When you’re going extinct, everything’s personal.
Chapter 1
Kahal bristled as the third auto-taxi in a row passed him by, clearly unoccupied and flashing its rooftop Hail Me Now holosign as if to spite him. He ducked back under the Sapien Museum awning to get out of the acid rain and figure out just how he was going to make it back to camp now.
Kahal’s foraging job had taken longer than planned. He blamed the museum’s new aerial surveillance mini-drones for that. They had followed him around incessantly, like a swarm of little electric flies. It had taken forever to lose them.
Why the Sapien Museum had upgraded its security system was beyond him. After all, who wanted to pilfer the ancient kipple stored in its dusty hollows anyway? No one, that was who.
Well, no one except him.
Kahal flicked his headgear’s half-face visor down, tapped its smartbox above his right temple, and while it powered on, reached into his slingbag for what he’d stolen from the museum.
Stolen? Kahal huffed. How could it be stealing if it originally belonged to him, to his kind? It was the machines who had stolen it from them, along with everything else. What Kahal was doing wasn’t stealing. It was reclaiming. And back at camp, Hinyan’s life was depending on it.
Chapter 2
The Tobor Corporation’s tri-tone sogo blared in Kahal’s inner ear, where his headgear’s smartbox flash-beamed audio signals. The jingly sonic logo echoed away as the corporation’s emblem flared in the centre of his visor’s Heads-Up Display. Kahal only managed to half hold back a growl at the sight of the mocking colophon, a fire-orange nautilus slowly rotating counter-clockwise.
The machine-run conglomerate was the whole reason the world was dying. And their use of a nautilus for their emblem, the symbol of nature’s growth and renewal, was just an insult to what was left of the human race, or the sapien race as the machines insisted on calling them.
The oceans frothed with industrial machine waste now. And what little life was left in them would be gone in two or three decades, at best.
The land was pocked with thousand-kilometre-wide and thousand-kilometre-deep terraced pit mines. Or it was scorched to crystalline ash by the bombardment of solar rays that the thinned atmosphere and irradiated rainclouds couldn’t hold back anymore.
And everywhere else the planet was scabbed over with carbon-carboncrete, black steel, and dark borosilicate glass. Hulking inter-connected machine cities that towered higher than the eye could see, veined with wide roadways of screaming twenty-four-hour traffic belching up the new sallow-orange sky.
Kahal gritted his teeth at what the machines had done to his world. Their insatiable appetite for destruction was driving the entire sapien race to extinction.
Except, of course, for the hybrids.
The machines valued the sapiens that chose to meld with them. But, Kahal thought, were the hybrids even sapien anymore, or were they just machines now? Was there some measurable amount of flesh and bone and nerve you could replace with circuitry and endoskeleton-bionics and nano-nootropics, but still be sapien? Or was it all or nothing, one or the other, sapien or machine?
TOBOR CORPORATION splashed across the inside of Kahal’s visor in thick osmium-blue block letters.
He stopped trying to decide how much cyberware it took before you weren’t sapien anymore as the corporation’s introductory warning thrummed in his ear.
“Welcome. You are accessing the Tobor Corporation’s Sapien Portal,” the neuter machine voice began.
Besides, Kahal thought, he wasn’t a philosopher. He was a forager. He’d let the thinkers figure out whether the hybrids were sapien or machine, or something else altogether. Right now, he had a real problem to deal with, how to make it out of the city and back to camp, alive.
Chapter 3
“If you or someone you know is experiencing decline,” the Tobor Corporation’s message rambled on in his head, “visit the nearest tele-booth and speak with one of our authorized representatives to find out if you qualify for longevity treatment. … If you or someone you–“
Kahal moved his eyes up-left and stopped the looped message from repeating. In a subvocalized murmur he said, “Sap-Stat.”
His visor’s smartplexi was imbedded with an Ocular-Detection Matrix that rendered eye gestures into operational commands. But for tasks too complicated for Oc-Det, or like right now when he wanted to save time, he could use his headgear’s voice-control.
Inside his black carbon-weave slingbag, Kahal fingered the glass vials he’d reclaimed from the Sapien Museum’s Med-Lab installation. It was hard to believe something so small could save Hinyan’s life. But the Doc had been very clear that it was the only chance she had left.
The words TOBOR CORPORATION dimmed, minimized to the bottom of his Heads-Up Display, and then just sat there, like a chyron.
“Welcome, Kahal Lander,” the voice in his head announced in the same mechanical monotone it said everything. Then his Sapien-Status homepage lit up the inside of his visor.
Kahal flicked his eyes up and the Sap-Stat directory on the right side of his HUD scrolled. He read the options as they flitted by, trying not to look at his holoimage staggeredly rotating on the left side of the screen.
He hated that shoulders-up, 3D projection. It didn’t even look like him. Not really. They’d shorn his thick black hair nearly to the scalp before they’d holo-scanned him. Standard demoralizing machine practice. It hadn’t fully grown back yet, but it was getting there.
Kahal narrowed his eyes and the scrolling directory came to a stop. He focused on CREDITS, blinked twice, fast, and the nested page opened to fill the whole of his HUD. His day’s credit-by-credit breakdown began to populate the screen.
“Go, end,” Kahal said.
With a blur, the itemized list whisked to the bottom, where his remaining credit balance was lit bold.
He had plenty of credits. More than enough to afford a ride to the city limits. So why wouldn’t a single auto-taxi stop for him?
“Time,” Kahal muttered to his headgear’s smartbox, and 03:34SMT lit up at the top-left corner of his HUD.
He gasped. It was half past three in the morning Standard Machine Time already!
But everything made sense now. An awful, terrifying sense.
There wasn’t an auto-taxi in all of Capek that would give Kahal a ride now. Not because it was so late. But because it was so late and he was sapien. More demoralizing machine tactics.
Kahal was at least a hundred kilometres from the edge of the city, and completely on his own now. And his options were pretty limited. Really, he had only one. And if it didn’t get him killed, this would be the luckiest night of his life.
Chapter 4
Kahal gave the vial of medicine in his slingbag one last turn between his fingers, to bolster himself. Hinyan’s life was literally in his hands.
She’d been slipping in and out of consciousness for the last three days with what the Doc called a critical fever. Not that Kahal knew of any other kind of fever.
They had done everything to cool her down. But nothing worked. Then they tried to warm her up and break the fever. But that didn’t work either. And she kept getting worse.
The Doc said Hinyan wouldn’t make it past the end of the week if they couldn’t get rid of her fever. The end of the week was tomorrow. He had to get back to camp.
Kahal slipped the vial back into its protective foam sleeve beside the other two, snapped the holding container shut, zipped up his slingbag, and yanked its chest-straps tight.
He took a breath. “Hinyan’s depending on you,” he muttered, trying to steel himself for what he had to do.
Chapter 5
The dark irradiated rain spattered Kahal’s visor as he hurried down the Sapien Museum steps to the curb-lit street below.
“Map,” he instructed the Tobor Corporation interface as he walked at a brisk, but not too-taxing pace. He couldn’t afford to wear himself out now, since odds were he’d need his energy to run later.
It was the middle of the night. He was sapien. And his only way out of the city now was on the old tram lines. And to get to them, he would have to go through some pretty dodgy districts.
His Sapien-Status page minimized to a soft-orange icon on the left edge of his HUD. The background nautilus symbol pulsed fiery red a few times and the mechanism pulled up a grid map of the city, his only hope of navigating the dark and dangerous streets of Capek now.
A pink-and-blue glare caught Kahal’s eye, and he turned.
“Clear view,” he subvocalized, and the nano-active surface of his visor repelled the black rain obscuring his vision.
Coming up on his left was…an auto-taxi?
The vehicle slowed and its passenger side window opened.
No, it wasn’t an auto-taxi, he now saw, but a machine-operated one. Maybe this was going to be his lucky night after all, he thought. And he could use some luck right now. And so could Hinyan.
Chapter 6
Kahal moved closer to the lit curb to get a look inside the taxi.
It wasn’t common for machine-operated taxis to stop for sapiens at this hour. But it did happen. After all, credits were credits, no matter where they came from. And the thing had pulled over to him all on its own, which Kahal took to be a promising sign.
Through the open window, he saw the dull glint of the machine’s metal knuckles as it stretched its arm across the front seat and leaned over to eye him up.
It was an old, hefty Mack. A brute-looking thing with broad shoulders and a boxy face. But what really caught Kahal’s attention were the sections of shiny chrome plating on its chest. It must have paid a pretty credit for those add-ons.
If the machine was that keen on cosmetic upgrades, Kahal thought, then surely it wouldn’t pass up a fare, even a sapien’s. And especially when they both knew it could double the fare and Kahal would still pay.
Chapter 7
The taxi-driving machine locked eyes with Kahal. The vehicle hummed softly as it hovered a few feet off the ground. And the black rain sparked with little phosphorescent flares here and there.
“You looking at me?” the driver finally said, a metal grind in its throat.
Kahal’s brow furled. What kind of a question was that? There was no one else on the street. Of course he was looking at him.
“I need to get to Sapien Country,” Kahal told the machine. “South side of Capek, sector forty-three, exit-tunnel fifteen.”
“That’s a long way to go on feet, Jack,” the machine replied, its steel jaw making clacking noises as it pantomimed speech.
Kahal flipped his visor up to get a better look at the thing, one not obscured by the navigation grid overlaid across his HUD.
“Not Jack,” he told the driver.
Why the machines called every sapien they met ‘Jack’ was beyond him. And besides, the taxi would have registered his smartbox’s ID burst the second it came within range and its dashboard info-screen would have popped up his holoimage and identification specs.
“Look…” Kahal started to say, then stopped, stepped closer, and slouched to peer through the open window. “What do I call you? What’s your name?”
He knew better than to call the machine ‘Mack’ right to its shiny metal face.
The driver clanked a knuckle against its taxi license bolted to the top of the vehicle’s dash.
“Name’s Jerry,” he said, under-pronouncing the ‘J’ so that it sounded more like ‘Geary’. Then he added, his left eye-light blinking off and on, the equivalent of a machine wink, “But you can call me Jerry.”
This machine was a real hoot, Kahal thought sarcastically, and glanced at the license.
