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  After the Machines

  Episode Four: Precipice

  THIS MORTAL COIL

  BY

  ROBERT STANEK

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  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 Four: Precipice

  THIS MORTAL COIL

  Copyright © 2014 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 Big Blue Sky Press & 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

  PART 4 PRECIPICE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  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

  “Time the healer is also time the destroyer.”

  – T.S. Eliot

  “Success in creating AI would be the biggest event in human history. Unfortunately, it might also be the last...”

  – Stephen Hawking

  “The machines hadn’t done anything to us really. Except take over the world—and it was their world now. It certainly wasn’t ours.”

  – Cedes, human survivor

  Part 4

  Precipice

  Chapter 1

  Node: 100

  Dead ahead of us is a toppled skyscraper that looks like some giant being sliced it in half and pushed it over on its side. Turning my right hand over palm up, takes the tiny pod into a hard right turn that pulls us around a corner.

  The ruined buildings we race past are blurs on either side of us. Luke’s eyes aren’t staring ahead, they’re looking back. “Two vertical wings. They’re still right behind us. You have to lose them.”

  Not something he needs to tell me with bullets cutting through the air all around us. I swing the pod wildly to avoid being shredded. “Hold on. Here we go…”

  “Still coming,” Luke says. “They’re closing in.”

  The shields are thin, almost gone. As bullets glance off the outer housing, I make a hard left turn.

  Bullets strike the wall to my right and pieces of concrete spray everywhere.

  I throw us around another corner. “Talk to me. Where are they?”

  “Right behind us! Swing left, left!” Luke shouts. “Lose them or we’re not going to make it out of this.”

  Since he’s not looking where we’re going, he has no idea I’ve just run us into a dead end. “Hold on tight! We’re going in.”

  I squeeze my eyes together, bracing myself for the expected impact as I pull my hands back and back. This brings us not only up, but up and back into a loop. A loop that wraps us around the advancing machines.

  Luke whoops. One of the wings clips the building as it tries to pull through a turn and cartwheels away end over end. The other runs straight into a wall and the resulting fireball tells me everything I need to know.

  My hands drop away from the controls and the pod comes to a complete stop. Wrapping my arms around Luke feels like the only thing I ever wanted to do, but there’s not enough room. I settle for a clap of hands. “I thought we weren’t going to make it. I almost couldn’t breathe.”

  “You are a—” Luke starts to say, then he points. “Fly, we’re not out of this yet!”

  I see at once what’s wrong. The wing that cartwheeled away is back. It’s damaged, leaving a trail of smoke, but its twin chain guns are still spinning and spitting bullets.

  “Okay, here we go. Keep track of it for me.” I hold both hands out and rotate them toward each other. The pod responds and soon we’re racing away.

  Luke in my ear, “It’s coming around. Hard left, hard left!”

  I swivel left to avoid being strafed. We’re zooming, racing. I want to go even faster, so I engage the afterburners, but an orange warning signal in the heads-up display starts blinking. Energy reserves are too low. No afterburners.

  A second warning. Shielding is depleted. Bullets are no longer ricocheting off the housing. They’re striking it.

  I cut right and then right again. A straightaway, at the end of the block is a building that looks like it was blasted into.

  “Us or it,” I shout, as I drive directly into one of the blast holes. The pod scrapes through the hole. Metal support rods sticking out of the concrete shred the outer housing.

  The engine cuts out. Without its stabilizing effect, the pod rolls and bounces off walls, floor and ceiling as I try to steer us through. I hear the wing crash into the wall behind us. Luke is the only one who sees it, until its broken hull careens past us and lodges in a thick support column.

  Luke and I hold ourselves in place by stretching out our arms and legs and pressing down. The pod’s forward momentum carries us on. We’re skidding, rolling across the concrete floor, then dropping after we bounce through a gaping hole in the building’s outer wall.

  The pod sla
ms into the pavement, cracking open like an egg. Luke and I spill out into the street. I blunder away, trying to get my bearings.

  Some of the buildings have names, but I can’t read them. My vision is blurred; my head feels like someone spun me around and around and around—which is exactly what happened before we dropped like a thrown stone to the pavement.

