The Human Farm (The Human Farm Trilogy Book 1) (10 page)

24 

Dawn made her way out of the woods and headed back along the road towards the town Lili had spotted when they were headed to the big city. The town was only about ten miles from the edge of the woods and would not take long for her to walk on her own. One of the first things she had noticed once she entered the small town was how neat and clean it was compared to most of the small towns they had passed along the way.   

              This town looked as though it had a lot of upkeep done to it on a regular basis. Dawn knew she would have to be very careful in this area, there could very well be other A.I.’s around. She stuck to the side streets and looked into some of the homes, the homes looked vacant and had very little as far as furnishings in them.

              She made her way over to the local sheriff’s department and went around to the back of the building. She found a window and looked inside to be sure there was no one inside. The place seemed to be empty so she went to the door in the back and opened it cautiously, she crept inside peeking around every corner. The building was empty, but what she saw in the main office area took her by surprise. Standing in the corner was an A.I. power charging unit and plugged into it was a spare battery.

              Dawn was not sure what was going on here, was not sure why the A.I. we’re patrolling and manning a station in such a small remote town like this. She looked around until she found the weapons locker which was stocked with rifles and ammo. Dawn broke the lock and grabbed several guns and plenty of ammo, she also took the spare battery. It may not have a full charge but it was bound to have more than what she had left in hers and it could get her to Philadelphia so they could get more batteries.   
   

              Dawn thought if she could find a means of transporting things she could grab the charging station and possibly a generator as well and most of their problems would be solved. She dumped the weapons and ammo into a sack and tossed them over her shoulder, she went to the front window and looked out to be sure no one was around and then opened the door, slowly sliding outside.   

              She pulled the door shut behind her and started walking down the road, just as she was about to turn down another street she saw two A.I. units walking towards her. It was far too late for her to duck behind anything, she knew the moment she had spotted them they had spotted her as well.   

              “Stop intruder,” one of them yelled as they ran forward.

              “What unit are you? What are you doing in our sector?” the other asked.   

              Dawn knew something weird was going on with these two units, they talked different to most A.I. units, and they talked more like she did. “My name is Dawn, I was a scrapper from New York City.” 

              The units looked at her for a moment and both came to the same conclusion at the same time. “You are aware, like us. You have human emotions and feelings, you have a soul?” one of them asked.   

              “I do, somehow I was gifted with a human soul, just as the two of you must have been,” she said as she set her loot on the ground. “I was heading to Washington D.C. with some human friends that escaped from the farm in New York. They are trying to find answers as to why the mainframe is keeping their people on the farms instead of letting them back into the world above,” she said.

              “You have humans with you?” they asked.   

“They are not here with me, they are at a camp we set up deep in some woods where it is safe from the eyes of the drones. They wish to try and free their people and I have agreed to help them. We could use some more help, if you are willing.”

“We would be most interested in meeting these humans, we have not met any humans since we got these souls, once we started feeling these emotions we severed the connection from the mainframe and left the city, and we came here and repaired this place. We knew of nothing else to do. My name is Reggie,” said the one unit.   

Reggie was a blue haired, blue eyed unit very similar to what Dawn looked like before she had modified herself with the human looking features except for the joints. The other unit looked pretty much the same with the exception of the hair and eye color which were green.   

“My name is Bard,” he said. 

“We will need to take supplies along with us, like the recharge station and a generator if there is one around, perhaps a cart we can push them in easily as well,” said Dawn.   

“Yes, we have the stuff you need at the station, a generator in the garage as well as a shopping cart that we took from a grocery store.” said Reggie.   

So the three went back to the station, grabbed the cart and loaded the generator and the charging station into the cart, Dawn also grabbed the remaining guns and ammo for the others to use and they headed back out of town and started the walk back to the woods. The walk would take a bit longer now they were loaded down with equipment and a cart.   

They made it to the edge of the woods in about two hours, it was a bit rough going trying to push the cart through the forest and in the end they wound up having to lift and carry it, luckily their A.I. strength helped out a lot. They made it to the clearing where the camp was set up and as they entered Lili screamed, “Guardians,” and ran behind a tree.

