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  After the Machines

  Episode Five:

  Refuge

  THE SECRET OF US

  BY

  ROBERT STANEK

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters, names, places, and events portrayed in this book either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to any actual locale, person, or event is entirely coincidental.

  After the Machines

  Episode Five:

  Refuge

  THE SECRET OF US

  Copyright © 2015 by Robert Stanek.

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted by law, no part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Reagent Press LLC, Attention: Permissions Department, P.O. Box 362, East Olympia, WA 98540-0362.

  Published by Reagent Press LLC. RP BOOKS, REAGENT PRESS, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Reagent Press LLC.

  Cover image licensed from ThinkStock.

  Cover Design: Creative Designs Ltd.

  Editorial Development: Andover Publishing Solutions

  Copyediting: L & L Content Services

  You can provide feedback related to this book by emailing the author at [email protected]. Please use the name of the book as the subject line.

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THIS BOOK

  EPIGRAPH

  REFUGE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Acknowledgments

  I would like to thank my writing group, my editors, and my publishers for their many years of support. A writer can’t survive in this business without such wonderful support. I want to personally thank Jeannie Kim, Tom Green, Lisa Johnson, Tony Andover, Frank Martin, Ed & Holly Black, Patrick Gaiman, George Harrison, and Susan Collins for encouraging me and keeping me on track with the writing. Your insights and assistance has always been much appreciated. I also want to thank Will, Jasmine, and Sapphire for always being the first readers to devour my work and come back hungry for more.

  About This Book

  In the ruins of our world, a new order arose, an order controlled by the very machines humankind created. The end for us came not from a massive global war but from something unthinkable, incomprehensible. The machines simply replaced us and we let them, and so, in the end, humanity went out not with a bang, but with a whimper.

  No shots fired. No bombs dropped. No cities destroyed. We ended and the machines began—or at least that is what the few human survivors of the machine apocalypse believe.

  After the Machines is a story unlike any other you’ve ever read. It’s the story of us, the humans who struggle to survive in a world we no longer control.

  Epigraph

  “When we create the first superintelligent entity, we might make a mistake and give it goals that lead it to annihilate humankind.”

  – Nick Bostrom, Professor, Oxford University

  “Artificial intelligence may be our biggest existential threat.”

  – Elon Musk, inventor

  “The machines want the same thing they’ve always wanted. Everything. Nothing more, nothing less. You can’t stop them, can’t even get out of their way.”

  – Matthew, human survivor

  Refuge

  Chapter 1

  Node: 010

  Luke says it’s wrong to slip from present to past or past to present, but I do. The present is—and Luke and I are in it. The past was—and sometimes I can see what was.

  Luke talks quietly with Matthew while Sierra stares into the golden radiance of the rising sun. Hundreds of feet below us, I see the trees in Central Park.

  The gentle rattle and hum of the train lulls us as it glides away on tracks of air and belies how precious little time we have to do what must be done. It seems an eternity since I’ve closed my eyes. Life was simpler when I didn’t know, when I didn’t understand. I wanted to know what we were to the machines; now that I do all I want is to go back to when I didn’t. It was all so much better, so much easier, when I didn’t carry in me what Luke carries in him.

  One thing I don’t want to give back are words. Beautiful words. I don’t know how I ever survived without my voice and my words. My voice is a gift, and my words are truths. Without them, I would not be.

  The machines may rule our world and they may rule us, but while I have breathe they will not control me. I will fight—we will fight. They may want nothing less than everything and all, but we will find a way to take back what is ours.

  I was wrong, naïve, to say the machines hadn’t done anything to us. When they took over our world, they did so much more than simply take our place. They destroyed us. They took away what made us who we are. I will learn the secret of who we were. I will learn the secret of us as surely as sunshine through the clouds, wind in the trees below, and laughter in the air give me inspiration to do what must be done.

  My blaster rifle bounces on my shoulder from the rattling beneath my feet. I glance at Matthew as he moans. I feel nothing for him, not even pity. He’s no longer one of us. He’s one of them. He’s always been one of them.

  Blood dripping down his right arm onto the pearly white exterior creates a scarlet pool that the wind whips and shapes as if some grotesque finger painting. I feel like the blood in that pool. I do. I have no control over anything, not over what will happen when we jump, not over what will happen as the morning sun continues rising over our heads.

  The only thing I might have control over is this moment, though even this moment is controlled by forces beyond my understanding. “Almost time,” I say.

  Sierra squeezes my hand and I squeeze back. It’s her signal telling me that she’s here, that she’s ready. Her expression remains serious and stoic. It’s her brave face, but her green eyes speak of her fear. They keep darting back to where the bright flashes streaking the air originate from.

  Me, I don’t fear the blaster rounds or the augments firing them. We’re moving too fast and are too far away for their rifles—and I want them to keep firing. I do. Every moment they try is another moment we move farther away.

