Robogenesis: A Novel

9. WAR ROOM


Post New War: 10 Months, 26 Days

I sent the soldiers of Cotton Army into combat against their former allies from Gray Horse on the plains of Colorado, ten klicks from the freeborn stronghold inside Cheyenne Mountain. Only a ragged force of veterans, refugees, and sighted children stood between me and the gateway to the supercluster. Victory was assured, but for one detail: With their minds half in the human world and half in the machine world, I found that the sighted children would emerge as remarkably vicious adversaries.

—ARAYT SHAH


NEURONAL ID: MATHILDA PEREZ


Boom. Creak. Boom. Creak.

The war room creaks like a ship around me. The wooden room is the size of a big closet. I’m sitting cross-legged on a threadbare Chinese rug that Cormac scavenged from an abandoned house. With this box attached to his belly, Houdini walks cocky and proud, tall without any bunker armor, his muscled legs like black marble columns. His giant footsteps boom just outside my shell.

Boom. Creak. Boom. Creak.

With every step, the wooden slats shiver. The thin steel plates hanging on the outside of the room clap against the walls in a steady metallic rhythm. Occasionally, I can feel high grass dragging against the boards under me. In here, the world is small and dusty and dim. Out there, a battle is about to begin.

Cotton Army has arrived.

Thousands of us were on the run from Gray Horse, camping out under jammed satellites with plenty of buffalo to eat and boiled river water to drink. But yesterday afternoon Cotton Army mobilized on an intercept trajectory. This morning we have no choice but to muster our forces and fight it out here on the southern plains.

“You okay, Mathilda?” shouts Cormac from a tall walker alongside us.

I shake my head.

“Radio, please,” I transmit.

“We’re not close enough yet for it to matter!” comes a shout.

“It’s called professionalism, Bright Boy,” I transmit.

Faintly, I hear his laughter.

“Fair enough,” comes the transmission. “I admire your warcraft, over.”

I know he sounds braver than he feels. We are here to protect survivors who are too old or young or injured to fight. From my eyes in orbit, the refugees look like a straggling line of ants winding toward the tunneled road that leads into Freeborn City. It’s the only defensible structure within five hundred miles. And if we don’t defend it, our people will be cut down—men, women . . . and children.

Strange to think that Cherrah and her new baby are among that trail of dots. Two people so small, yet so important.

“Any luck reaching the freeborn?” Cormac transmits.

My silence says everything.

“I’ve got targets,” he adds, urgently.

I sense Cormac’s tall walker speeding up. Houdini’s gait transitions to a trot to keep pace. My cheeks tremble with each step. I bring a military-ops manual to my mind. Superior strategy is our only chance to survive. We don’t have much firepower, but we’ve got plenty of brain-power.

“Bringing the command structure online,” I transmit.

Timmy and I have been training the other sighted children. Nolan and his friend Sherman took Tiberius and went back to rescue them. For the last few weeks, I’ve been sending them research and conducting exercises. These kids are new and they’ve never been tested like I have, but Nolan is sure they’re the only ones who can save us.

“Battle command, online,” I say, transmitting my words. “This is EXCON—executive decision-making and maneuver-control systems. Subordinate command systems, acknowledge. Over.”

Stripes of daylight push silently through narrow wall slats and rake back and forth over the carpet.

“Platoon leader beta, checking in,” says a voice in my head.

I nod and look to my right. There, sitting cross-legged and grinning, is a projected image of Timmy. He is young, about the same age as Nolan was when the world ended. Just a little boy with a band of metal rooted into his face where his eyes used to be.

I’m starting to get used to that.

“Acknowledge, Timmy,” I say.

“I’ve got your right flank, EXCON,” he says, excited. “Eyes on target.”

My prosthetics are projecting his ghostly image into the war room with me. In reality, Timmy is in a shack somewhere in the Pacific Northwest. His hands rise and fall in a strange motion. It takes me a second to figure out that he is cracking hazelnuts with a rock and eating them as we move through command initiation.

“Platoon leader gamma, checking in,” says a little girl. “Hi, Mathilda.”

Gracie appears across from me, sitting on her haunches, chin resting on her skinned-up knees. White metal is sunk into her eye sockets. Below it, her mouth is set in a stern expression. She is small for her age. Her hair is braided perfectly, colorful ribbons hanging from it. It reminds me that Gracie is the only one of us who made it through the New War with a parent.

“Acknowledge, Gracie,” I say.

Her image stutters a bit in my mind. Unlike Timmy, Gracie is swinging through space in her own war room, hanging from the belly of another spider tank named Abraham, half a klick west of here. “Left flank operative,” she says.

“Company headquarters is online,” I transmit.

