CONTROL HQ - RUSHM
AD 3999/AE 1999
(((INTEGRITY BREACH)))
John stood before the door, fear for Fran threatening to overwhelm him. Had Malachi found her yet? The possibility was too awful to think about. Forget about her importance in the grand scheme of ongoing human existence. He loved her, and refused to contemplate life without her.
"This is the place," said Adam, wincing. John glanced at Adam’s wound, which still flowed freely. Adam hoisted the other gun they had taken from the Fans, the mirror of John’s own, and said, "I’m all right. I’ll cover you."
John nodded. Adam pressed a button on the doorframe and the portal whispered open. John launched himself through it, gun at the ready, and almost pulled the trigger before he realized that the man and woman standing over Fran’s inert form weren’t harming her.
"They’re doctors," said Adam, bringing his own gun down as he entered a split-second after John.
"What’s happening?" asked the man who stood protectively over Fran, the woman at his side mirroring the question with her eyes.
"Fans," said Adam.
"How did they find us?" the woman asked.
"It was bound to happen sooner or later," answered Adam, apparently unable to answer that himself.
The lights flickered, then went out, pitching the room into blackness for a moment before emergency lights switched on at the room’s corners, bathing the place in a soft amber glow. John kept his gun aimed at the entryway, covering it against any unwelcome entrants.
Adam swore under his breath. "Malachi must be in the control room," he said. The man and woman grabbed weapons from a nearby cabinet and ran out without being told. Adam swung around to look at John, who stepped back a half-step under the intensity of the man’s gaze.
"Take Fran," said Adam. "Go down this corridor to the end. Turn left. You’ll end up in the hangar. There are crawlers there - they look like what you know as dune buggies."
John nodded. "I remember."
"Take one and go back to Loston."
"Everyone in Loston’s trying to kill us, too."
"They’ve been reprogrammed. To them it’s Sunday afternoon. If you reenter the dome through one of the side hatches, they’ll never know anything different ever happened. Tell Fran you took her hiking and she fell."
John’s visage hardened. How could he trust this man, after he had admitted that he had planned an intricate lie and called it a life? How could he trust anything that happened now? Nothing was the same, and never again would he be able to just do something with the simple belief that his actions were what they seemed to be. All had purpose, even though he didn’t understand it.
Adam shook his head as though he were reading John’s mind. "I know you think I’m a bastard. But I’m the bastard who’s devoted his whole existence to keeping you alive."
John nodded at that. Maybe Adam was no more the game master than he, but was just another playing piece, a larger one perhaps, one with greater range of movement, like the queen on a chess board, but still one whose actions were not under his own control.
John picked up Fran, throwing her over his shoulder. He hoped he wasn’t aggravating any injuries she had, but knew that speed and ease of movement were of the essence. "What are you going to do?" he asked Adam.
"I have to take care of someone," answered the older man. He fingered his gun, and John knew that he was talking about Malachi, about going head to head with the great demon that had come and stolen Eden from him. Fighting Malachi would be like trying to kill Satan himself, John thought, and did not envy the Adam his task.
John gripped Adam’s arm, silently wishing the man luck, then left the infirmary, running down the hall in the direction Adam had indicated. Within a hundred feet he came upon the first of several groups of corpses. The bodies were locked together in death, like the last combatants of a long-fallen race.
One of them gripped an M16. John discarded his six-shooter in favor of the larger weapon, stopping only to make sure it had enough ammo before continuing on his way. He hoped he didn’t have to use it. But he planned to be ready for the eventuality.
***
Adam burst into Central Control and looked around. The place was rubble, piles of melted metal and glass laying everywhere. Other charred heaps lay among the rubble, and Adam realized they were the remains of the Controllers who had manned the room.
His coworkers.
His friends.
His loved ones.
Adam’s face twisted as he surveyed the wreckage, his expression matching each horror with another twist and wrinkle. Soon he wore a visage of pure wrath as he saw that all were dead, Central Control in ruins.
Most of them couldn’t be rebuilt, either. Almost all had been robots, but he had no way of finding out which were which without going into the files, and he feared if he did that he might see his own name among the names of the machines, among the list of the dead...it would be tantamount to putting a gun in his own mouth and pulling the trigger. The end result would be slower in coming, but death for all would be no less certain.
So his friends were gone, and no bringing them back. Even godlike powers had their limits. All he could do now was stop the madness before it continued any farther and make sure that the perpetrator of this deed was punished.
He left the room, searching for Malachi in the smoke of Rushmore.
***
John entered the hangar, his footsteps heavy. Fran was a slim woman, and couldn’t have weighed more than one hundred and twenty pounds, but she felt like ten thousand to John’s overstressed muscles.
He went to one of the groundcars and lay Fran across the seat, wrestling her limp body into the straps. A Fan jumped out of the smoky haze of the hangar, screaming and firing a Glock at John. He let go of Fran, bringing the muzzle of his M16 to bear on the attacker. He pulled the trigger, the gun’s recoil driving the stock deep into his shoulder, and the Fan danced a mad jig of death before falling to the ground. His feet twitched and John hurried to his body, shooting a quick burst from close range that obliterated the man’s head and neck.
The feet stopped twitching.
