I Am Automaton

Chapter 16

Carl was woken by a paramedic who was questioning him in Spanish. He sat up on the bed, his body still aching, but less so. The man was taking his vitals.

Carl let him finish. Then he pushed the man aside and got to his feet. There were Mexican military in the room. He looked out the broken sliding glass doors.

The storm had ended, but the resort was a wasteland of torn thatched roofing, broken tile, and smashed furniture strewn all over the grounds. Strange animals from the zoo next door wandered around disoriented.

“Do any of you speak English?” Carl asked rather authoritatively. He did have authority. He was the last surviving member of his platoon and was now acting lieutenant by process of elimination. The army called it field promotion.

One of the soldiers gestured for Carl to follow him. They walked out of the room, down the hallway, and out of the building.

Carl’s escort was armed, but none of them trained their weapons on him. Peter always said they were working in conjunction with the Mexican military.

They arrived at a closed tent in the middle of the grounds. There were soldiers and relief workers everywhere. Carl saw them helping the tourists out of the Convention Center.

The lead soldier gestured for Carl to enter the tent. Carl nodded and passed through the slit. Inside there was a man sitting down at a folding table covered with papers. There were two other men poring over the papers and talking on Mini-com Field Phones.

“Please, have a seat,” the man told him in a heavy accent.

Carl sat in a folding chair in front of the folding table.

“I am Colonel Rojas of the Mexican Army,” the man continued. “And you are…”

Carl was about to say Private Birdsall, but he corrected himself. “I am Lieutenant Carl Birdsall of the United States Army.”

“United States. I did not recognize the uniform.”

Carl didn’t offer a response.

“What exactly are you doing in Xcaret, Lieutenant Birdsall?”

“Helping with the relief effort.”

Colonel Rojas looked at him with obvious disbelief.

“The hotel management reported that you stormed the Convention Center, frightened the tourists, left and told them to keep the doors shut. They then heard gunfire, screaming, and an explosion. There are dead bodies everywhere, some that looked like they had been dead longer than others, some in suits similar to yours. We find you here in one of the rooms sleeping on a bed with a dead man on the floor dressed in the same uniform as you. So as you can see, Lieutenant Birdsall, I require more explanation.”

Carl was stoic. There was no explanation he could possibly offer that would have glossed over the ID and the mutinous Lorenzo and Lockwood and made any kind of sense.

“I see. So you don’t want to answer me?”

Carl just looked at him.

“Well, Lieutenant, let me offer an explanation based on how all of this appears to me.”

Carl didn’t even nod. He sat there like a statue hewn from stone.

“I see a lone survivor with the dead body of a fellow U.S. soldier at the foot of his bed. I see the bodies of other fellow soldiers all over the Business Center. I see skeletons, bones picked clean in the gymnasium. I think that you were down here for an operation of some kind, maybe with the knowledge of our government, but I think you flipped. How you say? Went berserk. You killed your unit. And now we found you in one of the hotel rooms with blood smeared all over your face and large knife on the end table.”

Carl knew that was how it appeared. If he had been in Rojas’ position, he would have put it together in the exact same way. But a switch inside him turned off…or perhaps on. He was weary, his body ached, and he lost his brother. He could say nothing to explain it all effectively to this Colonel Rojas.

He no longer cared about his college loans; he no longer worried about unemployment. These things were all trivialities, mere distractions. He knew how he looked at the moment, and he knew he was in deep trouble, but for some odd reason none of it mattered.

A normal individual would be terrified by this sensation, but he felt emancipated. A shrink would say he was numbed by severe trauma or that he was in some kind of dissociative state.

However, he knew he was not dissociating or psychotic, at least as much as any man could know that (most psychotics don’t think they are psychotic). There was a sudden quiet. Not peace, mind you, but a steadiness that one could only achieve from truly horrific experience, the ultimate perspective a man has for a split second before he knows he is going to die.

“The fact that you seem completely unmoved by the fate of your friends leads me to believe I am right about you, Lieutenant.”

Carl smiled to himself. This man knew nothing about him. He knew nothing of loss or pain. He knew nothing of sacrifice. He was just some soft officer in a bullshit army.