Our tank platoons are in an arrow formation, moving to intercept Hank Cotton’s traitor army.

Toys are scattered across the rug: wooden blocks, metal cars, and a loose pile of Lincoln Logs. Each piece can function as a place marker. With a blink, my eyes can turn the blocks into gun emplacements or tank positions.

Fitting that all this began with a toy.

Baby-Comes-Alive woke me up one night. The doll whispered to me in the darkness before the New War. She told me that the end of the world was coming. Thanks to her, Mommy was able to save me and Nolan. When we ran and survived, I thought we were beating Archos R-14. I even thought we had won.

Now, though, I see it was only the beginning. The thinking machine must have known that sighted children would fall into formation together. I wonder if it picked us out before the New War even started. Did Archos R-14 check my grades to recruit me for a war that hadn’t begun yet? Did it read my middle-school book reports? I can imagine it paging silently through search results, memorizing our faces.

It knew us. And I think it wanted us right here, right now. One of these days I’m going to find out why.

“Support systems, check in,” I say.

In my head, I hear the voices of more children. Nolan’s kids. A half-dozen girls and boys, all of them sighted. My little brother chose to go back and save them. For the first time in his life, he stepped away from me and took care of himself. Mommy told me to always, always protect my little brother. Letting Nolan go went against my every instinct. But now he is far away from here, watching over a group of kids I’m depending on to keep me alive. He’s not a little boy anymore.

I must remember that.

“Air defense support, checking in.”

“Meteorology and topography support, checking in.”

“Field artillery support, checking in.”

“Satellite-jamming support, checking in.”

The Rob metal welded into all our faces creates a natural interface to the mechanized forces. Strategic and tactical battle plans flow through satellites and overlay onto our experience of the world. Watching and whispering.

I switch to the Gray Horse Army military channel.

“Acknowledge,” says a familiar gruff voice. Cormac Wallace. During the New War, I found that he needed only a light touch. A nudge in the right direction and Bright Boy always found a way to battle through.

“Are you ready?” I ask him.

“Yeah,” says the man, then with more force: “Yeah.”

I switch to wide channel, directed to our entire force.

“EXCON systems are online. Godspeed, General Wallace,” I say.

A pause as he registers his new title.

“Roger that, EXCON,” he responds.

I lock onto the encrypted local-force frequency.

“Attention, joint Gray Horse Forces,” I say in my best adult voice. “Battle command systems are online. Marching orders are transmitting. All weapon resources are hot and seeking targets . . . let’s tear ’em up.”


Boom. Creak. Boom. Creak.

Timmy and Gracie seem to sit in my war room with me, spears of sunlight jabbing through the slats and strafing their images. The room sways and tilts as my eyes project a bird’s-eye view of the battlefield onto the rug. Walking tanks. Infantry battalions. Tall walkers racing between the ranks. I spot a few specialized exoskeletons: combat medics, special forces, demolitions specialists, and bridge spanners. Mule walkers are trotting, loaded with squad-level supplies. Attack passages and evasion routes glow faintly.

All the infinite details of an impossible battle.

“Children?” I transmit on the sighted channel. “It’s time for us to play with our toys.”

It’s too thick, I’m thinking. There is no way out.

Within minutes, the enemy opened coordinated fire on us. In a haze, I watched projected weather patterns, tanks crawling like bugs, and the dotted paths of satellite trajectories. Hank Cotton’s spider tanks were synchronized, flinging everything they had. The accuracy was unbelievable. There was no mathematical way to avoid the carnage. Rounds are still soaring in on neat parabolic arcs as steady as math.

“It’s too hot, over,” says Timmy, face worried. “Mathilda, we can’t . . . there are too many.”

My lips flutter as I whisper commands.

Houdini stumbles as something big and metal buzzes past and lands a few meters away. I hear dirt and rock spattering against the steel plates hanging against the wooden walls of my war room. My stomach flutters as Houdini catches his footing. As he pivots, I throw my palms out flat on the rug to steady myself. Try to ignore the short screams of a hurt soldier outside.

“Medical exo, my right flank,” I say. Outside, another round shrieks in and explodes. The screaming stops.

“Can that order.”

The battle unfolds at my feet like a game of chess. My vision vibrates as the room shakes with Houdini’s running.

“Bright Boy squad, spread out. Fifty-meter spacing,” I say, moving a toy car.

“Roger, EXCON.”

Constellations of shimmering enemy spider tanks stalk across the rug, firing in a precise rhythm. Too tight and fast for verbal communication. A pattern clarifies. I realize there is a single person coordinating their fire.

“How?” I ask out loud.

“Mathilda?” whispers Gracie.

