Machinations (3 page)

I lower my weapon, feeling slightly light-headed and more than a little winded. Samuel and Ulrich push past me. They're still yelling, only now it seems to be at each other, and it takes me a moment to catch up with their conversation.

“Ten seconds,” Samuel is saying, to which Ulrich replies with a sharp bark in German. Something like snail? Snell?

Samuel uses his foot to kick through the chest cavity of the machine, then reaches in and withdraws the core processor. It hums back to life five seconds later, as predicted—the still-beating heart of a heartless machine. Ulrich's technique is less tactful. He drops a grenade into one of them, and presses the muzzle of his rifle to the other, firing through half its charge. I'm sure he would have gone through the entire clip if there wasn't the possibility of more lurking nearby.

“What was that?” Ulrich demands angrily of me once he's done taking out his aggression on the enemy's corpse.

I feel stupid. In the beginning, a direct hit from an EMP-G would have ended it, but humans haven't been the only ones evolving and learning. The machines have gotten smarter, too. Stronger. Now it takes ten seconds for them to reboot, and double the effort to put them down.

“I forgot about the reboot time,” I admit.

“You almost got us killed!” He's in my face now, but I try not to let my intimidation show.

“I'm sorry, all right?”

The German remains unmoving as a statue, huffing through his nose, silent and furious, until Samuel intervenes. “Hey,” he says, placing a friendly hand on his shoulder. “She said she was sorry. Let's just keep moving. It's another mile to the access tunnel, and they're going to notice the dip in active units soon.”

Ulrich violently shrugs Samuel's hand off and moves away from us. “Rhona would not have made such a mistake.”

“I
am
Rhona,” I tell his back. More quietly, as if to reassure myself, I say, “I'm Rhona.”

But there's no response from the Berlin Wall, so I stand there, awkward and uncomfortable in my own skin. For the first time since the lights went out, I'm actually glad for the dark. At least this way no one sees my face, or can tell I'm hurt by Ulrich's words. It's a terrible thing to die one person and wake up another, but far worse having it pointed out to you. I'm not even sure if he's right or wrong. I don't know what to feel, other than alone.

Samuel's behind me with the flashlight. Waiting for me to get moving, I expect. But when I step forward, I trip, though there's nothing in my way. It's like the battle leached my strength, leaving me anemic. I don't understand. I've been through countless engagements and even
training
exercises
more strenuous than this, but none have left me feeling this drained.

Bracing myself against the wall, I try to stay upright, hoping the feeling will pass. I know to remain here means death. After a few minutes, though, I just can't stand any longer.

I slide to the ground.

“Are you all right?” Naturally it's Samuel who's concerned. He leans down beside me and his presence is surprisingly reassuring. I feel him take my hands, but then realize it's only so he can check the pulse in my wrist. My heart continues to beat erratically. I can't seem to catch my breath, even at rest.

“Yeah,” I say. “Just thought I'd sit on the floor for a bit.”

He flashes the light in my face, and although he's hidden behind its halo I swear I see worry lines right between his brows. “Your nose is bleeding, Rhona.”

“What?” I rub my nose, and my fingertips come away wet with red.

I don't remember ever being squeamish before, but the sight of the blood catches me off guard. It frightens me. I wipe, wipe,
wipe,
trying first to get it off my upper lip and then off my fingers. But it won't come off, and my nose continues to run. I feel my composure unraveling with each drip. My mind flashes back to the moment of my death, when the world was blood and fire.

I'll come back to you. I won't leave you to fight alone.

Somehow, I know those were my last words. I see a face, someone I know was—
is
—precious to me, but it's blurred, as if perceived through watering eyes. My memory is nothing but ashes from that day.

I'm choking on the past and fighting back tears when Samuel stops my frantic efforts, taking hold of the backs of my wrists with remarkable tenderness. I fight against him for a few seconds more, stubborn and aching for someone I can't remember.

“Rhona. Hey, it's okay. It's okay.”

“What's wrong with me?” I ask, choking the words out, my throat swollen.

