Robogenesis: A Novel

8. STRIPPED


Post New War: 7 Months, 17 Days

No fighting force remaining in the world could match the discipline and capability of Gray Horse Army. Claiming control of those ignorant soldiers before they reached home was my top priority, and it required special manipulation. Luckily, the human mind is a delicate machine. And like any machine, it can be broken.

—ARAYT SHAH


NEURONAL ID: LARK IRON CLOUD

In the recurring transmission, a freeborn robot stands tall and thin and pale white as an angel. Her smooth face is lost in waves of intense blue light that flow around us. I can see a spray of what look to be feathers rising off her shoulder blades and hanging like ice-kissed tree branches. She has her hand out to me, fingers long and delicate. Beckoning.

“Join us,” she is saying to me. “You are one of us. Join your Adjudicator—”

The shouts from camp interrupt her, and I wake up.

It’s not bright yet, but the sun is peeking up off the flat horizon. Shadows are stretching out long and gaunt over the beaten-down stalks of Kansas prairie grass. Bunkered spider tanks are scattered over the plains like piles of rocks—a dozen fallen Stonehenges, waiting to wake up and walk with the dawn.

Drawn by the commotion, Chen and I shake off our dreams and walk to the edge of the camp. Together, we stand swaying in precise balancing movements, watching and listening, a couple of hundred yards away from the main column.

Across the ashes of the camp’s central bonfire, Hank is facing down Lonnie. Tall and slack-skinned, Hank still wears a stained bandage on his head. He’s got twenty solid men standing behind him, pure Osage. They’re all of them big men, like Hank, with meaty arms crossed and long black braids hanging over their broad chests. Faces dark and impassive. Capable of anything. The Cotton patrol.

Dawn shadows stain Hank’s sagging face as he speaks.

“. . . gonna be home in two weeks,” says Hank. “We have to deal with this now. What are our people going to think of those things? You want our elderly coming down to greet us and having heart attacks? Giving the little ones nightmares? We can’t have it. The others had sense enough to walk off into the woods. But those last two got to go. Now.”

“They’re veterans,” says Lonnie. “I know you don’t like how they look—”

“Smell, you mean. My troopers can’t hardly even take the smell, Lonnie,” says Hank. “It’s hot now, in case you didn’t notice. They’re rotting, plain and simple. It was one thing when we were up north in the cold. For Pete’s sake, they’ve got maggots falling out of their sleeves!”

The Cotton patrol is armed. The other soldiers’ eyes are going back and forth between Lonnie and Hank as they argue. But not Hank’s men. They’ve got their cold eyes resting square on Lonnie, hands draped over their holsters. I wonder if this is it. The end of Gray Horse Army.


“We can deal with the smell,” says Lonnie, quiet.

“How are we gonna deal with that? And you already know my solution. What we shoulda done in the first place. Put these two down quick, hunt the others—”

“No. I won’t let them come to harm,” says Lonnie, real quiet, and I can see he is shaking. If I can see it from here, so can all the troops. Bad news to see that kind of weakness. Hank sure sees it. He simmers down a little bit, acting like the bigger man.

“Fine, Lonnie,” Hank says. “Fine. Let’s just deal with the smell today. Right now. But we’re still going to have to figure this out. If not tomorrow, then soon. Real soon.”

Hank looks up and his eyes settle on mine. He grins and steps back, swallowed up into the Cotton patrol. They look like a bunch of brothers. A herd of buffalo men. Somebody opens a backpack and throws a pile of old torn-up rain ponchos onto the ground. A couple of rolls of duct tape. They were ready and waiting with it.

“You can do it or we can,” says Hank.

Lonnie puts his head down. I notice a few grins from the Cotton patrol. It’s real clear who won.

Ten minutes later, Lonnie comes out toward me and Chen Feng with a couple of low-ranking privates. Kids, really. They’re loaded down with duct tape and plastic ponchos torn into long sheets. Lonnie doesn’t have to do this personally, but he’s going to. The old man has got his jacket off and his shirtsleeves rolled up. He looks grim and sad, but the two soldiers just look sick.

This is going to be messy and we all know it.

Most of Gray Horse Army stands and sits on the spider tanks, watching us as the sun climbs higher and harder. Some of the men hoot and holler. I hear a couple of jokes about how we smell. Some others shush their friends, tell them to have some respect for the dead. But these are in the minority.

“Lonnie,” I say, my voice hissing through his hip radio. “Something’s not right with Hank. Somebody put something on him. He’s sick.”

“I know,” says Lonnie, shrugging. “He told me himself that all the fighting has clouded his mind. But he’s gonna get his mind right. He just needs time.”

But he doesn’t really know. He doesn’t know what I saw in that empty farmhouse. He didn’t see the bloodstained autodoc under manual control and slicing into his best friend’s brain. I’m not sure what it would do to Lonnie if he really did know.

