Cryo-Man (Cryo-Man series, #1) (15 page)

             
One shot is fired, one human tumbles off a pile of rubble several hundred feet from the building. It doesn’t seem to matter how fast the humans can move when dealing with these sharpshooters.

             
“Everyone hide!” I yell, my voice booming across the broken lands.

             
I’m glad to see the humans do as I say. The cracks between the rubble are large enough for them to squeeze between. In fact, there’s probably enough room for them to move among the lower parts of the rubble and never have to walk across larger pieces of debris on top. It’s certainly better for them to stay out of the robots’ view, though I’m suddenly the only one visible for the band of assassins. Their eyes turn on me and I can tell they’re trying to figure out what I am or if I’m a threat to them. I guess calling out a warning to the humans didn’t endear me to the robots.

             
Several more robots show up at the window and begin to pile out. I don’t know what decision they’ve made about me but I don’t hang around to find out. I start to run but no sooner take a few steps when small sparks flash against the concrete near my feet. The robots are shooting at me. Sparks get closer and I hear the ping of a bullet bounce off my leg. The robots are quickly adjusting to my speed and it won’t be long until one of their shots slams into my power core.

             
I spot a large crack among the debris and leap down, out of view. I’m sure the robots have tracked my movements and will reach me in a matter of minutes so I squirm my way through the lower areas of debris, trying to get farther away from the spot where I disappeared from view. I push my way through tight squeezes and again feel like a cave-in could bury me at any moment. With the sun dipping and the sky turning a dark shade of purple, even less light reaches me than the last time I was below the debris surface. But I see smaller pockets of space opening into wider tunnels, undoubtedly dug out by human hands at some point.

Thunderous footsteps from assassin bots echo down here and I sense them getting closer. No matter how quiet I try to be – no matter how the larger debris above me muffles the sound of my movements – I can’t stop making noise; I might as well be playing with a jackhammer. Since the humans ducked into the cracks, I haven’t heard a sound from them. If they survived in this world for so long, they must’ve learned to move like ghosts.

The robots are getting closer and I frantically search for a hiding spot. A large crevice presents itself along a wall of rubble. I squeeze my way into it, suddenly wishing E had attached me to a smaller model of robot. It’s not the greatest hiding spot – and part of my massive metallic frame sticks out – so I reach my arm out and grab some bigger pieces of debris, which I drag in front of the crevice’s entrance. I spend a few minutes carefully constructing a makeshift wall to shield as much of myself as I can. It threatens to tip over once it’s a few feet high so I leave it alone and pray it does the job.

I wait anxiously. It’s strange not to hear the pounding of my heart or heavy breathing though that makes it easier to track the robots. I try to remain as still as possible but turn my head enough to see out of my hiding place. It’s dark down here and I wish I had night vision; I imagine that’s an upgrade the assassin bots possess. Among the sound of crushing footsteps, I hear the slightest rustling of debris bits nearby. I’m afraid my rubble shield is crumbling but when my eyes adjust to the darkness, I see a few small rocks skittering to the ground just across the way.

The robots aren’t close enough to cause this so I study the wall of debris a few feet from my hiding spot. To my surprise, I see a pair of eyeballs staring back at me from within one of the cracks. I fight the urge to recoil, not that I could move farther back anyway. The eyes are much lower to the ground than me and appear vaguely familiar. But it’s not until they widen in fear that I realize they belong to the young boy from the apartment building. I raise a robotic finger toward my lips as a sign to be quiet. I don’t know if he understands but he doesn’t move or make a sound as the robots get closer.

Unfortunately, I hear a small gasp and spot a second set of eyes higher than the first. The boy’s mother looks at me and I already see her moving out of their hiding spot. In that instant, I have a terrible feeling what’s going to happen next, a hopeless dread that I won’t be able to stop it. I shake my head, hoping it’s enough to keep her quiet. It’s not. She steps out and rushes toward me, her spear raised.

“Leave us alone!” she screams, her voice penetrating the darkness.

“Be quiet, they’ll hear you,” I say, though it’s too late to prevent that now.