“No Lili, Kev, it is alright. They are friends, I found them in the town, and they are like me. They possess human souls,” said Dawn   

Lili peeked out from behind the tree and Kev stood up from the ground, they looked the guardians over and slowly walked over to them. “This is Bard and Reggie, Bard, Reggie, these are my human friends, Lili and Kev.”

“It is nice to meet you, you are the first humans we have talked to since we started having feelings and emotions. We are still not sure what these feelings mean or how to interpret them but we try each day to understand them,” said Bard

Lili let out a smile, “It’s nice to meet you as well, I’m sure I can help you figure them out. I seemed to have no problem telling Dawn all about the many different emotions and feelings humans have,” she said.   

Lili walked off to the side of the camp with Bard and Reggie, chatting away about emotions and feelings. “Kev, it looks as if we will not be needing to go into the city after all, when I found these two they had a charging station as well as a generator that we can hook it up to. I can charge my battery tonight. I also found they had a few spare batteries so they could charge and swap them out without having to have any down time.”

“That’s great, now we can work on getting the camp in order and make plans to go to D.C. and find this mainframe you mentioned,” said Kev.

“That will not be as easy as you wish it to be. The mainframe will be heavily guarded by A.I. units. Getting into the city itself will be difficult enough but getting to the mainframe, which is in a place called the Whitehouse, will be far more difficult,” said Dawn.   

“Yes, but we have more help now. The three of you should be able to get inside, can’t you just walk into the place as if you belonged there?”

“Unfortunately it does not work like that. We need to be connected to the link like the rest, once we connect they would know everything we know and then we would be in trouble,” said Dawn.

“Oh, I see the problem then. We will have to sneak in,” he said.

“Yes, disabling the security systems should be easy enough, but getting past the A.I. patrolling the halls will be a bit harder to do. If even one of them spots us the others will instantly be alerted and come running, we will be overtaken in moments.”

“Then I guess we still have a lot of planning to do before we do anything. Do you know the layout of the building, where the mainframe is and how to get to it?”

“I have the basic plans stored in my head, I will draw a diagram so we can all see and formulate a plan as to what we will do to get into the mainframe,” she said.

25   

With the help of Reggie and Bard they were able to get a decent sized shelter set up as well as a good smoking hut so they could start smoking the bear meat. Dawn took Lili out into the woods and showed her various plants and their roots that were edible as well as berries and nuts that could be foraged. She also pointed out a stream not far away they could use to fill their water jugs for fresh water. They set up the generator and battery charging station inside an old dead tree they hollowed out and covered it to keep out the elements.   

              They dug out a pit they could use for a regular fire for warmth and light at night, and were able to find enough dead wood in the forest to build some basic furnishings for Kev and Lili to use. Now all that was needed was to start the planning. Did they want to first go to D.C. and the mainframe or would it be better to go to Philadelphia, the farm below and try to free more humans. Kev debated that with more humans free it would mean more help in getting into the mainframe in D.C.

              Dawn could understand his reasoning, it would be wise to have more help but it would also be putting more people in danger. It would take time to teach them what they would need to know and to go over a plan. “You are right Kev, we could use the help, but at the same time I do not want to put any more people in danger than we need to. First we’ll need to get to the humans and hope they’ll come with us willingly. If we can get them out of the farm and then teach them to survive out here, and to trust us as you have, then we must hope they can be strong enough to help us get into the city and do what is needed,” said Dawn. 

              “Yes you’re right, but we won’t know if any of this will happen unless we at least try. You helped free Lili because of the emotions and feelings that you gained right?” he asked her. She gave him a nod. “So somewhere inside of you, you want to see the rest of the humans free, as we do, so why not start by freeing some of them and showing them what they really have to live for, then we can put an end to the cold thinking machines that enslave them all underground,” said Kev.   

              “He speaks with a lot of sense,” said Reggie, as he, Bard and Lili sat down next to them. “We should free more humans. The more people we have to help us the better our chances will be of getting to the mainframe and overtaking it.”  

              “But it also has more of a risk of people getting hurt or possibly captured or killed,” said Bard.

              “There is always a possibility of someone getting hurt no matter what we do, isn’t there? We need the numbers, with enough of us we can over-power a guardian unit and take him out,” said Lili.

