Robopocalypse (19 page)

“Uh, what is that?” asks Lark.

“I set this snare a week ago. Judging from the gashes in the tree bark from the steel cable, this guy got caught here pretty soon after that.”

Lucky for me, these trees are strong as cast-iron.

“At least it was alone,” says Lark.

“How so?”

“If there were others, it would have called them here to help.”

“How? I don’t see a mouth on it.”

“For real? See the antenna? Radio. This thing can communicate over the radio with other machines.”

Lark walks a bit closer to the machine and watches it close. For the first time, he drops the tough guy act. He looks as curious as a four-year-old.

“This thing is simple,” says Lark. “It’s a modified military supply carrier. Probably using it to map terrain. Nothing extra. Just legs and eyes. That lump behind the shoulder blades, that’s probably the brain. Figures out what it’s seeing. It’s there because that’s the most protected place on the machine. Take that part off and this thing’ll be lobotomized. Ooh, ouch. Look at its feet. See the retractable claws tucked under there? Good thing it can’t reach the cable with those.”

Well, I’ll be goddamned. This kid has a good eye for machines. I watch him staring at the thing, taking it all in. Then, I notice the other tracks on the ground around him, all over the clearing.

Goose bumps buzz up the backs of my thighs and over my arms. We’re not alone here. This thing
did
call for help. How could I have missed it?

“Wonder what it’d be like to ride one of these?” muses Lark.

“Get your bag,” I say. “We got to move. Now.”

Lark looks where I’m looking, sees the fresh marks in the ground, and realizes there’s another one of these things loose. He grabs his pack without a word. Together, we hustle away into the woods. Behind us, the walker hangs there with its camera watching us go. Never blinking.

Our little run for freedom becomes a march, and then a miles-long hike.

We make camp as the sun sets. I set up a little campfire, making sure the smoke is baffled through the leaves of a nearby tree. We sit down on our packs around the fire, feeling hungry and tired as the cold sets in.

Like it or not, it’s time to get started on the real reason I’m here.

“Why do it?” I ask. “Why try to be a gangster?”

“We’re not gangsters. We’re warriors.”

“But a warrior fights the enemy, you know? Y’all end up hurting your own people. Only a man can be a warrior. When a boy tries to act like a warrior, well, you get a gangster. A gangster has no purpose.”

“We’ve got a purpose.”

“You reckon?”

“Brotherhood. We look out for each other.”

“Against who?”

“Anybody. Everybody. You.”

“I’m not your brother? We’re both native, ain’t we?”

“I know that. And I keep that culture inside me. That’s
me
. That’s always gonna be me. That’s my roots. But everybody’s fighting everybody up there. Everybody’s got a gun.”

“You’ve got a point,” I say.

The fire crackles, methodically eating up a log.

“Lonnie?” asks Lark. “What’s this really about? Just come out and say it, old man.”

This is probably not going to go over well. But the kid is forcing my hand and I’m not going to lie to him.

“You seen what we’re up against out here, right?”

Lark nods.

“I need you to ally your Gray Horse Army with the Light Horse tribal police.”

“Team up with the police?”

“Y’all call yourselves an army. But we need a real army. The machines are changing. Soon enough, they’ll come to kill us. All of us. So if you’re interested in protecting your brothers, you’d better start thinking about
all
your brothers. And your sisters, too.”

“How do you know this for sure?”

“I don’t know it for sure. Nobody knows nothing for sure. If they say they do, they’re either a preacher or selling something. Deal is—I have a bad feeling in my gut. Too many coincidences piling up. It reminds me of before all this happened.”

“Whatever happened with the machines already happened. They’re out here, studying the woods. But if we leave them alone, they’ll leave us alone. It’s
people
we need to worry about.”

“The world is a mysterious place, Lark. We’re real small, here on this rock. We can build our fires, but it’s nighttime out there in the universe. A warrior’s duty is to face the night and protect his people.”

“I look out for my boys. But no matter what your gut says—don’t expect the GHA to come to your rescue.”

I snort. This ain’t working like I hoped. Of course, it
is
working like I predicted.

“Where’s the food?” asks Lark.

“I brought none.”

“What? Why not?”

“Hunger is good. It will make you patient.”

“Shit. This is just great. No food. And we’re being hunted by some kind of damn backcountry robot.”

I pull out a bough of sage from my backpack and toss it onto the fire. The sweet scent of the burning leaves rises into the air around us. This is the first step of the ritual of transformation. When Tenkiller and I planned this, I didn’t think I’d be so afraid for Lark.