John returned to the groundcar, hoping that the controls would be simple enough for him to figure out. They were, just a steering wheel and a lever marked "Forward" and "Reverse." But he also saw that several suits were attached to the back of the suits, with clear plastic helmets affixed to them, and realized that they had to be worn outside, or prolonged exposure to this newly discovered earth could be fatal.
It was a hard process, getting Fran inside the first suit, and it felt like it took a million years. Gunfire sounded throughout the installation, and John had to stop and check his surroundings every time he heard a noise. The hangar remained empty, though, until finally Fran was safely ensconced in a plastic cocoon that he hoped would protect her against the adverse elements of the world. The world he had always thought he knew but was in fact about to see and really experience for the first time. He lay Fran gently across the seat, then turned to grab a suit for himself...and felt the warm muzzle of a gun against his cheek.
"Hello, bit," said Malachi.
John said nothing, his synapses firing like light-speed pistons as he searched for a way to kill this man, this devil made flesh. But nothing presented itself, and John knew he and Fran were about to die.
Despair threatened to overwhelm him as Malachi smiled. "Typical. They program you so well," said the Fan. "But you’re mad. You know that, don’t you? You’re insanity just waiting to happen."
"That might hurt my feelings if it wasn’t coming from a psychotic killer."
For a moment, Malachi’s cloudy eyes grew sharp as he dug the gun further into John’s cheek. "Shut up!" Then he almost instantly calmed again. "My God tells me what to do. And I do it. I do it well." Malachi’s eyes flickered over to Fran, who still lay upright in the seat. "The sleeping princess. There’s a fairy tale about the sleeping princess in the world they wrote for you, isn’t there, bit? A woman who slept until she was wakened by a kiss?" Malachi’s eyes grew dreamy again, and he gazed lustfully at Fran.
John’s eyes moved wildly back and forth, seeking some way he could gain the upper hand. Malachi smiled at him. Smoke and dust from the fighting swirled around them, giving Malachi a Faustian appearance. He was the Devil, come to claim the souls he had stolen. John tensed, preparing to make a move that he knew would end in defeat. But he had to try. Doing nothing was surrender, and John refused to give up and allow victory to this devil cloaked in human form. He would throw himself at Malachi, and the lunatic would pull the trigger of his gun and blow John’s brains out. John knew he was no machine; he would not come back. But perhaps he would survive long enough to hurt Malachi, maybe even to kill him. He would never see Fran again, but perhaps he could purchase her life with her own.
He never got the chance.
CONTROL HQ - RUSHM
AD 3999/AE 1999
(((INTEGRITY BREACH)))
Adam emerged from the smoke that surrounded them all, jabbing his gun into Malachi’s back. His clothes were stained and spattered with blood, and he had no doubts as to what he wanted to do. He wanted to kill Malachi. The question was, would he be able to?
"Drop the weapon, Malachi."
Malachi smiled in spite of the gun digging into his back. "Remember the old days, Adam?" he said, his tone light as that of an old woman gossiping on the porch swing. "Remember when we worked together? Good times. Time for me to think and realize that I was fighting for a bunch of machines who didn’t even grasp their own nature and for a pitiful shard of humanity that should have died two thousand years ago."
Adam’s finger tightened a little bit more. "Now, Malachi. Drop it. You’re human, and if I kill you you won’t get back up."
"So arrogant," answered Malachi. "Always so arrogant, even in your pretended humility and your questions about the nature of God and what He thinks of the things you’ve done. Well, I’ve answered those questions. I’ve found God and it turns out He’s on my side."
Malachi still wasn’t moving. Adam wanted to blow him away, but he recognized the gun Malachi was holding and knew that if he shot the man, Malachi might reflexively pull the trigger. If that happened, both John and Fran would be hit. Both would die, and all that had been suffered would be for naught. He decided to try a different tack. Force could not be exerted, so though he knew it was all but futile, he decided to try persuasion.
"I do remember working with you, Malachi. I remember asking you if God loved the machines. You never answered."
Malachi stiffened, then relaxed. His finger released from the trigger of his gun, and Adam thought it might have worked. He thought for a moment that he had found whatever fragment of sanity and humanity still hid within Malachi’s soul.
The hopes were dashed when Malachi handed him the gun and said, "Shoot me."
***
Malachi smiled as Adam’s face contorted. The old man - and Malachi noticed how very old Adam now looked; the years had not been kind to him - tensed as he bent his will to pulling the trigger. He cried out with the strain of it, and Malachi laughed. Still laughing, he took his gun from Adam’s hand, then removed Adam’s gun as well.
"Does God love machines?" he asked, repeating Adam’s question. Malachi cast a look over his shoulder at John, who stood silent and apparently dumbfounded behind him. "Why don’t you tell me yourself, if you see Him?" he said. Then he shot Adam. He used Adam’s own gun, a six-shooter he must have taken from one of the members of Malachi’s army, emptying it into him.
But careful, oh so careful, not to hit him in the head.
Adam crumpled to the iron deck of the hangar. He cried out in agony as each iron slug bit into his body.
But after the six-shooter had been emptied, Adam wasn’t dead. No, Malachi left him alive. As alive as a robot could be. But death would come soon. And Malachi smiled because after death would come madness, and that would serve as a just punishment for the man who played at understanding God; for the false prophet who had claimed to know God’s will.
He leaned down, whispering into Adam’s ear, "How could He love you? He didn’t even give you a will of your own."
Malachi turned to John.
And to Fran.
The End was coming.