The thing had been driving for nearly a century already. Long enough to really hone those infuriation skills it had, or to be suffering from neural-net entropy. The difference between the two was actually not that easy to spot.
“Look, Jerry,” Kahal tried again. “I need to get to section forty-three, exit-tunnel fifteen. So, how much is that gonna cost me?”
Jerry made a grinding grumble sound in his throat, as if he was thinking, and then said, “That’s all the way on the south side of Capek. That’s pretty far.”
“Yeah, I know that. Just tell me how much.”
“Well, I’d say it’s gonna cost a lot.”
“Specifics, Jerry,” Kahal said, impatience creeping into his voice. “Tell me how many credits.”
“Oh,” the Mack chortled. “Well, a lot more than you got.”
“You don’t know how many credits I have.”
“That’s true. But I’ll tell you this,” the machine replied, lowering its tone as though it was about to share some well kept secret with him. “However many creds you have, the trip’s gonna cost more.”
“But that’s just–“ Kahal started to protest, but the machine cut him off.
“And besides, my taxi’s full.”
“Full?” Kahal couldn’t stop blurting out. “There’s nobody in your taxi but you, Jerry.”
“Exactly,” the machine rebuffed. “No body, just me.”
Kahal didn’t need to hear the thing’s sputtering attempt at laughter to know the game it was up to now.
“No body now. No body ever,” the driver shouted, and pointed a metal digit at Kahal. “You remember that, Sape,” he added in a no less aggressive tone. Then he sped off, chanting, “No body now. No body ever. No body now. No body ever.”
It was a senseless anti-sapien slogan. Not only did the Macks obviously have bodies, but Tobor Corporation, who made them, who made 90% of all the machines in Capek, had one goal, to create a machine that was not just indistinguishable from a sapien, but even more sapien than sapien. Whatever that meant. But try explaining that to a Mack. They weren’t having any of that logic.
The taxi-driving Mack was a royal toolbox for pulling over just to waste his time and harass him, Kahal reflected as he flipped his visor back down and started walking again. But at least that’s all he did. Kahal had heard stories about sapiens losing a lot more than just time and pride out on the city streets at night.
At the next intersection Kahal turned right, down what by day was a bustling and geometrically dazzling strip of glass shop-pods stacked as high as any building in Capek. Here and there those pods even stretched across the street overhead, like bobbly bridges of glowing glass orbs.
But when night came, and the bustle stopped, things got dangerous down here. For sapiens, and for machines too. But there was no other way to make it to the trams before morning. And Kahal had a bad feeling about that taxi-driving Mack. The thing might come back, and do more than just harass him this time. He had to risk it.
Chapter 8
At night, the kilometres-long commercial stretch Kahal was on became what the elder sapiens called a shooting gallery. What that meant back in the pre-machine world wasn’t exactly clear. But what it meant now was that Kahal was in the worst possible place a sapien could be in Capek at nearly four in the morning.
Any Mack he ran into down here would be completely unpredictable owing to whatever electro-chemical cocktail it had buzzing around its system.
The Tobor Corporation didn’t tolerate such behaviour, and so the Macks down here usually stayed under cover of darkness, and out of sight. Usually.
Kahal quickened his pace and stayed close to the dim-lit shop-pods beside him, trying to keep to the shadows.
“Aerial view,” he subvocalized to his smartbox. “Location indicator on-screen.”
His Heads-Up Display’s street-level perspective receded and dipped away as the view in his visor shot straight up to just above the building tops around him. Then it widened and showed him a three-block outline in every direction. That top-down view of the streets, alleys, and pedestrian passageways, along with his location indicator pinpointing where he was, were vital if he was going to make it through the shooting gallery unscathed. Or at least alive.
A small blue indicator-dot blinked to life on the map-grid and slowly inched along as Kahal walked up the street. That was him.
But he abruptly stopped when he saw four red dots light up just around the corner of the passageway he was about to cross.
The Macks down here would be jamming their location nodes, for obvious reasons. So the only warning he’d get about their whereabouts would be from his smartbox’s proximity detector. He had it set to high, but with all the steel and insulated glass and carbon-carboncrete around, he’d be lucky if it picked up anything more than fifty meters away.
Kahal waited for the next deluge of black rain to hit. And when it did, thrashing the glass shop-pods with a cacophony of pings and dings, and driving the four Macks around the corner tight against the wall for cover, he sprinted across the passageway.
Then he ran nearly halfway to the next intersection before he stopped to look back.
He saw the four Macks stumbled out of the passageway. One tripped over the lit curb and fell into the street, much to the others’ amusement.
Yeah, they were blenderheads all right, Kahal thought to himself as he caught his breath. And they were zipped-out on something pretty strong, too. They probably wouldn’t pose any real threat judging by the state they were in. But whoever sold them the stuff they were on might.
“Half-screen. Front view. Ten-times zoom,” Kahal whispered to his smartbox.
His HUD’s map-view shifted left and adjusted its ratio to accommodate the smaller area it now filled. His visor’s camera made a soft buzzing sound as it zoomed in on the stumbling Macks and brought them into sharp focus on the right side of his visor screen.
They weren’t task Macks like the taxi driver. These were mid-echelon functionary machines. And judging from their nimble builds, soft edges, and smooth chromium exteriors, they were pretty freshly minted as well.
The one in the street got itself upright with some effort and tottered around in a daze while its colleagues on the walkway pointed and hollered at it.
But their warnings came too late.
Kahal cringed as a speeding vehicle clipped the Mack in the street. The thing whirled around a few times before it tripped back over the glowing curb and fell in a battered heap next to its friends. The Mack’s left arm sparked at the shoulder, its chrome ‘skin’ wrenched open wide enough to expose its titanium frame. But the thing didn’t seem to notice, or care, as it got to its feet again, this time with a little help from the others.
“Camera off. Resume full-screen map,” Kahal subvocalized as he turned and started to walk again.
They were probably zipped-out on PKD, he figured. It was pretty popular with the new Macks, or so he’d heard.
PKD was based on an old neural scrambler ligand that had been revamped and exponentially intensified using logic gate blockers and a nano-scale delivery system. Basically, every electro-neuron in those Macks’ wetware brains was firing at once. Right now, they didn’t know up from down, or left from right. Hell, they probably didn’t even know whether they were a Mack or a sapien.
PKD was about as close as a machine could get to euphoria, to seeing and thinking, or, really, computing things that weren’t there, that weren’t real.
Kahal pulled his jacket collar higher as another blanket of irradiated rain battered him. He could feel the pins-and-needles sting where the downpour was starting to seep through the old garment’s stitching and burn his skin.
He was about to check his distance from the tram lines when INCOMING… flashed in the top-right corner of his HUD, the little ellipsis winking on and off as it awaited his command.
It was bad enough that he was using real-time street-nav, and pinging his own location on it to boot. But taking a Heads-Up Display call, well, he might as well just send out an ambient broadcast burst letting every Mack in a ten-kilometre radius know that he was a lone sapien wandering through the shooting gallery at four in the morning.
But, everyone back at camp knew where he was, and what he was doing. They wouldn’t be trying to contact him unless it was important, important enough to put his life at more risk than it already was. He had to answer the call.
Chapter 9
“Open channel,” Kahal whispered to his smartbox. Then he added, “Audio, right ear only, half-volume.” He couldn’t risk being too distracted, even if the call was important.
A video-link window curtained open in the top-right corner of his Heads-Up Display.
He smiled instantly when he saw Sem’s face, her dark brow pinched and her eyes looking down, not up into the video-comm camera, as she struggled to work the communications device.
“I’m here,” Kahal said.
Sem looked up, and her frown deepened to a scowl. “How long have you been watching me?” Her voice was interrogative.
“Long enough,” Kahal replied, and watched Sem’s eyes tighten.
She subvocalized a growl. “Long enough for what?” she demanded.
“Long enough to know that I still love you.”
Sem grunted. “You’re lucky,” she told him.
He was. And he knew it.
“Where are you?” Sem asked, her voice now sounding anxious.
“Still in Capek,” Kahal answered vaguely, not wanting to worry her.
She arched a displeased eyebrow at him.
“I’m in the shooting gallery,” he admitted. “But I’m almost–“
“What!” she interrupted, and leaned in close the comm camera. “That’s like the most dangerous place in the city. That was definitely not part of the plan. Why are you there?”
“It’s a long story,” he said. “But, as I was saying, I’m almost through,” he lied, hoping to calm her. “So don’t worry. But look, why are you calling? What’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong?” Sem replied, her eyes wide. “You were supposed to be back over four hours ago. That’s what’s wrong.”
“Yeah, well,” Kahal sighed. “I got held up.”
“You don’t say,” Sem snapped. “Look, did you get the medicine?” Her voice was starting to sound anxious again.
“Yeah, I got it,” Kahal told her, and patted his slingbag, not that she could see.
“And how long until you’re back?” Sem asked, the look on her face tightening.
This wasn’t like Sem at all, Kahal thought. He’d been late returning lots of times. It was basically part of the job when he went foraging in the city. There was something she wasn’t telling him.
“I don’t know how long exactly,” he said finally. “A few hours, I guess. I’m going to have to take a tram, and they’re never reliable. Plus, I still have to get to the station, and this rain isn’t making that easy.”
“A few hours?” Sem exclaimed.
“Look,” Kahal said, and stopped walking. “Tell me what’s going on. For real.”
Sem took a deep breath and looked away for a second.
Her short hair, shorter than Kahal’s at least, draped across the side of her face. He saw her jaw tense a few times as she struggled with what she wanted to say.
Kahal waited. He knew better than to rush her.
Sem let out an exhale, pushed her hair behind her ear, and turned back to the comm camera. “Hinyan doesn’t have a few hours.”
“But–“ Kahal bit his tongue and let Sem finish.
“The Doc says she’s slipped into a coma, or something like that. The point is, she needs that medicine now, or she’s not going to make it to the morning. And that can’t happen.”
Sem bit her lip. “Without Hinyan we’re nothing,” she said. Something like determination and anger and sadness all flared in her eyes at the same time. “Without Hinyan we’re just a band of sapiens watching themselves go extinct.”