“And you’re lost,” I mention.

“What? You don’t know the way back?”

“I do.”

“Well?”

“You’ve got to find your own way. Learn to depend on yourself. This is what it means to become a man. To provide for your people, instead of being provided for.”

“I don’t like where this is going, Lonnie.”

I stand up.

“You’re strong, Lark. I believe in you. And I know I will see you again.”

“Hold up, old man. Where you going?”

“Home, Lark. I’m going home to our people. I’ll meet you there.”

Then I turn and walk away into the darkness. Lark jumps up, but he only follows me to where the firelight ends. Beyond that is darkness, the unknown.

This is where Lark has to go, into the unknown. We all have to do it, at some point. When we grow up.

“Hey! What the fuck?” he shouts to the cast-iron trees. “You can’t leave me here!”

I keep walking until the coldness of the woods swallows me up. If I walk for most of the night, I should be home by dawn. My hope is that Lark will survive long enough to make it home, too.

The last time I did something like this, it made my son into a man. He hated me for it, but I understood. No matter how much kids beg to be treated like adults, nobody likes to let go of their childhood. You wish for it and dream of it and the second you have it, you wonder what you’ve done. You wonder what it is you’ve become.

But war is coming, and only a man can lead Gray Horse Army.

Three days later, my world is on the verge of blowing up. The gangbangers from Gray Horse Army started accusing me of murdering Lark Iron Cloud the day before. There’s no way to prove anything different. Now they’re screaming for my blood in front of the council.

Everybody is assembled at the bleachers by the clearing where we hold the drum circle. Old John Tenkiller don’t say a thing, just soaks up abuse from Lark’s boys. Hank Cotton stands next to him, big hands clenched into fists. The Light Horse tribal police stand in clumps, tense as they stare a full-on civil war straight in the eye.

I’m thinking maybe this whole gamble was a mistake.

But before we can all get busy killing each other, a bruised and bloody Lark Iron Cloud staggers up the hill and into camp. Everybody gasps to see what he brung with him: a four-legged walking machine on a steel cable leash tied to Lark’s pack. We’re all stunned speechless, but John Tenkiller just stands up and walks over like Lark had arrived right on cue.

“Lark Iron Cloud,” says the old drumkeeper. “You left Gray Horse as a boy. You return as a man. We sorrowed when you left, but we rejoice at your return, new and different. Welcome home, Lark Iron Cloud. Through you, our people will live.”

The true Gray Horse Army was born. Lark and Lonnie soon combined the tribal police and the GHA into a single force. Word of this human army spread across the United States, especially as they began a policy of capturing and domesticating as many of the Rob walker scouts as possible. The largest of these captured walkers formed the basis for a crucial human weapon of the New War, a device so startling that upon hearing about it, I assumed it to be only a wild rumor: the spider tank
.

—
CORMAC
WALLACE,
MIL#GHA217

3. F
ORT
B
ANDON

Just let us go. We’re gone, man. We’re gone
.

J
ACK
W
ALLACE

NEW WAR + 3 MONTHS

In the first months after Zero Hour, billions of people around the world began a fight for survival. Many were murdered by the technology they had come to trust: automobiles, domestic robots, and smart buildings. Others were captured and led to the forced-labor camps that sprang up outside major cities. But for the people who ran for the hills to fend for themselves—the refugees—other human beings soon proved to be just as dangerous as Rob. Or more so
.

—
CORMAC
WALLACE,
MIL#GHA217

Three months. It takes three months to get out of Boston and out of the state. Luckily, my brother has a map and a compass and the ability to use them. Jack and I are scared and on foot, loaded down with military equipment we looted from the National Guard armory.

But that’s not why it takes so long.

The cities and towns are in chaos. We go out of our way, but it’s impossible to avoid them all. Cars are running people down, traveling in packs. I watch people fire guns from buildings at marauding vehicles. Sometimes the cars are empty. Sometimes there are people inside. I watch a driverless garbage truck pull up to a steel trash can. Two prongs slide out and the hydraulic lift actuates. I cover my mouth and choke when I see the bodies tumble out in a limp-limbed waterfall.

Once, Jack and I stop for a breath while we are halfway across an overpass. I press my face against the chain-link fence and see eight lanes of highway, jam-packed with cars, all of them moving at just about thirty-five miles per hour in the same direction. No brake lights. No turn signals. Not like traffic at all. I watch a man wriggle out of a sunroof and roll off the top of his car and right under the car behind. Squinting my eyes, the whole thing just looks like a big metal carpet being slowly pulled away.