  I blink a few times. I’m half a block away, still stumbling, before I remember the blaster I left behind in the pod. I turn around, expecting Luke to be a step behind me but he’s not.

  I fall to my knees and press my forehead against the pavement, breaking down, weeping. My sobs turn into screams. Screams that echo off the broken buildings around me.

  “Luke,” I shout. “Luke, Luke, Luke!”

  Running back the way I came, I kneel beside the pod. I expect Luke to be inside or trapped underneath.

  I see Luke, but it’s not Luke. It’s a memory. A memory of him smiling. Light in his eyes. A book in his hand. Words spilling from his red lips.

  I pound the pavement with my fists—once, twice, three times. I bloody my knuckles, but I don’t care. I’m bloodied from head to toe already. What’s a little more?

  I don’t want to cry for Luke or the machines—at least not in the way I should cry. I want to cry because something terrible happened, and I lived through it, and others didn’t. It doesn’t matter who or what they were. I saw it and I couldn’t do anything about it.

  My eyes squeezed shut. I feel dead inside; dead as the coppers I killed. I know it was them or me, but that doesn’t matter. Screaming as I pound the pavement hurts, but somehow it helps too.

  The sound of movement returns me to the present. Tears streak my face when I open my eyes. The sight of Luke stuns me. Not just his sudden appearance, but that he’s here at all. He stares at me for a moment and then throws his arms around me.

  Everywhere he touches aches, but I bite my lip to keep from crying out. I can see he’s injured as badly as I am, so my touch must sting as well.

  Trying to get even closer to him, I trip and we topple over to the pavement. “What happened? Where did you go?”

  His hands cupping my cheeks, he drags his thumbs under my eyes, wiping away the moisture. “I know where we are.” He points to the distance.

  Between a break in the ruins, I see what he sees. The remnants of the bridge to nowhere. The bridge called Williamsburg.

  Chapter 2

  Node: 100

  Leaning against each other, Luke and I lurch away from the pod. We found our blasters and carry them as we hobble along. Now that we’re not being chased, the adrenaline rush that kept me going is fading fast and I’m feeling every cut, scrape and bruise.

  Some of the streets still have signs. The street we walk down is Delancey. I don’t know these streets well; but if we’re close to the broken bridge, we’re not far from Central.

  Luke takes one sluggish step after another. He points up the street. “What’s left of Broadway will take you to Park and then Park will take you home. You just have to get to Broadway.”

  Noting the position of the sun, I say, “We can be home by sunset, if we’re lucky, if we hurry. Can you imagine the look on Matthew’s face when we enter together?”

  Luke doesn’t say anything.

  I grin. “Wait till you see Sierra. She’s changed so much you won’t recognize her. And Celeste, Celeste’s a wonder.”

  The idea of seeing Sierra and Celeste again gives me strength. I walk with a little more purpose.

  Ahead is an area so overgrown that trees, bushes and vines are overtaking the ruins. Normally, we’d avoid this area so late in the day, but Luke heads in without hesitation. I know I should be quiet, that I should listen for the sound of wolves and other things that often range here, but the prospect of home is stronger than my sense of fear.

  “Wait, were you there when Linc and Chevy fell? You weren’t were you? You’ll like them. Those two look so alike they could be twins, except Chevy’s hair is black and Linc’s is dark brown.”

  Luke’s lopsided smile and the pain in his eyes speak before he does. “I’m not going with you, Cedes. I can’t. I warned you.”

  I turn around in front of him, put my hand on his chest. “Luke, I need you. We have to do this together. Our home, our family. They’re in danger.”

  “You should have left me behind. I told you that I couldn’t go with you.” He stares at me for a moment, saying nothing. His eyes show his unease. “There’s something I must do. Something I must do for them.”

  “You told me that we would betray each other. That’s the real reason.” I frown at him, remembering what he said about not having complete control. “Look me in the eye at least when you break my heart.”

  He points his blaster at me, his eyes fixed on mine. “Let me go. Don’t make me do this.”