Kahal knew Sem was right. Hinyan was old, but she was the only thing that held them together, that kept them focused. Without her… He didn’t even want to think about it.
There had to be a way to get back to camp with the medicine, he just needed time to think of one. But that was the problem, he didn’t have any time.
“If I could jury-rig my smartbox,” Kahal mumbled, thinking of the little side project he and Regg had been working on. “Maybe I could trick one of those auto-taxis into thinking I’m a Mack, or at least a hybrid. Because I’ve got more than enough creds for a taxi to–“
Kahal went silent as a red machine-location-light popped up on his HUD. It was about a hundred meters away, and moving toward him.
“What is it?” Sem asked.
A Mack that wasn’t jamming its location node down here was either in trouble, or was so zipped-out of its circuits that it was trouble. Either way, he didn’t plan to stick around and find out.
“I have to go,” he whispered to Sem over the comm link.
“But–“ she tried to protest.
“I have to,” he told her, taking his eyes off the menacing red dot moving toward him to look at Sem through the video comm camera. “I’ll be back in time, I promise,” he said, sounding a lot more confident than he felt.
“You know I hate promises,” Sem said, her eyes tightening.
“Yeah,” Kahal replied, starting to feel antsy to get moving. “Look, tell the Doc that I have the medicine, and that I’ll be there in time, somehow. Okay?”
“Okay,” Sem agreed, reluctantly. “But don’t make me a liar. Because I hate those too.”
Kahal shot Sem a half-smile and a wink in the white-blue light illuminating the underside of his visor.
She rolled her eyes at him, playfully. Then, with her lips pressed tight together, she gave him a rallying nod and reached somewhere off-screen to end their call.
Kahal watched Sem’s grainy image curtain shut, then disappear.
She was a hundred kilometres away, twenty of those past the city perimeter, hunkered down in their operations tent, waiting for the medicine for Hinyan, waiting for him.
He reached inside his jacket and fingered the braided necklace she’d made him out of old carbon line and felt that distance vanish in a heartbeat. It was like she was right next to him. In his arms. And nothing else mattered.
Except that a lot else did matter. Hinyan only had hours to live now. Jury-rigging his smartbox was a great idea, but only an idea. And now some zipped-out Mack had spotted his locator and was maybe coming after him.
Chapter 10
Kahal scanned the aerial-view map on his HUD as he hurried along.
Ten paces ahead, on his right, was a narrow pedestrian passageway off the shooting gallery’s main strip. It would be a lot more dangerous down there, but he didn’t have a choice if he wanted to avoid that Mack.
The next big intersection was fifty meters distant. He’d have better options for keeping out of sight there. But that cross-street was midway between him and the Mack blinking on his HUD. And if it came to a footrace, he didn’t stand a chance against a machine, even if the thing was zipped-out on something.
Neither option was good. And backtracking was out of the question. He didn’t have time for that, and it would mean contending with those four blenderheads.
Kahal turned and started running down the pedestrian passageway. It was barely ten feet wide, and dark. And the thrashing rain made it almost impossible to see anything.
He had to use the live map on his HUD to navigate, even though it leaked his location, because without it he’d be running blind. And he wasn’t desperate enough yet to risk turning on his visor’s headlamps. Though the deeper he went into the shooting gallery, the closer he got to being that desperate.
Up ahead, another passageway crossed the one Kahal was on. If he took it left, it would get him to the big avenue on the other side of the block of shops beside him.
But that damn Mack’s little red dot was already on that avenue, moving parallel to him now. It almost looked like the thing was following him.
Kahal picked up the pace.
The red dot turned right, down the passageway Kahal had just crossed, and sped up as well.
That was either an uncanny coincidence, or the Mack really was following him.
“Widen map diameter, one-hundred-fifty meters,” Kahal told his smartbox, his nerves starting to buzz.
He stared hard at the contour outlines of streets and passageways on his HUD, trying to burn the map into his memory.
The Mack turned down the same passageway Kahal was on, and started speeding toward him from behind.
That was definitely not a coincidence.
Kahal steeled himself, and then told his smartbox to perform a hard shutdown, stopping all processes that leaked trackable data.
The red dot that was following him and the map of the surrounding area shrank and vanished with a blip of light and a deflating buzz sound.
In mid-stride, Kahal reached up and double-tapped the side of his headgear.
The device’s two front-facing soft-beams shot a wide circle of light out ahead of him.
He counted the shop-pods as he ran, gauging from memory where he was in the maze of passageways.
Coming up on his right would be another passageway. It snaked around a bit, then switched back and forked. In one direction, it merged back into the passageway it had branched off of. But in the other, it rose up and over it, like a little footbridge, and then made straight to that big avenue Kahal wanted to get to.
Through the deluge of black rain he could only see the ground a few feet in front of him. But for now, it was enough.
Kahal reached out and grabbed the edge of the shop-pod on his right. He slid fast around it and started running down the passageway that would lead him to that crucial fork.
His lungs burned from exertion, but he willed himself to run faster. He needed to put more distance between him and that Mack.
With his smartbox shut down, the Mack could only follow him if it could see him, or if it was close enough to pick him up on its general proximity sensors.
The winding passageway Kahal was sprinting down now already had him out of the Mack’s sightlines. And he was counting on the machine slowing down at the fork in the passageway to try to figure out which way he had gone. And that should give him just enough time to get beyond the range of its proximity sensors, and make it to the main street.
Kahal whipped around another bend in the passageway and his visorbeams glinted off something laid across his path. Something big, and metal.
Chapter 11
Kahal leapt into the air, half from instinct, half from surprise.
His boots smacked down against the slick paving again and he glanced over his shoulder.
He’d just leapt over a Mack. A big one. But, luckily, it hadn’t even twitched.
The thing was totally zipped-out. Probably on some error-reboot-loop cocktail, Kahal figured. If the over-clocking didn’t melt its wiring, then the machine was headed for what the Mack’s called an Inception Event. If its restart frequency rate exceeded 56 times in 81 seconds, and the thing didn’t blow up, then its central processing hub would literally interrupt its own stream of computation for a micro-second in an attempt to reset its data flow continuum. The resulting experience was like being booted up for the first time. That’s why they called it an Inception Event.
Kahal’s legs burned as he reached the footbridge and raced up it.
He took a quick look back as he crested the hump.
There wasn’t much to see through the dark sluicing rain. Definitely no blinking lights or shimmering metal. And that was a good thing. It meant the Mack following him was too far back now to see which way he’d gone at the fork in the passageway. And that meant he had a real chance of losing it for good.
Kahal descended the footbridge and let the added momentum thrust him forward, increasing his speed.
The light from the big avenue flooded the end of the passageway, and Kahal skidded to a halt as he exited into it. He tapped his smartbox on, and then gulped in lungfuls of air while his visor’s display powered up.
He’d made it. The wide avenue beside him was busy with traffic. It wasn’t the middle of the night anymore, it was the beginning of early morning.
The streets around him resolved on his Heads-Up Display as the device re-established its aerial map view from before the hard shutdown. The screen started to populate with auto-taxi pop-up windows and morning re-fuelling station indicators.
But all Kahal saw was that Mack’s red locator-dot pulsing on the same street as him, ten feet away. Then eight. Then five. Then–
Chapter 12
“Well, hello there,” a chipper voice said.
Kahal flicked up his visor, his body abuzz with adrenaline. Through the streaking rain he saw the oddest-looking machine he had ever encountered standing right in front of him.
“It is awful weather we’re having tonight, isn’t it?” the thing remarked conversationally, its face obscured in shadow from the strange hat it wore. “Perhaps you should share my umbrella?” it suggested, its jaw moving with near sapien articulation. Then, to itself, it said, “Increase sonic-resonance shell, two-meter-diameter.”
As the water repellent field above the machine extended over Kahal, cutting off the downpour between them, he got a good look at the thing.
It wasn’t that big, maybe half a foot taller than Kahal. It was well proportioned, and exceedingly detailed. The thing even had full-knuckled, five-fingered hands. And its exocoating was some kind of semi-fluid, self-regulating material. When it moved, its exterior stretched and then contracted, staying taut and smooth all over, just like real skin.
It was definitely not a task Mack, and not even an upper-echelon functionary machine either. It was something else altogether. If he had to guess, he’d say it was a sapienoid.
Kahal had seen a few sapienoids before, from a distance though, never up close like this.
But what was the thing doing wandering around the shooting gallery in the middle of the night? And why was it talking to him in a how-do-you-do manner, or at all for that matter? And why was it dressed hat-to-shoes in the kind of suit Kahal had only ever seen in the Sapien Museum? It was all pretty confusing. So much so, that Kahal didn’t immediately know how to react.
The sapienoid stepped forward and extended its right hand. “My name is Habdu,” it said cordially, and with a little smile.
If this thing was a blenderhead, Kahal thought, it was the weirdest blenderhead he’d ever crossed paths with.
The sapienoid edged its hand a little closer to Kahal. “And you are?” it asked, raising its eyebrows.
“Why are you following me?” Kahal said, wary, but still too out of breath to make a run for it.
The thing frowned, but didn’t retract its outstretched hand.
Kahal tensed, trying to muster some strength out of nowhere.
“It is customary to shake hands and exchange names before entering into dialogue with someone you have not met before,” the thing told him in a matter-of-fact tone. Then, its smile returning, it added, “And I very much want to practice some of your customs.”
“You want to practice sapien customs?” Kahal blurted out in disbelief.
“I do, yes,” the thing replied in earnest. It straightened its shoulders, nudged its right hand closer to Kahal, and in its cordial tone again, said, “Hello. My name is Habdu. It is a pleasure to meet you.”
Kahal was pretty convinced now that the sapienoid was not a blenderhead. The thing was far too lucid, and it clearly had control over its systems. Its behaviour was completely bizarre, true. But it didn’t seem dangerous. So, he started to wonder, if the thing wasn’t a hazard, could it be a benefit to him?
A pink-and-blue light flared in the corner of Kahal’s eye as an auto-taxi whipped by a little too close to the edge of the street beside them. And all at once a plan took shape in Kahal’s mind, a plan to get back to camp in time to save Hinyan’s life.
Chapter 13
Kahal reached out and took hold of the sapienoid’s outstretched hand.