She doesn’t stop and begins to jab at me with the point of her spear, knocking down the debris shielding me. The spear clangs off my metallic body, harmless at first except for the noise we’re making. As the robots rush toward us, so too does the spear’s tip get closer to my power core. I push out of the crevice, causing more debris to shift around us.

The robots converge and I know they’ll be here in seconds. The woman still frantically attacks me; there’s no reasoning with her even though it makes no sense for me to quiet her if I meant her harm. I swat aside her crude spear and try to push her back into the shadows. She struggles in my grasp, even as I drag her toward her hiding spot. I duck through another crevice, this one hidden better among the debris and much larger than mine. If I could just get her to shut up, we’d have a chance to avoid detection.

But she’s out of control and punches me with her bare hands – accomplishing nothing more than breaking her own fingers – until I let go. As the shadow of more robots looms above, the woman rushes out of her hiding spot and retrieves her primitive spear. I remain hidden in the shadows as she turns toward me with her weapon and begins to yell.

“Get away from my – ”

A blast of gunfire interrupts her words. Dozens of bullets thud into her body. She collapses in a bloody heap as the squad of robots climbs down from the top of the rubble field. I freeze in place, watching from the shadows as metallic killers circle her body. If I could help I would – at least that’s what I
hope
I’d do – but there’s no point now. Her chest heaves and blood gurgles from her mouth. She’s a very tough woman to cling to life for this long but not even the best doctors in the world could keep her alive much longer.

I sense but don’t hear movement behind me and turn just in time to see the small boy trying to rush around me. I instinctively grab him before he can show himself to the assassins; I doubt they treat human children differently than human adults. I hold my robotic hand over his mouth but I soon wish I’d covered his eyes instead.

The circle of robots fire mercilessly into the woman’s body. The tiny boy whimpers in my arms but his body relaxes.

“Please be quiet,” I whisper, hoping the robots can’t hear over the sound of their gunfire.

I slowly inch us backward into the shadows until neither of us can see out of the hiding spot. The soft whirring of my moving parts sounds like beating drum in my head though I know it’s not as loud as I think. The guns have quieted. I’m not sure if the robots will sense the boy’s heartbeat among all this metallic rubble so I place him on the ground and lay over him as a shield, careful not to put any weight down on him. The boy doesn’t fight it, nor does he make any more noise. I imagine he was raised to be a survivor, which he proves to be now.

I turn to see the shadow of several robots looming just outside our hiding spot. If any of them step inside, the boy and I have no chance. But just when I think our discovery is inevitable, the robots move on. I don’t move, nor does the boy, for several long minutes as the sound of robotic footsteps fades into the distance.

For the first time since approaching the building, I allow myself a moment to think I’m safe. As I crawl off the boy, I suddenly realize my amount of energy has taken a serious hit since the sun’s gone down. I’d started thinking my supply would be endless but now I realize that was wishful thinking. I remember E’s advice to go into shutdown mode as early as possible to avoid a longer recharging time but now clearly isn’t the right moment.

The boy stands and tries to walk around me. I block his path.

“Let me go,” the boy says, the first time I’ve heard him speak. “They’re gone. I have to check on my mother.”

“I don’t think you should see – ”

But the boy scrambles around me, my reaction time slowed as my energy has waned. I want to stop him but he reaches his mother in the matter of seconds, kneels beside her mutilated body. The boy stares at her, his horribly disfigured face skewed in grief. He doesn’t shed a tear; I’m not sure if he can. I approach the boy to comfort him – wondering if this was how my son reacted after my death – but he spins and throws a large chunk of concrete, hitting one of my solar panels. It ricochets off but not before I hear a cracking sound.

“Leave me alone,” the boy snaps.

“Shhh, the robots aren’t that far away,” I plead.

“I don’t care,” the boy says. “Because of you, she’s dead. Now get away from me, get away from her!”

The boy is inconsolable and while I want to be there for him, doing so might result in death for both of us. Though I’m not proud of it, I retreat into the hiding spot to respect the boy’s privacy and – more importantly – to shut him up. I scavenge for supplies that fell to the ground, finding only a few dented old cans. I know they’re important for E’s survival but I can’t help wondering if they’re the reason so many humans ended up dead.