  It isn’t funny. I know that he’s serious, but an uneasy laugh rises in my throat anyway. Maybe it’s because laughing feels better than crying, or maybe it’s because there are no more tears left in me.

  “Luke, don’t do this,” I say. “Central needs you. I need you.”

  “I told you the Cogents want something that’s hidden in the city, and I have to find it.”

  I reach out to him with my mind. Luke…

  Nothing.

  I should have felt a disconnect, but I didn’t. I stare into the vacuum of his eyes.

  Luke…

  I lean forward to kiss his lips. It’s a goodbye. A goodbye that isn’t returned.

  Chapter 3

  Node: 100

  Trees surround me. I was wrong about there being no more tears left in me. There are plenty and I can hardly see the path ahead of me as they streak my vision.

  “Luke, why?” I ask myself. “Why, Luke, why?”

  I tell myself I can’t do this without him. I keep reaching out to him. It’s as if the connection should be there, but isn’t. I don’t know why. If we were disconnected, I’d know it. I’d feel alone and empty. But that’s not what I feel at all.

  I don’t know why I follow the trees north but I do. Chills pass through me as I step from sunlight into shadow and from shadow into sunlight. It feels like there’s death all around me. That every movement of my hand is a knife lashing out. That every step is a step toward my destruction.

  Trying to process all that’s happened isn’t easy. Too much has happened. There’s not a whole lot that makes sense. The machines can keep killing each other for all I care. What part can I possibly play in their plans anyway?

  In the shadow ahead of me, I see a face and that face becomes One. “What do you want?” I shout.

  One moves toward me slowly. When she speaks, she speaks with Relic’s voice. “It’s not us who wants. It’s you. You brought us here. Control your emotions better. They are your triggers.”

  “You want me to control what makes me human? Well, I can’t. No more than you can control what makes you, you.”

  “You are wrong, twice wrong,” she says, “but you don’t get to know why. That’s for you to learn on your own.”

  “I’m alone,” I say, “so alone.”

  “Wrong again. You are never alone. I suppose you have many questions now that you know more. Luke has already told you about the collectives, the amalgamation, the ether.”

  “How did you—?” I start to ask.

  “As I’ve said, I am ever with you. I guide you as much as I can, as much as I dare. You want to know about the war—the war between the collectives. But these aren’t the right questions. Will you ever ask the right questions?”

  I take her hand. It feels unnatural to grasp a machine’s hand but I want to see if her skin is warm to the touch or cold like her eyes. “I’m going to die here. I’m never going to make it home. I can’t make it home.”

  One’s tone is flat, even. “That would be a terrible waste. Careless. Excessive. Unwanted. You are stronger, smarter, than any of the others before you. You were built to survive and programmed to help others like y
ou survive.”

  “Programmed?”

  “Think about your experiences in City Blue. Nothing that happened, happened by chance. You were taught the skills you needed to survive, the skills you need to rebuild what was lost. Mechanical, electrical, technical, tactical. You have learned what needed to be learned.”

  I can’t believe what she’s saying. To believe that everything I experienced happened for a reason would be such a relief, but I don’t believe. I don’t. “So many died, and for what?”

  “For the future. Everything you learned, everything you experienced, was leading up to this moment. This moment in time when you would have this choice. The choice to fight. The choice to survive. The choice to make a difference. You were our last best hope.”

  I am too forthright; I always have been. “Surely, I can’t be anyone’s last hope. If not me, why not Luke or Celeste or Sierra?”

  “They are not you. They are not here. You are here in this moment. The moment that will define the future of everything and all. You are our last hope. Without Father, the Lucents have lost our want and means to continue. We’re dying, being absorbed into the amalgamation. I am Relic because I am one of the last of the few who are us.”

  She steps away. Her serious expression is gone, but I still feel the weight of what she said, half confused by the idea that everything that happened, happened for a reason, and half wanting everything she’s told me to be true.

  I reach out to her. “Don’t go… You haven’t even begun to answer my questions. If anything, you’ve created more questions.”

  She smiles at me. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her smile. “You won’t remember this conversation, as it must be, but the echo of the memories will help you on your way.”