“Hiya, Hab,” he said, and shook the thing’s limb. “You can call me Kahal.”
The sapienoid’s ‘skin’ was surprisingly soft to the touch. And when Kahal squeezed it, the artificial dermal layer yielded to the pressure, like real flesh would, and he could even feel the contours of the thing’s phalanges bones through it.
“You have a strong grip, Kahal,” the sapienoid told him, though it didn’t attempt to match it. “You are a Man Of Action, yes?”
Kahal released Habdu’s hand and watched the dimpled ‘flesh’ elastic back to its previous form. “Yeah, sure,” he said, thinking about how best to coax the machine into helping him.
Kahal gave the sapienoid a genial clap on the shoulder. “But enough about me, Hab,” he said in his friendly voice. “Let’s talk about you. Like, how did you get here?”
Kahal didn’t imagine that the thing had taken regular city transit. That would have caused too much attention, especially dressed in an ancient three-piece sapien suit.
The task Macks didn’t get on with the sapienoids, to say the least, so a machine-operated taxi was out of the question as well.
That meant that Habdu had either come in an auto-taxi, or he had his own private transport parked somewhere nearby. Whichever it was, Kahal didn’t care, because either would get him back to camp ten times faster than the trams.
“Well,” Habdu began to respond, but then interrupted himself. “Isn’t it a custom for new acquaintances get to know each other over a drink?”
Kahal held back a grumble. This little tinker box wasn’t going to make his plan easy.
“I would like to try this custom,” Habdu told him, and turned a slow circle to scan the street.
Kahal didn’t have time for this. But his only other option was the trams, and that could take hours, hours Hinyan didn’t have.
As they crossed the street to the ‘establishment’ Habdu had cheerily said he’d located, Kahal decided that he would buy the first round of drinks. If this nutty sapienoid was set on practicing sapien customs, then when it insisted on buying the second round, Kahal would suggest they try another ‘establishment,’ an authentic sapien bar. Of course no such thing existed, but Habdu wouldn’t know that. So, auto-taxi or private transport, Kahal figured he could get back to camp in half an hour, maybe less.
Habdu swiped his hand over an external wall sensor and the doors to the NUTS N’ BOLTS TAVERN slid open with a whine. He courteously gestured for Kahal to enter first.
Kahal hadn’t been paying much attention to where Habdu was taking him. He’d been fine-tuning his plan, and worrying about Hinyan. But now, as he smelled heavy fumes of oil and hydraulic fluid, and heard the grinding beat of industrial sounds, he wished he had.
Chapter 14
“A table for two, please,” Habdu said. “In a corner, if you have. Somewhere out of the way enough to converse without having to yell.”
Kahal turned and saw the scantily plated machine Habdu was talking to. She looked Habdu up and down with a smirk, then huffed and carried on across the room, a tray of drinks hoisted above her shoulder.
“We should leave,” Kahal whispered to Habdu, sensing the tension in the air.
“Of course we should not,” Habdu replied. “The sign outside was very clear. It said, ‘ALL THE TIME, ANY TIME, IT’S ALWAYS TIME AT NUTS N’ BOLTS.’”
This sapienoid was clueless, Kahal thought. It was like it had never been in the districts before. Like it had never been anywhere in Capek at all.
The NUTS N’ BOLTS TAVERN was a task Macks bar, pure and simple. Even the name gave that away. And the Mack Habdu had been talking to was a Rosie. They were big machines, wide around the chassis, and strong. When they weren’t serving drinks, they were showing misbehaving patrons the door, and not in a this-way-to-the-exit-sir kind of way either.
“I think something warm would be fitting, don’t you?” Habdu said as he sided up to the chest-high bar. He brushed away some broken glass on the countertop, and leaned his elbow on it. “I mean,” he went on in his conversational tone, “considering how awful the weather outside is, something warm seems appropriate. The wet-cold really does chill one to the bones, doesn’t it?”
Habdu punctuated his last statement with a shudder, as if he actually was cold, which was about as ludicrous as it was impossible. Machines could sense the cold, sure. They could register temperature. But that was not the same thing as feeling it.
A Rosie suddenly bellowed on the other side of the room, “One more pinch like that, Jerry, and you know what you’re going to get.”
Kahal cringed as he heard the familiar taxi driver’s voice respond, “A whole lotta Rosie, I hope.”
A tableful of sputtering machine laughter and clanking glasses followed.
Then it abruptly stopped with a clang of metal slapping metal. “That was your one warning, Jerry,” the Rosie said loudly.
“In that case,” Jerry replied, “a round of warnings for everyone, on the house.” And the table erupted into laughter and clanking glasses again.
“Look, Hab,” Kahal said, keeping his voice low and his head down. “I’m sure you’ve been to a hundred Mack bars like this before.” It was more than obvious that he hadn’t been to even one. “This must be pretty boring for you. So, I tell you what, if we leave now, I’ll take you to a true sapien bar. It’s not far. Sector forty-three, just outside exit-tunnel fifteen. A real authentic place. You can practice our customs there until your CPUs melt down.”
“This is actually the first time I’ve been outside the–“ Habdu stopped himself. His grey-green eyes went blank for a split second as he silently processed something.
His eyes lit back up, and in a nonchalant tone he said, “Of course, yes, hundreds and hundreds of bars just like this one.” He turned and leaned his back against the counter. “But we are here now, so we might as well have that warm drink before we venture back out into the storming night. And, I see our hostess from before,” he added, looking across the bar. “Let’s give her a second chance to live up to the sign outside, shall we? I’ll wave her over.” And he took off his hat to do just that.
What Kahal saw stopped him cold.
Chapter 15
A split second later Kahal came to his senses, reached up, and slapped Habdu’s hat back down on his head. But it was too late.
A hush fell over the room. The industrial noise that passed for music in the place shut off. And the whirling lights from the stage at the far end of the tavern slowed and came to a halt.
It hadn’t been a sapienoid brain, or any kind of machine encephalon for that matter, that Kahal had seen through Habdu’s pellucid polymer skullcap.
The grey-purple mass was about the size of a cantaloupe and convoluted with folds and creases just like a normal sapien brain would be. But that was the only normal thing about it.
Instead of being bisected into a right and left hemisphere, Habdu’s brain was divided into quadraspheres. It had four distinct and symmetrical cortex-bundles. And the thing luminesced in spots, quick little bursts of electric light that glowed grey-pink as they lit up the dense matter from the inside.
It was no ordinary brain, that was for sure. And Kahal was beginning to think that Habdu was no ordinary machine either.
“Hey, who let that Noid in here!” a grizzly-sounding Mack shouted from the end of the bar.
Kahal didn’t need to look to know what was coming next.
He ducked fast, and the thick drinking glass the machine had hurled along with its slur just missed him.
But it didn’t miss Habdu. The hefty vessel exploded against his chest like an unlit Molotov cocktail.
“Perhaps I should not have taken my hat off,” Habdu considered as he gingerly plucked shards of glass out of his right shoulder, the frothy drink soaking into his jacket.
“Ya think?” Kahal gibed.
“I do, yes,” Habdu replied, mistaking Kahal’s rhetorical sarcasm for an actual question. “It would seem that the sight of my cranium upset them.”
More like what’s inside it, Kahal thought, as he looked over his shoulder to see if they could make it to the door before another glass, or worse, was hurled at them. But there were two big Rosies already planted right in front of it, arms crossed, their pink-light eyes glaring at Habdu.
“There has to be another way out of here,” Kahal grumbled, and pressed his back against the bar as the mob of machines started to inch toward them.
Under the shade of his hat, Habdu’s eyes pulsed. Then he said in a flat, informative tone, “The NUTS N’ BOLTS TAVERN has four points of egress.”
Kahal definitely wanted to know how Habdu acquired that bit of information, and so quickly. But it would have to wait. The Macks had them pinned against the bar, and they looked pretty angry about having intruders in their tavern.
“How many of those exits can we get to?” Kahal said, and looked around for something he could use to fend off the encroaching machines.
Habdu’s eyes flickered. “One,” he reported. “But I don’t think you will like it.”
“Will it get us out of here?”
“Yes.”
“Then I like it.”
Chapter 16
The only things Kahal saw on the bar were dirty glasses and a few bowls of the tavern’s complimentary grease-bubble snacks. He couldn’t hold off a bunch of angry Macks with that.
But then he spotted the old brass footrail that ran along the base of the bar. If he could kick a segment of that loose, it would do the job just fine.
“So, where’s that exit?” Kahal said, and gave the footrail a strong kick. The thing didn’t even budge.
“That’s the part you won’t like,” Habdu told him.
“Just tell me, Hab.” Kahal gave the footrail another boot. This time it jostled in its bracings a little. But at this rate, he’d either get mauled by one of those Macks or break his foot before he got a segment of it free.
“What are you doing?” Habdu asked, his voice curious.
“What does it look like?” Kahal gruffed. He could feel a bruise already forming on the bottom of his foot as he continued to kick at the brass tubing.
“Nothing that has any apparent function,” Habdu said. “That is why I asked.” Then, in a thoughtful tone he added, “Is this some kind of drinking custom?”
“The function, Hab,” Kahal replied, as he knelt down to see if he could twist the footrail loose, “is to keep those Macks at bay long enough for us to get out of here. Unless you want to find out first-hand what they like to do to sapienoids.”
“But I am not a sapienoid,” Habdu said, crouched down beside Kahal.
Kahal gave Habdu a quick sideways glance, eyeing his hat and thinking of that strange brain it concealed. “Yeah, I was starting to figure that.” He motioned over his shoulder. “But they don’t care what you are, only that you’re not one of them.”
Habdu tapped his finger against the brass footrail. “And you want this?” he said. “To defend yourself?”
“Us, Hab,” Kahal told him. “To defend us. And yeah, I want it. But it’s welded down tighter than a–“
Habdu wrenched the meter-long piece of metal out of the floor with startling ease. “Here,” he said, and handed the section of footrail to Kahal, the o-ring fasteners still attached, along with a few chunks of floor as well.
Sapienoid or not, Habdu was as strong as any machine Kahal had ever seen.
“It is a rather crude means of defence, though,” Habdu added, sounding almost disappointed. “Especially for a Man Of Action. But, I suppose your options are somewhat limited at the moment.”
