Robogenesis: A Novel

5. WAR MACHINES


Post New War: 3 Months, 10 Days

During the New War, human prisoners were savagely mutilated by Archos R-14. A perplexing variety of surgeries were carried out in labor camps by automated medical devices called autodocs. The selection process for the men, women, and children who became unwilling test subjects is unknown. The ultimate purpose of the surgeries, including neural integration of complex radio communications machinery, sensory enhancements, and prosthetic limbs is unknown. There are a great many unknowns, but one likely theory comes to mind: I believe that Archos R-14 was making weapons.

—ARAYT SHAH


NEURONAL ID: MATHILDA PEREZ

Crouching in the dark, I hear the flames before I smell smoke.

In the street, Nolan stood over the body of the man he killed and he yelled at me to run. The panic in his voice sent me flying over dirt-encrusted pavement and straight into the black doorway of this leaning ten-story building. Straight into the cool, cavernous dark. I barely glimpsed the fading red X that the NYC Underground scrawled over the doorway during the New War.

Now something moves at the door. My eyes switch over to far infrared on their own. A warm red arm appears, holding a lump of cold black metal. I drop to my knees as the handgun fires three times. The muzzle strobes and drywall showers into my hair as the wall behind me swallows bullets.

Hands out, I’m crawling, ducking behind a rain-bleached reception desk and entering a short hallway. The bark of more pistol shots is muffled by moldy walls and carpet. Somewhere behind me, the lobby door squeals as it is shoved all the way open. I hear snarling voices and heavy boots. The Tribe.

A cracked glass door hangs at the end of the hall. I nudge it open and slip into a wide-open room crammed with desks and cubicles. There must be windows somewhere, because my eyes are amplifying trace amounts of light. Leaves and trash have been blown in from somewhere.

A maze of water-stained, fabric cubicle walls have fallen over each other. Rain and wind and sun have warped the floors and desks. But time is the only force of destruction that’s been at work in here. The Underground never even bothered to carve hidey-holes into this dead-end building.

It’s a loner structure with no connections to other buildings or tunnels or any potential lifesaving cover. The red X tells people who are running, out of breath and in a panic, that this place does not offer life. With no escape route, no way to wriggle through and lose a Rob pursuer—this building is nothing but a death trap.

It’s a place to be hunted.

I stay low, weaving between rotting cubicles. Window offices line the far wall, each with its own door. My feet scrape over stiff carpet as I reach the nearest office. Faint light filters in from outside and puts stripes on the floor.

There are bars on the first-floor windows.

Shit, shit, shit. The lowest floors of this building must all have bars on the windows. No wonder it’s marked.

I hear voices in the office behind me.

“This shit is gonna be like the Fourth of July,” says an excited voice. “Un-bee-leevable.”

On my knees, I sit still and watch. Two men are walking the dim aisles. One carries a weak plastic flashlight. He smacks it against his palm when the beam wavers. The other man carries a big can, its metal skin visible to me as a blackness. I hear liquid sloshing. He’s pouring something on the floor.

The smell reminds me of when I got big enough to sit in the warm passenger seat of my mom’s car. Watching her through the glare of gas-station lights while she pumped gas outside. Nolan would sit in the back, in his child seat, and she would blow on her cold hands and rub them, knock on the glass, and smile at us.

“Yeah, well, we don’t wanna be anywhere near here when they light this bastard,” says a more subdued voice. “I’m serious. You ever seen a can of ethanol go up?”

“p-ssy,” says the other voice, snickering.

The flashlight switches off and the room goes almost pitch-black again. The men are visible to me now as two orange-red smears winking in and out of bluish clutter.

“Real funny,” says the guy with the ethanol. “Cut it out.”

I’m already on my hands and knees. Scurrying down another aisle. I cut wide around the would-be killers, but the mildewed carpet crunches loudly under my hands and knees. The forms in the darkness are alert, heads turning, eyes wide and unseeing.

“C’mon, you’re not a p-ssy,” says the gas man, throwing down the empty can. “Serious! I think I hear something. Turn it on!”

“I’m trying,” says the other guy, smacking the plastic flashlight. The light blinks on and off.

“It’s over there,” says the gas man, quieter now.

I stop, keeping low. Try to breathe quietly. The gas man has his gun out and up. Aimed roughly at my head. I dive forward as he pulls the trigger. A bullet ricochets between desks and pings off an old metal chair. The noise is deafening.

“Come on out, little fish!” shouts the man, firing.

The glass door explodes into shards as I reach it. Sneakers crunching on glass, I dart through the fanged gap and into the hallway. I press myself against a gray metal stairwell door. Going any deeper into this building is suicide. But through the lobby I can see a half dozen of the Tribe milling around outside. They’re pacing, watching the exit and waiting for me to run.

