Machinations Read online

  Like a big bear preparing for hibernation, he gives a great yawn before climbing into the tent to go to sleep. Then it’s my turn on deck—or would be, except Samuel insists on keeping watch alongside me. Just in case. It’s almost like neither of them trusts me.

  Sitting down is doing nothing for my circulation, so I get up and walk the perimeter with Samuel in tow. In my mind, I map escape routes—of which there are few. The primary benefit of our hiding place is the machines can’t see us here or flank us, but that’s also its major downside. With our backs against an embankment, we won’t have anywhere to run if they corner us. It makes me nervous.

  Rescue can’t get here soon enough.

  —

  In the second hour of our watch, satisfied with the perimeter, I continue exercising the cold and sleep from my limbs by jogging in place. Nearby, Samuel occupies himself by making a misshapen snowball, crushing and packing the ice together. His breath streams white as it passes his chattering lips, the ghosts of unspoken words. He seems focused on his task, but I think he’s just trying not to seem intrusive. Something about his silence makes me feel like he wants to talk. Or maybe it’s me. Maybe I’m the one who wants to talk.

  Finally, as he finishes one snowball and begins crafting another, I can’t stand the tense quiet anymore. “I had some weird dreams while I was out,” I begin, kicking at the ground with the toe of my boot. Samuel perks up, looking relieved by the conversation. “Or, I don’t know. Maybe they were memories.”

  “What about?”

  “I remembered something about the government stealing you away to Tulsa, and the machines later attacking the city. In the dream, I thought you were dead.” Nothing in his face gives away his thoughts, prompting me to ask, “So? Did any of that really happen?”

  Samuel looks somberly at his footprints in the snow. “In part. The government rounded up a lot of its greatest minds—scientists, engineers, mathematicians, robotics experts—anyone they thought might be able to help them in the future. But Tulsa was a red herring. We were actually taken to a top-secret bunker in Montana…which sounds a little ridiculous when I say it out loud.”

  “Robot apocalypse,” I remind him, and he laughs.

  “Fair point. Anyway, eventually, the powers that be thought it’d be best to split us up.”

  “Smart. If the machines ever located the bunker, they could’ve taken you all out in one fell swoop.”

  “Exactly. I ended up part of the group assigned to McKinley. We left shortly before the machines learned of the bunker. I’m not sure how many other groups escaped.” He leans down, scoops another handful of snow, and packs it into his snowball, glancing at me almost shyly. “I guess you could call it kismet, us meeting again, after everything.”

  I smile. “Whatever it was, I’m glad for it. And, hey, speaking of escape, is that help you mentioned earlier arriving anytime soon?”

  “It may take time for them to mobilize and locate us, but they’re coming.”

  “And Camus? Will he be with them?”

  Samuel’s brows rise and then lower, his face a tableau of conflicting emotions. “You remember Camus,” he says, like it’s somehow unsurprising, but I can’t figure out whether he’s glad or not. He nods to himself, trying on a smile that strikes me as oddly sad. “Of course you do.”

  “Maybe now would be a good time to do that cognitive interview,” I suggest.

  He stares at me for a long time, clutching the snowball in his hands. I think he looks very much like a child then, scared and unsure. In all the time we’ve spent together over the past twenty-four hours, I’ve never once thought about how all of this must be affecting him. I’ve been selfish; inconsiderate of his feelings and too obsessed with my own.

  “Or later,” I say, making my first awkward foray into empathy. “Later works, too.”

  This breaks whatever spell Samuel’s fallen under. He shakes his head, as if to shake off memories. “No, no. Sorry. I think I’m still waking up.” It would be a more believable lie if delivered by a better liar. “Now’s fine, if you’re feeling up to it.”

  “I am. Are you?”

  “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  There’s a defensive note in his tone I haven’t heard before. I’m starting to get the distinct feeling Samuel’s someone who likes to play doctor: fixing the problems of others, but paying too little attention to his own wounds. He doesn’t like me probing him for injury.