  The train is moving swiftly, so it doesn’t take long to reach the opposite side of the park. I look to Luke. His nod tells me he’s ready, but I want to—have to—hear his voice. “Luke—” I start to say.

  “Cedes, I know. You don’t have to say it,” he says, leaning over and kissing me.

  We stand, pulling Matthew up with us. Keeping our feet isn’t easy with the train moving so fast. We manage because we have no other choice. The wild flashes cutting the air around us don’t make our task any easier. In a moment, the engine car will sweep around the sharp curve ahead and we must jump into that curve if we’ve any hope of reaching the roof of the adjacent building.

  We’re eighty stories up. I try not to glance down. Still, I’ve always been curious about the trees and the way they look from up here, especially when they’re awash in golden light. Their green canopy is like a soft bed waiting for me. One jump, a few seconds of dangling weightless, and it’d all be over. This may seem a dark thought, but given what awaits us it might be a gift.

  Death’s something I deserve for the blood on my hands and there
’s not a moment that goes by I don’t know who and what I’ve become. I see death in every shadow. I see the gold from yesterday. She begs for mercy, death. I see the coppers from the Cogent airship. One falls to his knees and slumps to the side. The other lies motionless, her arms limp at her sides. All three dead at my hand.

  I see Jetta, poor Jetta who didn’t deserve any of this, killed by Matthew and torn apart by wolves. Even lifeless her eyes were piercing, and I can’t help thinking how truly beautiful she was with those pale blue eyes and that long brown hair. I can’t help but wonder how many others have died, how many others will die.

  I feel the pull of the train beneath me. The wind picks up as we start into the curve.

  I jump. My feet bicycle in the air. Sierra and Luke are at my left side, Matthew between them. In this dangerous instant, I feel connected to everyone and everything.

  The pull of Luke is the strongest. I can feel him reach out to me. Cedes…

  I answer: …Luke.

  Our emotional bond is our connection. It’s what keeps the Cogents out of his mind—and out of mine.

  I land hard. The impact makes me feel the ache of my muscles and for a time the throbbing of my shoulder is muted. I turn to where Sierra and Luke should be, but they aren’t there. They’re at the edge of the roof instead, each with a hand extended holding onto one of Matthew’s arms. The pain in Matthew’s shredded arm must be unbearable because his screams fill the air.

  I scramble to them and reach down with both arms until I’ve latched onto Matthew too. Matthew may deserve to die for what he’s done, but a dead man won’t be able to tell us what we need to know to survive the day.

  “I’ve got him,” I say, my shoulders and chest over the side.

  Matthew doesn’t want our help. I see it in his eyes. “Let me go,” he says, his voice barely a whisper.

  Luke and Sierra have him by the shoulders. He’s almost up. My hands are around his midsection. “Pull,” Sierra says, “pull.”

  Once Matthew’s chest comes up over the edge, the rest is easy. We drag him up onto the roof whether he wants to be with us or not. When it’s over, Sierra and I are on our backs gasping for air. But Luke’s not beside us. He’s up, with his hands around Matthew’s throat.

  “I should have let you fall,” Luke says. “Why, Matthew, why?”

  Whatever Matthew replies is lost to me as a vertical wing, its twin chain guns spinning and spitting bullets+, rockets up from below. Sierra and I are running for cover before Luke is able to get Matthew to his feet. They manage only a few steps before the wing’s guns find Matthew and Luke is left holding onto the bloody stump of what was once Matthew’s arm.

  The access door that’ll get us off the roof is on the opposite side of the building. I hand Sierra my blaster pistol as I ready my rifle. She looks at as if I’ve just handed her hot embers from the meal room fire. Luke’s spinning around and shooting by the time I’m shooting. He goes down behind a large metal box on the roof. It’s small but big enough to offer protection.

  “Luke, you okay?” I shout, as Sierra and I continue running away. “Talk to me.”

  “The door. Get off this roof,” Luke shouts back.

  Chapter 2

  Node: 010

  My thoughts have been of Luke’s safety, not of the door. The roof ahead dips; the difference creates a low wall. Sierra and I go over the edge and down. “We’re going through that door together or not at all,” I say.

  Luke fires, pulls back just as the wing shreds the air he’d occupied an instant before. “This thing’s too shielded. I’m not even sure our rifle rounds can penetrate that armor.”

  “The intake, left of center”—it’s what One told me, not that it worked—“aim for that.”

  I jump up from behind the wall, firing as the wing goes after Luke. Luke has to scrabble up and over the metal box to get away.

  “I’m here, here. Come and get me,” I shout, my rounds ricocheting off the back of the wing. As it spins around and comes at me, I pull down, seeking refuge beside Sierra.

  “Sierra, I need you to—” I start to say, but stop when I see panic has set in. With all that’s happened, I forgot that she hasn’t been through what Luke and I have been through. She has no idea how to fire a pistol—little idea of what one even is. I guess I should be thankful that she’s held onto it.