Once darkness falls, I check back on the boy, who hasn’t moved from his mother’s side. A small bit of moonlight filters through the rubble but not nearly enough to provide any sort of charge for my body. I know E needs me back at the facility but I can’t risk running out of power along the way.

“I want to help you,” I tell the boy. Though he doesn’t acknowledge my presence, he also doesn’t yell, which is at least a start. I hope he’s calmed enough to listen to my offer. “I know a shelter where you’ll be safe, away from the poisons in the air. It’s not much but it’s better than living among the rubble. I’ll take you there if you’ll let me, I’ll keep you safe from now on. Would you let me do that?”

The boy doesn’t answer, though his tiny shoulders sag ever so slightly. I give him a moment to digest my offer before continuing.

“My power supply needs to recharge; I need to shut down for a while but I promise it won’t be long,” I say. “Once I’m back, we can find a nice burial place for your mom and then we can leave. Does that sound good?”

Still no response. I feel my power quickly draining. The more time I waste talking, the longer it will take to recharge.

“Please don’t wander too far away,” I say. “Take all the time you need with her but then come back into the hiding spot with me.”

I finally hear the boy’s quiet sobs. I step forward to place a comforting hand on his shoulder but I doubt my robotic fingers would do anything but make him think of the monsters that killed his mother. Though I feel awful about leaving him, I retreat back into the pile of debris and open the tiny latch to my power switch. I push the button to power down. In the quiet moment as my systems shut off, I hear the distant sound of gunfire and pounding footsteps…

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

             
The same memory of the young boy pervades my dream, the same laughter and chase, the same collapse and phone call, the same urgency about the box…

             
The Heaven Box…

             
When my robotic body powers back on and I return to consciousness, the last mention of the box is heavy on my mind. I knew what the Heaven Box was in my dreams – I knew how important it was – but when I’m awake, I can’t seem to get into the mind of the man I once was. I’m becoming increasingly frustrated each time I wake. I want to flip my power switch to think more about the box but know I wouldn’t remember by the time I came back on.

             
My eyes slowly focus after the recharge. It’s still dark enough that I barely see a thing within my hiding spot. I immediately turn and look for the disfigured boy but he’s nowhere to be seen. I know right away that he’s gone; the missing pile of supplies is all the proof I need. But when I look down at my hands, I see several cans jammed between my clenched fingers. Though the boy spoke as if he blamed me for his mother’s death, a part of him obviously recognized that I wasn’t with the other robots. Seeing that he left me even a few cans makes it more disappointing that I couldn’t help him.

             
The food isn’t much – and I never did find any medical supplies – but it’ll have to be enough for now. E will need his strength to endure more time while I’m out searching again for medicines. I listen for noise but there’s nothing – no pounding of robots, no shuffling of humans. I emerge from deep within the hiding spot and find the boy
and
his mother’s body gone. The only evidence of recent slaughter is a pool of blood and several bullet fragments littering the ground. I consider launching a search for the boy but I’m sure he’s long gone. Besides, he’s already made up his mind about a possible future with me.

             
I slowly climb back to the top of the rubble field. My whirring is the only sound in the night. I hadn’t noticed much of a haze when it was sunny but the moonlight seems to drench this area in an unnaturally foggy glow. The building remains standing like a beacon of hope but I wonder if that’s false hope. Something in the back of my mind tells me to ignore it and return home but the allure of searching the upper floors – even if I find just a few more things to take back to E – is too strong to ignore.

Keeping a close watch for lingering robots, I head toward the building, finding more of it destroyed than before. I climb through the window of the humans’ apartment and search the floor for supplies that may have been dropped during our hasty escape. Moonlight trickling through the window barely provides enough illumination to see. I find a few cans strewn about but they’re all crushed, undoubtedly trampled upon by the robots. My search of the destroyed apartment proves fruitless so I head out into the hallway, hoping the robots ignored the building’s upper floors.

              I locate the stairwell but hesitate to climb the steps. The thought of my last trip up stairs gives me pause and it doesn’t help that a huge hole is blown into one of the walls, though at least it lets in some moonlight. I start to head up but don’t make it halfway to the second floor when I spot something criss-crossing the stairs. Wires, lots of them at foot level, only visible in darkness because the moonlight shines on them at just the right angle.

