I understand that most of my arguments will only be read by the “intellectuals” and not the public. I hardly care. Advertisement is sufficient persuasion for the idiot, and I act for the betterment of both intellectuals and idiots.
Arnon D’Bvaym
CORTEX SAT AGAINST a wall in the master’s room, head leaned back. He hadn’t washed up yet from changing the master’s bedpan, but he was too tired to do more than sit. Caring for the master was surprisingly strenuous considering the man was in a coma—the medkit had directed him to move the master’s limbs in specific ways and occasionally shift his position, which, among other benefits, mitigated bed sores and muscle atrophy. He had to wash the master’s entire body daily, which embarrassed Cortex, and change the bedding whenever there was a mess, which happened regularly, given that the master’s bed was just a simple floor pallet and a few blankets—not exactly the intended setup for the bedpan they had.
Messengers from the council masters kept banging on the door, demanding the attention of the technomancer, and after a while Cortex had decided to lock the door instead of sending them away. How was he supposed to keep up the charade that everything was fine? Nothing was fine—the master was effectively dead, 64Bit was gone, and Cortex had no idea what he was doing. He could only be glad that nothing had lit on fire, save for his breakfast that morning.
A soft rolling sound announced the presence of the medkit as it wheeled into the room. Its holographic face flashed into existence above its body, indicating that it was about to speak. “Finished caring for the patient?” the medkit asked.
“Yes,” Cortex said, then rubbed the glass port in his forehead. He always felt itchiness around it, and he wondered how 64Bit could stand having both the glass port and the electronic eyes. He was glad that he didn’t feel the wires under his skin itch—that would be maddening.
“I am ready to make my report,” the medkit said.
Cortex opened his eyes, suddenly excited. “Could you figure out why I could control the head?”
“Neither the scanning equipment I have available for your body, nor for the head, could provide that answer,” the medkit AI stated. “Perhaps if I had the equipment to perform a genetic analysis on you, or the equipment necessary to examine the brain-chip that made you a completed technomancer, I could answer. Unfortunately, neither is the case. As for the head, it is a brain in a metal case designed to maintain its homeostasis and receive commands for the rest of the rozie shell. Very small particle batteries provide just enough energy for the head to function on its own. However, the brain shows signs of damage, and how it continues to operate as well as it does is beyond my capability to understand—I don’t have internal data on robotics, computers, or pseudotech, and by all means the brain in that head should not be capable of speech. However, I did make an interesting observation.”
“Did you determine who the head was?” Cortex asked.
The medkit’s holographic head turned side to side. “That’s not my function. The head’s memories are badly decayed, and anything that happened before a week ago is very hazy, or only brief flashes of images, sounds, or ideas. I did observe that the head’s mental facilities degraded at a markedly increased pace the longer that you were away from it. Whatever you did, you restored an impressive amount of its previous self, although temporarily.”
“Thank you,” Cortex said, appreciating the assurance. “I have no idea how I did it.”
“I regret that I am unable to provide further assistance or guidance,” the medkit responded. “But you appear to be very tired—are you getting enough rest?”
Cortex shrugged. “Everything is hard. I don’t feel like I can rest or relax anymore.” He stood and began pacing. “64Bit said that he’d be gone for a while, but I hoped that he’d be back already. I don’t know if I can take this much longer. I feel like I’m going crazy. But what will change when he gets back? Likely, only that he’ll handle the people knocking on the door . . . I know he’ll keep me on bedpan duty.” Cortex groaned. Why did he keep listening to 64Bit? Why wasn’t he allowed to do what he wanted?
The master wheezed in his sleep. Cortex looked at the man, a sinking feeling in his stomach. Cortex had always felt that he was an unnecessary addition to the master’s life, but he had a necessary function now—as a nurse. Even in this, as hard as he might try, Cortex feared that he had nothing to contribute that 64Bit couldn’t do better.
“There appeared to be no visitors at the door when I visited the rozie head,” the AI said. “Does that knowledge help your mental state?”
Shrugging, Cortex walked to the master’s dresser—which, like 64Bit’s and his own, was really just a pile of boxes—and began looking through them, wondering when he would need to change the master’s entire outfit again. He figured that the medkit probably had an answer, but Cortex wasn’t in the mood to ask. Absentmindedly, he said, “I think . . . I think I’m finished. You may power down.”
The medkit rolled to the side of the room again, turned off its holographic head, and retracted its wheels.