  I take the weapon and press a hand to the side of her face. “Look at me,” I say, “I need you, stay with me. We’re going to get through this.”

  “Cedes, talk to me,” Luke shouts anxiously. He draws the wing away with several well-placed rounds.

  I watch him dive for cover as I aim and shoot, aim and shoot. My shots are my response to his words. They say, “I’m here. I’m still here.”

  “It’s hopeless, hopeless,” I tell myself. I’ve never taken out a wing even with One’s advice.

  Sierra comes up next to me, peering over my shoulder. “It’s not hopeless,” she says, taking back the pistol. “Where’s the intake you’re talking about?”

  I place two rounds. “There,” I say.

  Sierra draws in a breath and holds it as she squeezes the trigger. Her first shot is right of the intake, but somehow it’s closer than either of mine. Before I can ask how she did that, she’s on her feet, jumping over the low wall and charging at the machine.

  The wing veers away from Luke and turns toward Sierra. All I can hear is the rat-a-tat-tat of its twin guns as they rip their way across the roof. I provide cover fire, but Sierra’s rounds are the ones that strike closer and closer to target.

  Luke seizes on Sierra’s move and joins her charge from the opposite direction. I follow up and over the wall because I’m not going to let them die alone, shooting and shouting, “Don’t you hurt them. Don’t you dare hurt them.”

  Just when I think Sierra can’t last another moment, the wing jerks to the right and explodes. The blast knocks Sierra back and sweeps Luke from his feet.

  I’m at Sierra’s side before I completely realize what happened. “How did you do that?” I say. My voice is thick with emotion, so thick I’m surprised it doesn’t choke on the way out.

  “Cedes, you were gone so long,” she says. “It’s been us against them. We lost four before we learned how to defend ourselves.”

  Sierra stands with my assistance. We greet Luke, hands extended.

  “Quickly now, quickly,” Luke says, pulling us away. “We have to get off this roof.”

  Behind me, I hear sounds like a dying animal and scratching. It’s Matthew, moaning and using his one arm to claw his way toward us. He’s a pitiful mess, leaving a bloody trail. I don’t know how he’s still alive; I look to Luke and Sierra. He shakes his head, and her eyes won’t meet my gaze.

  “We’re not leaving him,” I say. “He was one of us once and maybe he can be again. Besides, if he was working with them, we need him or we’re not going to survive the day.”

  Sierra’s questioning stare tells me I’m wrong. I run back to Matthew. Kneeling down beside him, I empty the contents of my pack. The lightweight pack is one of two we took from the mobile standing room the night before. Except for the rolls of black gauze, I have no idea what any of the wrapped packets are for.

  “Those,” Sierra says, grabbing two bags of what look to me like white sand. “His arm”—she points and I retrieve the bloody mess of what remains—“push the pieces together and hold steady.”

  Sierra rips open the bags and pours them over Matthew’s wounds, and I know at once the white grains aren’t sand at all. I know because the tiny specks come to life, scurrying about on tiny legs and wings. The way the nanites knit ragged flesh together is horrifying and fascinating at the same time. I can’t look away, but I must because Luke is rushing away and I don’t know what he’s about to do with his blaster pistol.

  The access door is painted black like much of the roof. It’s heavy, metal and fastened. Luke makes quick work of the locking mechanism with two well-placed rounds.

  O
nce the four of us are in the stairwell, I know it’s going to be a long descent. Eighty stories isn’t easy to climb; it’s not easy to go down either. Soon the echo of our footsteps fill the air.

  There’s an urgency to our moves. I’m sure the others fear what will be waiting for us at the bottom as much as I do. The train brought us a fair distance away from the human augments that followed us up to the platform, though clearly not far enough or fast enough to outrun all of the machines set against us.

  We’ve only reached the second landing on our way down when Luke pulls Sierra aside. “What you did back there was incredible,” he says.

  I think he’s going to put a hand on her shoulder to reassure her, but that’s not what he does. He pushes her down, his pistol pressed against the side of her head while he shouts, “I know you’re one of them. Talk, tell me what they want. Tell them to get out of my head.”

  I try to put myself between him and her. Luke is so determined and so angry that I might as well be trying to break through the concrete walls that enclose the stairs. “Luke, don’t do this, not to Sierra,” I say. “She’s not like Matthew. She’s one of us.”

  Sierra collapses, sobbing. She wipes her cheeks every few seconds and rocks back and forth.

  Matthew is standing very still, too still. It’s almost like he’s trying to determine whether he should stay or run down the stairs.

  Luke turns to me. There’s a darkness about him that cuts into me. “How can you possibly know what she is or isn’t? What’s happened or what hasn’t? I’m telling you. She’s one of them.”

  He’s so enraged he doesn’t see me. He’s lost all self-control. I know this. I’m not afraid. “I told her what to do, where to fire, just as I told you. We all tried. Sierra’s shot hit the mark. Ours didn’t.”