I’m not sure what these wires do or if the humans or robots set them up. I
should
turn around and leave – not risk it – but I find myself picking up a block of concrete, retreating to the corner of the stairwell and tossing the debris toward the wires. The explosion rocks the building and throws me back against the wall. It’s strange how I’m so severely jolted yet feel no pain, though my brain rattles in my skull and my vision momentarily blackens. I hear the deep rumble of the building’s foundation crumbling but the few cracking noises made by my body are even more concerning.

Heavy debris starts to fall all around; the building doesn’t have much time. I stand up and try to rush away but my movements have slowed significantly, as if my feet are stuck in mud. My vision flickers again and I only hear snippets of the crashing sounds around me. Something is wrong with me. I look up in time to see a huge piece of debris plunging toward me. Even if I’d had my human body, my reaction time would’ve been quick enough to dodge it. But my movements are lethargic now despite my recent recharge. I step aside just in time to avoid being flattened, though the concrete catches me on the shoulder and knocks me to the floor.

Debris rains from above, smashing against the floor. I need to get out of here quick. As I force my heavy body to stand, a smaller piece smacks me on the back, threatening to knock me over again. But my vision and hearing suddenly clear as a jolt of energy courses through me. With my power and strength returned, I focus on getting the hell out. I glimpse another large block of broken concrete plunging toward me but I swat it out of the air, reducing it to smithereens. I spot the huge hole in the stairwell wall and head toward it, barely dodging doom along the way. I leap through the opening, out into the night, plunging several stories before landing atop the debris field.

I turn to watch the building fall apart and slide to the ground. An eruption of dust and debris clouds the area. I glance down at my hands; somehow I’ve held onto my few cans, though they have more dents in them, these ones the size of my pincer fingers. The rumbling echoes across the quiet night. It must sound like a dinner bell for any robots within miles but I won’t stay around to be their meal. I think of CIFPOL and its location suddenly appears in my mind. The GPS tells me where to go and I begin running in that direction.

At first I sprint at full speed, leaping across the rubble top, putting as much distance as possible between me and the collapsed building. But I feel my power supply draining too quickly. I’m still hours from home and realize I’ll never reach it unless I pace myself. Once I’m well clear of the building, I slow to the pace of a normal human, which now feels like a crawl. At least I continue having an easier time than a human would stomping across the rubble.

I keep an eye out for any sign of movement, robot or human. Several times, I hear the distant skittering of debris that has nothing to do with the rubble I run atop. Every sound worries me. I sense I’m being watched from within a nearly infinite number of hiding spots. But no robots appear along my route meaning my watchers must be humans, who are in no rush to show themselves.

Hours seem to pass painfully slow, though not as slowly as the miles that separate me and the Cryonics Institute. E’s stories and warnings about the surface have come true and with each step I take, I hate being here more. I know I’ll have to come back to search for more supplies but I won’t be so naïve about my ability to stay safe by merely using my mind. I’ll let E fit me with a weapon; for that matter, I’ll let him make any upgrade to my robotic body that will keep me alive during future missions.

The sky begins to lighten as the sun rises. No matter how slowly I’ve been moving, my energy still drained during the night so the first morning rays absorb into my solar panels and make me stronger, let me run faster. But before I feel much better, the sunlight dims and a heavy cloud cover rolls in. It’s not long before the rain starts, pattering lightly on my glass dome at first before quickly turning into a downpour.

The rain causes the rubble field to become slick. The slower I move, the more difficult it is to keep my footing. I slip several times, once falling between the cracks of large concrete slabs. The rest of my journey across the Concrete Wasteland is miserable and seems never-ending. When I reach the one-mile mark away from CIFPOL, the sky finally clears. I hope the sun shining upon the land near my home is a sign of good things to come…

Just as I begin to search the land for CIFPOL’s stairwell, I sense movement from the debris. I freeze at first and nearly call out, expecting it to be E emerging from the rubble, worried about me taking so long to return. But a glint of sunlight reflects off metal and I instinctively dive into the nearest opening among the debris.