“You're putting your body under more stress than it's used to, that's all.” Guiding my hand, he has me pinch the soft, fleshy part of my nose. “Keep pressure here and it should stop in a few minutes. And tilt your head forward some, too. It'll help with any nausea.” He uses the edge of his coat to wipe off the remaining smears.

“I do remember you, you know,” I blurt out. My voice is nasal from applying pressure to my nose, so I temporarily release it in order to sound more natural when I speak. “I remember you, Samuel.”

He has a face that expresses every thought and emotion. His expression brightens, opening like a flower to the sun. “Really?”

“Not everything,” I confess, “but some things. Important things.”

His eyes remain hopeful, tugging at a nameless something in my heart.

Ulrich interrupts before Samuel can ask more. “If she's not dying, then we go,” he says, before hoisting me up from the ground unceremoniously. I don't bother to ask what his solution would be if I
were
dying. I'm getting the sense this man is survival first, loyalty second. As much as I might want to, I can't dislike him for it. We're all survivalists now. Even me.

Especially
me.

I go back to pinching my nose as we start walking again. Samuel helps support me, squeezing us between the walls of the narrow hall. My strength begins to return after the first hundred feet, and by two hundred I don't need his help anymore. He remains by my side regardless, making up some excuse about relapsing, and that's when I realize that maybe he needs somebody, too. I wonder if I can be that person for him.

Whir-whir-whir.

The sound returns like a bad dream, lighting a fire beneath our feet. Our retreat has a nightmarish quality as we race down an endless corridor in the dark, chased by monsters we can hear but not see.

And then we hit a dead end.

“Did we take a wrong turn?” Samuel asks. I keep an eye on the way we've come, watching, waiting.

“No,” Ulrich says.

“We must've taken a wrong turn somewhere…”

“
Nein
,” the German insists, annoyed. He begins feeling along the wall and the light from Samuel's flashlight follows his hands, illuminating the blank space. Several times, Ulrich knocks and then listens. Each time, it startles me. It's loud in the silence, and I expect the machines will pick up the vibrations on their sensors. They don't need to be able to see us to kill us—the benefits of having an advanced targeting system created by some of the world's greatest think tanks back in the day. They knew it would be used on humans; they just didn't know it would be used on
every
human.

“Ulrich,” I say uneasily, guesstimating the distance between us and the machines. The whirring has become a steady sound, meaning they've picked up their pace. We have minutes—if we're lucky. “You can finish your game of knock-knock with the wall anytime now.”

“Maul halten,”
he snaps. I don't need a translator to guess what that means. Shut up.

Samuel keeps glancing back down the hall and I can almost see him mapping our route in his head, probably trying to figure out how we ended up here, trapped like rodents in the wrong end of the maze. The end with the zappy trap instead of the cheese. If Ulrich can't figure out a way out of this, I hope Samuel has a secondary escape route in mind. Had I known it would come to this, I would have been paying more attention to doors and signs.

I keep my gun angled at the dark.

Whirwhirwhirwhirwhir.
It's like blood pounding in my ears, so loud I almost miss Ulrich's exclamation.

“Step back,” he tells us, waving us away. “Back!”

Then with a well-aimed fist, he punches right through the wall. It breaks apart easily, flimsy as papier-mâché. He pulls out several blocks of some type of explosive, judging by the label. The way he places it along the base of the opposite wall, gingerly and with deliberate care, makes me nervous. I don't know what his plan is, but I know better than to question the guy holding volatile explosives.

As soon as he's finished, we backtrack, narrowly avoiding the machines by ducking into a small storage room. I figure the walls must be proofed for heat sensors, allowing our evasion. Convenient.

Inside, there are chemicals and vacuums and other cleaning supplies, but nothing particularly useful for a fight. It feels like I've gone from one enclosed space to another, slightly larger, enclosed space.

“This is your plan?” Samuel says, clearly exasperated with the German's cryptic behavior and where it's led us.

Ulrich grins.

“No,” he says, and lifts his hand. There's a detonator in it. “This is my plan.”