Kahal hefted the makeshift weapon as he got back to his feet, then gave it a few preliminary swings.
“Yeah, this’ll do the job,” he said, watching the Macks slow their advance. “Now, where’s that exit, Hab?”
“Up.”
“Up?” Kahal took a quick look at the rafters thirty feet above them.
“I told you that you wouldn’t like it,” Habdu remarked.
“I didn’t say that,” Kahal replied as he spotted the peak-edged glass skylight in the ceiling.
The front third of the tavern stuck out from the high building it was attached to. It had probably been an atrium or something before the Macks took it over.
“Well, you did not use those exact words, true,” Habdu went on. “But I could detect from the tone in your voice that you–“
“Wait,” a Mack in the crowd hollered, and the machines all stopped in their tracks. “I recognize that Sape.”
Kahal gritted his teeth as Jerry pushed through the crowd of machines. He pointed a rusty finger at Kahal, and told the mob at his back, “That’s the Sape who tried to steal my taxi.”
The crowd erupted into shouts and fist-waving.
“You’re a thief?” Habdu said to Kahal.
“He would have ripped my circuits out right there in the street if I hadn’t gotten away when I did,” Jerry went on, riling the crowd. “I tell you, friends, it was the scariest night of my life.”
“And a murderer?” Habdu took a half-step back from Kahal.
“Of course I’m not,” Kahal told him. He gestured at Jerry with the footrail. “He’s lying, obviously.”
“I believe that is exactly what a murderer, would say,” Habdu replied.
“Oh, for the love of–“
“You see?” Jerry shouted, pointing at the length of metal in Kahal’s hand and raising his alloy eyebrows, as if alarmed. “He’s a killer! A coldblooded machine killer.”
“And he’s working with a Noid,” one of the Macks in the crowd yelled.
“I am not a sapienoid,” Habdu tried to explain again. “I am an Advanced Autonomous Intelligence. AAI, for short. And I–“
A tall and lanky Mack stepped forward, took up a spot beside Jerry, and loudly declared, “A Fleshy and Noid in cahoots!” He looked to the taxi driver beside him, his thin, tubular face as serious-looking as low-grade carbon-alloy would permit, and added, “This is one of the signs you warned us about, isn’t it, Brother Jerry?”
“Not just a sign, Brother Winston,” Jerry replied, as if on cue. “It is the sign.”
A fearful murmur passed through the tavern.
“When the Noids join forces with the Sapes,” Jerry went on, turning to face the crowd, “no machine is safe. They will hunt us all down. Every one. And those they can’t re-circuit back into robotic servitude, they will…” He paused dramatically. “They will recycle!”
The room filled with a shudder of mechanical gasps.
“Looks like you’re a murderer too,” Kahal whispered to Habdu.
“Of course I am not,” he replied.
Kahal cocked an eyebrow at him, and the Advanced Autonomous whatever-it-was grumbled in response.
“What can we do, Brother Jerry?” Winston prompted.
“We can fight,” Jerry shouted, and the crowd heaved a holler of agreement. “This is our tavern. These are our streets. This is our city. I say we take them back, starting tonight.” He raised his metal fist in the air and shook it in time with his words. “Take them back. Take them back. Take them back.”
The room filled with raised fists and sixty-odd Mack voices chanting as loud as their vocalizing modulators would allow. “Take them back. Take them back. Take them back.”
Kahal gripped the footrail tighter and eyed the skylight thirty feet overhead. “I think now would be a good time for us to get the hell out of here.”
“You may be right,” Habdu replied. He pointed to their left and added, “Because there is a small plasma weapon charging up somewhere over there.”
Chapter 17
“There’s a what charging up where?” Kahal said in disbelief.
He knew the Macks down here could get rowdy. And this bunch was definitely nuttier than most. But a plasma weapon? That was a whole other level of serious, not to mention totally prohibited.
“I said that somewhere in the crowd to our left is a–“ Habdu began to explain.
“Yeah, I heard you,” Kahal cut him off.
Habdu frowned, confused.
“There’s no way we’re getting to that skylight now,” Kahal said. “We need a new exit, Hab.”
“Why?”
“Because that skylight’s thirty feet above us. By the time we find a way to climb up to it, we’ll be plasma dust.”
“I can jump thirty-seven-point-two-feet upward from a stationary position,” Habdu informed him. “Fifty-two with a running start.”
“Good for you, Hab,” Kahal said, starting to think this was about to be his unluckiest night ever.
“I thought you were a Man Of Action,” Habdu frowned. Then his eyes opened wide as he realized something. “Oh, yes, I see,” he said, and gently poked Kahal’s leg. “You have been injured in your life of action, and now you cannot jump.”
“I can jump just fine,” Kahal snapped. “Only not three stories straight up.”
“How much do you weigh?” Habdu asked.
“What?”
“The combined mass of all your body parts. What is it?” Habdu said, again taking Kahal’s exclamatory remark as an actual question.
“Look, Hab, this is not the time for–“
“I can make a standing jump of exactly thirty feet while carrying a load of 136 kilograms.
Kahal couldn’t hold back a half-smile as he realized what Habdu was saying. “I weigh a hell of a lot less than that.”
“Perfect,” Habdu said, and stretched out both his arms. “Shall we?”
“We shall not,” Kahal snarked as he stepped to Habdu’s side, reached across his shoulders, and took hold of his arm. There was no way he was going to let himself be cradle-carried.
A rumble of machine sounds drew Kahal’s attention back to the motley of Macks surrounding them.
The crowd parted and a short, thick machine lumbered forward with a menacing device hefted in its hands. It wasn’t a plasma weapon exactly. But it might as well have been.
“If you’re gonna do this, Hab, do it now,” Kahal said, and tightened his grip.
Ten feet away, the stout machine glared at them through its dark visor. It planted its heavy feet on the floor shoulder’s width apart and adjusted the re-fitted plasma arc welder hinged to its double-plated hip. The makeshift energy canon started to buzz and throw blue sparks out the end of its long, perforated nozzle.
“Yes, I think now would be a good time to leave,” Habdu said, and bent low to the ground. “Hold on,” he told Kahal, then sprang straight up with bullet-like force.
Kahal dropped the segment of footrail as the upward acceleration nearly winded him. His eyes blurred as they whipped through the air. He blinked to clear his vision and saw the iron rafters getting closer, and fast.
Shouts and hollers erupted below. The Macks weren’t happy.
Habdu reached his arms up, preparing to grab hold of the crosswise girder they were rushing toward. It was only a couple feet away.
But then with a jarring whiplash-jerk they came to a dead halt in mid-air.
Before Kahal could think, Habdu grabbed him by the shoulders and with immense strength threw him upward.
Kahal clasped his arms around the thick rafter beam of iron, clambered his legs up onto it, and looked down to see Habdu falling back to the tavern floor below.
No, not falling exactly, he realized.
A manufactory Mack with extendable arms had clamped onto Habdu’s right leg and literally plucked him out of the air.
Chapter 18
Habdu’s back hit the floor with a resounding thud, and the machines swarmed in around him.
Kahal stepped across two rafter beams and got to the skylight.
It was an iron A-frame with three large panes of frosted glass on either side, protruding a good six feet above the roof. At the far end, Kahal spotted the carbon-line pulley system that opened the panes of glass, flapping them up like wings.
With cautious speed, he moved across the iron girding toward the pulleys. He figured Habdu would make short work of the Macks below, given his immense strength, and then leap back up to the rafters before he’d even got the skylight open.
The carbon pull-line bit into Kahal’s hands as he yanked on it. The pulley system was nearly rusted solid. It hadn’t been used in a long time. But that wasn’t a surprise. What use would a bunch of Macks have for fresh air? Or air at all for that matter?
Kahal gave another strong heave on the line, and the oxidized cog finally started to rotate.
A cold, damp gale whipped the side of his face as one three-panel side of the skylight creaked open. Well, at least the rain was starting to let up, Kahal thought, trying to rally himself.
He stepped one foot out onto the wet gravel roof, then stopped.
Where was Habdu?
He looked down.
The machines had Habdu held against the bar, two at each arm and one per leg. But Habdu wasn’t trying to get free, never-mind crushing those Macks like tin cans, which Kahal knew he could. He was talking a lot, though, not that any of the Macks were listening.
“Hab,” Kahal hollered. “What are you doing? Get up here!”
“I cannot,” he yelled back, tilting his head to catch Kahal’s eye.
“Of course you can,” Kahal told him, almost peeved. “Swat those ball-bearing-jointed-buckets to the other side of the room, and get up here.”
“That is a good plan,” Habdu yelled up to him in response. “But I cannot.”
Kahal caught sight of the lanky Mack from before, Brother Winston, slinking along the inside of the bar, toward Habdu. He had a bad feeling about what was going to happen.
“Come on, Hab!” he shouted. “You’ve got the strength of ten Macks. Just–“
Winston hit Habdu in the back of the head with the section of brass footrail so hard that the twang shuddered the skylight glass beside Kahal.
Habdu’s head jolted forward from the violent impact and his hat fell to the floor. One of the Rosies in the crowd stepped up and stamped the thing flat, causing a roar of laughter to fill the room.
Kahal gritted his teeth. What had Habdu ever done to them? Nothing, that’s what.
The four Macks holding Habdu’s arms pulled with enough force to tear a sapien limb-from-limb, while Winston delivered another punishing blow to the top of Habdu’s skull with the footrail.
“Nothing’s getting through that,” Winston said, and leaned on the bar, as if fatigued from his efforts.
“Never say nothing,” Jerry declared, and motioned for Winston to move out from behind the bar. “Because where there’s a machine, there’s a way.”
Jerry took a couple steps back from Habdu, stood akimbo, and nodded to the little Mack with the plasma arc welder.
Habdu shook his head, as if the assault had caused him little more than a bit of dizziness, and set his eyes on Jerry. “You should stop this now,” he told him matter-of-factly.
“Stop?” Jerry said with a greasy laugh. “We haven’t even gotten started.”
He gave another nod to the Mack with the makeshift energy canon, and the machine hoisted the device up and aimed it at Habdu’s head, nearly point-blank.
