. It was, somehow, more assuring to believe that Machines had only two purposes on this planet: to eradicate human life, and to better their own.

  The waking of their metal kin from centuries-long stases didn’t fit neatly into either of those plans. That meant there was a third goal, yet unknown to Orissa. And the unknown is always the most terrifying of all. It’s a black abyss in which the depths are unplumbed, where leviathans might circle and eldritch serpents lie in wait.

  It’s the stuff of horror stories. True horror that can’t be explained, of monsters without description for to describe them would be to use words that don’t exist and evoke visions that man has never had.

  That was the unknown in all its goriness.

  It was a great relief, then, when Orissa squeezed inside the doors to the facility to find lit hallways humming with the buzz of long cylindrical lights set within the sleek walls.

  “Electricity,” whispered Leon. “How?”

  “Radioisotope thermoelectric generators,” explained Droll, close behind them. “The monetary expense was extraordinary, and thus RTGs were used solely for vital operations for the world’s militaries during the Rise.”

  Leon started ahead, rifle in hand. “Gotta make sure the missiles can still fire, even if the power plants stop running. Makes sense.” He looked back. “All right, let’s keep it quiet. We’re going in blind.”

  “Not quite,” said the drone. “I detect all Machines in the lowest chamber of this facility, Major General Imus.”

  Leon bristled at that title. Did he believe it? Or had it confirmed a dream that he’d had?

  Dreams aren’t real. Those were his words. They came on so fast and so indignantly that Orissa knew he didn’t believe them. It was a facade. An excuse to disregard what he saw every night upon closing his eyes.

  Orissa didn’t blame him. She’d been that way once, before she came to accept the haunting truth that her dreams were memories pleading to be let loose.

  And still they caused her discomfort.

  “You said all Machines,” noted Leon. “Military and knowledge?”

  “Correct.”

  Odd, thought Orissa. Knowledge Machines usually didn’t congregate around military-class Machines. The only explanation was that the knowledge Machines were attempting to divine vital information and the military bots were serving as their guards.

  But surely the Machine Network possessed every byte of information it needed about mylosynicide. It’d been nearly five hundred years since the fuel’s discovery, and the Machines used it to power nearly everything.

  Which meant there was something more than mylosynicide in this facility.

  A shiver tip-toed across Orissa’s shoulders. Her arms pimpled. Focus on the objective, she told herself. Everything else was tertiary to those plans.

  Down the halls she went, letting her eyes wander into offshoot rooms where no inch of space went untouched by chair or table or computer, where walls were covered in black screens and knobs and vast arrays of electronics.

  As she descended deeper into the labyrinthine facility, glass doorways and walls sealed her off from rooms filled with beakers and burners, microscopes and gyrators and all manners of laboratory equipment.

  “It’s like an underground city,” Leon remarked, equally as awed.

  Untouched by Machines until now, Orissa thought. How? That question gnawed at her insides like a burning hunger. During the Rise, Machines left no human creation untouched. How had this facility endured so long? How had it slipped beyond the Machine eye? Capable though Droll was, surely he alone couldn’t have protected this place.

  A sprig of violence shot up from deep in her chest and strangled her. How she wished, how she’d love to crack open every titanium chassis, to pulverize every steel skull in attempt to purloin Machine secrets. She’d make them suffer for every answer she pulled out. She’d make those metal fiends feel agonizing pain till she extruded from them the last bytes of functionality.

  The sour taste of copper swirled in Orissa’s mouth. She’d been chewing her cheek during that lovely little reverie, chomping into the wet flesh like hydraulically powered shears jawing through the toughest of metal.

  In the basement of the facility there was only a single hallway. It led to a vast chamber, the sight of which Leon and Orissa kept out of for now.

  “I have tapped into their local network,” Droll announced. “I am feeding them falsified information, gumming up their senses. I have masked my breach, but their antivirus suites will scrub me before long.”

  In other words, hurry up and do what you
will.

  Orissa and Leon peeked out from a corner and into the chamber. She ignored the Primes staring straight at her and imagined the Ballistic bots were settling into a stasis. Still, her heart leaped into her throat and her hands were shaky. Clearly, her imagination needed work.

  The room was a vaulted cavern with a massive table in the middle, thirty-some-odd chairs pushed neatly in. The far wall was made entirely of screens, from tiny monitors to sweeping panes. Beneath them stood a complex system of computers, towers pressed so closely together it appeared they’d been fused. In the center, networked together by bundles of corded wire, were an array of bright blue Vaunton cubes secured within a metal cradle.