And then he flicks the switch.

By some miracle, we escape through Ulrich's distraction of fire, and make our way outside. In place of machines, we find the night sky waiting for us, curtained in light and moving color. I stand still while the world races above me like an old VHS tape being fast-forwarded, and then Ulrich nudges me forward.

A few minutes later, the ground trembles as if it's a giant's gurgling stomach, and I turn back just in time to watch the earth crack open. Brooks facility belches a fiery gyre that twists and spins toward the sky, raging for a tremendous moment, before the cold and wind smother it like a hand, reducing the flames to black smoke. The explosion sprinkles snow—or plaster?—embers, ash, and demolished flakes of whatever else was contained in the facility, as far as a half a mile away, dusting the tops of our head and shoulders with toxic dandruff.

“It's gone,” Samuel whispers, and I barely hear him over the sound of the fire still munching on Brooks. He looks confused and devastated. Even the words
It's gone
sound puzzled, as if he can't understand what just happened, what he's lost.

“Some machines might have survived,” Ulrich warns. “We must keep moving.”

Samuel nods, though as we march on, I catch him casting inconsolable looks over his shoulder more than a few times.

With each step, my warm breath transforms into wisps of lonely fog in the cold air, wandering up like smoke from a hearth.
Or a destroyed research facility.
It dissipates long before reaching the aurora borealis performing overhead on its dark stage of stars. My spirit brightens and lifts at the sight, awed by the natural phenomenon.

How many times have I seen this before? And with whom?

Back on earth, however, the scenery is less impressive as we trudge through compacted snow. With the great mountains of the Brooks Range behind us, nothing but a flat expanse of white, treeless terrain lies ahead. The wind is relentless, like someone's hands pressing against both of my shoulders. Although I'm not sure of our exact coordinates, I know we must be on the edge of the map.

“Romantic, huh?” I say, somewhat to myself, but mostly to break the prolonged quiet.

Samuel looks startled. “What?”

I motion around us. “Snow. The Northern lights. Running for our lives from homicidal machines. Romantic.”

Samuel smiles, then drops it like he shouldn't have. He opens his mouth to say something, then thinks better of it. I'm almost starting to feel bad about his discomfort when Ulrich breaks in.

“Romantic,” he agrees with a dull smirk, eyebrows crusted in ice.

“Yeah,” Samuel now adds lamely. “Very, uh, romantic.”

Before, he'd risen to meet my sense of humor, even when it wasn't an appropriate time to do so. I don't know what's changed.

As Ulrich presses ahead of us, I turn to Samuel. “So, did you know what Ulrich was planning?” I
am
curious about the nuances of our escape, but mostly I'm eager to keep some conversation going.

“With the walled-up access tunnel?” He shakes his head. “No clue. It wasn't on any of the facility's recent schematics, and Ulrich wasn't exactly following emergency protocols when he decided to blow it open as a diversion. But this seems to have worked out better. It's bought us some time, at least, so maybe we need new protocols. Anything to keep the machines on their toes. Figuratively speaking.”

“How long do you think it'll be before they realize they're hunting for us down the wrong rabbit hole?”

“Hard to say. A couple more hours, at least.”

Not nearly long enough.
“If we're caught here, out in the open like this…”

“We won't be. Don't worry. There's some forest near here. We can hunker down there until help arrives.” But I don't see any trees yet, just a vast emptiness on the horizon. This is also the first time I'm hearing about any reinforcements.

“Help?” I prompt.

“Well, not all the emergency protocols are useless. There wasn't a lot of warning before the attack, but I managed to get a distress code out before they jammed our communications.”

“Okay, so trees and then rescue. Got it. Liking the plan so far.”

“Let's hope it turns out to be that simple.”

I leave him to his thoughts and take several long strides to catch up with Ulrich, who appears immune to the elements and never needs to stop and catch his breath. For someone who looks like he's hovering around sixty, he's more formidable than me and Samuel. I'm glad he's on our team. Especially since I've learned that if I stand in just the right spot, moving with him, his blocky body obstructs some of the wind. But it's so hard keeping up with his unflinching pace, it's nearly an impossible trick. Still, for the duration of our conversation, I try.