The only way out is up. A few floors higher and there will be no more bars on the windows. I can jump for it. Maybe I’ll make it and I’ll see my brother again and I won’t die in this moldy hallway—

A gun noses through the broken doorway behind me, blue-black and leveled. I’m flat against the gray door now, chest heaving. A glow is expanding behind the gunman as his quiet friend with the flashlight gets closer.

Now.

The light grows. I can’t keep swallowing my gasps and they’re coming out louder now. High-pitched panicked breaths that make the world fade in and out. My stupid legs won’t work and it feels like someone poured napalm down my throat.

From outside, distant, I hear Nolan screaming. It’s just one word, over and over again: “No.” His adolescent voice breaks and I can tell my little brother has been crying. A circuit connects somewhere inside me.

“There!” shouts somebody, and a flashlight beam envelops the side of my face. A gunshot explodes in the hallway, but I’ve already turned the knob and now I’m falling into the black stairwell. My eyes sing as they dial up the active infrared: cold blue stairs crowded with trash and debris. A crumpled outfit with bones inside it. Somebody tried to make a stand here once. On all fours, I’m scrambling up the stairs right over the crumbling corpse.


The stairwell door opens, squealing, but nobody comes inside.

“The f*ck?” echoes a voice from below. “She’s gone, dude. Can she see in the dark or what?”

“Don’t matter,” says the quiet voice. “It’s over for her.”

The stairwell door clangs shut. The echo spirals up to tell me what’s going to happen. You ever seen a can of ethanol go up? I stop at the third-story landing. Push into the hallway and slam the door shut behind me.

Crouching in the dark, I hear the flames before I smell smoke.

A concussion rattles the building, sending the floor seesawing out from under me. The room shivers and convulses with explosions. An elevator door across from me buckles, swings, and disappears into the shaft.

Then it’s over.

The whooshing crackle of flame is growing. I creep over rusting office furniture until I see the windows. No bars, thankfully. But thick smoke is already rising, creating whorls and vortices in patterns of light and dark.

They’re going to burn me alive.

On my knees, I watch as the shivering wall of ivy outside the window turns to light and ash. The hot glass wavers and the world outside disintegrates into a light-streaked oil painting. The melting glass shatters wetly under its own weight as waves of heat cascade up the side of the building.

I can’t spot Nolan through the smoky gap. Instead, I catch a glimpse of a dirty man pacing on the ground, his rifle a dark weight slung over his shoulder. And he’s not alone. More slouched jackals are circling the building.

Also, three stories is way too far to jump.

Smoke is gathering at the ceiling, rivers of ash-specked fumes escaping out of the shattered windows. I hear a high-pitched whine—air being sucked under the stairwell door to feed the flames.

Three stories.

Behind this building is a parking lot bordered by what used to be a park. Over the years, the park has turned into woods, rows of trees swaying now in the hot wind coming off the burning building. Oddly, nobody from the Tribe is back here. I’m seeing sparkles on the ground. I resist the urge to rub my eyes. Warm people-shapes are running into the park, reddish-brown blobs that disappear between cold blue tree trunks. Among the trees, I spot a person dragging somebody who is hopping on one leg in a way that seems familiar.

I’m going to have to jump, but it’s too far to jump.

Something big falls behind me. Part of the ceiling collapsing into the stairwell. A gust of scalding heat washes over my back, spitting sparks out the window over my head. My hair flies one way, then it pulls back, blown over my shoulders by the night air being sucked inside to feed the fire.

A chant starts inside me. My lips move as I whisper. I love you, Nolan. I love you, Mommy. My hands go to the hot windowsill. I love you, Nolan. I love you, Mommy. I push one foot out of the window and toe the ledge. Bring the other leg out and hang over the windowsill. The heat climbing the building is already melting my shoes.

I suck in a breath and cough it back out and let go of the ledge.

Push away from the building and fall.

. . . love you, Mommy . . . love you, Nolan . . . love you—

The ground looms at me and I land on bent legs. Pain spasms up my leg. Biting down on a scream, I roll over onto my hands and knees. Something is popping around me, little explosions like popcorn in a microwave. And when I see why, I do decide to scream. Not in anger but in despair.

Stumpers.

The rat-sized little walkers are waking up. Coming out of the woods in a gleaming flood. Each one carries enough explosives to blow off a limb and now I understand the hopping gait of that person in the woods. It’s the hop of somebody who just lost a foot. The stumpers were built to find the warmth of a human body. They love the heat—any heat. Right now, this building must be the hottest object in this hemisphere.