  A cradle surrounded by knowledge Machines.

  “The stuff on those cubes is nearly five hundred years old,” said Leon. “It’s gotta be worthless to the Machines.”

  If it was just technology, I’d agree, thought Orissa. She kept that to herself, however. Best not to rile Leon up and put ideas in his mind. They were here for the mylosynicide and nothing else.

  A noise from the chamber startled her. It sounded like hissing gas.

  “Shit,” whispered Leon.

  A single knowledge Machine stepped away from the console with possession of the cradle of Vaunton cubes. He deposited them into a storage unit within his chassis, sealing shut the door.

  The military-class Machines convened around the bot, the rear taken up by a Prime, ballistic, and two Duelists. The remainder of the Machines fell into position at the forefront.

  “I’ve been scrubbed,” said Droll. That warning came just as Orissa heard the heavy slaps of titanium feet from within the chamber.

  They were nearing.

  Go! she mouthed to Leon, shuffling him around and shoving him toward the stairs at the end of the hall. They scrambled to the higher floors, taking refuge in the glass walls of a laboratory.

  “Get under something,” Orissa whispered. She fit herself under a desk, feet edging up against surge protectors. Leon and his oafish size had difficulty fully concealing himself, but the lab was down an accessory corridor that the Machines shouldn’t pass through.

  “A Slicer is among them,” said Droll. “He must have been concealing himself as a knowledge Machine. He is attempting to breach my security protocols.”

  Orissa’s mouth went dry. “Does he know your location?”

  “I am spoofing it, Doctor Servoni. It should be convincing enough to keep the Machines from searching us out.”

  Convincing it was, for the chilling clatter of steel passed through the main hall and faded.

  Leon crawled out from beneath a table, smacking his head off the corner edge.

  “Fuck!” he cried, groaning.

  “Would you keep quiet?” Orissa whispered. “There’s nothing saying an escort of military Machines can’t turn back if they hear something suspicious.”

  “I just—” He shook his head like a wet dog. “Forget it. Look, those Vaunton cubes… they’ve got to be important, Orissa.”

  On her feet again, she paced to the glass panes, looking out. Ensuring there were no lingering Machines. “No. We’re here for the mylosynicide.” She turned, finding Leon wearing a frustrated frown. “Stick to the plan.”

  “Plans change.”

  She loured at him, allowing her silence to answer.

  “Humans are the great adapters,” said Leon. “Right? Machines stick to the plan. They run on a flow of pure logic. But we—”

  Oh, how she hated this side of Leon. “And how would we pry it away from three Primes?” Arms crossed over her breasts, she waited for an answer. When one never came, she said, “Just drop it, Leon. We came here for the mylosynicide.”

  His head tilted back and he breathed a heavy sigh to the heavens. “You’re right. Let’s go.”

  His relent caught her off-guard; she’d expected further argument. Maybe he was learning compromise. She frowned inwardly at the thought. Now he’ll expect me to as well.

  “Droll,” said Orissa, “where are the Machines now?”

  “Two floors up,” he answered. “At their pace, they will exit this facility in ten minutes.”

  “Far enough away,” she decided. “Let’s get that mylosynicide.”

  Orissa shivered as she pushed open the door to the lab. This entire facility creeped her out. It felt like it’d been ripped straight out of a movie, an unknown black site where ghoulish experiments had been conducted.

  Maybe that was a lack of sleep and stress preying on her imagination. Could be that this facility was simply humanity’s last attempt to defeat the Machines.

  Let’s go with that, she thought.

  She and Leon searched the bottommost chamber, guided by the white flood of their flashlights. Ignoring what looked to be an offline supercomputer, they came to a hulking steel door centered with a five-spoke handle. A vault door. The Machines had apparently already taken to it, having drilled through the outer panel and into the side locking bolts. It wasn’t so much a door anymore as it was a tent flap.

  Orissa and Leon stole inside a cramped room that reeked of chemicals. Six steel cylinders greeted them. One of the locked lids had been set ajar, likely by an inquisitive Machine.

  Orissa moved it a smidgen more, just enough to take a peek.

  Inside, she stared at the molten silver of mylosynicide.

  “Take a look at this,” said Leon. He stood before slatted lockers which held empty glass vials. “I was hoping this stuff would already be in vials.”

