Rebirth (Archives of Humanity Book 1)

by Justin DePaoli

  More gunfire thundered through the facility. Along with screams.

  Sweat poured down Orissa’s face now, sizzling in the mylosynicide like bacon on a greased pan.

  There, she thought as she could pull the plunger no further. She filled the vial and corked it, then set the syringe on the floor. There’d be no keeping that on her person anymore.

  Vial safely in a side pocket of her backpack, she shot a glance at Droll. “Let’s go!”

  Orissa raced through the chamber and into the hall, leaping every other step enroute to Leon’s position. Droll guided her along, but she could have found Leon simply enough by following the sound of gunshots.

  “Major General Imus is thirty feet away.”

  I know where Major General Imus is, thought Orissa, fingering leather-wrapped knife handles in her belt. She couldn’t see him, but the three Duelists inching toward a door up ahead was a dead giveaway. Wielding plasma blades and stun batons, they locked onto her like motion-sensing lights.

  Orissa flicked her remaining three electromagnetic pulse knives free. “Leon!” she hollered. “Count to five!”

  She moved quickly but calmly, aiming three knives between two hands. The green lasers drawn from the knife-tips put tiny, pin-sized spotlights on the Duelists. She pressed the side triggers on each knife, locking in her enemy’s position.

  Orissa heaved the knives forward. They looked like darts fired from a dartgun, gyroscopes keeping the tips straight and true.

  Leon sprinted from the lab just as the knives sunk into the Machines’ outer shells, temporarily disabling them.

  A deafening blast from a Deadeye shaved past his head.

  “Jesus Christ!” he shouted, ducking. “You have the mylosynicide?”

  “Got it.”

  “Sprinkle a drop of it on the floor. Now!”

  “A drop? A drop! How am I—”

  Droll snatched the vial from the exposed side pocket of her backpack. “Allow me, Doctor Servoni.” With a three-fingered hand, he popped the cork and nimbly poured a single drop onto the floor. Capping it back, he returned it to Orissa’s person.

  “Go go go,” ordered Leon, pushing her down the hall. “And swerve. For god’s sake, swerve!”

  The wumping pulse of plasma shot past Orissa. A glass wall shattered, spewing tiny shards into her hair.

  “That’s why you swerve,” said Leon.

  “Quit pushing me.”

  “Quit being slow. Go!”

  He moved ahead of her, his every stride a display of pure power. Orissa had been molded by the wilds, her muscles shaped and forged by woods and cliffs and the unforgiving harshness of nature. Yet, Leon was stronger and faster by every measure.

  He could have pulled ahead even further, she thought, but he was holding back.

  Droll veered by her head. “Approximately four seconds until partial function returns to the Duelists. The Prime is calculating.”

  “This way,” said Leon, darting into an offshoot corridor. He squatted, back against the wall. “All right. You might want to close your ears.”

  Holding tight to her gun, Orissa knelt beside him. “What are you planning, Leon?”

  A wink was his only answer.

  A wink. As if he fancied himself a gunslinging captain straight out of a shoot ‘em up western. If their straits weren’t so dire, a straight backhand was what he needed.

  He leaned around the corner, rifle scope to his eye. “Where’s that Prime? Come on. There, there! A little closer, a little—ah, fuck. Deadeye. Out of time.”

  Orissa had suffered an explosion involving mylosynicide only once in her lifetime. A Machine-piloted Corvette had suffered a malfunction mid-flight, and she watched the ship go nose-down from five miles away, behind the crown of a rocky promontory. When the fuel canisters met the ground, a shockwave thrashed the land and threw Orissa onto her back. Had she not had the hill for protection, probably her left and right kidneys would have swapped places. And she’d have been dead.

  The crash left behind a crater a mile in radius and hundreds of feet deep.

  That was the only experience of combustible mylosynicide she had to draw from.

  Until now.

  Leon fired a single shot, and Orissa’s world turned black. Hot vapor gusted past her face, and a ceaseless ringing bored into her skull. The floor trembled, and the wall she leaned against wavered like a sapling in a spring thunderstorm.

