Withered + Sere (Immemorial Year Book 1) (24 page)

SIRS watched the Dead Rabbit in his hand. Deep clicks came from within him. It felt like hours passed. Then, “Cavalo.”

“Yes.”

“Are you afraid of God?” That queer, flat tone had disappeared. The Dead Rabbit sounded almost startled.

Cavalo didn’t understand. “No. I’m not afraid.” Angry, maybe, if there was such a thing as God. But no, not afraid. Never afraid.

“You should be.” SIRS set the Dead Rabbit down on his feet and took a step back. The Dead Rabbit took a defensive stance as he brought a hand to his throat, rubbing over the puckered scar. His eyes darted between Cavalo, Bad Dog, and SIRS.

No one spoke. The two men and the dog breathed in and out. The CPU of the robot collected and stored information to be processed in the dark of night. If the secondary alarm hadn’t gone off a minute later, they might have stood there until the world rebuilt itself and fell again in another wave of fire. It seemed inevitable, because all this had happened before, and all this would happen again. It was the nature of man. The folly of man.

But that was not the case. If this
had
happened before, it had now gone off the rails because things had changed.

The secondary alarm began its piercing cry.

All four moved as if waking from a deep sleep. The low lights along the floor flashed.

“What is it?” Cavalo said, raising his voice over the siren.

Hate loud noises
, Bad Dog whined as he turned in an agitated circle.

The Dead Rabbit covered his ears and glared up at the alarm.

“I don’t know,” SIRS said. He pressed his hand against the wall. A single panel lit up.

It was red.

“No,” SIRS said. “Not now.”

Cavalo rose to his feet. “What is it?”

“I had to reboot the system,” SIRS said, staring into the panel. “To get to you. It’s the only way I could get the tunnel doors open in time.”

“SIRS, what is it?”

The robot looked over at Cavalo. “The reboot took down all the security protocols in place. It’s a reset to the system. It will take time to come back up given the age of the hardware and programs. An hour for the perimeter to go back up. Ninety minutes to get the defense protocol online. Two hours for complete function for remaining systems.”

“Then why is the alarm going off?”

“It’s meant as a backup. In case something happens while the system resets. A warning.”

“Against what?”

The robot’s hand tightened into a fist against the wall. The scrape of metal to concrete was almost as loud as the alarm. “A breach.”

SIRS turned from the red panel, extending his arm, his palm toward the ceiling. A light erupted from his hand, creating a video screen that floated in front of Cavalo’s face. He squinted against the sudden flare.

The image was lined and grainy. It showed the entrance to the barracks coming from the forgotten road. Snow fell in fat flakes. It seemed as if the terrible storm had passed as the trees, weighted heavily in white, did not move. It was dark, but the floodlights illuminated the courtyard. It was familiar, this. It was the closest thing Cavalo knew to a home.

And it would have been peaceful had it not been for the group of four uniformed men standing in the courtyard, guns drawn. Cavalo couldn’t make out their faces, but he recognized the uniforms.

UFSA.

a decision made

“THIS IS
why humans don’t ever last,” SIRS said. “They make stupid, stupid decisions.” He handed Cavalo a heavy coat.

“Noted,” Cavalo said, watching the screen. The audio was out, but he could see one of the men shouting, his breath coming out in long white trails. He took the coat from the robot and winced as his chest pulled when he put his arms through the sleeves.

“And you’re not even remotely close to being back to normal!”

“I’m fine.” This was a lie. No one was fooled.

“Also? Humans don’t last because they have no sense of survival,” SIRS said. Whatever program his speech function ran on certainly was capable of adding exasperation to the robot’s voice. “One does not normally go out from a secure location to meet strange men with guns unless one has no wish to live.”

“There’s no other choice.” The man shouting silently on the screen seemed to be the de facto leader of the group. He didn’t recognize them. They hadn’t been in Cottonwood. Alma had only known of Wilkinson. Blond and Black. He thought he would have been told if they’d found more, but then he’d been shot in the chest by an awkward teenager while harboring a cannibal in a prison. His life was strange these days.

