Robopocalypse (15 page)

And, I figure, so can the robots.

We run hard, staying low and darting between the larger tombs that are protected by blue or green steel cages. I don’t know where we’re going now. I just hope that Jabar has a plan and that it involves me staying alive.

After a couple minutes, I catch a flash out of the corner of my eye. It’s the mobile sentry gun, cruising over a rough path in the middle of the graveyard, swinging its rifle head back and forth. Sunlight glints from the low-slung optics module bulging from the top of the gun. The bowed legs tremble over the bumpy earth, but the rifle barrel is motionless as a barn owl.

I dive behind a tombstone and lie flat on my belly. Jabar has also found cover, a few feet away. He motions to me with one finger, brown eyes urgent beneath dust-frosted eyebrows.

Following his gaze, I see a partially dug grave. It was going to be a nice resting place for some Afghani—a brand-new steel cage rests partially over it. Whoever was working on this got the hell out of here fast, without bolting down the cage.

Keeping still, I crane my neck to look around. The mobile sentry gun is nowhere to be seen. Faintly, I hear the lawn mower
thup-thup-thup
of a low-flying drone. It sounds like a death sentence. Somewhere out there, the sentry gun is scanning row after row of tombstones for humanlike silhouettes or some trace movement.

Inching forward, I crawl until I reach the open grave. Jabar already lies inside, his face striped with shadows from the slatted bars of the steel cage. Holding my hurt arm, I roll inside.

Me and Jabar lie there next to each other on our backs in the half-dug grave, trying to wait out the sentries. The ground is frozen. The gravelly dirt feels harder than the floor of my cement cell. I can sense the warmth seeping away from my body.

“It’s okay, Jabar,” I whisper. “The drones are following standard operating procedure. Looking for squirters. People running away. There should be a twenty-minute scan-and-hold routine, max.”

Jabar wrinkles his brow at me.

“I already know this.”

“Oh, right. Sorry.”

We huddle together, teeth chattering.

“Hey,” says Jabar.

“Yeah?”

“Are you really an American soldier?”

“Course. Why else would I be on base?”

“I never saw one. Not in person.”

“Seriously?”

Jabar shrugs.

“We only see the metal ones,” he says. “When the avtomata attacked, we joined. Now, my friends are dead. So are yours, I feel.”

“Where do we go, Jabar?”

“The caves. My people.”

“Is it safe there?”

“Safe for me. Not safe for you.”

I notice that Jabar holds his pistol tight across his chest. He is young, but I cannot forget that he’s been at this a very long time.

“So,” I say, “am I your prisoner?”

“I think so, yes.”

Looking up through the metal slats, I can see that the blank blue sky is stained with black smoke rising from the green zone. Besides the soldiers in the alley, I haven’t seen another living American since the attack began. I think of all those tanks and drones and sentry guns that must be out there, stalking survivors.

Jabar’s arm feels warm against me, and I remember that I don’t have any clothes or food or weapons. I’m not even sure the U.S. Army would allow me to
have
a weapon.

“Jabar, my man,” I say. “I can work with that.”

Jabar and Paul Blanton successfully escaped into the rugged mountains of Afghanistan. Within a week, records indicate that the locals began a series of successful raids on Rob positions, as the tribal forces combined their hard-earned survival techniques with Specialist Blanton’s technical expertise
.

Within two years, Paul would use this synthesis of tribal survival lore and technical knowledge to make a discovery that would forever change my life, the life of my comrades, and the life of his own father, Lonnie Wayne Blanton
.

—
CORMAC
WALLACE,
MIL#GHA217

7. M
EMENTO
M
ORI

That’s a funny name to give a boat. What’s it mean?

A
RRTRAD

ZERO HOUR

After the alarming experience with his cell phone, the hacker known as Lurker fled his home and found a safe place to hide. He didn’t make it very far. This account of the onset of Zero Hour in London was pieced together from recorded conversations between Lurker and people who visited his floating base of operations in the early years of the New War
.