Do you love him?

“He’s lying to you,” I transmit. “He’s got a bundle and it’s got hold of his thoughts, Lonnie. You can’t go climb a hill and pray on it and expect this to go away.”

Lonnie glances over his shoulder at our audience. “We’ll talk more tonight,” he says.

Chen and I don’t struggle as the kids strip us down to our bloodstained skivvies. The sweep of spectators puts off a lot of laughing and catcalls as our clothes are peeled off. Then we’re just two naked corpses standing in a field. Gouged and flayed and frostbit. Horribly mutilated by the war and without the good sense to fall down and die.

The dead don’t heal.

The young privates hurry between us, not talking, wrapping our warm, rotting limbs in layer after layer of green plastic. I do the best I can to help, but there’s no hiding the fact that my skin is falling to pieces. The freezing and thawing have buckled my bones, blistered my gray and decaying flesh.

Even Chen has got her feathers ruffled. “The living should not desecrate the spirits of the dead,” she transmits. “Yanluowang will judge them harshly in the courts of Dìyù. They will be punished.”

“We’re not exactly dead, though, are we?” I respond.

“We are the spirits of the dead,” she says, without humor. “No longer a part of the world of living things. To believe otherwise is to disgrace your ancestors.”

“That’s your opinion, Chen Feng,” I say, feeling a prickle of anger. “I may look like a corpse. And I may stink like one. But I sure as hell ain’t dead.”

“You are not alive, Lark. But even a spirit may work great wonders once it has moved on from the past.”

“I don’t feel very great or wonderful, Chen.”

As the kids keep working, it gets quiet. Even the gawkers button it up at the raw sight of our naked bodies. The wounds we carry should have been left under spadefuls of dirt in Alaska. I know all those soldiers have raw memories of this damage. We are walking reminders of the horror. For a few long minutes, the only sound is the plastic wrap crinkling and the occasional patter of fat maggots hitting the ground.

Nobody pukes by the end. Lonnie’s eyes are wet, though. A couple of times, I catch the fleeting shudder of naked revulsion on his face. He tries, but it’s impossible to hide.

“It’s okay,” I say to him, my voice whispering out over his hip radio. Hank was right. This old man is like a father to me. I know his real son is most likely dead and I’m the closest thing he’s got to family and it makes me ashamed to do this to him. Humiliated to require this treatment.

As Lonnie works, I try to keep talking to him over the radio. Reassure him that it’s going to be okay. Try to make a bad joke or two.

Somehow, Hank Cotton is getting smarter. In one stroke, he has pushed Lonnie closer to his breaking point and done his best to dehumanize the parasites in front of the whole army. The scarecrow man is smarter than me. Even knowing his game, I’m still wondering how human I can really claim to be anymore.

Without clothes, I’m hideous. A walking nightmare.

Being dressed again is somehow worse. I look ridiculous. Chen and I are stumbling, wrapped in duct tape and gore-stained ponchos. The catcalls start up again until the sergeants step in with their own shouts. The sun is climbing and it’s time to load up for the day’s march. Soldiers clear out for their squads.

The Cotton patrol stays, watches almost solemnly.

I’m relieved when my familiar battle dress uniform finally goes back on and hides the wreck of my body. Still, any tiny movement I make generates an embarrassing crinkle of hidden plastic. Just a reminder of what happened today.

I’ve got to remember to stand a little farther from the soldiers. I can’t feel the wind on my face, but I can damn well see the trees fluttering in the breeze. I’ve got to try to keep downwind from camp. For Lonnie’s sake.

That night, I go looking for the old cowboy.

I don’t know what was happening to Hank in that abandoned farmhouse. I know the cube in his bundle is Rob-made. A thinker variety, and it can talk. That worries me. I can feel sickness radiating off it. When I looked at it in the dark, I got the feeling it was looking back.

It knows I’m a threat. I saw that today. And now I’m starting to think it’s just a matter of time before they come for me and Chen. I told her it was safe here and I’m afraid I was wrong.

At nightfall, I hurry as fast as I can get my broken limbs to move. Nothing is fluid or natural anymore. Every movement is a conscious effort, a command sent to a machine listening to my brain and relaying information to the spider legs that control my dead, plastic-coated limbs.

“Another walk?” asks Chen.

“Another walk,” I say.

I skirt wide around the camp perimeter, keeping to the tree line. I’m headed to where I spotted Lonnie’s tall walker laid down earlier. As I move closer to the column, I slow down and scan ahead. The night gets brighter if I think about it just right. It’s important I not get seen. I have a feeling Hank’s boys will shoot me if I come too close. Or maybe even if I don’t.


I just need to get within radio range of Lonnie.