  When she finally opened her eyes, clouds of grayish black dust hung in the air, so thick that she couldn’t see her hands. Her flashlight was of little help; the dust seemed to absorb its glow like a black hole.

  Sprung into a fit of hoarse coughing, she pulled the neck of her shirt up over her mouth. She needed to find Leon and get out of here, if there was still a way out.

  She got on her knees, ready to search the hallway in sweeping motions when a hand lurched out and grasped her by the wrist.

  “Come on,” barked Leon.

  “This way, Major General Imus,” said Droll. The drone emitted a repeating pattern of beeps that served as guiderails out of the facility. Farther on down the hallway, the gloom of mylosynicide-caused destruction thinned.

  Entire walls had been blown out, labs sealed off by chunks of immovable debris. Part of the ceiling had collapsed, exposing the concrete support layer above.

  “Better get out of here before this whole thing comes down,” said Leon, finally releasing Orissa’s hand as he climbed over rubble.

  She flexed her fingers, realizing for the first time how comforting it was to feel another’s touch in times of uncertainty. That was an admittance she’d never tell a soul.

  “Give us an update, drone,” said Leon. “How’s it looking outside?”

  “The Machines have not reentered. They appear to have made a calculating judgment that waiting for reinforcements presents better odds of survival. I am continuing to scramble their calls, but I cannot do so forever.”

  Orissa had gone uncharacteristically silent. Her heart was still thumping, blood still ran cold. She’d had brushes with Death before. God knows the Reaper had been at her heels for a while. But never had her fate been so far out of her control.

  She’d always made the calls. Sitting in the passenger seat without a pedal, brake, or steering wheel was a new experience for her.

  And one she didn’t much care for.

  “You’re suggesting we take them out,” said Leon.

  “Yes,” replied Droll. “Once we are near, I will attempt to overtake the remaining Prime’s processes. However, upon doing so the other Machines will quickly reestablish connection to the Machine Network. Their immediate elimination is vital to our success.”

  Orissa followed Leon and the drone up a flight of stairs, to the upper floors where electricity still buzzed through inset lights and the glass enclosures of labs and offices were untouched by the blast.

  “How many military-class Machines remain?” asked Leon.

  “One Prime, one Duelist, two Deadeyes, and one Ballistic.”

  “Here’s the plan. Droll, you get in that Prime’s head and use his guns to take out the Ballistic, then down those two Deadeyes. Orissa, you and I will unload on the knowledge Machines.” He looked back and pulled an invisible trigger with his finger. “Pow, pow, pow,” he said. “Easy as that. They can’t fight back. Got it? Orissa?”

  Orissa shook herself out of the black morass her mind was trapped in. “Yes.”

  Leon stopped. He took her by the shoulders, eyes undressing her. “You all right?”

  No, she thought. The worst part was, she couldn’t explain why. It felt like her brain had been paralyzed, thoughts chucked into a blender and mashed up into a soup of disconnected thoughts.

  Was this what true fear felt like?

  She had to get past it. Had to be strong like she’d always been.

  “The Duelists,” she finally said. “Don’t discount them. You might be able to get a few blasts in before they close the distance, but they will close
it quickly. They’re faster than you think. Always faster than you think.”

  “Noted,” said Leon.

  “We are approaching the exit,” warned Droll. “It is fifteen hundred feet away.”

  Orissa glanced at the display mounted on the rail of her submachine gun. It told her the plasma cartridge was 100%. She remembered she hadn’t taken a single shot, despite the chaos.

  “I have gained control of the Prime’s processes,” said the drone. “Executing Major General Imus’s orders.”

  From outside the facility rang the rapid fire of a rotary gun. Orissa felt her pulse thumping in her throat. She and Leon sprinted down the hall, boots clapping on the concrete floor.

  A prism of sunlight threaded through the narrow opening of the half-moon doors ahead.

  Time paradoxically moved faster and slower. It felt like it’d taken a lifetime to finally reach the doors, but then Orissa couldn’t recall the actual act of exiting the facility. She was simply outside. Standing tall. Stock of her gun against her shoulder, sights lasered in on a congregation of knowledge Machines.