  So I back off, even though it goes against my nature. I know this situation calls for patience and understanding. I’m not sure I even possess the former virtue, but I know when pressing an issue will risk imperiling one of the only friendships I have left.

  “Just checking,” I say, then pick up one of his snowballs. “Nicely done.” I bounce it in my hand. “Good weight.”

  “Thanks—”

  Without warning, I nail him in the shoulder with it before he has a chance to get his hands up. He looks startled, with little pieces of snow freckling the side of his face. Confusion gives way to incredulity, and finally he laughs. “You’re insane. Certifiably insane.”

  I shrug. “Some things never change.”

  “Maybe they don’t.”

  Standing, I prepare to be pelted with a snowball, but instead he hugs me. His embrace comes unexpectedly. At first, I’m unsure, but then I hug him back, and for a few seconds we really are Rhona and Samuel again. Before the world, its woes, and the result of its history of violence came between us. “I missed you,” he whispers as softly as if we were in a confessional. Before I can answer, before I can tuck my face into his shoulder and breathe the sigh of relief I want to, he lets me go.

  “Sorry,” he says, looking embarrassed.

  “You apologize too much.”

  The sadness leaves his eyes, replaced by mischief. “Force of habit from my prankster days.”

  I haven’t noticed Ulrich’s snoring has stopped until he emerges grumpily from the tent. He’s got two glares, one for each of us. “Hard to sleep with all this talking,” he says, and the situation grows more hilarious when he tries to pantomime his words. “Like chatty little birds. Tweet-tweet, tweet-tweet.”

  “Sorry, Ulrich,” Samuel apologizes for both of us, though I’m feeling more amused than guilty.

  Ulrich gives a dismissive wave of his hand. “Pah. We have stayed here too long anyway. Let us pack up and leave before we are made to move.” He doesn’t wait for us to agree before he starts taking down the tent, dealing uncharitably with it. I look at Samuel and do my own version of Ulrich. Samuel just shakes his head, stifling laughter.

  My smile suddenly slips off my face. “Wait. Did you hear that?”

  “What?”

  “Ssh. Listen.”

  Sure enough, there’s the noise again. It almost sounds like—

  Whirring.

  Chapter 4

  Bullets tear into the trees, ripping them apart. Branches explode into thousands of splinters, some as long as my arm. The only place I can go is to the ground, flattening myself in an effort to evade the worst of the wooden shrapnel. I cover my head, smothering my face in the snow. It goes on for what feels like forever—the shrill whistling of flying metal, trees letting out a high-pitched noise before toppling over. Blood pounding in my ears. Somehow, I get my hand around the EMP-G holstered at my waist and maybe it’s the adrenaline, but as I wrap my fingers around the grip, I feel a sudden, inexplicable rush of calm.

  Enough to remember Samuel and Ulrich.

  I begin dragging myself over to the fallen log, my only hope for cover, keeping low and just outside the angle of fire.

  The air is filled with a flurry of ice and smoke, making it hard to breathe. I hunch down with my back against the log’s broad trunk, clutching my weapon to my chest. I can’t peek over to glimpse the enemy without the risk of catching a piece of debris or a bullet to the face, but I can survey what remains of our camp from here.

  Ulrich’s managed to scramble to safety behind some large boulders,
and a moment later, Samuel dashes out from our tent with the hardcase pressed to his chest, miraculously unhurt save for a few cuts and bruises. Whatever’s on that external hard drive must be worth his life, for him to prioritize fetching it over his own safety. Samuel joins Ulrich, who drags him farther behind the rock, shouting what I guess is a well-deserved chastisement.

  As soon as the pair catch my eyes, an unspoken agreement passes between us to wait it out—and, at the first available opportunity, to run.

  The machines finally cease firing, but I still hear their signature whirring some distance off. Ulrich lobs a few grenades in their direction—as a distraction, I suspect, more than anything else—and I take the opportunity to make a break for where they’re huddled. The plan is to run away, but I can’t just abandon Ulrich and Samuel to save my own skin.

  As soon as I’m out in the open, I realize my mistake. Gunfire tears up the ground around me, showering me in frost. I don’t stop moving. If I stop moving, I’m dead. One shot grazes my shoulder, but I keep going, trusting the damage can be dealt with later. If there is a later.