“There
is
another choice,” the robot retorted. “I go instead, and you stay here. Or
none
of us go and we
all
stay here and wait until they go away. And if they don’t, then once I get the security system back up and working, I will fry them all when they try to leave.
That
is how one survives. We win. They lose.”

Cavalo knew the robot was right. He knew SIRS was made to weigh all logistical probabilities and come out with the best odds. It was how these machines worked. But it wasn’t enough.

“What if they don’t leave?” Cavalo said. He watched as two of the four men entered one of the crumbling barracks that was unused by Cavalo. The other two remained in the courtyard. The leader was staring straight ahead. The man behind him said something, and the other man silenced him with a quick shake of his head.

“Even more reason for me to go in your place! They can’t hurt me. I can hurt
them
.”

“Everyone can get hurt,” Cavalo said. “Even you.”

“
Now
you choose to become a sappy, caring man?” the robot said incredulously. “What in God’s name happened to you? Do you have a fever? Are you relapsing? Bend over so I can check your temperature.”

Cavalo shoved the robot’s questing fingers away. He didn’t want to think about what had happened while he’d been unconscious.

“This is your fault,” the robot said to Bad Dog. “Before you, Cavalo could have
never
been accused of being sentimental. Dogs ruin lives.”

MasterBossLord didn’t care before because humans don’t love tin cans
, Bad Dog growled, baring his teeth.

“Enough, the both of you,” Cavalo snapped. “How the hell did they even get up here in this snow? The drifts have to be at least ten feet deep.”

“There seems to be much we don’t know about this brave new world,” SIRS murmured. “We should worry about the how of it when they aren’t standing out there with firearms.”

“How long before you can get everything back up?”

“Thirty-four minutes for the perimeter.”

“Shit.”

“You don’t have to do this.”

“I don’t run,” Cavalo said.

You don’t?
the bees screamed.
You
don’t
? That’s
all
you do.

“Stupid man,” the robot said. “I will go.”

“No. You have to stay here to make sure everything comes online. I don’t know shit about computers.”

I’ll go with you
, Bad Dog said, stepping up to his side.

“No. You stay here too. You can’t—”

Shut up, MasterBossLord. Tin Man was right. You are a stupid man. I’m going.

“We still don’t have audio,” the robot muttered, his fingers flying over the red panel. It beeped angrily back at him and flashed an error message. “Here. Wear this.” He held up a silvery index finger, the end of which slimmed down to a fine point. He used his other hand and pulled off the top of the index finger at the joint. He bent it into a half circle until it was the size of a thumbnail. Cavalo had only used this a handful of times before. It felt too invasive.

He took it from the robot and put it in his ear. There was a sharp snap of static before the radio went silent.

“You’ll be able to hear them?” Cavalo asked. “These things only have a short range on a good day.”

“It’s better than nothing. We don’t know anything about these men
or
what they represent.” He punched in another series of numbers into the red panel, and a compartment slid open on the floor underneath. The robot bent down and pulled out an old pistol. “It’s better than nothing.”

Cavalo opened the chamber. Three rounds. “There’s nothing in your data banks about them?”

“Who?”

“The UFSA.”

The robot’s eyes flashed. “How could there be, Cavalo? All of my data comes from Before. They came After. I know as much as you do at this point. Though, through observation, I will tell you one thing.”

“Oh?”

“They’re wearing armor. If you need to kill them, aim for the head.”

“That’s comforting,” Cavalo muttered.

“Isn’t it? At least we know they’re not completely stupid. Most likely they’ll have secondary weapons of some kind. Pistols. Knives. Even grenades, if you’re lucky.”

“You can’t tell for sure?”

“Not until the system is back up. I have limited function without it. Which is why we should wait.”

“Grenades,” Cavalo said. “If we’re lucky.”

The robot’s gears ground together inside his chest. “Human logic is by design a faulty thing. You are too emotive.”

“And you’re not?”

“No. I am a robot. We cannot feel anything.” Cavalo could hear the smirk in his voice.

“Insanity is a flesh and blood thing.”

“But I have neither flesh nor blood. Merely a central core that is slowly corrupting.”

