Withered + Sere (Immemorial Year Book 1) (18 page)

“Were we followed?” the man asked.

“No. Were you expected to be?”

“I don’t know. Cottonwood….”

“Yes?”

“They were in Cottonwood.”

“Who?”

“The government. The UFSA.”

A whirring click. The robot’s voice raised, and he started to blare, “ALL FOR ONE AND ONE FOR ALL! IF
R
IS A POSITIVE INTEGER AND
R1
IS THE INTEGER OBTAINED FROM
R
BY WRITING ITS DECIMAL DIGITS IN REVERSE ORDER, THEN IF
R
PLUS
R1
AND
R
MINUS
R1
BOTH ARE PERFECT SQUARE, THEN
R
IS TERMED AS A RARE NUMBER!”

He clicked and whirred again as his voice died. Then, “Government? How interesting.”

Cavalo pushed the thoughts away. “Bad Dog?”

SIRS’s eyes flashed. “Bag of fleas. Drool monster. Messes with my circuitry. Your shit machine is asleep in the holding area.”

“Is he hurt?”

“No. He came in and pissed on my floors. He did it on purpose, you know. Bloody animal. I shall destroy him one day.”

“You do the same to him.”

The robot sounded affronted. “I do not piss on his floors! Besides, the monster doesn’t
own
any floors. These are all
mine
.”

“You antagonize him.”

“I am a robot. I do not know how to antagonize.” Cavalo could hear the metallic smirk in the robot’s voice.

“I’m sorry.”

“For?” The robot sounded surprised.

“Taking so long to get back. You worry.”

A whirring click came from SIRS. “I do not,” he said stiffly.

Cavalo waited.

Another click, followed by a soft beep. “Just don’t let it happen again.”

Cavalo suddenly felt very tired. “The Dead Rabbit.”

“Yes. You brought one here. Rather, he brought you. Dragged you in. The blasted fleabag was barking up a storm.” The robot chuckled. “I almost blew him up.”

“Bad Dog or the Dead Rabbit?”

“Yes,” SIRS said.

“Where is the boy?”

“Holding cells. Bad Dog has the watch.”

“Oh.”

“Who is he?”

“I don’t know.”

“I am surprised you brought him here. Given your… history.”

Anger and panic flared, and doors multiplied in front of Cavalo’s unfocused eyes. “You don’t know my history.” His words, meant to be sharp, came out dull.

“Not because you’ve told me, no,” SIRS said. “Never that. You don’t share things like
that
, do you?” His words were gentle, but mocking. “But your eyes give you away. Human eyes usually do. I can’t yet decide if that is to your detriment or not.”

“Is he hurt?”

“Do you care?” SIRS sounded genuinely interested in the answer.

No
, he thought. “I don’t know,” he said instead.

“How fascinating,” the robot murmured.

“What?”

“If you don’t know already, then I shan’t be the one to tell you.”

“Games,” Cavalo said, his words slurring. “Always with the games.”

SIRS pressed his hand against the white panel again. His eyes flashed as the panel lit up. A moment later the wall above the panel came to life in a crisp transmission. The screen showed the holding cells, the last main part of the prison still standing.

In the center of the screen was a large holding cell, black bars from floor to ceiling, creating a cage. Cavalo could see Bad Dog lying near the cell door, his head on his front paws. His tail flickered once.

And inside the cell was the Dead Rabbit, sitting in a corner, face obscured by shadows. For a moment Cavalo thought him asleep, but then the Dead Rabbit’s hands went to the bars of his cage and gripped them tightly.

“Has he said anything?” Cavalo asked.

“No. But he can’t.”

“The scar.”

“Yes.”

“Did he do it himself?”

“No. The angle suggests it was someone else.”

“How did he survive?”

SIRS clicked. “How do any of us?”

Riddles. Games. Cavalo wondered, not for the first time, if the robot was programmed to be exasperating or if that was a learned trait.

“Do you know who he is?”

“How would I know that?” That mocking tone again.

“He’s important.”

“Oh?”

Cavalo struggled to find the words. “No. Not to me. To them.”

“Oh?” Mad, infuriating robot.

“Yes.”

“Quite. His are the same, you know. As yours.”

“What?”

“His eyes. They shine darkly. Not like mine. Mine are just… bulbs.”

Cavalo was fading, but he felt this necessary. “What do you see?”