  I hazard a guess as to the machines’ locations, haphazardly firing while I kick up snow. The energy passes between the dissected trees, and I hear the sizzle of frying wires. Score one for the good guys.

  Samuel reaches out and pulls me behind the boulders with him as soon as I’m close enough. “What was that?” His voice has taken on a high, shrill quality. “You almost just got yourself killed! Again!”

  “Almost,” I answer, wheezing and still short of breath. “But not quite. Can we argue about this later?”

  “No more time!” Ulrich nearly has to shout to be heard above the racket. The pained edge in his voice grates on my instincts, and I realize what’s wrong—Ulrich’s been shot. Something’s punctured his side, judging by the way he’s hunched over, but I can’t tell how bad the injury is because his dark jacket is soaking up most of the blood. “Go. I will distract them. I will cover your escape.”

  A terrible, nameless feeling grips me. I search his eyes for the goodbye he isn’t saying. “And who will cover yours?”

  He shakes his head. “I can handle myself.”

  “You’re already bleeding!”

  “So are you.”

  My nose again. I reach up, smearing blood onto my glove. Dammit. I’d hoped it was just a fluke. Clearly I’m still far from a hundred percent. But right now, that’s not important.

  “It’s suicide. There are God only knows how many of them and only one of you. One wounded you.”

  “Even wounded, I am worth at least five machines. Six on a good day.”

  The joke upsets me for some reason. My eyes burn.

  “No,” I state firmly. “Samuel, tell him.”

  But Samuel, with his apologetic-doe look, is all reason. “It’s Ulrich’s call, Rhona. He’s right. Someone has to stay back or we’ll all die.”

  I refuse to let cooler heads prevail when it means death for one of us. I look helplessly at Ulrich. “There has to be another way.”

  “If they take you alive…” Samuel begins to say.

  “They will not take me alive,” Ulrich assures him.

  In the lull as the machines reload, Ulrich shoves both Samuel and me in the direction of the shallow end of the embankment, where it might be possible to climb.

  “Go!” he commands.

  My body betrays me, my sense of fight or flight overriding everything else. Forced back into the open, we probably have only seconds to get on top of the embankment, or we’ll find our graves beneath it. With one push, Ulrich took away all other options and condemned himself.

  Stupid, selfless bastard.

  The embankment is hard, making for an easier climb, although I still slip twice. It’s possible Samuel was a squirrel in another life, because he scrambles up with surprising agility, then gives me a hand. His timing is impeccable. As the machines come within sight and the snow beneath us lights up with red dots—targeting reticles—we’re out of range.

  I have time enough for one last look at Ulrich, and I make the most of it, trying to memorize his face and posture. I don’t want to forget his bravery.

  I don’t want to forget him.

  Ulrich sees me, nods, and crosses an arm over his chest. I don’t recognize the sign, but I guess its meaning. It breaks my heart. Samuel tugs at my sleeve just as I’m returning the gesture. We have to go.

  We run. And run. There’s nothing else we can do but run. All of our supplies are back at the camp, along with most of our weapons. And Ulrich.

  The bullet storm is behind us now, all but a murmur in the distance. As we stop to catch our breath, it ceases. My heart replaces the sound with drumming of its own, beating erratically. For every second of silence, I’m forced to wonder if Ulrich’s been killed. Now.

  Or now.

  Or now.

  It’s maddening.

  Then there’s an explosion and I don’t have to wonder anymore.

  “No half measures,” I whisper to myself.

  It’s impossible to know how many machines Ulrich took with him. I don’t doubt he took some, but it’s safer to assume the survivors will resume the hunt shortly.

  Samuel and I make our way through the forest quickly, shrouded in grief and morning mist. He doesn’t say anything, and neither do I. There’s no time for eulogies. I remind myself I didn’t know Ulrich well enough to give him a proper one anyway.

  Still, I rub my cheeks when Samuel isn’t looking, sucking in a shaky breath. In my present body, I hardly knew Ulrich, and barely liked him, but my old soul must have recognized a friend, because I’m infected with mourning.