Breathing in tight gasps, I flex my ankle. Peering through to the muscles, I see it is not broken, only sprained. Moving slow, I force myself to stand on it.

The last time I saw her, my mommy told me to use my eyes to find a safe way out of danger. I did what my mother said and these eyes have never let me down since. Now I see that the weed-covered parking lot is a patchwork quilt, made of tiles of heat intensity, swarming with a tide of stumpers skittering toward the inferno rising up behind me.

Tens of thousands of tiny antennae scratch over the pavement. Little clawed feet dragging awkward bodies over grass and leaves. Only a foot away from me, a dirt-encrusted stumper pauses. Antennae tapping, claws scratching . . . searching.

My legs are willing me to run, run, run away. I bite down on the impulse. The vibration of a running gait will detonate the stumper. If I kick it or step on it, the stumper will explode. If it detects body heat within a half meter, it will self-detonate.

But my body warmth is camouflaged by the burning building. Squinting, I make out streaks of heat on the pavement. The streaks of hot and cold match the stumper routes. They’d rather crawl over each other on a hot spot than go around on a cooler route. With the heat behind me, I’m casting a cool shadow on the pavement at my feet. A wavering shadow in the silhouette of a skinny fourteen-year-old girl.

Faith, Mathilda. Have faith.

The stumper meticulously crawls around the shadow of my head. Wincing, I take a step forward. My shadow parts the tide of stumpers like an ice-breaking ship. Stumpers flow around my sneakers. Long antennae sweep over the ground, occasionally tickling my shins. Those tiny legs churn, propelling the walking bombs closer to the big blaze. One step. Two. Take it slow.

They move on toward their oblivion, and step by step, I move on to mine.

I leave the stumpers behind and march through the cold woods. Eventually, I spot something hard and angular looming out of low, misty trees. I stop, midstep. The glint of metal doesn’t move. After a moment, I let out my breath. I’m looking at an old swing set. I must be in an overgrown backyard. Now I can see the brown apartment building that the playground equipment belongs to—a rotten husk, partially crushed by a fallen tree and decomposing fast in the elements.

It’s as good a place as any to lie down and die.

Pushing through overgrown grass, I test the swing set with my knee. The rusty links hold. Hopping on my good ankle, I turn and drop my butt into the black plastic strap. Sit down and rest with my brother’s screams still echoing in my ears.

It is awfully dark and cold here.

I wrap my fingers in the chain links over my head and press my face into the crook of my elbow. My metal eyes are warm against my skin. I try to cry but I can’t make tears. I lost my little brother and I can’t cry. Mom told me to protect him from danger and I tried my best but I couldn’t hold on. I never should have run. He’s big now and stronger than most grown-ups but he’s still just a kid and I abandoned him.

Idly, I run my eyes over the yard, thinking of the children who might have played here once. I can remember how it felt to swing in my own backyard on chilly autumn evenings, playing outside until the light was dim in my eyes and the cold air stung my nostrils. But it was always with the warm glowing windows of the house nearby and, every now and then, Mom’s reassuring silhouette.

As my breathing steadies, I begin to nod off. My body desperately wants rest, and my head droops even though I’m shivering. Then a leaf quivers and catches my attention. My fingers clench on the chains and I jerk awake.

A walker, tall and thin and brown, noses through the leaves. It senses me and goes still, staring with flat black eye sensors through layers of grass and branches. It’s another natural machine, much bigger than the little fawn. It has amazing horns that splay like tree roots. Shifting my eyes into radar spectrum, I peer under its skin and see a familiar centrifuge device deep in its chest. Another vegetarian—a stag.


Fingers aching on the cold chain of the swing set, I slowly put out my hand. Cluck my tongue. “Here, boy,” I say, my voice rough from the smoke.

The stag turns and leaps away into the woods. Leaves me looking at the spot where it was, at the rotting masonry of the broken apartment building. And something else. Something dull and gray and hanging by a black cord. A dirty concave bowl half filled with mosquito water. A satellite dish.

Limping through wet grass, I take hold of the dish and hang on it until the stiff black cord tears off the building. I collapse alongside it onto the ground, breaking into goosebumps from the shooting pain in my ankle.

I don’t bother to stand back up.

Instead, I kneel and press my forehead against the mount. Push my mind into the signal and sweep the skies. That Arayt person might be out there listening, but I don’t care. Never have I been this careless or lost.

Nolan, I’m calling. Nolan Perez. Where are you, little brother?

I find an old Landsat and hack into it. Spin its unblinking eye in on New York City. A black haze of smoke covers the skies, but now I can see the burned building. Leftover stumpers are shining like water as they flow toward the leftover heat, throwing themselves onto the smoldering pile of wreckage.