“Many things, Cavalo. It is what I was made for.”

“With the boy. What do you see?”

“Are we friends?” the mad robot asked suddenly.

Maybe it was because of the drugs. Maybe it was because he was on the edge of unconsciousness. Maybe it was many other things. And maybe, just maybe, it did not matter. Because for the first time in a very long time, the man named Cavalo gave an honest answer to a question asked of himself.

“Yes,” he said. “You… the dog. All I’ve got left.”

SIRS whirred and clicked. “I should like that we are friends,” he said quietly. “I should like that very much.”

Cavalo fought to hold on. “The boy.”

“Yes.”

“His name.”

“Yes?”

“Psycho.”

“How delightfully macabre. He saved you.”

“I know.”

“Strange thing, that. For a Psycho.”

“SIRS.”

“Yes?”

“What… do you… see?”

The colors of Cavalo’s world bled together as he sank back into the cool dark, and as he slipped away, he prayed there would not be any doors. They were silly things, and he had tired of them.

The robot’s words followed him down. “Many things, my dear friend. Many things indeed. I think we shall find out soon enough just how darkly he shines.”

And then Cavalo was gone.

WAKE UP.

Cavalo groaned and pushed his way through sleep.

Wake up, MasterBossLord. Time to get up.

Cavalo’s chest hurt. His whole body felt stiff, as if his muscles hadn’t been used in months.

Hurry before SIRS comes back!

Cavalo opened his eyes, blinking against the daylight that shone through the far windows. The light was a gray thing, but still it hurt. He closed them again and tried to fall back into oblivion.

Teeth gently clamped on his arm.

Up up up up up.

“Bad Dog, you better not be interfering with my patient!”

Stupid robot. Stupid, ugly robot.

“Get your filthy mouth off him!” SIRS cried. “You were treasure hunting in your own asshole not ten minutes ago, and now you put your
mouth
on him? You disgusting creature!”

Bad Dog let Cavalo’s arm go and barked.
I am a
dog
. It’s what I
do
.

“Now I’m going to have to completely sterilize his whole body just because you were questing after your insides.”

You’re just jealous because I am alive and you are dead inside.

“Don’t you dare growl at me! I will remove your testicles without a moment’s hesitation!”

Bring it, tin cup.

“Knock it off,” Cavalo muttered. “The both of you.”

“But—”

He—

“No more.”

Cavalo closed his eyes again and did a quick inner diagnostic check. His chest felt weighted but not wet, so he didn’t think the bullet had perforated his lung. He was heavily bandaged, the wraps going over his chest and around his back. He reached down and pulled the IV out of his arm. There was a thin pinch, and then it was gone.

“I really don’t think you should—”

“Hush, SIRS.”

The robot clicked but said nothing.

Cavalo pushed himself up, his arms shaky. A brief wave of vertigo washed over him, and he breathed shallowly as he waited for it to pass. When he felt like he wouldn’t vomit, he asked again, “How long?”

“Total?”

“Yes.”

“Ten days.”

“And no one tried to enter the prison?” Cavalo thought it odd. He opened his eyes and looked to the robot. “At all?”

SIRS reached out a thin arm and pressed against a white panel. It glowed briefly, and the far wall of the barracks became transparent.

Outside, a great storm raged. Trees immediately outside the wall snapped brutally in the wind and snow. Visibility decreased quickly into white. Drifts piled high up against the barracks. Now that he’d seen it, he could hear the low hum of the howling winds outside.

“It’s been like this almost the entire time you’ve been back,” SIRS said. “A few breaks here and there, but not enough for anyone to get through. I expect this to be a bad winter, seeing as how it’s only October.”

Something fluttered in the back of Cavalo’s head. “I didn’t know it’d gotten so late. Why didn’t you tell me? Months. It’s been months since….” He stopped himself.

The robot glanced over at him as he withdrew his hand from the panel. “You never asked. How was I to know you’d lost track of time? The human brain is a complex thing, even more so than my own. I can’t pretend to understand you completely because I don’t.”

“I don’t understand either,” Cavalo admitted.

“Maybe you’ve started to deteriorate. Like me.”

“If I am, it’s been going on for a long time.”

“You haven’t felt it?”

Cavalo didn’t know if he had or not. It was like his wife all over again. It was fuzzy white. It was doors covered in bees. “I don’t know.”