  Samuel has it worse than me. I know he’d never compare suffering, but it’s true. His willowy frame seems even less balanced as we move, at times stumbling over nothing. There’s something in his expression, some lack of comprehension. With his free hand, he keeps pinching his nose shut and swiping at his eyes.

  “I’m sorry. About Ulrich,” I say.

  He nods and keeps nodding for a long time. His lips are pressed tight together, sewn shut over a possible spillage of sorrow.

  “He was my friend,” he finally says. The little smile he offers at this small realization is destructively sad. “I don’t…I don’t think he knew that. At least, I don’t think I ever told him. Isn’t that strange? We worked together for years, and I never told him I considered him a friend.”

  “Well, Ulrich didn’t strike me as the kind of person who would spend a lot of time writing ‘Samuel plus Ulrich equals BFFs forever’ in a spiral notebook.” It’s weird to be talking about him in the past tense. He was such a present-tense person.

  Samuel chuckles once, nodding again. He’s having trouble speaking.

  “Besides, I’m sure he knew. Actions speak louder than words, after all. And, uh, friendship is a two-way street. There are other fish in the sea? Let me know when you start to feel better and I’ll know I’ve hit your aphorism sweet spot.”

  His lips twitch with another smile, or maybe a grimace. “Thanks for trying to cheer me up.”

  “Is it working?”

  “Yeah,” he says, though his eyes are still red and watery. I know he’s lying, but pretend to be duped and stop forcing conversation on him. I don’t know what I was hoping to achieve through my graceless attempt at therapy; it was the equivalent of slapping a bandage on a sucking wound and then shuffling the patient along. Everyone’s fine. Nothing to see here. But this is not a shallow hurt. It needs to be experienced, exorcised, felt, in all its penetrating sadness. Both Samuel and Ulrich deserve this much: a brief interval to howl.

  —

  In the end, time accomplishes no healing, but it does bring us to the edge of the forest.

  Small relief. We have nowhere left to go.

  “What are the chances help will arrive within the next five minutes?” I ask Samuel, staring ahead at the snowy wasteland.

  He squints up at the gray sky. I look with him. Thin cloud cove
r magnifies the sunlight, making it unbearably bright after we’ve been in the forest shade. “Truthfully? Not good.”

  “How about untruthfully?”

  The ghost of a smile graces his lips, but it’s gone too soon.

  “Well, we can’t stay here,” I point out. “And there’s no cover out there.”

  “We can skirt the tree line, head farther south. That’s really the only option I see.”

  “Will help still be able to find us?”

  “Yeah,” he says, but doesn’t explain how.

  “All right. South it is, then.”

  Several times during our trek I imagine I hear the machines whirring, and have to repress the urge to fire blindly into the tree line. There’s nothing I’d like to do more right now than get my hands on one of those glorified toaster ovens and rip out its core processor. Logically, I know it won’t do any good—it won’t bring Ulrich back—but I’m angry. I’m angry at the machines and the world that created them. I’m angry at Ulrich’s stubbornness, and his willingness to die for something in me I’m not sure is even there anymore. I’m angry at myself for being unable to do anything.

  Again.

  That word, along with the dull ache in my chest, summons the ghost of my mother: her graying hair cropped short, the same way it looked on the day she died.

  I have a single, clear memory of that day. It’s the Monday after the governors of Arizona, California, Nevada, and New Mexico have all declared a state of emergency for their respective states. The morning news is showing live footage of the capitol—not a large, white monument as in Washington, D.C., but a squat, terra-cotta-colored building. A dark-bronze statue of children holding hands glints in the sunlight out front, and a reporter is standing in front of it, discussing what provisions lawmakers are implementing in order to prevent the same tragedy that happened in Phoenix from happening here.

  From behind the safety of a white stone barricade, police officers in riot gear patrol a line of agitated men and women. I glimpse slight movement behind their visors—eyes sweeping back and forth. They’re more afraid of the people here than any technological threat elsewhere.