A meandering volley of dragonflies are swooping in on lazy, knee-high arcs. They’re headed directly toward a tank marked with a special star. I shove a couple of blocks toward Gracie, reinforce her position with my last two squads of soldiers.

“Gracie, brace yourself. Hold on for support—”

But Gracie’s mouth has gone wide open in a silent shout. Her light stutters and breaks into shards. I hear a time-delayed scream as her image blinks and disappears. Outside, the thunder of a heavy explosion rolls past.

“No. Oh no.”

Timmy’s lower lip quivers in a way that I’ve seen on Nolan when the horror comes flowing in thick as sewage and there is no way to close your eyes to it.

“It’s . . . it’s okay,” I say to Timmy in a soothing voice. “Her vitals are still—”

But Timmy is crying now, struggling to speak. No tears, but his freckled face is crumpled and his chest is heaving. His voice catches in his throat.

“Not her,” he says. “You.”

I hear a whistling.

“Go, Houdini!” I shout.

The round explodes high into the wall on my left. A blast of splinters sprays the left side of my face and I’m thrown onto my stomach, rolling. The slug of metal passes over my head and smashes through the other wall, hitting the steel plate that hangs outside on its way out like a church bell ringing.

Houdini staggers, knocked off his trot, and the room tilts as he goes up on two legs. I pitch sideways as the room rotates ninety degrees, glimpsing Timmy where he sits on the wall. Under a cascade of toys, the rug bunches into a loose pile of sine waves. Outside, I hear a steel plate snap off and slither down the wall, rattling the slats as it passes by. It hits the ground with a clanging thud.

With a crunch, Houdini lands back onto all four feet.

“The line is broken,” says Timmy, his voice projected over my ringing ears and straight into my mind. “Gracie is gone. Orders.”

So fast. It happened so fast.

“Fall back,” I whisper, my transmission cutting through the barking weapons outside. “Set all waypoints to tunnel mouth.”

Faintly, I hear Cormac repeating my orders to the troops over the pounding steps of his tall walker.

I’m jolted against the back wall as Houdini leaps forward, legs pumping, veering across the battlefield to outmaneuver more incoming rounds.

“Long-range attack,” says Timmy. “Be advised.”

Braced against the wall, I can see Timmy through my own swinging hair. His thin hands are still moving to direct fire support. He isn’t eating hazelnuts anymore. We have been isolated down here on the plains. A single road climbs the foothills to the tunnel mouth where the refugees wait.

Hank’s forces are already within a couple klicks.

“All forces, converge on the road,” I urge. “Protect the refugees—”

Another grinding buzz in the air.

My eardrums throb with pressure as a supersonic chunk of metal plows into the remaining steel plate and sprays molten metal. Timmy flickers and disappears. I’m floating, spinning, as the entire war room is ripped off its hinges. My stomach lurches and the wooden walls rotate. I try to close my eyes and I can’t.

Houdini is falling, still trying to run, stumbling.

The room hits the ground and I’m knocked flat on my stomach. Wooden boards snap like doors slamming. Sudden daylight washes over my back and now everything is loud and bright and chaotic. I’m rolling, over and over, finally landing in a heap on a dirty road. Sat-link indicates we are on the highway leading up the mountain to the tunnel mouth. It’s a steep, exposed route, but at least we’re between Cotton Army and our people.

I push onto my back. Take deep breaths and try to register what I’m seeing.

The sun is a small bright eye through a haze of rolling smoke. My war room is gone and something is on my chest. I grab it and hold it up to see that it’s a child’s block: the letter C. I toss it away as bullets stutter by overhead.

Someone is screaming.

I roll over onto my hands and knees, watching a friendly special-forces exoskeleton sprint by, no occupant, firing its weapon blindly over its shoulder at leaping tanklets, the kind that cluster like ticks—

The screaming . . . Houdini.

The fallen walker is on his side, his bulk surrounding me like the remains of an avalanche. Two of his splayed feet hang in the air like cranes. Some part of the mammoth machine is broken or being pushed beyond its limits. I scan his interior with my eyes and pinpoint the major joint motors. Houdini is straining to keep his enormous legs up so they won’t crush me. His motors are screaming as they burn out.

“Here,” I transmit to Houdini, giving him my exact position.

The words flicker from my eyes and into the toppled walker. Immediately, his legs crash to the ground on either side of me, missing my body by precise inches that might as well have been miles. Information feeds tickle the back of my head as they come back online. Instead of funneling the information into a miniature landscape in front of me, I let the data filter over my vision.