“There are a couple of men from your army here to take you into custody. They will take you back where you came from and out of my hair. I thank God that none of the tourists was hurt. It was a good thing they locked themselves in the Convention Center. They didn’t even want to let us in.”

Carl smirked to himself. Rojas was unsure if it was even in response to anything he just said or if Carl was having some perverse private moment, lost in his own dementia.

“Personally, I hope they nail you to the wall. Perhaps an execution. But it is not my problem. We have enough to deal with between the drug cartels and corrupt law enforcement. We don’t need some American cowboy stomping around killing innocent people.”

Carl sat in his folding chair cool as ice, waiting for this yahoo to stop jabberjawing and dismiss him already. He felt he had humored this small man long enough.

Rojas said something in Spanish, and one of the men standing next to him left the tent. In a few moments, he returned with two U.S. Army. Carl smiled like a recalcitrant problem child.

“Lieutenant,” Rojas said, “Sergeants Lockwood and Lorenzo are here to take you out of my hair.”

They stood there in the tent in normal army uniform. No fancy sci-fi black suits.

“Lieutenant?” jeered Lorenzo, “I assure you he’s only a private. Just because he murdered his Lieutenant, it does not promote him, Colonel Rojas.”

Rojas put his hands up defensively. “Hey, I just went on what this man told me. He’s all yours. Take him out of my sight.”

“Stand up, Private Birdsall,” ordered Lorenzo.

Lockwood stood there with his hand on his sidearm, like a jumpy backup officer at a traffic stop in a bad neighborhood.

Carl sighed emphatically, mocking the gravity of his situation, and stood up.

“Hands behind your back.”

Lorenzo bound Carl’s wrists together with a plastic tie. He then grabbed him on the shoulder and steered him out of the tent with Lockwood in tow.

But before they left the tent, Lockwood turned back to Rojas.

“We regret any trouble he may have caused. His actions do not represent the United States Army, Colonel Rojas. He went rogue and acted completely on his own. Our State Department will be in touch with more formal apologies and reparations.”

Rojas nodded and went back to his work. Lorenzo steered Carl out of the tent. They walked silently across the grounds to a parked jeep.

“Get in,” instructed Lorenzo.

Carl was guided into the back seat. Lockwood got in and sat next to him. Lorenzo got behind the wheel, turned the ignition, and put the jeep in gear.

They drove back down a long highway littered with tree branches and dirt. It was the main highway that connected all of the resorts and beaches to the airport.

But just as Carl thought these snakes were actually going to take him to the airport for extradition, Lorenzo turned off the road. He drove through a superficial layer of flora. Behind it lay a dirt road. Lorenzo drove the jeep as if he had been down that road before, and Carl did not doubt that he had.

As they bounced around in the jeep, Carl had no thoughts whatsoever of escape. Sure, he could have jumped out of the jeep and attempted to make a run for it. Maybe he would have made it, but he just stayed put.

Lorenzo pulled up to a few corrugated tin shacks in a clearing. He parked the jeep and stepped out.

“Get out.”

Lockwood got out and stepped aside, this time with his handgun trained on Carl. Carl casually slid over and stepped out of the jeep.

Lorenzo pointed to the shack all the way to the right. “In there. Move.”

Carl stepped ahead of them, and Lorenzo and Lockwood followed behind. Lorenzo stepped in front of Carl and opened the front door. “Inside.”

Carl stepped in. There was a chubby man in filthy shorts and a tight blue tee shirt riddled with holes—Navajas no doubt—standing by a table and a metal chair. In the corner was a coffin standing vertically.

“Please, you must be exhausted Private Birdsall. Have a seat,” Lorenzo mocked.

Carl did as he was told. He sat down in a slow, measured movement in the chair.

“So,” Lorenzo continued, “Pete’s little p-ssy brother. You were the last person I had expected to be alive.”

Carl sat there looking Lorenzo dead in the eyes. There was no fear, no anger, and no vengeful glare. He just looked at him matter-of-factly.

“Sorry about your big brother, but he wouldn’t play ball. And to be quite honest, I don’t expect you to either.”