—
CORMAC
WALLACE,
MIL#GHA217

“Lurker, you going to answer that?”

I look at Arrtrad with disgust. Here he is, a thirty-five-year-old man and he hasn’t a clue. The world is ending. Doomsday is upon us. And Arrtrad, as he calls himself on the chat lines, stands across from me, Adam’s apple bobbing under his weak chin, asking me if I’m going to answer that?

“Do you know what this means, Arrtrad?”

“No, boss. Uh, not really, I mean.”

“Nobody calls this phone, you tosser. Nobody except him. The reason we’ve run. The devil in the machine.”

“You mean,
that’s
who’s calling?”

Not a doubt in my mind.

“Yeah, it’s Archos. There’s nobody else who’s ever traced this bloody number. My number.”

“Does this mean he’s coming for us?”

I look at the phone, vibrating on our small wooden dinner table. It’s surrounded by a mess of papers and pencils. All my schemes. This phone and me had a lot of fun together in the old days. Pulled a lot of capers. But now it makes me flinch to see it. Keeps me up at night, wondering what’s on the other end of it.

There’s a scream of motors and the table lurches. A pencil rolls away, drops to the floor with a tap.

“Damned speedboats,” says Arrtrad, grabbing the wall for support. Our houseboat sways on the wake. She’s just a little boat, about twelve yards long. Basically a wood-paneled living room floating a yard off the water. For the last couple months, I’ve been sleeping on the bed and Arrtrad on the convertible folding table, with just the potbellied stove to keep us warm.

And watching that phone to keep me busy.

The speedboat whines off farther down the Thames, toward the ocean. It’s probably my imagination, but it feels as if that boat came and went in a panic, fleeing something.

Now I can feel the panic rising in me, too.

“Unmoor us,” I whisper to Arrtrad, wincing as the phone rings again and again.

It won’t stop ringing.

“What?” asks Arrtrad. “We haven’t got much petrol, Lurker. Let’s answer the phone first. See what this is all about.”

I stare at him blankly. He looks back, gulping. I know from experience that there’s nothing in my gray eyes for him to see. No emotion to latch onto. No weakness. It’s the unpredictability that makes him afraid of me.

In a small voice, Arrtrad asks, “Shall I answer it?”

Arrtrad picks up the mobile phone with shaky fingers. Autumn light streams in from the thin-paned windows and his thinning hair floats like a halo on his wrinkled scalp. I can’t allow this weakling to get the upper hand. I’ve got to show my crew who’s boss. Even if it’s a crew of one.

“Give me that,” I mumble, and snatch the phone away. I answer it with one thumb, in a well-practiced motion.

“It’s Lurker,” I growl. “And I’m coming for you, mate—”

I’m interrupted by a recorded message. I hold the phone away from my ear. The tinny computerized female voice is easy to hear over the lapping waves outside.

“Attention, citizen. This is a message from your local emergency alert system. This is not a test. Be advised that due to a chemical spill in central London, all citizens are asked to go inside immediately. Bring your pets with you. Close and lock all doors and windows. Shut off all ventilation systems that circulate air. Please wait for assistance, which will arrive shortly. Note that due to the nature of the accident, unmanned systems may be utilized for your rescue. Until help arrives, please monitor your radio for emergency alert system announcements. Thank you for your cooperation.
Beep
. Attention, citizen. This is a message—”

Click
.

“Unmoor us now, Arrtrad.”

“It’s a chem spill, Lurker. We should shut the windows and—”

“Unmoor us, you sodding fuck!”

I scream the words right into Arrtrad’s dim-witted weasel face, painting his forehead with my spittle. Out the window, London looks normal. Then I notice a thin column of smoke. Nothing big, but just hanging there, out of place. Sinister.

When I turn around, Arrtrad is wiping his forehead and muttering, but he is walking toward the flimsy front door of the houseboat as he goddamn well should be. Our shoddy wharf is old and rotten and has been here forever. We’re tied to it tight in three places and if we don’t get untied, we won’t be going anywhere.