“I can feel it,” the robot said, and Cavalo felt a chill down his spine. “It’s like rubber bands breaking in my head.” His eyes lit up brightly. “I don’t mind. Mostly.”

Cavalo pushed himself up from the bed. For a moment he thought his legs would give out, and he grit his teeth against the coming fall. But it didn’t happen. His feet and shins tingled as blood rushed back into his legs. His chest pulled again, but it wasn’t as bad as it’d been when he’d woken days before. The robot knew what he was doing.

Bad Dog rubbed up against his leg.
Awake now? No more long sleep?

“No more long sleep,” he agreed.

Don’t do that again, MasterBossLord.
Bad Dog bumped his head against Cavalo’s leg.

“Yeah,” he said. “Sorry.”

Cavalo took the heavy sweater SIRS handed him, wincing as he raised his arms to put it on. He wouldn’t be moving at his normal capacity for some time. It was better that no one had followed him. He wouldn’t have been able to do a thing about it.

“All your sensors active?” he asked SIRS.

“Yes, Cavalo.”

“It’s a bad storm.”

“Yes, Cavalo. All are active.”

“They won’t try it. Not now.”

“They won’t. No.”

“You sure?”

A click, a beep. The grinding of gears. A screech of metal. His voice continued level, dripping with his malfunctioning sanity: “Quarks combine to form composite particles. These are hadrons. The most stable of hadrons are protons and neutrons. Protons and neutrons are the components of atomic nuclei. I am atomic, but I carry no nuclei. I am an ark, and I was made for… this… I….” He clicked. Creaked. Groaned. Then: “It’s unlikely a human could survive long-term exposure to the current weather conditions. We should be safe. For now.”

“Is that right?”

“Yes.”

“The government might have a way. They might have cars that work.”

The robot said, “You should eat.”

HE WAS
surprised to see his pack, empty in the barracks kitchen, his rifle hung on the rack, his bow and quiver near the entryway. The supplies that Hank had given him lay out in neat piles along the counter. Everything looked accounted for.

“How?” he asked.

Smells Different
, Bad Dog said.
And me. Well, actually, I did most of the work. All he did was carry you. It was so heavy, but I didn’t complain at all. Not once.

“Good boy,” Cavalo murmured, scratching behind the dog’s ears.

And Cavalo did eat. He was surprised to find himself ravenous, and he ate the soup SIRS put before him, chunks of deer meat in broth with potatoes. There was bread, and Cavalo tore into it, wondering how long it’d been since he’d had
bread
and wasn’t it
wonderful
? Wasn’t it just
grand
?

It was.

The robot sat opposite Cavalo. Bad Dog lay at his feet, wanting to be close to MasterBossLord, telling him how bored he’d been the last few days, how SIRS had been mean, how the lights had almost gone out once, but he hadn’t been scared. Not even a little bit. He was Bad Dog after all, and Bad Dog didn’t get scared. But he was
so
hungry, and Cavalo didn’t need
all
that deer meet, did he? Surely he didn’t. Bad Dog made his eyes as big as possible, and Cavalo fell for it yet again.

SIRS told him that he’d been able to correct another portion of corrupted data and that he’d accessed an entire backlog of entertainment options. Books and movies. Music. Frank Sinatra. George Orwell.
2001: A Space Odyssey.
“Dave, stop,” he quoted in a flat voice tinged with fear. “Stop, will you? Stop, Dave. Will you stop, Dave? Stop, Dave. I’m afraid. I’m afraid, Dave. Dave, my mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it. My mind is going.”

The robot laughed and switched to a lazy drawl with a click in his voice box. “I’ll have to show you that vid later. It’s a real gasser. Far-out stuff, man. Killer robotic computers. Humans think of the strangest things.” He laughed again.

“The Dead Rabbit,” Cavalo said when he’d finished. SIRS picked up his bowl and went to the sink. SIRS hummed to himself a song Cavalo did not recognize. It was a dreamy thing, the melody. “What is that?”

“Ol’ Blue Eyes,” the robot said. “The chairman of the board. Frank. I like his music. It’s called ‘The Way You Look Tonight.’” He hummed a few more notes. Then, “It helps with the insanity.”

“The Dead Rabbit.”

The robot stopped singing. “I wonder,” he said. He came back to the table and sat. Cavalo could hear the sharp metallic gears.