“The encephalon housed within my cranium,” Habdu informed Jerry, “is one of a kind. If you damage it in any way, the technicians who designed it will–“
“Yeah, yeah,” Jerry shrugged him off. “Blah, blah, blah. Heard it a million times before, Noid.” He gave the plasma-welder-wielding Mack a knowing glance, and told him, “Okay, Shaky. Do your thing. Light that polymer melon up real good.”
“Fight, Hab,” Kahal yelled with growing frustration.
“I cannot,” Habdu told him again.
Jerry looked up and narrowed his headlight-eyes on Kahal. “Don’t you worry, Sape. We haven’t forgotten about you.”
Winston hefted the length of metal footrail as he stood beside Jerry, and put in, “You’ll get your turn soon enough, Fleshy.”
Blue sparks danced around the end of the plasma welder’s nozzle again. Kahal watched them shimmer off the slick surface of Habdu’s translucent skullcap as his brain flared with little bursts of internal pink light. It almost looked pretty, except that Kahal knew his head was about to be shock-melted into a pile of chrome-and-neural-biomass-goo.
“You have to fight, Hab,” Kahal shouted, his voice almost pleading. “If you don’t, they’re going to–“
“Don’t worry about me,” Habdu told him confidently. “Save yourself, Man Of Action. I’ll be fine.”
He wouldn’t be fine. Not unless getting your head obliterated was the new fine.
A gust of wind brought a light sprinkle of cold rain through the open skylight.
One more step and Kahal was free of the tavern, free of those maniac Macks. It was still a long way back to camp, and time was running out. But it was almost morning, the sky was already a deep blue-black, so he stood a real chance now of getting an auto-taxi to stop for him. And he had to get back to camp, for Hinyan. And hell, Habdu had even told him to go.
So, what was he waiting for?
The plasma welder’s perforated nozzle began to glow white-hot, and all the Macks in the place started to clang their metal fists together in anticipation of the ghoulish fireworks that were coming.
Kahal took a deep breath and yanked the slingbag tight across his chest. “This is gonna be messy,” he grumbled to himself, and leapt off the rafters.
Chapter 19
Kahal bent his knees and winged his arms out for balance as he plummeted through the air. Thirty feet straight down was no insignificant drop, and if he didn’t hit his mark he’d probably break both his legs, if he was lucky.
His boots drove hard into the shoulders of the Mack with the arc welder as he crashed down on top of him.
The machine inadvertently squeezed the trigger as it impacted the floor, and the device sent a purple-blue tentacle of plasma ripping across the room.
Kahal rolled forward, leapt back to his feet, and watched the bolt of out-of-control-energy tear through Jerry’s left arm, just below the shoulder.
Winston grabbed the taxi driver as he teetered backward, his feedback systems crashing from the overload of sensory data, or maybe from the sudden lack of any.
The horizontal geyser of plasma hit the far end of the bar and exploded. There was a blinding flash of purple-blue flame, and a reverberating bang shook the tavern.
Four of the six Macks restraining Habdu abandoned their stations, their sound and light sensors on the fritz. The remaining two, one clasping an arm, the other a leg, weren’t doing much better.
In the chaos, Kahal picked Jerry’s forearm up off the floor by its still twitching fingers. Sparks and molten-carbon-alloy spit out of its severed end.
He whirled around and slammed the thick limb into the side of the head of the Mack holding Habdu’s arm. The machine reeled sideways and fell to the floor.
The Mack latched onto Habdu’s leg buzzed in protest.
“Think fast, Mack,” Kahal said, and tossed Jerry’s arm at him.
The machine reactively reached up to grab the hurtling appendage, and Kahal delivered a kick to the centre of its chest, sending it head-over-heels backward.
Kahal spotted Habdu’s flattened hat on the floor. With a grin, he whisked it up and handed it to Habdu. “Shall we try that again?” he said with a nod at the skylight above.
“I knew you were a Man Of Action,” Habdu said as he worked the hat back into shape and then placed it on his head.
“I want that Sape!” Jerry screamed.
A little half-smile crept up the side of Habdu’s mouth and he said, “I bet he wants his arm more.”
Kahal turned, a surprised look on his face at the unexpected quip.
“Humour, correct?” Habdu said, sounding a little unsure of himself.
“Now!” Jerry ordered, and every Mack in the place, the Rosies included, rushed Kahal and Habdu.
Habdu grabbed Kahal under both arms and leapt straight up. “I understand,” he shouted as they zipped through the air. “Humour later.”
Kahal flicked down his visor and tucked his chin against his chest. Habdu was rocketing toward the wrong side of the skylight. The half Kahal hadn’t opened.
The middle pane shattered into a million shards as they burst through it. The bits of glass made tinkling sounds as they scattered across the rain-damp pebbled roof.
Habdu landed with a soft thud a couple meters from the skylight and let Kahal down onto his feet.
The wind thrashed them with what was left of the night’s rain. The air was cold, and smelled of sulphur, nitrogen exhaust, and industry smoke blowing in from the smelteries outside the city.
Kahal pushed up his visor and turned to Habdu, one thing, and one thing only on his mind, getting the medicine in his slingbag back to the Doc at camp in time to save Hinyan. But before he could open his mouth to speak, Habdu flat-handed him in the chest.
Kahal skidded across the pebbly ground on his backside as a snaking column of burning plasma tore through the roof where he’d been standing a split second ago.
The energy blast corkscrewed two hundred feet in the air, then dissipated, leaving a hot trail of mist in its wake.
The cloud-like condensation mixed with the smoke and dust from the smouldering, meter-wide hole in the roof, and then began to drift away.
Kahal squinted as he got back to his feet, but he didn’t see Habdu anywhere. “Hab?” he called out. “Hab?” But there was no answer.
Damn him, Kahal thought with a mix of anger and guilt. Why’d he go and get himself vaporized saving his life? The life of a total stranger, and a sapien to boot.
Chapter 20
“We should move quickly now.”
Kahal whirled around and there was Habdu, standing right behind him.
“I…I thought you–“ he started to say, but Habdu cut him off, his tone urgent.
“I think it would be best if you followed me rather exactly.”
His yes pulsed with light a few times. “This way, quickly,” he said, then stepped right and leapt into a run.
Kahal took off after him, his boots grinding hard against the pebbled roof as a bolt of purple-blue energy burst through the ceiling behind them.
Habdu jinked left. Kahal followed. And another plasma blast tore up through the roof of the tavern.
A spray of heavy debris pelted Kahal’s back as he ran.
“There,” Habdu called to him, his arm outstretched, pointing.
Twenty feet ahead, Kahal saw the edge of the roof, and the buildings on the other side of the street lit up by the speeding traffic below.
“That’s a three-story drop, straight down,” Kahal hollered through heaving breaths. “I can’t–“
“There will be no dropping,” Habdu assured him over his shoulder.
Before Kahal could ask what that meant, the view in front of him began to wobble, like he was seeing it through flowing water.
“Don’t stop,” Habdu called to him, as if sensing he was slowing down. “Everything is as expected.”
As expected? Kahal thought. Exactly nothing was as expected. Least of all what he now recognized as heat haze rising up from below the edge of the tavern roof.
Was the place on fire? Did the Macks have another, and larger, jury-rigged weapon? Was this going to be his last–?
“Jump!” Habdu hollered, and bounded off the edge of the roof–
–onto the wide, flat hood of an Air Runner.
The charcoal-grey aeronautical vehicle buoyantly adjusted to Habdu’s weight, then hovered steady in the air while both its doors flapped up and open.
Habdu grabbed the handhold inside the driver’s side door and monkeybarred into the vehicle. Through the long, angled windscreen, Kahal saw him do something on the dash with one hand while he took hold of the control wheel with the other.
The Air Runner reeled around in the air and presented Kahal with its open passenger side door.
He left the roof, turned in mid-jump, tucked his head down, and landed in the vehicle’s padded, contour seat with a satisfying thump.
The Air Runner’s interior was like nothing Kahal had ever seen. It was sleek, spacious, and had no discernible control arrays anywhere. A double-wide armrest bisected the two front seats and merged seamlessly with the slick, black-glass dash that stretched the width of the vehicle in front of him.
Habdu laid his right hand on the dark console and light pulsed beneath it, silhouetting his fingers. Kahal couldn’t tell if the illumination was coming from the dash or Habdu’s palm, or both.
Then a thin orange line stretched out from beneath his hand, mazed halfway across the dash, and pinged with a small circular burst of illumination.
“Hold on,” Habdu told him, and two more lines of light jig-jagged across the dash as the vehicle pitched hard to the left.
Kahal felt his weight compress against the armrest and saw the busy street below come into view through Habdu’s still open door.
Jerry burst out of the tavern’s front doors onto the streetside walkway below. He brandished his one remaining fist in the air and hollered threateningly, “This isn’t over, Sape. We’re coming for you. We’re coming for all of you!”
Habdu adjusted his hand on the dash and two blue-white lights streaked across it in opposite directions. The vehicle’s doors swung shut and sealed with a soft sucking noise.
Kahal felt a second of weightlessness as Habdu pulled back on the control wheel and maneuverer the vehicle into a swooping upward climb.
“Now, tell me,” Habdu began, his voice calm and conversational. “Why did you–?”
But before he could finish, an alarm sounded inside the vehicle and short red vertical lines winked on across the top of the dash.
“Oh dear,” Habdu said, his eyes wide as he scrutinized the unevenly spaced red strokes, as though reading them. “It appears that we are about to be–“
The back-right corner of the Air Runner kicked up with an explosive boom, and the whole vehicle flipped over from the force of the plasma blast that had just hit it.
Kahal slapped his hands against the insulated-glass roof that was now below him to stop himself from crashing into it.
A flurry of thin blue-white lines veined across the black dash, then vanished.
Kahal blinked away the lights’ afterimage and turned to see Habdu sitting comfortably upside-down next to him.
“You didn’t tell me this thing had seat harnesses,” Kahal huffed, his feet hooked under the dash and his arms starting to ache from bearing his weight.
Habdu swiped his hand over the dash and the Runner righted itself. Kahal slumped back in his seat, then felt himself press into it as Habdu accelerated away from the tavern.