And on this particular afternoon, I happen to be in quite a hurry to be off. See, I’m near to fairly certain that this is the end of days. It’s the sodding apocalypse and I’m teamed with the village idiot and shackled tight to a waterlogged pile of rot.

I’ve never even started the houseboat engine before.

The key is dangling in the ignition. I walk to the nav station at the front of the room. I prop open the front window and the smell of muddy water wafts in. For a moment, I rest my sweaty palms on the fake wood of the steering wheel. Then without looking I reach down and turn the key, quick.

Ka-rowr
.

The engine turns over and sputters into life. First try. Through the back window, I see a haze of bluish smoke billow up. Arrtrad is crouched on the right side of the boat, alongside the dock, getting the second mooring rope untied. Starboard, I suppose the boating types call it.

“Memento Mori,”
calls Arrtrad between pants. “That’s a funny name to give a boat. What’s it mean?”

I ignore him. In the distance over Arrtrad’s bald spot something has just caught my eye: a silver car.

The car looks normal enough, but somehow it’s moving too steadily for my taste. The car wheels down the road that leads to our wharf as if its steering were locked in place. Is it a coincidence that the car is aimed toward our dock and us at the end of it?

“Faster,” I shout, rattling the window with my fist.

Arrtrad stands up, hands on his hips. His face is red and sweaty. “They’ve been tied a long time, all right? It’s going to take more than a—”

At near full speed, the silver car hops a curb at the end of the street and leaps into the dockside car park. There is a faint crunch of the auto’s undercarriage bottoming out. Something is definitely wrong.

“Just go! GO!”

Finally, the facade has cracked. My panic shines through like radiation. Confused, Arrtrad fairly lopes along the side of the boat. Near the back end, he drops to his knees and starts working on the last decaying mooring rope.

To my left is open river. To my right is a crumbling pile of warped wood and two tons of speeding metal careening toward me at top speed. If I don’t move this boat in the next few seconds, I’m going to have a car parked on top of it.

I watch the auto bounce through the immense car park. My head feels stuffed with cotton. The houseboat motor throbs and my hands have gone numb with the vibration of the wheel. My heart pounds in my chest.

Something occurs to me.

I snatch my mobile phone off the table, crack the SIM card out of it, and chuck the rest into the water. It makes a small plop. I can feel a bull’s-eye slide off my back.

The top of Arrtrad’s head bobs in and out of view as he unwinds the last rope. He doesn’t see the silver auto streaking across the deserted car park, sending trash fluttering into the air. It hasn’t changed direction by an inch. The plastic bumper scrapes concrete and then flies completely off as the car bounces over a curb and onto the wooden dock.

My mobile phone is gone but it’s already too late. The devil has found me.

Now I can hear the thrumming of tires over the last fifty yards of rotten wood. Arrtrad’s head rises up, concerned. He’s hunched on the side of the boat, hands covered in slime from the ancient rope.

“Don’t look, just go!” I shout at Arrtrad.

I grab the clutch lever. With one thumb, I pop the houseboat out of neutral and into reverse. Ready to move. No throttle though. Not yet.

Forty yards.

I could jump off the boat. But where will I go? My food is here. My water. My village idiot.

Thirty yards.

It’s the end of the world, mate.

Twenty yards.

Hell with it. Untied or not, I slam the throttle and we lurch backward. Arrtrad shouts something incoherent. I hear another pencil tap to the ground, followed by dishes and papers and a coffee mug. The neat pile of wood next to the potbellied stove collapses.

Ten yards.

The engines thunder. Sunlight flashes from the scarred silver missile as it catapults off the end of the dock. The auto soars through empty space, missing the front of the houseboat by a few feet. It crashes into the water and sends up a white spray that comes through the open window and slaps me in the bloody face.

It’s over.

I throttle down but leave the boat in reverse, then hurry to the front deck. The prow, they say. Ashen-faced, Arrtrad joins me. We watch the car together, trawling slowly in reverse, away from the end of the world.