“Yeah,” Cavalo said. “You still believe that?”

The robot hesitated. “It’s strange,” he said finally. “Is it not? Maybe you are my Fairy with the Turquoise Hair.”

“Who?”

“A fairy. From a children’s story. From Before. A puppet wanted to become a real boy, and she helped him. Eventually. Though in the original version, it didn’t work out quite that way. But the ending was rewritten, as they sometimes are. Things can change.”

“Is that it? What you want?”

“What?”

“To be real?”

The robot laughed. “Cavalo, you are delightful, even with the unknown standing outside our door. How could I possibly be any more real than I am already?”

Cavalo turned to leave. He stopped. Thought for just a moment. Finally, “You’re not just a robot.”

SIRS sounded amused when he said, “I know. And you’re more than you think.”

You aren’t
, the bees said.
You are
less
. Have you ever stopped to think that none of this is real? That the robot is only part of your imagination? The dog. The prison. All of this is in your head. You shot yourself, and you’re in a coma! You have been for years! None of this is real, and you are alone.

“No,” Cavalo muttered. “It’s real.”

“Cavalo?” the robot asked.

The man shook his head. “It’s nothing.” He glanced over at the Dead Rabbit. “You stay put.”

The Dead Rabbit snarled at him, pulling against the metal cuffs attaching him to the cell bars.

“Good boy,” Cavalo said and wondered why the bees never said the Dead Rabbit was nothing but a coma dream.

The Dead Rabbit snapped his teeth at Cavalo, his eyes black with hate.

Cavalo moved toward the far door that led to the back of the barracks. The front entrance had been barricaded shortly after he arrived. SIRS had not questioned his paranoia. It seemed wise at the time.

He whistled once, a low sound, and Bad Dog fell into step beside him. He put the gun in his coat pocket and kept his hand there. Just in case.

The first door opened with ease. No alarm sounded as he stepped into a small hallway leading to a second door. The first closed behind him. The cold was bitter against his skin.

“Do come back alive,” SIRS said quietly in his ear. “It would get quite lonely here now that I’ve had human contact. I think I’d have no choice but to lose my mind rather quickly if you were gone. So you see, you must come back.” There was a static pause. “The both of you.”

“I know.”

“And remember, Cavalo: the head. Aim for the head.”

“I hear you.”

“And you tell that fleabag—”

“SIRS.”

“Yes?”

“Hush. We’re coming back.” Cavalo didn’t know if he believed his own words.

“Okay.” The robot sounded as if he didn’t believe the words either.

Something nagged at Cavalo’s mind, under the bees. “SIRS?”

“Yes?”

“The fairy.”

“Yes.”

“How did it end? Originally?”

“The puppet died. He was tricked by the Fairy with the Turquoise Hair and was hung from a tree.”

“This was a children’s story?”

The robot chuckled in his ear. “The world has always been a ghoulish place. That’s one thing that will never change.”

Cavalo reached the second door and pressed his hand against it. The metal was cold against his skin. His breath was coming out in white puffs. He felt Bad Dog brush up against him. He looked down. “You ready, boy?”

Bad Dog bumped his leg with his snout.
White cold stuff?

“Snow? Yes.”

Slows me down.

“A little. Just don’t get distracted and play in it and leave me hanging.”

Bad Dog snorted derisively.
Like I’ve ever done that.
I’m not a puppy.

“Sometimes you are.” He reached down and stroked the dog’s ears.

Bad guys?

“Maybe. I think so.”

They want Smells Different?

“Probably.”

We gonna give him up?

“Does it matter?”

Bad Dog looked up at him with soulful eyes.
Doesn’t it? We’ve come this far.

“Still don’t rightly know how that’s happened. Or why.”

Does it matter?

“Doesn’t it?”

Word games. For humans, not Bad Dog.

“This is dangerous.”

Isn’t it always?

Cavalo bent over until he was eye to eye with Bad Dog. Their noses touched. “You follow my lead,” the man said, because it was tradition between them.

I follow you, for you are my MasterBossLord.

“You listen for my commands.”