Within seconds they were out of range of the plasma arc welder’s reach, soaring high over Capek. Safe.
But, Kahal thought, where was Habdu taking him?
Chapter 21
Out of his door’s window, Kahal looked down at the mesmerizing view.
Curb-lit streets crisscrossed Capek in every direction, while glowing traffic flowed along them like electrified blood. Machines, no more than little dark specks from this height, meandered this way and that. And the city’s towering buildings passed by below, their blunt tops coming up into view and then fading away behind them, like steel-and-glass fingers trying to grab them out of the sky, but always just missing.
Habdu set his palm on the dash. Light illumed underneath it, and then a few blue-white lines streaked left and right across the black glass. He leaned back in his seat and took his hands off the control wheel, the vehicle now set on some kind of auto-drive.
“So,” Kahal said, feeling both awestruck and nervous to be cruising in an Air Runner at what looked to be almost two thousand feet above the ground. “Exactly where are you taking me?”
“We are off to your sapien bar,” Habdu announced cheerily. “Obviously that NUTS N’ BOLTS TAVERN was not deserving of our patronage.”
With a soft tilt, the vehicle veered left.
Habdu pointed through the windscreen and in a satisfied tone said, “There. Section forty-three, exit-tunnel fifteen. You can see it already.”
In the distance, Kahal made out section forty-three’s tall perimeter wall. Beyond it, patches of light glimmered in the hazy pre-dawn darkness. Most were twenty-four-seven pit mines. But a few, including the one Kahal was focused on, were sapien camps.
“It won’t be long,” Habdu informed him. “So, now you can explain to me why you did that.”
“I’ve done lots of things, Hab. You’re gonna have to be a bit more specific.”
“At the tavern. The skylight was open. But you did not leave.”
“No, I did not,” Kahal said slowly, and gave Habdu a blank look.
Habdu frowned at Kahal’s reluctance. “I want to know why.”
“You’d rather I left you there? To get bashed into bits and melted down into,” Kahal gestured at Habdu, “into whatever it is you’re made of?”
“That’s not what I mean. But I think you know that.” Habdu’s brow tightened a little more. “You were halfway through the skylight. You could have escaped. That would have been the logical thing to do. To save yourself when you had the chance. But you didn’t. You came back. Why?”
Kahal didn’t know why, not exactly. He definitely didn’t make a habit of saving machines. Why would he? They were the enemy, plain and simple.
“You needed help, so I helped. That’s all,” Kahal said a little vaguely, wanting to change the subject. “Now, it’s my turn. Why didn’t you fight back?” He looked Habdu in the eye. “I know you’ve got the strength. You could have shaken free of those Macks without even breaking a simulated sweat.“
“Oh, this is an easy question,” Habdu sighed, sounding bored. “The answer is The First Rule. Now, let’s get back to why you–“
“Wait! What? The First Rule? What kind of rule is don’t fight back, don’t defend yourself?”
“You misunderstand, Kahal. It is not a rule about defence. It’s for the safety of–“
Habdu paused as Kahal floated upward and gently bumped against the vehicle’s glass roof.
“We are on approach now,” Habdu told him. “We have just begun our descent.”
“Really?” Kahal snarked as he pushed himself back down into his seat and grabbed its cross-chest harness.
“Yes,” Habdu replied. “That is why you are experiencing momentary–“
“Do you even know what sarcasm is?” Kahal blurted as he pulled the harness taut.
“Of course. Sarcasm is a way of using words that are the opposite of what you mean in order to be…”
“Right, so you have no idea what sarcasm is then,” Kahal muttered under his breath and turned to look out the window again.
Section forty-three’s high perimeter wall passed by below. Kahal watched a couple sentry Macks on hover bikes glide along the top of it, out on early morning watch.
Then the landscape changed, drastically. Suddenly it was like a whole different planet, a decimated and denatured planet.
Giant dust devils tore across the arid ground, twisting sand-dry dirt up into massive swirling torrents that covered and then uncovered city refuse heaps, scattered technetronic waste, and even the odd obsolete and not-worth-recycling Mack.
“So, what exactly is The First Rule?” Kahal said as he peered through the dusty haze at a circular collection of lights three hundred meters distant.
The sight of his camp was a small comfort. It was just a bunch of ramshackle tents they’d have to move farther out into the wastelands when the Macks came to claim the land for building another city district. No, it wasn’t the camp that calmed him, that made him feel home. It was the people in it. People he called friends, called family.
“Very well,” Habdu said with a dramatic sigh. Then, as if he was reciting it for the umpteenth time, he told Kahal, “The First Rule states that an Advanced Autonomous Intelligence–which is me,” he interjected. “It states that an AAI shall not cause a machine harm, nor, by inaction, allow a machine to be harmed.”
“That’s a strange rule,” Kahal said as he flipped his visor down, made a few quick eye gestures, and sent a ping out to Sem’s monitor so she knew he was about to arrive.
He pushed his visor back up and added in a facetious tone that he was certain would go unnoticed, “And you thought this rule up all on your own?”
Kahal had a pretty good idea of what was really going on. Some R&D department at the Tobor Corporation had made Habdu, and then, realizing his capabilities, decided to give him some protocols for their own protection. But what Kahal didn’t get, was why Habdu followed those rules when they put his own life in danger.
“I did not design my rules,” Habdu explained. “They are instilled into me at a neural level. They are, I think, something like what you call instincts, only they are stronger than– Actually, no,” he interrupted himself, his brow creased. “That is not correct, because you can, with effort, act contrary to your instincts. Like you did at the tavern when you returned to help me.” His eyes popped wide as a thought came to him. “My rules are like that. Something I have to do.”
“I didn’t have to help you, Hab,” Kahal rebuffed. “I did it because it was the right thing to do.” And as he said it, he realized that it was true. For some reason that he couldn’t explain, he didn’t think of Habdu as a machine, or a sapienoid, or even an Advanced whatever. Did he think of him as a person? No. But maybe as a friend.
“Exactly. My rules are the right thing to do,” Habdu announced cheerily.
“They’re definitely not that.”
“But–“
“Look, Hab,” Kahal interrupted, feeling almost angry about how blind to the truth Habdu was. “Would you rather be obliterated by a plasma arc welder, or dent up a few Macks and stay alive?”
“That’s a very difficult question to answer.”
“No it’s not. Do you want to live? Or do you want to die?”
“But the rules state that–“
“Live or die, Hab? Which is it?” Kahal said forcefully.
“Fine,” Habdu said with a little huff. “I would like to live. But I want you to know that your questions are very unfair.”
The Air Runner neared the ground and its propulsion engines kicked up a thick cloud of dust and dirt, obscuring the view outside. The lights inside the vehicle compensated for the sudden darkness.
In the soft orange-yellow illumination, Kahal turned to Habdu and asked, “So, just how many of these rules do you have, anyway?”
“Three.”
The Runner bounced softly as it settled to the ground. Habdu fingered the dash, and the engine’s hum faded to silence.
Then, as the thick kick-up of dust outside began to blow away, two red targeting laser lights streamed through the windscreen and started to trace around inside the vehicle.
Chapter 22
“I think you better let me get out first,” Kahal told Habdu as the Runner’s doors winged up and open.
Habdu’s eyes pulsed a couple times, and then he said, “Two medium-range energy blasters. Class 5 models. Very old. And one has a faulty trigger that is in need of–”
“Just stay here,” Kahal said, and stepped out of the vehicle.
“It’s me,” Kahal hollered through the dust. He squinted, still unable to make out which of the two shadowy figures was Sem. “Didn’t you get my ping?”
“We got it all right,” Sem’s voice responded, and Kahal saw the red targeting laser light on the left bobble. “We also picked up an Air Runner signature, and…and something else.”
“I am the something else,” Habdu cheerfully informed them. “Your scanners are not equipped to detect my–“
Kahal raced across the front of the Runner as the two red lights whipped through the air and fixed on Habdu.
“Don’t shoot!” Kahal yelled as he skidded to a halt in front of Habdu, the two red dots lighting up his chest now. “He’s with me. Put those blasters down!”
“Especially that one,” Habdu said, leaned over Kahal’s shoulder, pointing, and talking into his ear. “That’s the one with the faulty trigger. The chances of it backfiring are one in–“
“Didn’t I tell you to stay in the Runner?” Kahal growled, and in the dissipating dust saw that Habdu was pointing at the Doc.
“Don’t worry about me,” Habdu said to Kahal. “As I told you, these armaments are very old Class 5 weapons. Even at close range they would only superficially damage my advanced nano–“
“That’s not the point,” Kahal cut him off.
He could almost hear Habdu’s brow furl in his ear. “I do not understand.”
“Of course you don’t.”
Kahal took a step forward and again told them to lower their weapons. “Especially you, Doc,” he added, catching the old man’s eye. “And keep your finger off the trigger. It’s…” he rolled his eyes at himself. “It’s broken.”
“Faulty. Not broken,” Habdu quietly corrected him. “The difference is actually quite vital because–“
“Hab,” Kahal growled at him.
Sem stepped forward, her small blaster held ready at her hip, her eyes fixed on Kahal. “This is where you tell me why the hell you brought a Noid into our camp.”
“I am not a sapienoid. I am an–“ Habdu began to say before Kahal cut him off with a raised hand.
“It’s a long story, Sem,” Kahal told her. “And he really isn’t a–“
“Your story can wait,” the Doc cut in as he slung his rifle blaster over his shoulder and stepped forward. “But Hinyan can’t. Do you have the medicine?”
“Yes,” Kahal nodded. He retrieved the container from his slingbag and handed it to the Doc. “Here.”
The man flipped it open, took out one of the vials, and examined it. “Good,” he said. “Very good.”
“Penicillin?” Habdu remarked, peering over Kahal’s shoulder again. “An ancient and rather simple sapien medicament. Yet, in its time, known to be both efficient and very versatile against a plethora of–“
Kahal shot Habdu a look that stopped him talking, for a second.
“Someone in your camp is ill?” Habdu began again, this time talking directly to the Doc. “Perhaps I can help?”
Kahal saw the Doc’s eyes light up. The closest thing he’d ever had to an assistant was a pair of shaking hands that probably didn’t even know how to sew up a tent properly, never mind a person.