The silver car is half-submerged and sinking fast. In the front seat, a man is slumped over the wheel. The windshield bears a crimson spiderweb of cracks where his face must have hit on impact. A woman with long hair is flopped next to him in the passenger seat.

And then, there’s the last thing that I see. That last thing that I never wanted to see. Didn’t ask to see.

In the backseat window. Two pale little palms, pressed hard against the tinted glass. Pale as linen. Pushing.

Pushing so hard.

And the silver car slips under.

Arrtrad drops to his knees.

“No,” he shouts. “No!”

The gawky man puts his face in his hands. His whole body convulses with sobs. Snot and tears pour out of his birdlike face.

I retreat into the doorway of the cabin. The doorframe gives me support. I don’t know how I feel, only that I feel different. Changed, somehow.

I notice it’s getting dark outside, now. Smoke is rising from the city. A practical thought comes to me. We’ve got to get out of here before something worse comes.

Arrtrad speaks to me through sobs. He grabs me by the arm and his hands are wet with tears and river water and muck from the ropes. “Did you know this would happen?”

“Stop crying,” I snap.

“Why? Why didn’t you tell nobody? What about your mum?”

“What about her?”

“You didn’t tell your mum?”

“She’ll be fine.”

“She’s not fine. Nothing is fine. You’re only seventeen. But I’ve got
kids
. Two kids. And they could be hurt.”

“Why haven’t I ever seen ’em?”

“They’re with my ex. But I coulda warned them. I coulda told them what was coming. People are dead.
Dead
, Lurker. That was a family. It was a fucking child in that car. Just a wee baby. My god. What’s the matter with you, mate?”

“Nothing’s the matter. Stop your crying, now. It’s all part of the plan, see? If you had a brain you’d understand. But you don’t. So you listen to me.”

“Yes, but—”

“Listen to me and we’ll be fine. We’re going to help those people. We’re going to find your kids.”

“That’s impossible—”

Now, I stop him cold. I’m starting to feel a bit angry. A bit of my old fire is returning to replace the numbness. “What have I told you about saying that?”

“I’m sorry, Lurker.”

“
Nothing’s
impossible.”

“But how will we do those things? How can we find my kids?”

“We survived for a reason, Arrtrad. This monster. This
thing
. It’s played its hand, see? It’s using the machines to hurt people. But we’re savvy now. We can help. We’ll save all those poor sheep out there. We’ll save them and they’ll thank us for it. They’ll
worship
us for it. Me and you. We’re coming out on top. It’s all in the plan, mate.”

Arrtrad looks away. It’s plain that he doesn’t believe a word of it. Looks like he might have something to say.

“What? Go on, then,” I say.

“Well, pardon me. But you never seemed the helping type, Lurker. Don’t get me wrong—”

And that’s just it, isn’t it? I’ve never thought much of other people. Or thought about them much at all. But those pale palms against the window. I can’t stop thinking of them. I have a feeling they will be with me for a long time.

“Yeah, I know that,” I say. “But you’ve not seen my forgiving nature. It’s all in the plan, Arrtrad. You have to trust. You’ll see, yeah? We’ve survived. It had to have been for a reason. We have a purpose now, you and me. It’s us against that thing. And we’re going to get revenge. So stand up and join the fight.”

I reach my hand out to Arrtrad.

“Yeah?” he asks.

He still doesn’t fully believe me. But I’m starting to believe myself. I take his hand in mine and haul Arrtrad to his feet.

“Yeah, mate. Picture this. It’s me and you against the devil himself. To the death. All the way to the very end. And someday, we’ll be in the history books for it. Guaranteed.”

This event appeared to represent a turning point in Lurker’s life. As the New War began in earnest, it seems that he left all childish things behind him and started behaving as a member of the human race. In further records, Lurker’s arrogance and vanity remain the same. But his breathtaking selfishness seems to have disappeared along with the silver car
.

—
CORMAC
WALLACE,
MIL#GHA217