But the black cube is talking somewhere nearby. Sending out those whispers like a thousand tiny hairs standing up on the back of your arm. I can feel the beast out there in the darkness ahead of me. I turn and follow its cold whispering.

Creak, creak, go my legs in the night.

I weave my shuffling body between scrubby, tick-filled trees. A few footprints dimple the damp grass ahead of me. After struggling over rough land for ten minutes, I sense a change in humidity. The trickle of flowing water surfaces in my hearing. Osmotic sensors in the machinery at the base of my neck sample the clammy smell of river rock and the acrid bite of smoke.

And I hear the sound of voices.

I slow down, creeping toward the campfire one measured step at a time. Soon, a fire flicker emerges. Over the lip of the next hill, two slumped silhouettes sit next to the riverbank on toppled logs. The incomprehensible monotone whispers are coming from a satchel lying next to the bigger shadow.

My adversary is smart: Hank found Lonnie before I could.

Standing as still as the sighing trees around me, I route some extra juice to my hearing and listen close. Sitting just up the river, the two men come into greenish focus. Their words rise in sharp relief against the natural sounds of wind and water and insects.

Lonnie Wayne sits on a rough log, one elbow across his knees and his fingers curled around a whiskey bottle. His back is hunched over and he’s got his eyes on the black flowing river water, seeing and not seeing. His breathing is steady and I can tell from here that it’s taking everything he’s got to keep it that way.

The unblinking arctic sun we left behind has burned the old man’s skin a dark brown. He is imprinted with wrinkles and craters like the surface of the moon—a place with no atmosphere to protect it. Hank Cotton, the skeletal man, perches on a log next to Lonnie, watching him.

“It’s all right, Lonnie,” he murmurs. “How long we known each other?”

Lonnie reaches up and rubs his milky blue eyes with a thumb and forefinger. Wipes away tears on his flannel shirt without opening his eyes. Keeps on breathing steady and deep, holding a half-empty bottle loose in one hand.

“Sometimes,” he says to Hank, “sometimes I wonder if we oughta be allowed to just pass on. Once you’ve seen enough. Had enough. Just to move on. I think it would be a blessing, Hank. What do you say? You think it’s allowed?”

Hank frowns. Watches his old friend for a long second without blinking. His first word comes out a cough and he clears his throat before continuing quietly.

“I reckon maybe that’s true for an elder.”

“I’m too old to be an elder. I already seen too much,” says Lonnie. He lifts the bottle to his lips and kisses the amber liquid.

Hank takes the bottle from Lonnie. Has himself a drink.

“There’s men who came before us who seen just as much. Maybe not more than us, but just as much. They lived through it, Lonnie. Our ancestors had everything they knew tore down and they built it up again. And not just once or twice. We’re from a strong stock, me and you. When you fall down out of the saddle, why, you just—”

“It’s his eyes,” says Lonnie. “That’s the thing. They’re just . . . black, Hank. I can’t see his old brown eyes and it scares the hell out of me. It’s the same for an animal as it is for a man. The eyes are how you can tell if a living thing is suffering. I can’t tell how much my boy is hurting, but I know it’s a lot, Hank.”

My boy. Lonnie is talking about me. A tender spot inside me starts aching. To hear it out loud: The man I secretly think of as my father also thinks of me as his son. Or thought of me as a son. Back when I was living.

Hank responds in a low, quiet voice. “Now, you ain’t calling that thing your boy, are you, Lonnie? Your boy is overseas, remember?”

“Paul ain’t coming home. I made peace with that, Hank. I do believe in my heart he’s still alive. God would tap me on the shoulder and let me know if it weren’t true. I know He would. But Lark growed up fast in the New War and it was me who was there for him. He was a leader. He might have been the best of us.”

“Well, that thing ain’t Lark no more,” says Hank.

“Don’t call him a . . .” Lonnie stops. Takes the bottle back and drinks deeply and groans. He slams the butt of the bottle against the close-packed river rocks. Digs it in and leaves his hand around the neck. “Ah, hell! I want to close my eyes to all this. We already won the war! What else does the Creator want? What else can we do? All this damned hurt and suffering. I’m sick to death, Hank. I’m sick. . . .”

Lonnie trails off. They listen to the water.

“I just . . . ,” Lonnie continues. “Sometimes I wonder. What’s the point of it? What’s the damn point of all this? Is it a test? Is it pure chaos? I don’t know that I care. It hurts me, Hank. I’m hurting. I just want it to stop.”

Hank leans in closer, a strange hungry light in his eyes.

“The point is the suffering, Lonnie. The pain is so we know we earned the big reward. But you’ve suffered enough. You don’t have to keep on going. You hit the finish line, old man. Put your hands on your knees and take a breath. Your reward is coming. I promise you that, Bubba.”

Lonnie looks unconvinced.