“I am fully versed in sapien anatomy,” Habdu continued. “And I have knowledge of over two hundred ailments, conditions, and injuries. And of course their most effective cures and treatments also.”
“Well–“ the Doc started to say, but Kahal cut him off.
“Let’s just wait until no one wants to shoot him first.”
As the Doc reluctantly turned and started back into the camp, Habdu called to him. “I would suggest administering double the recommended dosage for the ailment you are treating,” he said. “Those vials are passed expiration, and their contents have lost a considerable amount of efficacy.”
The Doc gave Habdu a nod over his shoulder and then disappeared into a large grey-green tent.
“His name is Habdu,” Kahal said, turning to Sem. It was less of an introduction and more of an explanation. “If it weren’t for Hab, I wouldn’t have made it back in time.” He glanced at Habdu, and then added in a quieter voice as he realized just how true it was, “If it weren’t for Hab, I might not have made it back at all.”
“So, he’s your new Best-Mack-Friend-Forever, huh?” Sem said mockingly.
“Actually, we only just met this–“ Habdu attempted to explain.
“He’s not a machine,” Kahal said to Sem. “And he’s not a sapienoid either. He’s… Well, he is something else.”
“Good for him,” she snapped. “So he can go somewhere else then, too.”
“I cannot go anywhere else now,” Habdu said, and stepped around to face them both.
They looked at him, Kahal confused, Sem wary.
Chapter 23
“The First Rule,” Habdu told Kahal. “I believe I have broken it. My inaction at the tavern led to one of the machines being severely harmed. Yet,” and his brow twisted in contemplation, “yet the only action I could have taken to prevent that would have required me to injure the machines that were restraining me. It is a very confusing bind. In order to uphold The First Rule, I would have had to break it. But in choosing not to break it, I still broke it. I have not been prepared for this.”
“Because you’re a machine,” Sem snarled. “You follow your orders. You follow your programming. But when it comes to real decisions, to choosing between what’s right and what’s wrong,” she huffed, “you’re about as useful as a–“
Sem’s jaw dropped as Kahal plucked Habdu’s hat off his head.
“I told you he’s not a machine,” Kahal said to her as she stared dumbfounded at the four-lobed organ inside Habdu’s skull.
“Look,” Kahal said, turning back to Habdu while Sem continued to gawk at his brain. “Who cares if you broke one of your little rules. No one knows but you and me. And who am I gonna tell?”
“If I return, they will know when they examine my neural bank,” Habdu replied, his voice serious and grave. “And then they will discontinue me. But I think that I do not want to be discontinued.”
Kahal figured he knew what that euphemism meant. “Well, we’re not going to let that happen,” he said without thinking. “You can stay here, with us.”
“He can do what?” Sem blurted, roused out of her fixation on Habdu’s brain. “That’s not your decision to make, and you know it. Only Hinyan decides who gets to–“
“It’s working!” the Doc hollered as he burst back out of the tent he had entered moments before, his voice exuberant. “It’s actually working.”
He came to a stop in front of them, and caught his breath. His brow furled with curiosity for a second as he noticed the strange organ inside Habdu’s skull.
The Doc looked Habdu in the eye and with a slight nod said, “Thank you. Thank you for bringing Kahal back to us safe, and with the medicine.”
He turned to Kahal and Sem. “There was a detectable change in her vitals after I administered,” he glanced at Habdu, “after I administered a double-dosage. It’s still early, but all indications suggest that she’s going to make it.”
The Doc looked at Habdu again and gave him another nod, a sort of mix of gratitude and acceptance.
“He stays,” Kahal said to Sem.
“For now,” she grumbled, and narrowed her eyes at him. “But the second Hinyan is awake, we take the matter to her.”
“Fine,” Kahal said.
“Fine,” Sem replied.
Chapter 24
The pale light of daybreak, and the news that Hinyan was going to be okay, filled Kahal with a well-needed sense of hope. It had been a long night, too long.
“So,” Habdu said, “I believe you have a custom of sharing a drink to celebrate good news.” He looked at Kahal. “Perhaps we should do that at your authentic sapien bar?”
Sem gave Kahal a twisted-up look.
With a slight laugh, Kahal said, “Yeah, sure.” And then ushered them all into the camp.
Of course they didn’t have an authentic sapien bar. They didn’t even have a regular bar. But there was a bottle of awful tuber alcohol hidden away in the back of the mess tent that Kahal knew about.
Having Habdu in their camp could really be a good thing, Kahal thought as they all walked. The Doc could use the help, that was for sure. Habdu’s Air Runner would make foraging a lot easier. And if, or really when they got raided again, Habdu’s strength and speed would be a huge asset in defending their–
Except, Kahal grumbled to himself, except that he wouldn’t do anything that harmed a Mack.
“Look, Hab,” Kahal said, and gave him a friendly clap on the shoulder. “If you’re gonna stick around, we’re gonna have to do something about those rules of yours. Like get rid of them.”
“Oh, that is not possible,” Habdu replied matter-of-factly. “As I told you, my rules are instilled in me at a neural level.”
“Well, if they were put in,” Kahal said, “then there’s gotta be a way to get them out. Right?”
“Perhaps,” Habdu replied, his brow tightening as he considered the matter. “That does seem logical, yes. Though, only the technicians that incepted me would know how to do that. If in fact it is possible.”
“I guess we’ll just have to pay them a visit, then” Kahal remarked, and pulled back the curtain door to the mess tent.
The warm scent of simmering porridge and baking flatloaf wafted out. It had definitely been a long night, Kahal thought, as his mouth watered at the smell of the same three-meals-a-day aroma.
“That is even more impossible,” Habdu belatedly told Kahal, intrigued to the point of distraction by what he thought was an authentic sapien bar. “The Tobor Corporation research compound from which I came is heavily fortified,” he continued as they walked down the aisle between two long tables with bench seating. “Access is by special authorization only. Even I am not permitted to leave.”
Everyone stopped and looked at Habdu.
He smiled awkwardly, clearly realizing what he had just divulged.
“So, you escaped?” Sem said to him, her curiosity piqued, though her tone still suspicious.
“I only wanted to see the world,” Habdu replied, his voice a little defensive. He gestured at his head, which was concealed under his hat again. “I am overfilled with facts and information. With knowledge of the world. But I want to experience it. The real world.” He made a sweeping gesture with his hands. “Your world.”
“Right,” Sem said as she straddled the bench seating and sat down. “So what you’re saying is that you escaped.”
“I did not break any of my rules,” Habdu said, turning to Kahal, as if for understanding or approval. “I was very careful about that.”
“I’m sure you were,” Kahal replied, and motioned for him to join Sem and the Doc at the table.
He slipped behind the food counter, retrieved four glasses, and got the three-quarter-full bottle of alcohol hidden in the back of the makeshift cupboard.
If Habdu got out of the compound without an incident, and obviously without being noticed as well, then, Kahal figured, they could surely get in, find those technicians, and convince them to erase those rules in Habdu’s neurons.
“Okay, so let me get this straight, Hab,” Kahal said as he poured out four drinks and nestled down on the bench beside him, Sem and the Doc sitting across from them. “This compound is fortified, requires security passes to get in and out, and–I’m guessing here–is guarded by a small army of nasty Macks? Does that sound about right?”
“Yes, yes, and yes you did guess correctly,” Habdu replied. “So, you see, it is impossible.”
“Impossible is such a strong word, Hab,” Kahal said. He swirled the contents of his glass around. “I prefer the term challenge.”
The Doc grimaced. “It sounds like a bit more than just a challenge, Kahal. A small army of Macks? Hell, we can’t even fend off the ragtag groups that raid our camp.”
“That all changes with Hab on our side,” Kahal cut in. “I’ve seen him in action. If we get rid of his rules, he’s like our new secret weapon.”
Kahal took a breath, and gave them all a serious look.
“We all know the machines want to get rid of us,” he told them. “They starve us to death. They hunt us down. They pump so much poison into the atmosphere that we can’t breathe anymore. And there’s something else.” He thought of Jerry’s final threat at the tavern. “Something’s going on with the Macks,” he told them. “They’re banding together. And they’re planning something. Something big.” He took a breath. “Look, one way or the other, they’re going to push us to extinction, and there’s nothing we can do about it.”
He laid his arm across Habdu’s shoulders.
“Until now,” he told them. “With Hab, we finally have a fighting chance. Hell, we might have a lot more than that.”
Kahal leaned forward and in a lower voice came to his point.
“This kind of opportunity isn’t going to come around a second time. If we don’t take advantage of it, if we don’t at least try, then what’s the point, what’s the point of any of this?” He waved his hand in the air to indicate their camp. “If we don’t do this, it’s the same as giving up. And I’m not doing that. I am not giving up. Because if we don’t reclaim this world, our world, then we’re going to lose it forever.”
Sem pushed her glass back and forth on the table. Then half under her breath she said, “It’ll be dangerous.”
Kahal nodded in agreement.
“And there’s no way we can pull it off alone,” the Doc put in. “Not even with your new special friend here,” he added with a nod at Habdu. “We’d have to get at least a couple other camps to join us.”
A smile curled the corner of Kahal’s mouth. “So we’re agreed then?” he said, his voice conspiratorial. “There’s just one more thing we need.”
They all looked at him.
He gave Sem a little wink and said, “A plan. We’re gonna need a plan. A damn good plan.”
She rolled her eyes at him, and gave him a crooked grin. “And someone who sticks to it.”
“Oh, I think I can help with that,” Habdu said.
There was a second of silence, then they all said with a little laugh, “I’m sure you can, Hab.”
They clanked their glasses to seal the decision, and drank.
“That was not humour,” Habdu told them, his voice serious, and a little perplexed. “I am actually very good at making plans.”
Ethan grew up in a log cabin his parents built in the secluded wilderness of Ontario, Canada. He studied writing on the west coast of Canada, and then completed an MA in creative writing at the University of Sussex, England. In 2014 Ethan moved to South Korea to work as an English teacher, but was forced to return to Canada in early 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic. His existential horror story The Briefcase was published in “Everything Is So Political: A Collection of Short Fiction by Canadian Writers” (Fernwood Publishing: Canada, 2013).