Visions of the Future (62 page)

He lifted the weapon, but in a blur the android seized it from his hands, and bent the barrel backward. Auntie lifted her bow. The arrow went clattering, the bow broken in two.

“Now we may discuss,” the android said. “What did you want to say?”

Auntie said, “You condemn us to death.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. My calculations indicate a possibility of success.”

“What possibility?” Johnny spat.

“Point one percent.”

“One in a thousand?” Auntie picked up the pieces of her bow, tucked them under her arm. “Why don’t you just prune us now and be done with it?”

One in a thousand. “Really that low?” Kaybe asked.

“There are many unknown variables. That is my high estimate.”

“Oh for—have you gone mad? Can androids go mad?” Johnny asked Auntie. “Why did we shelter her all these years? So she could betray us?”

“I betray no one, Johnny Come Lately,” the android said. “Now. If you will excuse us?”

“Where do you advise us to go?” Auntie asked.

“Far away from here as fast as you can.”

“What are the odds of our survival?”

The android lay a hand on Kaybe’s shoulder. “Better than ours, I should think.”

Kaybe parted from her new friends, their bitterness leaving a harsh taste in her mouth. Are we doing the right thing? Is there really no other option? What else could we do? But she did not know the answers to these questions. She knew only that her feet compelled her to follow the android.

They walked for hours before halting.

“Dawn soon,” the android said. “We will hide during the day, and travel by night.”

Kaybe found a hollow log and climbed inside, feet first, shivering. “How far is it?”

“From here?” The android gazed up at the forest canopy. “Forty seven point two miles.”

“You know its location that precisely?” Kaybe asked. “The camp, I mean?”

“I have been there,” the android said. “I escaped from there. Once.”

“Escaped from the camp! But that must have been—”

“More than forty years ago.” The creek burbled in the distance. Birds chirped. A purple glow filled the eastern sky.

“Escaped.” Kaybe rested her head on a patch of moss. “What did they do to you? Was it awful?”

The android’s face was expressionless. “They wanted to hurt me. And they did.”

“Oh.”

Neither of them said any more. The android sat on the hollow log, and Kaybe closed her eyes and willed herself to sleep.

At dusk they set off again, and covered twenty miles. Kaybe drank from the creek when she was thirsty, but there was no food to be found, and when morning came again she was starving.

“What do we do?” she asked. “Do we catch a squirrel and cook it or something? I mean,
you
don’t eat, but—”

“No! No fires.” The android pointed.

Off through the trees Kaybe could just make out a crumbling highway. “Yeah, but no one uses—”

And at that moment, a car—an actual moving vehicle—drove past. A group of men sat inside the car. A swarm of dragonflies accompanied them. The men dressed all in white. More than that she could not tell from this distance.

“I don’t understand, I thought all the fossil fuel reserves were gone ages ago.”

“There’s always a little bit left. Those were members of the Department of Austerity. They control the supply.”

“They control the camps as well?”

The android nodded. “They control everything. That matters, anyway.”

Kaybe remembered the fat man from the Department of Austerity who had visited their classroom. Seemed like ages ago, now. What had he said?

“Innovation is the way forward! We need new ideas, fresh ideas, strong ideas, ideas that will change the world!”

That’s what he’d said. Why would he say that if he didn’t mean it? Maybe she could find the man again. Tell him about her discovery.

“Sleep,” the android said. “I will see what I can find for you to eat.”

This time Kaybe found no shelter, but leaned back against a tree trunk, covered herself with the gossamer black foil, and closed her eyes.

She had the strangest dream. Men in white stood over her, arguing.

“Who is she? How did she get here?” one demanded.

“She’s not on the local manifest,” said another.

“So what do we—”

The man’s words broke off in a strangled cry. The android twisted his head from his shoulders and tossed it aside.

Then Kaybe was awake, and she wasn’t dreaming. Three men struggled with the android, a swarm of dragonflies zapping her. Two more men died—one with a punch that punctured his chest, the other’s neck bent an impossible angle—before the android went down.

Oh my God. Oh my God oh my God oh my God! Now what do I do? Are they going to kill me too?