“Maybe . . . maybe what I’ve already done will hang around. My past will just sort of bounce around between folks like an echo. Maybe that will be enough. Maybe I can just close my eyes for a minute. Or for longer.”

Lonnie exhales for a long time. As the breath goes out of him, his shoulders slump. His forehead nods and he loses his grip on the bottle. It clinks onto its side on the rocks.

The old cowboy is passing out asleep.

Hank reaches over and picks up the bottle. Rights it, then puts a big hand on Lonnie’s shoulder to keep him from slumping over. These two men have been friends and rivals for half a century, and there is a rough tenderness in how Hank holds Lonnie. Some part of their old life together.

Then a crafty glint enters Hank’s eye. He pulls his bundle out and holds it soft with both hands. His cheekbones are high and gaunt and shadowed in the firelight. The smile he makes . . . it’s like I see the devil’s face moving under his skin. His lips quiver gently. He is whispering to the black box.

Almost there. You were right. Now I’ll finish it.

“Hey,” Hank whispers to Lonnie. “You can’t fall asleep here. And it ain’t time for you to pass on, neither. You’re just sad and drunk, old man. Shoot, you still look like a million bucks. Any old lady in Gray Horse would take you to bed. Probably will, in about a week.”

Lonnie’s eyes crack open. A weary smile divots into his leathery cheek. He sits himself up, elbows on his knees, and coughs.

“That’s funny, Hank,” he says. “A million bucks. ’Cause I feel like a thousand bucks at most.”

Hank smiles back and the devil is gone.

“I’m not gonna sit here and argue with you about how good you look,” he says. Then the smile fades and his eyes get glassy and serious. “But there is something I’m willing to do. Something I feel like maybe I should have offered to do a long time ago.”

“Yeah?” asks Lonnie, wary.

“War’s over, Lonnie. Let me take your burden from you. Name me the general of Gray Horse Army.”

“I’ve got a responsibility—”


“You remember pulling Howard Tenkiller out from under that slug? The thing ate him, Lonnie. War is supposed to be over and a new variety came along and sucked the living flesh right off that boy’s legs. It made me angry to see Howard die that way. I wanted to stand a thousand feet tall with smoke coming out of my nostrils and smash every last machine to pieces with my fists. It made me fighting mad. Now, tell me honest. What did you feel that day?”

Crickets sing.

Finally, Lonnie sighs. “Nothing, anymore. I don’t feel anything inside, Hank. The war left me with a loud ringing in my ears and nothing . . . nothing in my heart.”

“Well, more bad is coming. You heard that message from Russia. They’re saying the True War has only just begun. I think it’s time, Lonnie. Let me help you. Make me your general.”

“What about Lark?”

“I’ll take care of him. Let me pick up your flag and carry it. Come on now.”

“You won’t hurt him?”

“Stop it. What you’re doing is selfish. The boy is only living to please you. He’s in pain—you said it yourself. Stop this, Lonnie. Give me control. I’ll take care of him. I swear to you that I’ll take care of him. His pain will be over. Forever. Now, come on. Don’t you think that sounds like a good idea?”

Lonnie closes his eyes. Puts his head back and points his face at the stars. He stays that way for a long moment. Now I can see the old man is broken. I honestly can’t say whether it was accidental. Or whether his best friend did it to him on purpose by stripping me down today and showing Lonnie the reality of what the New War has done.

It’s too late. I waited too long.

The old bent cowboy lowers his head and opens his eyes. His lips are dry and they peel apart from each other as he speaks, mouth wilting at the corners.

My heart breaks when he says it.

“Yeah, Hank,” says Lonnie. “I think that sounds like a good idea.”

Hank grins, long yellow teeth glinting in the firelight. He raises his collar radio to his lips. Ducks his head to the side and whispers a quick go-ahead. I watch the radio waves rise and propagate through the skies over my head.

Oh no. No, no, no.

I’m shuffling, humping through the woods as fast as I can go. But my own transmissions are not long-range enough. “Chen,” I’m transmitting in a silent scream. “Run, Chen. You have to run right now.”

My head is buzzing as the forest moves in slow motion around me. It’s my rotten flesh that cripples me, tree branches clawing at my dead limbs. Ahead, in the tree-striped darkness, I see the familiar silver glimmer of Chen’s transmission. Bits and pieces of her voice are draped like trout lines caught in the brush after a flood. But she’s still too far away to connect.

Then flashes of light silhouette the branches. I hear the barking reports of assault rifles. The glimmer fades, leaving only a final wisp of Chen’s voice coiling through a gunpowder-scented breeze.

“. . . peace,” she is saying, as she dies for the last time.

I slow to a stop.

Beyond the clearing, just over the horizon, a blue light that I remember from my dreams is growing. I think of the pale white hand of the Adjudicator, beckoning.