“So how did you know where that C-4 was?” I ask, as casually as if I were inquiring about the weather.

“I volunteered as the muscle, but that does not mean I leave all the brains to him.” Ulrich angles a gloved thumb in Samuel's direction, but Samuel's not paying any attention to us. “And it was not C-4.”

“What was it, then?”

“Specially made. By me.” He shrugs. “I had lots of time on my hands.”

“In between the many games of Texas Hold'em?”

He smiles, his teeth barely showing behind chapped lips. “Between you and me? I cheat. Don't tell the boy.” I make a show of crossing my heart, and feel a sudden, inexplicable kinship with this man. Maybe I misjudged him before.

“You said you volunteered,” I prompt, testing this new connection, more desperate for answers than I realized.

Ulrich finally stops and stares at me for a long moment, searching for something. Or maybe some
one.
The friendliness in his eyes evaporates like my breath in the icy air. “Yes,” he says. “As a favor to a friend.”

He doesn't have to say it; I know he means Rhona.

But not
me.

“Must've been some friend,” I say, hoping to probe not his mind, but his heart.

“She was.” He grunts, readjusts his backpack, and moves on. I fall behind.

Samuel's there and we fall into step together. For a time, neither of us says anything, and I'm consumed by a daydream of what our relationship must have been like before I died. Was it easy? Familial? Did we spend childhood summers chasing one another around the neighborhood with Silly String, making a mess of the street? Was Samuel there when I got my heart broken for the first time? I know that must have happened once or twice, even if I can't remember it.

I chance a glance at him then, only to find Samuel returning my gaze. He delivers a smile that's almost shy, encouraging my imagination to run wild with further scenarios of my lost adolescence and his role in it.

Because I'm watching him and not my footing, I'm not prepared when my boot catches on a hard piece of ice. I pitch forward, arms flailing in an attempt to either regain balance or break my fall. Samuel grabs me before I eat snow.

“Careful. It's easy to twist your ankle out here. We'd be in some real hot water if that happened.”

“I wouldn't mind being in a little hot water right now.”

When he laughs, it's kind of an inhaling, squeaky sound, and I feel the strangest sense of victory for getting to hear it. “Literally, maybe not. But figuratively? I wouldn't want to challenge the Fates right now.”

“Superstitious, huh? And here I had you pegged as a ‘man of science' kind of guy.”

“Oh, I don't believe the two are mutually exclusive. I like to think of it less as superstition, and more as…good cosmic judgment. I just find it safer to assume I don't know everything and do my best to stay out of trouble.”

It's an interesting philosophy, particularly coming from a scientist. I look up at the living sky. It's still so awesome in its natural beauty. Reminds me of something. “You know, someone once told me certain sights could make you forget about the world and its problems. Funny how that's one of the few things I actually do remember.” I look back at Samuel. “You told me that, didn't you?”

His breathing gets heavier, the warmth crystallizing in the air around his mouth, and I can't tell whether he's panting because of the travel or what I just said. “Yeah,” he replies, his smile reserved, but I can tell by the look in his eyes that he's moved. “Yeah, that was me. You remember that?”

“I guess some things are harder to forget than others.”
Or some people.

“Rhona.” My heart crashes into my throat when he uses my name. Like it still belongs to me. “When we get a chance, I'd like to do a cognitive interview with you.”

“That's not code for something, is it?” I tease him, slitting my eyes.

He holds up his thick, puffy gloves and smiles. “I swear, my intentions are strictly honorable.”

“Okay, so what is it then?”

“It's a form of memory retrieval that's had some success with crime victims and amnesia patients. It's not as invasive as hypnosis, so you won't be unconscious, but it'll help me determine how much you remember. I wish we could've done it sooner, but…we haven't exactly had the time.”

“All right. I'm in.”

As if there were any doubt.