  Those metal bastards dropped like crab apples, shredding their titanium fragments as plasma seared through their armored plating and fried their circuitry.

  “Duelist!” cried Orissa, pointing to Leon’s right. The word barely left her mouth before a Prime moved in beside her and mowed down that Duelist and another.

  The Prime then aimed its rotary cannon at itself and blew off its head. The Machine’s core skeleton slumped to the ground.

  “Now that’s how you clear out Machines,” hollered Leon, triumphantly pumping his rifle into the air.

  Under the evening sun, metal fragments sparkled in the grassy fields like scales on a fish. But what caught Orissa’s eye wasn’t the leftovers of ruined Machines. It wasn’t even the alluring blue glow of Vaunton cubes lying within the cavity of a nonfunctional knowledge bot.

  It was the darkish figure in her peripheral, a Machine the color of cold iron, whose armor dynamically shifted in color to match its environment. It stood beneath an overhang of muddied rock, the long barrel of its sniper rifle pointed at…

  Orissa didn’t have time to think. She just screamed.

  “Deadeye!”

  She set the sights of her gun on the sharpshooter. Finger on the trigger, she heard a distinctive crack followed by a deafening thump. The signature sound of a sniper rifle firing.

  The Deadeye fell shortly after, burned to bits by the emptying of Orissa’s plasma cartridge into its frame and electronics.

  “Breathe,” said Droll.

  Breathe, thought Orissa. Yes, it felt good to finally breathe.

  “Major General Imus, it is important you breathe. Keep calm.”

  Orissa turned and gasped. Her gun fell from her hands as she ran. Leon lay on the ground, clutching his chest.

  Blood seeped from between his fingers.

  Chapter Eleven

  Being shot at was more terrifying than having been shot. That was a bizarre thought to have floating around in his head as Leon bled out all over himself, but Leon was strangely comfortable with the prospect of dying.

  Or, perhaps, he’d tapped into some locked-away region of his brain and recalled training he underwent in the military to remain calm and composed. Taking a plasma blast to the chest meant probable death, but to panic over it would induce certain death.

  He left the hysteria to Orissa.

  “You’re a goddamned drone!” she shouted at Droll, taking a swipe at him. He thrust backwards. “Do something! Help!”

  The pain was worsening. It flared like a campfire in his chest, searing nerve endings. Warm blood continued to leak around his hand.

  And around Orissa’s. She’d put a hand overtop his, placing incredible pressure on the wound. He thought his sternum might crack.

  “Useless fucking hunk of metal,” she muttered, digging through her pack with a free hand. “Think. I need to think. What’s in here that I can use?”

  She leaned in close. “Can you talk?”

  Leon grimaced. The fiery sensations were spreading throughout his torso, digging deep around his ribs. Every breath felt like it might be his last. “Prefer… not to.”

  “Let me see,” she said, gently pulling his hand away. He watched her eyes for a tell of how bad it was. But her pupils never widened, mouth never twitched.

  She’s good, Leon thought with as much humor as he could muster.

  “The good news is it’s not plasma,” said Orissa.

  “That’s not good news,” managed Leon. “Means—”

  Leon seized. It felt like he couldn’t take a breath and that his heart was trying to flop out of his chest.

  “Leon!”

  He gasped, flattening back out.

  “It appears laced with a chemical,” said Droll.

  “Great help you are,” grumbled Orissa. “Go and get me the Deadeye’s gun. I need to see what was in the payload.”

  “Likely aconitine,” suggested the drone. “During the Rise, Machines often chambered standard bullets filled with twenty-six milligrams of aconitine, delivering over six times the lethal dose when striking a human.”

  Leon coughed up specks of blood. “Been… nice knowing you,” he said. His gut felt like he’d swallowed boiling water.

  “Doctor Servoni,” said Droll, “I have a block on this information, but I am bypassing it as it directly interferes with Doctor Varugus’s Prime Directive. The medicinal chip that Doctor Varugus invented is housed in a secured compartment within my frame.”