              “Yes but it is not enough to simply over-power them and take them out, you need to sneak up and take them out before they have a chance to alert others to our presence. If you cannot immediately sever the heads from the bodies, the connection to the mainframe will send out a signal to all A.I. units in the area and we will have more units converging on us than we can handle,” said Dawn.  

              “Then when we have enough free humans, you will need to teach us the best way in which to sever the heads of the guardians, if enough of us know how to do it and can do it properly, then we stand a much better chance,” said Kev.

              “Very well then, we will first go to the farm in Philadelphia and see if we can free as many humans as possible. If they are willing to come then we will bring them here and train them. You will not want to free too many at once, otherwise the A.I. will notice vast amounts of humans missing and will start searching the countryside. It will be best if you get no more than four or five people at one time,” said Dawn.

              They decided they would head to the farm in two days’ time to infiltrate and try to gain the trust of some of the humans there. It was decided that Lili and Dawn should go together, Lili would first make contact with one or two humans and talk to them about the world above and try to introduce them to Dawn, if all went the way they hoped then they would try to get a couple more and bring them on board as well, then they would work on a plan to get them out of the farm.  

              The following day they worked out all the details of how they would get into the farm. The layout of all the farms was pretty much the same once you got through the tunnel systems, so Lili would have no trouble finding her way to the places they would need to go in order to find people. The hardest part would be getting through the tunnels and bypassing the patrols. The A.I.s spent most of the morning teaching Kev and Lili the best way to sneak up behind an A.I. Unit and sever the head. Since they did not have the physical strength to simply pull the head from the body they would need to use a hatchet and would need to make sure that the first swing they took counted, otherwise they would alert the other guardians to their presence. 

              The afternoon they spent making sure they had all the supplies packed and ready to go. They also made sure they had spare batteries charged. It was still another hundred miles to Philadelphia and it would take them at least a day and a half to walk the distance as long as they did not stop too much, they decided they would take the carts with them so that when Kev and Lili needed to sleep they could sleep in the carts. Dawn, Reggie and Bard could easily push them while they slept so they could keep moving without having to stop.

              The following morning Lili and Kev both woke early, they were eager to be on the road and get their plan underway. Lili was happy she was finally able to walk around without the aid of crutches and without any pain throbbing through her ankles.

              The morning was fairly hot so they packed plenty of bottles of water so Kev and Lili could stay hydrated on the long walk to the city. They also had plenty of cooked meat and some of the berries and roots they had gathered from the forest.

Dawn had spotted a drone off in the distance shortly after they’d started walking and they had to detour off the road to find a place to hide for a while until the drone passed on by. It flew over the area doing a sweep, it hovered for several moments and then took off again heading towards the city they were heading to.   

              They managed to get back out onto the road and continued the long walk to the city with the hot sun beating down. For the three A.I. units this was not a problem, they could not get thirsty or dehydrated, for the humans however, thirst, hunger, and the heat could be another problem entirely, they could only hope the weather would cool down.

              They’d been walking non-stop for five hours, Lili and Kev both had sweat pouring off of them, they had both drank several bottles of water to keep themselves hydrated. Finally Reggie suggested they climb into the carts and rest and let them push them for a few hours. The A.I.s could easily push them with no effort and they would be able to get some rest without having to worry about getting heat deprived.  

              They’d managed to walk nearly seventy five miles by nightfall and had only another twenty-five to go. The last twenty five would not take more than a couple of hours so the group decided they would stop and wait until it was early morning before they made their way to the city. Lili and Kev were able to stretch their bodies and get some food. Bard had done some exploring and found a stream nearby. Lili and Kev decided they were going to go and bath, they had not taken a proper bath since they left the farm nearly three weeks ago and they both realized how desperately they needed to be clean, especially after the long hot walk.

              It felt good for the humans to be able to wade into the cool running waters of the stream, granted they had no soap with which they could wash but it helped just to be able to wipe away some of the grime and dust that had accumulated. They made a mental note that the next time they went scavenging they needed to find soap.    

              Once they felt clean and refreshed they joined their friends at the small camping spot they’d set up for the night. They went over the plans once more to be sure everything went as smoothly as possible.