“Thank you for saving me!” she said. “The android kidnapped me from my father. She’s an outlaw!”

The swarm of dragonflies turned to her, hundreds of buzzing drones surrounding her in a sphere.

Don’t even think about trying to escape.

“Did she just say—did you say
android
?” one of the man asked.

“Now do you see? How was I supposed to fight her off? She threatened to rip my head off, too!”

The remaining two men grimaced. Three colleagues lay on the ground, blood pooling on the dead leaves.

“Is it one of ours?” one of the men asked.

“Can’t be. No markings.”

“One of yours?” Kaybe asked. “Do you have androids too?”

“Zip it,” the first man said. “The android rebellion was crushed fifty years ago. Didn’t you study that in school?” He knelt down in front of her, and the swarm of dragonflies parted. “You do go to school, don’t you?”

“Of course I go to school,” she said defensively. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“What school do you go to?”

Dig yourself a hole there,
Kaybe girl. “The android hurt me when she kidnapped me,” she blubbered. “My head hurts. Real bad. She keeps asking me if I know who I am, but I—I can’t remember.”
The blood, the dead bodies… Say something, you idiot!
“Do you know who I am? Can you tell me?”

“Nope, but not hard to find out.” He straightened up. “Come.”

The two men struggled to lift the android, who must have weighed a lot more than she looked. They dragged her to the car and dumped her into the back. The dragonfly swarm followed Kaybe to the vehicle.

“Hop in the back.” The first man got into the car behind the wheel.

“But what if she—she wakes up?” Kaybe asked. “She’ll hurt me!”

“Her circuits are fried until she sees a tech. She’s down for the count.”

“Can’t I sit up front with you?” she pleaded. “Please?”

“Oh for—” The second man made a face. “Get in. Middle seat. Do it now before I change my mind.”

And so they boarded the vehicle and drove off. Kaybe had never been in a car before. Once or twice she’d ridden a horse—although being a townie she was not authorized to own a horse—but this was completely different. The funny levers and knobs, the wheel the man turned, the bumps and holes in the road, some of them very bad. Once or twice she glanced back at the android. She lay there, still, burn marks on her clothes, eyes wide open. In one or two places her skin had burned away, revealing metal-flesh beneath. She knew such things had once existed, but to see it firsthand—the merger of man and machine—gave her a funny feeling inside. It frightened her. She understood the android rebellion, and the human response. Although she felt sorry for her friend. Kaybe felt sure the android would understand.

All around them buzzed the dragonflies. She tried to count them, but they moved in a shimmering cloud. She got to a hundred but could not have counted more than a quarter of the swarm. She had felt their sting, and their bite. Surrounded, the only thing she could do was obey.

That. Or lie.

The car bumped along for a long time. The morning sun had risen and warmed the autumn landscape. The colors of the trees took her breath away. Autumn had always been Kaybe’s favorite season… until now.

The road emerged from the woods into a wide meadow. A farmhouse stood in the middle, surrounded by a shimmering wall of dragonfly drones. Better than a fence. The car slowed, and the wall of drones parted to let them pass. They halted in front of the barn, and the man to Kaybe’s right jumped out and drew open the heavy wooden door. They drove inside, the car stopped, and for a moment, all was quiet.

That’s when the demons attacked.

They seemed like demons to Kaybe at the time. They were human—but not human. Huge, misshapen heads, bodies twisted and contorted, one shoulder larger than the other, giant gills under the chin, skin red and scaly, claws where their fingernails had been.

Kaybe shrank back in her seat and cried out. The two men laughed. The demons stopped, stared.

“Meet Human 2.0,” one of the men said. “Newer, better, faster, stronger.”

“And it’s about bloody time, I should say.”

“What… are they?” she asked.

“An improved version of humanity. Guaranteed to survive when the rest of all fail.”

Kaybe slid across the seat and got out of the car. The nearest monster shuffled forward when it saw her. Eight foot tall it was. Its eyes were sad.

“Can it—can it talk?”

The monster opened its mouth, but no sound came out.