  “Will it save him?”

  “Yes.”

  Leon swore. He was going to burst into flames. That was how it’d all end, with him becoming a human pyre. The scorching pain had reached all the way down to his toes. Not an inch of him was spared from the agony.

  “This chip,” said Droll, “is the only one of its kind. If it is placed within Major General Imus, further production of it will be impossible. I do not possess the information required—”

  Orissa leaned back and snatched her submachine gun up, pointing the barrel at Droll. “Do it or I’ll make it so every byte of information you do have will be sprayed across this field. Do you understand?”

  What the drone did then Leon couldn’t say. The pain overwhelmed him. Blackness crowded his vision, then retreated. Every time it came back, it seemed to blot out more light. He was too scared to blink, fearful that if his lids closed, that’d be it.

  If I die, he thought, let the sky be the last thing I see.

  He searched for Orissa but couldn’t see her. He felt her though. Her hand clasped his, her fingers rough and scaly from survival in the wilds. They weren’t soft and luscious and smooth, her nails weren’t done up pretty, and she had a fierce grip that could probably rival any man’s.

  And what a lovely feeling it was. Her touch was, in a word, real. She supported his head with her arm, and he hissed as something pinched the nape of his neck.

  Leon’s eyes turned heavy, and his head felt light.

  This might be it, he thought. A chill tore through him, ice pouring through his veins. As uncomfortable as it was, the sensation seemed more literal than figurative—it frosted the fire, quenching the flames that had swept him up into a conflagration.

  “Breathe,” Orissa told him.

  “I am breathing,” he said. “And it doesn’t hurt.” He raised a brow. “Nothing hurts.” Attempting to sit up, he grimaced. “All right. That hurt.”

  “It will take only a short time before your pain is completely gone,” said Droll. “You may feel the frequent urge to urinate but produce nothing. Be aware that is a common side effect.”

  With Orissa’s assistance, Leon managed to ease himself up. “That’s a strange side effect.”

  “Indeed.”

  Orissa unscrewed her canteen and brought the rim to Leon’s lips. She tilted his head back gently. “Drink.”

  He took a couple sips before signaling he’d had enough. He wiped his mouth o
n his sleeve. “Any other tricks up your sleeve, drone? Or in one of your compartments?”

  Droll opened a small door in his flank, ejecting a multi-tool. “I am an impeccable locksmith.”

  Leon chuckled. “Well, I feel… better.”

  She looked at him questionably. “Not ‘good’?”

  “I would say I feel good, but knowing I just had a chip implanted in me… well, let me have my concerns for now.”

  “That chip saved your life.”

  Leon rose to his feet. “So did the Machines, if you want to believe your theory that we once had lives before these ones.”

  “Do you really think that’s still a theory?”

  He shrugged. He rubbed the back of his neck, fingers massaging a nodule where the chip had been implanted. “Look, I’m thankful.” He squared himself to Orissa and lowered his head. “I truly am. I’d much rather be here with you than gallivanting through the gates of heaven, or taking the long walk across the firepits of hell, if either place exists.”

  “Do you think they do?”

  He chuckled. “Now’s not the time for that philosophical discussion.”

  Orissa smiled. It was a rare occurrence, that smile, but Leon loved it. The brightening of her green eyes, the slight crinkling of her nose, the little, almost imperceptible snort. Things Machines lacked.

  Leon strolled over to a scintillating blue glow in the grass. He bent down and picked up the cradle of Vaunton cubes. Each was soldered to the other and to the cradle. “Looks like I got what I wanted after all.”

  “Hm. I guess you did. Now let’s go back and get what I wanted.”

  Leon looked over his shoulder. “You really think we need more mylosynicide? You saw what a drop did.”

  “That’s all we’re putting in each vial. A drop. I don’t want to be walking around with ten milliliters of this fuel in my pocket.”

  Leon frowned at the thought. “Fair enough. There’s no medicinal chip in the world that’ll keep you alive after that. Speaking of which… Droll, you bypassed a block.”