I don't know how long or how far we walk to get to the forest, but by the time we reach the tree line I'm somewhere beyond the pain and cold, crouched down inside my head where the memories of heat and comfort are. My nose is bleeding again, dry and cracked. Samuel looks half-asleep on his feet. There's no telling how Ulrich's holding up since his back is to me. He's become a permanent landmark in my line of sight, and half the reason I'm so grateful for the pines. At least they're something new to look at.

We move deeper in among the tall trees, where they grow close enough together to be a fence. They are like dark sentinels wearing robes of white, their spindly limbs laden with snow. Here, the wind is weaker, its force disrupted by trunks and branches and brush.

I look around, anticipating movement from the shadows, but apart from the occasional animal noise, it's quiet. The silence magnifies the volume of each crunchy step, our boots pressing into brittle pine needles.

Then something drops behind me.

I whirl around to face it, weapon raised—

—and slip backward into Ulrich, who instinctively turns his gun on me. I continue falling, landing on my rear just before the sound repeats itself.

“Easy,” Samuel says and points to an intersection of tree limbs nearby, relieving itself of a heavy burden of snow, plunking mushy piles on the ground. The relief is palpable. We all share a brief chuckle and try to overlook the fact that Ulrich and I nearly shot each other.

As exhausted as I am—my legs weighty as blocks of stone—it's not until I notice Samuel repeatedly stumbling in the drifts, beginning to lag behind, that I speak up. “We have to stop,” I announce.

Ulrich pauses.

I press on with a grim smile. “I'm dead on my feet, okay? If we continue like this, I guarantee you someone is going to end up tripping and breaking an ankle or leg or something. At this rate, not one of us will be any good in a fight if the machines catch up to us.”

“When,” Ulrich corrects.

“Right. Look, let's just make camp for the night. Get some sleep. Recharge the batteries.” Samuel winces at the metaphor.
Okay, bad choice of words.
“This is as good a spot as any. We can alternate shifts so someone's always got an eye out, but we need to rest or we'll just end up dying tired.”

Ulrich lets his pack drop into the snow as his answer. “I will take first watch. Two hours.”

“Three.” I'm pushing my luck, and I'm fairly certain I don't have much to begin with. “I'll keep watch with Samuel during the next shift, and then we can get moving again. Six hours.”

“Stubborn.” I take it as a compliment. He nods, conceding.

With a steep embankment three-quarters of the way around us, and sheltered by a pine-needle canopy above, we hunker down for the remainder of the night. Between the three of us, we have one small, portable tent and a pair of sleeping bags. It's not much against the fury of an Alaskan winter, but it might be enough to keep us alive—so long as we continue wearing our thermal layers. We can't risk a fire, no matter how cold it gets. Given the options of freezing to death or being abducted by the machines, I'd take death as a popsicle any day.

Everyone knows what happens if the machines take you alive. Labor camps, if you're lucky. Slowly being worked to death in one of the machines' factories alongside other humans unfortunate enough to be skilled at a trade. Otherwise, torture, brainwashing…I seem to recall a story of the machines chipping people like dogs, the subdermal implants delivering an electric shock each time they failed to obey an order. But that might just be fear recirculated in the form of rumor. What isn't rumor is what happens after these captives are turned loose. Always they manage to find pockets of resistance, like bloodhounds scenting a wounded fox. Sometimes they integrate long enough for the other members to drop their guard—and then massacre everyone in their sleep. Other times, the machines swoop in before that point, doing their own dirty work.

It's amazing how much I remember about the war, the resistance, the machines and their impersonal cruelty—yet I can't remember how I got the tiny, sickle-shaped scar I just discovered a minute ago on the underside of my chin.

I help Samuel set up the tent. It's slow going—embarrassingly slow, even with his smarts and my resourcefulness. Ulrich is doing exactly what he volunteered for: looking out—and not much else. I think I even catch him smirking, like he's enjoying the entertainment of our struggle with the tent.

While I'm busy fighting to strap down one side, Samuel says, “Thanks for this,” in such a small voice I almost miss it.