Toward the ocean.

If you aren’t headed someplace and getting there quick, then you aren’t going to make it long in the cities. And that’s our secret. Me and Jack never stop moving except to sleep.

People see our uniforms and call to us. Every time this happens my brother says, “Stay put and we’ll be back with help.”

Knowing Jack, he probably really believes it. But he doesn’t slow down. And that’s good enough for me.

My brother is determined to reach an army base so we can start helping people. As we cross the towns block by block, Jack keeps talking about how once we meet up with the soldiers, we’ll come back and take out the machines. Says we’ll go house to house and save people, bring them back to a safe zone. Set up patrols to hunt down all the malfunctioning robots.

“A day or two, Cormac,” he says. “This’ll all be over in a day or two. It’ll be all mopped up.”

I want to believe him, but I know better. The armory should have been safe, but it was crawling with walking land mines. All military Humvees have autodrive, in case they need to maneuver back home with an incapacitated driver. “What’s a military base going to look like?” I ask. “They’ve got more than mines there. They’ve got tanks. Gunships. Rolling rifles.”

Jack just keeps walking, head down.

The mayhem blends together into a haze. Scenes come to me in flashes. I see a struggling old man pulled into a dark doorway by a stern-faced Slow Sue; an empty car drives by, on fire and with a chunk of meat trapped under it, leaving a greasy smear on the street; a man falls from a building, screaming and flailing, with the silhouette of a Big Happy looking down.

Bam!

Screams, gunshots, and alarms echo through the streets. But thankfully Jack runs us hard. No time to stop and look around. We dive through the horror like two drowning men clawing to the surface for air.

Three months.

It takes us three months to find the fort. Three months for me to muddy my new clothes, to shoot my rifle, and to clean it next to a feeble campfire. Then we cross a bridge over the Hudson River and reach our destination, just outside what used to be Albany.

Fort Bandon.

“Get down!”

“On your fucking knees!”

“Hands on your heads, motherfuckers!”

“Toes together!”

The voices come screaming at us from out of the darkness. A spotlight flickers on from up high. I squint into it and try not to panic. My face is numb with adrenaline and my arms are rubbery and weak. Jack and I crouch on our knees next to each other. I can hear myself breathing, panting. Damn. I’m scared shitless.

“It’s all right,” whispers Jack. “Just be quiet.”

“Shut the fuck up!” shouts a soldier. “Cover!”

“Cover,” says a calm voice in the darkness.

I hear the bolt of a rifle being pulled back. As the cartridge clinks into the chamber, I can visualize the brass bullet waiting there in the mouth of a dark, cold barrel. My own rifle and supplies are hidden a half mile away, thirty paces off the road.

Footsteps scratch across the pavement. A soldier’s silhouette looms in front of us, eclipsing the spotlight with his head.

“We’re unarmed,” says Jack.

“On your fucking face,” says the voice. “You, hands on your head. Cover him!”

I put my hands on my head, blinking into the light. Jack grunts as he is pushed onto his stomach. The soldier pats him down.

“Number one clear,” he says. “Why are you fuckers wearing uniforms? You kill a soldier?”

“I’m in the guard,” says Jack. “Check my ID.”

“Right.”

I feel a shove between my shoulder blades and fall forward, cheek on the cold, gritty pavement. Two black combat boots appear in my field of view. Hands roughly jab through my pockets, checking for weapons. The spotlight illuminates the pavement before my face in lunar detail, shadows racing through craters. I notice that my cheek is resting in a discolored splotch of oil.

“Number two clear,” says the soldier. “Gimme the ID.”

The mud-caked black boots step back into my line of sight. Just beyond the boots, I make out a pile of clothes next to a razor-wire fence. It looks like somebody used this place as a Goodwill drop-off site. It’s freezing out here, but it still smells like a dump.

“Welcome to Fort Bandon, Sergeant Wallace. Happy to have you. You’re a ways from Boston, huh?”

Jack starts to sit up, but one of those big boots drops onto his back, shoving him into the ground.

“Uh-uh-uh. I didn’t say to get up. What about this guy here? Who’s he?”

“My brother,” grunts Jack.

“He in the guard, too?”

“Civilian.”

“Well, I am sorry, but that is not acceptable, Sergeant. Unfortunately, Fort Bandon is not allowing civilian refugees at this time. So if you want to come inside, say your good-byes now.”

“I can’t leave him,” says Jack.