He paused for dramatic effect, but it wasn’t having the desired effect on his prisoner, so he continued.

“So I’m not even going to bother making you an offer. I won’t listen to you beg for your life. It’ll just be easier to kill you.”

Carl was an oak.

“By the way, I’m curious, Carl. Which is scarier, trying to talk to a girl or being hunted by blood thirsty ID?”

He chortled at his own joke. Lockwood, however, did not share in the amusement. In fact, Carl’s whole demeanor appeared to unsettle him. He kept his handgun trained on him.

“What’s the matter, cat got your tongue? Well, I have something that will break the ice.”

Lorenzo nodded to the Navajas, who walked over to the coffin and removed the lid, tossing it aside. Inside was a young woman in a white dress that looked like she had been dead for some time.

“You see, Carl, since you are such a coward, I took the liberty of finding you a girlfriend.”

Carl recognized what it was. It was one of the ID. But these perverts had taken her out of her black uniform and put her in a simple white wedding dress. Her skin was ashen and tight, her eyes clouded with cataracts and dormant.

The Navajas backed away towards the opening of the tin shack, as did Lockwood with his gun still on Carl. Lorenzo produced an AI kill switch.

“I figured that if your brother couldn’t do it, I’d bust your cherry for you. I think it’s time for you two to get acquainted. Any final requests?”

Carl sat there grinning at his torturers.

“He’s smiling,” Lockwood commented in awe, “the bastard’s lost it.”

Lorenzo sneered at Carl. “You cost me ninety ID, you lousy son-of-a bitch, and you set us back quite a bit. But Lewis will have to give us more. We’ll be back down here before you know it. Too bad you won’t be here to see it.”

He hit the switch, and the dead woman sprung to life. She began to step forward towards Carl as Lorenzo stepped back. The Navajas and Lockwood stepped out of the shack altogether. The Navajas walked away, but Lockwood remained.

“I want to see your first time, Carl,” Lorenzo spat venomously.

But Carl didn’t flinch. He only turned his head to look at the woman as she loomed over him, growling and spitting.

Then she stopped.

She just stopped, standing over him. She wheezed and swayed in place.

Lorenzo looked confused. He fiddled with the switch, and the woman did not respond. “Shit, what now? Damned switch. Maybe it’s the chip in her head.”

Carl just gazed into her eyes as she stood there. If Lorenzo wasn’t mistaken there appeared to be some kind of understanding that passed between them, like he was willing her to be still.

“What are you doing to her?” Lorenzo snapped impatiently. “Lockwood, get in here!”

Lockwood peeked his head in. “There’s something wrong with the ID.”

Lockwood stepped completely into the shack. He saw the woman standing over Carl waiting. “Is it the switch?”

“No, it’s not the switch,” Lorenzo snapped. “She won’t move.”

“Why’s he staring at her like that?” Lockwood was frightened. Carl’s glare bothered him before, but it was as if his fears about Carl’s demeanor were being fully realized.

“Th-that’s impossible,” Lockwood stammered.

Lorenzo walked up to the woman and shoved her hard. She stumbled backward and stood in place. Carl looked from her to Lorenzo. He was grinning maliciously.

“What the f…”

The woman suddenly lunged forward at Lorenzo. Lorenzo put up his right hand in defense, reaching for his handgun with his left, and she bit the fingers of his right hand clear off.

He screamed and backed into Lockwood, who was trying to get a clear shot at the woman’s head. Carl stood up and walked right past the screaming Lorenzo and out of the shack.

As Lockwood pushed Lorenzo aside and turned to shoot Carl in the back, the woman sunk her black teeth into his neck and pushed him down to the ground. He clawed at her face frantically in a futile exercise that would be his last on this earth.

The Navajas man and a few others came running out of another shed and saw Carl standing there with his hands bound behind his back.

One pointed a shotgun at him, but the woman dropped Lockwood and began to advance on them, growling and eyes wide.

They turned their attention to her as Carl walked away, never looking back as he heard shotgun blasts and yelling in Spanish. As he strolled over to the jeep, he heard shouts and then shrieks. And then silence.

He walked around the jeep and down the dirt road until the three shacks were behind him and out of sight.