I peek out of my hiding spot, ashamed that this is the action I took. An assassin bot climbs out of the rubble near the entrance to the facility’s stairwell. Part of me wants to attack but I have no idea what I’m going against or if there are more of them. Besides, the robot slowly turns in the opposite direction so there’s no point risking myself if it’s leaving. Still, my heart – at least the part of my mind that once controlled the feeling of my heart – clenches with fear and worry for E.

I can’t stay in this hiding spot any longer. I try to crawl my way beneath the rubble surface but there aren’t cleared paths like near the building. Each time I move a few feet closer to the facility, I glance above the surface and see the robot still standing in place. I try to force my way through a tighter spot and end up knocking over a pile of debris, nearly burying myself alive. Luckily, I’m still hidden in shadows when the robot turns toward the noise.

It’s clearly an assassin bot but there’s one main difference from the ones I’ve fought so far. Like me, this robot has a human head within its glass dome. I don’t know whether to feel relieved that it’s a hybrid or jealous that E created another like me. Either way, I have a bad feeling looking at the robotic human and remain in my hiding spot, even as smaller debris squeezes around me. Unlike me, this new hybrid has a weapon attached to his arm, which is raised and slowly moves from side to side, searching for something to shoot. Even if I emerged from the debris, I’d probably be shot before the hybrid realized I was like him.

The robotic man turns away and takes off, running and leaping with ease. He accelerates so quickly that I barely track him a few seconds before he’s gone from view. I don’t know where he’s going but hopefully he’s off to search for supplies, too. It would be nice to stay with E and nurse him back to health without having to leave every few days.

Climbing out of the collapsed debris expends a lot of my waning energy. When I reach the surface and cross the last few hundred feet toward the facility entrance, I’m disappointed to see that the cleared section of hallway is nowhere to be found, apparently filled in with debris. I don’t know if I caused this when I left the facility – or if the new hybrid purposely created the cave-in to better hide the entrance from intruders – but the final part of my journey will be just as cumbersome as the rest.

I place the cans of food aside and start to dig. It’s a slow process that prolongs my stay on the surface several more hours. I don’t know if the new robo-man meant to bury the entrance, but he did such a good job that E never would’ve been able to escape the facility if he wanted. I finally reach the door and open it to the red glow of the stairwell. If I could sigh in relief I would; I didn’t realize how comforting it was to be at the facility until this moment.

“I’m back!” I call out, my voice echoing down countless flights of stairs. I don’t know if the sound will carry all the way to E. For that matter, I don’t know if he’d be able to tell the difference between my voice and the other new hybrid.

I descend the stairwell slower than when I climbed them, careful to avoid the sections that already collapsed and those on the verge. I’m much more anxious to reach E than I’d been to leave him. Once I pass the dangerous areas, I leap down the stairs one level at a time until I reach the bottom. I push through the busted hallway door so hard that the last hinge snaps free and the door crashes to the floor.

“Sorry about that,” I call out. “It’s just me. I brought back supplies, not much but it’s something for now.”

Nobody answers and while there are countless reasons why that could be, I immediately sense that something bad happened. I rush down the empty hallway. Everything looks relatively normal; maybe
too
normal. The broken robots no longer litter the floor where I left them and E is nowhere to be found, not even when I call his name a second time.

Farther down the hallway – much closer to the cryo-room – I notice more damage to the walls, more parts of the CIFPOL sign broken off. I can’t remember if the damage is new or it was caused during yesterday’s assassin attack. When I see the door to the sterile room broken to pieces – one part of the room I
know
I didn’t break – I know there’s reason to worry. The assassin bots never made it this far during their attack and the smears of blood streaking the floor definitely weren’t here before.

“E! Where are you?” I yell, my voice booming so loud that there’s no way he could miss it. When he still doesn’t answer, I rush from room to room, finding the sterile room empty, the robot room empty, his bedroom empty. I find drops of blood leading toward the control room. When I open the door I see why.

              E sits in the chair near the holographic computer, leaned back as far as he can go without sliding off. His grotesque face is badly beaten and covered in blood, yet his expression is more serene than I’ve ever seen. I know right away that he’s dead.