And I see the bodies of people who got caught by surprise. Some are still moving. Others are motionless. Everyone is either dead or hurt or has run far away. And still I can’t find Nolan.

I shout his name into the ether.

Optical resolution can’t handle face recognition through this smoke. Not even close. I dial it in anyway. Frantically, I zoom from crumpled form to form. Trying to spot Nolan’s jacket or his outline or his hair through black clouds that block my god’s-eye view.

Then I hear a voice.

Faint but insistent. Somehow familiar over the radio transmission. It is saying a word that I strain to make out.

Mathilda?

The snippet of sound rings through my head. The high-pitched tone of a little kid. But that’s impossible. Nobody could find me. I’m lying on my back next to a caved-in building. Body shaking, my breath is a soft sputtering mist.

“Hello?” I ask, out loud.

The dawn songbirds yell to each other. Hidden crickets chirp. The sun is starting to rise and put light into the drops of dew that cling to the tall grass crowding this yard. I’m still shivering, teeth chattering. I sit up and lean against the grimy foundation, satellite dish on my lap.

Hello? Who are you?

This time I ask it in my mind. Send it out through the dish.

“Mathilda Perez?” repeats the voice.

“Who are you?” I ask.

“Timmy. A friend of mine told me your name. I’ve been listening for you.”

“Who? What friend?”

“Houdini.”

Goosebumps climb my spine and prickle the backs of my arms.

“Houdini is the name of a spider tank,” I say. “A piece of field hardware. It’s a walking vehicle, not alive.”

Something like static clouds the line, rhythmic. A giggle. The kid is giggling.

“Houdini is smarter than he seems. He talked to me through my eyes. He told me to tell you that Cormac and Cherrah are safe, but that they’ll need you soon.”

Cormac Wallace. Leader of Bright Boy squad.

Memories return to me. Battles. Whispered conversations over Cormac’s long march across Alaska. I was safe in the tunnels of the NYC Underground, but I could hear their suffering. I guided them the best that I could. And still, so many died.

“Oh,” I say.

“Show me what you did at Ragnorak,” says the voice. “Show me how you killed the machine called Archos R-14.”

“I didn’t. I had a friend,” I whisper.

“A machine.”

“Nine Oh Two. A freeborn safety-and-pacification unit. I protected him and his squad. Gave them information. I channeled situational data to him, like this.”

I grab a few Landsat snapshots of New York City and then transmit the images to Timmy. Everything is quiet for a moment.

“Did you receive that—” I start to ask.

“Hi there, Mathilda,” he says.

An image comes back. I let it in and see . . . myself. A blurry shape through fluttering leaves, leaning against a wall with a black stripe over my eyes. A satellite dish rests on my lap. It’s a real-time snapshot.

“How did you . . . ?” I ask.

But I’ve already figured it out. Low-horizon satellite imaging. Quickly, I triangulate the latitude and longitude of his transmissions. Concentrating, I leap to another satellite that I find falling in a slow decaying orbit over Southern California. Train it northward almost to Canada. His location is spotty under fast-moving weather, so I push it to infrared and drop through the clouds mostly blind.

Picking out major landmarks, I find another overhead satellite. Split my focus. Match infrared landmarks between the images and crank the magnification right through the haze. At maximum zoom I snap back to the visible spectrum. Give it thirty seconds before the clouds shift and I see him.

“Hi yourself, Timmy,” I say, transmitting his image back to him.

In near real time, I watch his head turn. For a moment, the crude wedge of black glass sunk into his ocular sockets shocks me. He turns one way, seeing my transmission in his head. Realizes it’s a mirror image and turns the other way. Points his eyes in the direction of the satellite and waves at me.

He laughs again. I take a deep breath. Relax my lips. I’m not smiling back at him, but almost. And while I can’t bring myself to wave at him like I was a little kid, I do give Timmy a nod.

“What is happening?” I breathe.

“The world is changing, Mathilda,” says Timmy. “Have you seen the new animals in the woods? They’re not weapons anymore. Someone is making them. Just like someone made us. There’s a reason for it. I just don’t know what it is yet.”

“A reason? You think Archos did this to us on purpose?”

“We’re only just now figuring out what we can do. And you’re light-years ahead of the rest of us. I think what you did at Ragnorak was only the beginning.”

“Who? Me and you?”

“We’re not the only kids like this. There are dozens of us, Mathilda. All over the world. They call us the sighted.”

“Why haven’t I met others?”

“They’re afraid. Someone is hunting and killing sighted children. There are bounties out for us anywhere there are people.”

“But why?”

“I don’t know for sure, Mathilda, but someone is very afraid of us.”