“Yeah, I figured you’d say that. Your alternative is to go down to the river with the rest of the refugees. There’s a few thousand of them squatting down there. Just follow the smell. You’ll probably get knifed for your boots, but maybe not if you two sleep in shifts.”

The soldier makes a humorless chuckle. His camouflage fatigues are tucked into those filthy black boots. I thought he was standing in a shadow, but now I see that it’s another splotch. There are oil stains all over the concrete.

“You serious? Civilians aren’t welcome?” asks Jack.

“Nah,” replies the soldier, “we barely fought off our own goddamn Humvees. Half our autonomous weapons are missing, and the other half we blew up. Most of our command is gone. They all got called to some fucking meeting right before the shit went down. Haven’t seen ’em since. We can’t even get into the repair bays or the refueling depot. Sergeant, this place is fucked up bad enough without throwing in a bunch of looting, thieving scumbag civilians from off the streets.”

I feel the cool tip of the boot nudge my forehead.

“No offense there, partner.”

The boot goes away.

“Gates are closed. Try to come in here, you’ll get a bullet sandwich from my man on the tower. Ain’t that right, Carl?”

“That’s affirmative,” replies Carl, from somewhere behind the spotlight.

“Now,” says the soldier, stepping back toward the gate. “Get the fuck out of here. Both of you.”

The soldier steps behind the light, and I realize it’s not a pile of clothes I’ve been looking at. The outline is visible now. It’s a human body. Bodies. There are mounds of them heaped together like candy wrappers blown against the fence. Frozen by the weather in anguished contortions. The splotches on the ground in front of me—under my face—
aren’t oil
.

A whole lot of people died here not long ago.

“You fucking
killed
them?” I ask, in disbelief.

Jack groans softly to himself. The soldier does that dry chuckle again. His boots scratch pavement as he saunters over to me. “Dang, Sergeant. Your brother doesn’t know when to keep his mouth shut, does he?”

“No, he does not,” says Jack.

“Let me explain it to you, pal,” says the soldier.

Then I feel a steel-toed boot crunch into my rib cage. I’m too surprised to yell. My breath wheezes out of my lungs mechanically. I’m in the fetal position for the next two or three kicks.

“He gets it,” shouts Carl, faceless in the night. “I think he gets it, Corporal.”

I can’t help moaning—it’s the only way I can breathe.

“Just let us go,” says Jack. “We’re gone, man. We’re gone.”

The kicking stops. The soldier chuckles one more time. It’s like a nervous tic. I hear the metallic
chink
of his rifle being cocked.

Carl speaks up, from the invisible tower. “Sir? There’s been enough of that already, don’t you think? Let’s disengage.”

Nothing.

“Corporal, let’s disengage,” says Carl.

The gun doesn’t fire, but I can feel those faceless boots waiting there. Waiting for me to say something, anything. Curled up and hurting, I focus on trying to force breath in and out of my battered rib cage.

I don’t have anything left to say.

The soldier was right—we smell the refugees before we see them.

We reach the camp just after midnight. Down along the bank of the Hudson we find thousands of people milling around, camping and squatting and searching for information. The long, narrow strip of land has an old iron fence between it and the street, and the terrain is too rough for the domestic robots.

These are the people who’ve come to Fort Bandon and found no refuge. They’ve brought along their suitcases and backpacks and trash bags filled with clothes. They’ve brought their parents and wives and husbands and children. In their masses, they have built campfires from scavenged furniture and gone to the bathroom by the river and thrown their trash to the wind.

The temperature hovers just above zero. The refugees sleep, snoozing under piles of blankets, inside freshly looted tents, and on the ground. The refugees fight, scuffling with fists and knives and an occasional gunshot. The refugees are angry and scared and hungry. Some beg, camp to camp. Some steal firewood and trinkets. Some walk away into the city and don’t come back.

These people are all here to wait. For what, I have no idea. Help, I guess.

In the darkness, Jack and I meander among the campfires and clusters of refugees. I hold a handkerchief over my face to ward off the smell of too much humanity in too small of a place. I instinctively feel vulnerable around this many people.

Jack feels it, too.

He taps my shoulder and points to a small hill covered in brush. High ground. A man and a woman sit next to each other among the tufts of dead grass, a small Coleman lantern between them. We head over.

And that’s how we meet Tiberius and Cherrah.

On the hill, a huge black man wearing a Hawaiian shirt over long underwear sits, forearms resting loosely on his knees. Next to him, a small Native American woman squints at us. She has a worn bowie knife in her hand. It looks like she’s used it plenty.