  “Me too,” said Orissa, biting her lip.

  “I swear, if this is how I die…”

  It wasn’t an irrational fear. Mylosynicide, in addition to being highly combustible, was deadly poisonous when swallowed or absorbed through the skin. It took only a couple of drops on one’s fingertip to stop the beating of a healthy heart.

  “You have that syringe of medicine in your backpack,” Leon reminded her. “Safest way to extract it. If you’re not up for it, I’ll—”

  “I’ll do it,” snapped Orissa. As if—as if—she’d cower and let the big, masculine man take the dangerous job. She’d sooner take a spoonful of mylosynicide.

  As she shouldered off her pack, Droll buzzed by.

  “The Machines are nearing the exit,” he said. “They have reestablished connection to the global Machine Network and are attempting to request an evacuation ship. I have scrambled their calls for now.”

  Orissa unzipped her pack and reached inside for the rubber-capped syringe filled with pain relieving medicine.

  “They have reached the exit,” noted Droll. “But their movements have ceased.”

  “Maybe,” said Leon, “they’re admiring the…” His voice trailed off. Then, with a whisper, “Oh. Shit.”

  Orissa looked up, pushing down the plunger and emptying the medicine from the syringe. “What?”

  “The Helrider,” said Leon. “They see the Helrider.”

  “Two Primes have reentered the facility,” warned Droll. “Along with one Deadeye, three Duelists, and one Ballistic. No knowledge Machines have entered. The Primes are moving quickly toward this position.”

  Orissa was prepared to throw everything back into her pack when Leon unshouldered his rifle.

  “Stay here and get that vial filled. I’ll stall them.”

  “What? It’s not going to matter if we have the mylosynicide if we can’t get out of here. I’m coming with you.”

  “No,” he growled. Fire flared in his hazel eyes. “Listen to me for once, will you? I know what I’m doing here.” He nodded and added, “Doctor Servoni.”

  Orissa couldn’t decide if the invocation of her title was an insult or Leon’s bluntness. I’m a general, you’re a doctor. I’m calling the shots now. That was what it sounded like.

  If the roles were switched, she’d do the same. Play to your strengths, she thought.

  “Once you have the fuel in a vial, come find me. I imagine I won’t be hard to locate.”

  “What’s
the plan, Leon? You owe me that, at least.”

  He mimed an explosion, grin on his lips. “We’re going to blow some Machines sky high.” He gave her a wink and tore off.

  “Go with him,” Orissa ordered Droll.

  “Unnecessary, Doctor Servoni. I can assist Major General Imus from here.”

  Orissa lifted herself up and retrieved a glass vial from the locker. She stood over the vat of mylosynicide, heart thumping in her ears.

  Slowly, she dipped the syringe into the viscous fuel. As she pulled on the plunger, bursts of plasma rang in her ears.

  “Major General Imus has engaged two Primes,” said Droll. “I have accessed one’s vision. I am attempting to—”

  The drone went silent.

  Jaw clenched, Orissa subdued the urge to glance at him, keeping focus on the toxic mylosynicide.

  “Droll,” she said through gritted teeth, “what’s wrong?”

  “Its antivirus suite scrubbed me.”

  A sudden explosion rocked the facility, churning the mylosynicide. The fuel ramped up the syringe and nearly lapped against Orissa’s finger.

  “Likely a Ballistic,” said Droll.

  Her lungs ached. Every breath out was agonizing, each one in even worse.

  A bead of sweat slipped down the bridge of her nose and splashed into the fuel. The mylosynicide hissed violently.

  “Is he alive?” asked Orissa, mouth gaped as she drew the fuel into the syringe with utmost ease and care.

  “I have gained control over a Prime’s processes,” said Droll. “It is our ally for the time. Doctor Servoni, you should hurry. Deadeyes are approaching on Major General Imus’s position, and Duelists are preparing to flank him. The Ballistic appears to have been eliminated.”

  Orissa licked a drop of sweat from her cheek. “Stop them,” she whispered. She wanted to shout it, to scream for the damn drone to do something, but if she got a single drop of the fuel on her skin….

  “One Prime has been eliminated, but I have lost connection to the other.”

  Orissa seethed. “Get it back.”

  Droll flitted. “I do not have the processing power to simultaneously inherit a Prime and scramble the current calls for an evacuation from the knowledge Machines. It is one or the other, Doctor Servoni, and I have determined a ship of reinforcements poses a greater threat to our survival.”