Tracers rise up out of the smoky air. They track the paths of loitering munitions as they hover over the battlefield, scanning for targets. On the horizon, my eyes project fluttering banners that mark the location of Hank’s spider tanks. The units are finishing with their long-range bombardment, being harassed now by our quick exoskeleton sprinters. Under fire, they’re moving slow and steady toward the mountain.


“Fire-support command, back online,” whispers Timmy in my ear. “Move, Mathilda. Enemy incoming.”

I wipe my face and my arm comes away bright with blood. My right leg is starting to throb.

“I’m trying,” I transmit.

My knees are scraped and bleeding, T-shirt torn. I reach back and gingerly touch my injured leg. It throbs like a wasp sting.

“Move,” he says again.

“It hurts,” I say, my voice high-pitched in a way that makes me think of how Mommy used to scoop me up and hold me when I fell down. I remember her soft lips on my forehead. Her last words to me . . .

Mathilda Rose Perez. Run. Do you hear me? Run. Do it right now or I will be very angry with you.

“You’ve got an enemy walker incoming,” says Timmy. “Get out of—”

He cuts out. I hear the thump of an explosion and feel the concussion roll over me. It knocks me back onto my stomach. Timmy’s link is gone. A wave of sparkling blackness creeps over my vision. Lying here on my stomach, I can smell wet dirt and feel the grit of the pavement against my collarbones. I have no more strength.

Something thumps into the ground. It’s the beating of metal claws against the road. I open my eyes to see a walker, long and black, radar obfuscated, crashing toward me on too many clawed legs. A cowboy is riding the black steed, and I hear the explosion of his pistol. He fires at someone else but the thing is watching me as it gallops, eyes golden and bright, curled forelimbs up and extending, slicing toward my face—

Houdini groans. Lifts one massive leg and forces the walker into a leap. It swipes at me as it passes by over my head, missing. I spot an odd tool built into its chest, some kind of modified drill, as it flies overhead.

I climb to my knees, turning to face my attacker.

It’s what used to be Hank Cotton, smiling down from his saddle. He starts to lift his pistol and by instinct I push out my palm at him. In my mind’s eye, my arm is now the long black barrel of a machine-gun turret.

I make a fist and Houdini’s machine gun blasts rounds.

Hank ducks, wheeling his walker around. He flashes his teeth at me and leans forward in his saddle, sprinting on, up the road toward the tunnel mouth. Behind us on the plains, the rest of Cotton Army is methodically advancing.

“Thanks, Houdini,” I say.

I stand up and dust off the front of my jeans. Run a diagnostic gaze over Houdini’s sprawled-out body. Black liquid leaks from his polymer musculature. But the wounds are not bad enough to completely disable the machine.

“Reboot,” I say, pushing my mind into him. Without struggling, the spider tank disables low-level safety restrictions. “Get up, buddy. That’s it. . . .”

A few stray bullets whine past me and I do not flinch. Houdini’s huge legs shiver and paw the air. Grumbling, he tears a furrow into the dirt as he crawls back onto all fours. The sun is eclipsed by Houdini’s solid bulk as, once again, he stands over me.

“On me,” I say.

Crunching over rubble in my dirty white tennis shoes, Houdini keeps pace over my head. A dozen tanklets appear behind us and I turn and point my left hand at them. Above me, Houdini’s turret grinds, orienting to where my arm is aimed.

I make another fist. Boom.

My hair shivers as a concussive thump detonates over my head. Houdini’s turret throws flame. A plume of dirt leaps out of the turf, glinting with pieces of shattered tanklets. It falls back in a slow waterfall, leaving a smear of dust on the wind. I rake my fingers across the sky and Houdini’s turret strafes a cluster of incoming dragonflies. They spiral out of the sky like burning leaves.

I am small, but my mind is big.

“EXCON online,” I transmit. “All GHA fighters, form on me.”

My footsteps boom over the road in time to Houdini’s. My fingers vomit flame from Houdini’s turret. We are a dyad, our minds linked in battle. Wherever I point, our enemies are erased. Others join us as we maneuver up the hill, within a klick and a half of the tunnel mouth. A ragged squad of soldiers settles in on my right flank.

I see a familiar face: Cormac Wallace, hunched on top of his battered tall walker and keeping pace on my four o’clock. His wife and baby are at the tunnel, and I can see the fear of what’s coming for them on his face.

“To the tunnel mouth! Now!” he shouts, leaning in his saddle.

I break into a jog, and over my head, so does Houdini.

“Mathilda,” says Timmy. “Come in. Please come in.”

“Go ahead,” I say, trotting up the road toward the tunnel mouth.

Timmy makes a relieved sound, then sucks in a breath.

“Be advised,” he continues. “Another hostile army is incoming. It’s the Tribe.”