Cortex looked at the master. He was sound asleep. Cortex looked back at the dresser and pulled out another box, wondering if he’d find anything interesting, but instead found more robes. Why does he have so many of these things? Cortex wondered in disappointment. He pressed down on the pile of clothes and felt something hard hidden beneath them. Reaching his hand underneath, he pulled out a cloth bag that contained something lumpy. He opened the bag, dumped it on his hand, and saw a small statue. It was of a man, robed and sitting cross-legged, with a palm across his heart, and his other hand in his lap, holding a brain. His eyes were closed.
What’s this? Cortex wondered.
connecting to the binary network rang through Cortex’s mind a moment later.
Startled, Cortex dropped the statue back into the box with the master’s robes. He shook his head. What was that? He had heard the master speak of the Binary before, but he hadn’t really paid attention—he knew that 64Bit had spoken with them over the computer before. Was the master using this to speak with other technomancers? Cortex looked at the master, then back at the statue. He already felt a little guilty for rooting through the master’s things. But would the master even wake again? Cortex lifted the little statue up using the bag that he had found it in. Then he cocked his head.
Distant, quiet, Cortex thought he heard someone, and it sounded nothing like the voice he’d heard when holding the statue. It came from somewhere outside. Normally the noises of Fort didn’t matter to Cortex, but it sounded urgent. He closed his eyes and listened closer. What was that? He heard the sound again, clearer this time—screaming.
An explosion rocked Fort, causing the building to rattle. Startled, Cortex dropped the bag and the statue and ran toward the front door. The medkit also sprang into action and rolled along behind him, the holographic woman’s head forming above it. “I’ll give you positive encouragement, Cortex, while you are running to the front lines to provide medical assistance in an emergency. Should we survive, we’ll make a proper nurse out of you yet.” As they reached the hallway intersection, the medkit turned and rolled toward the front door.
A strange feeling fell upon him, and Cortex ran toward the lab instead of the front door, skidding to a halt in front of the scanner containing the rozie head—it was still in the machine, plugged in, moaning softly. Cortex opened the glass dome that surrounded the head, grabbed it, and ripped off the cables attached to the wires at the base of its neck while solidly commanding, “Play dead.” Cortex ran out of the room and down the hallway, holding the head in both hands. The head remained frozen.
The medkit appeared from around the corner. “You’re going the wrong direction. I believe that the explosion came from the front of the settlement. I will need you to open the door.”
Cortex stared at the head and began to wonder who was controlling whom. This strange, distant feeling that had come over him—he’d felt it several times in the past few days while interacting with the head. It made him want to spend more time with it—and scared him, which is why he had begun to distance himself from the thing. He cried, “Why did I go to you? Of all things? What are you doing to me?”
The head smiled and spoke, its words slurred. “Blood flows through the streets; drink while there is water.”
“You’re completely mad.” Cortex looked around, then thought of the master. What would happen to the man if something truly terrible were happening and Cortex just ran off with a rozie head? Cortex walked into the kitchen and placed the head on a chair. “Don’t move!” he threatened.
The head mumbled, its words unrecognizable.
Cortex ran to the medkit and to the front door, which slowly slid open. He froze and gawked.
In the far distance, the whole front wall of Fort was aflame. The rozie crucified to the wall was now entirely stripped of synthetic flesh; the flames below it and around it seemed to make its metal frame glow like a dying star, its grin somehow leering across the entire settlement. Licking tongues of fire on the wall created long shadows across buildings, turning their irregular roofs into grasping, shadowy hands reaching toward the technomancer’s home in the center of the settlement.
Most astonishing of all, the gates were open. Cortex stared, his jaw agape, at the enormous gates; one leaned against the wall, no longer attached, while the other was pulled open, its wooden sections blazing.
Screaming and gunfire assaulted Cortex’s ears. Many other people were stepping out of their homes, too, confused. Some yelled and ran toward the flame, while others produced knives or other weapons, ready to hold out in front of their homes.
Transfixed, Cortex took in the chaos as a group of scouts led by Nix dashed down the streets. They were shouting something as they ran, which sent men and women into their homes in terror only to emerge a few minutes later with children and all the items they could carry, running toward parts of the wall that weren’t burning.
Cortex felt the flames dancing in his heart as people scattered like chickens. He couldn’t understand what the scouts were saying until they came close enough that he could just catch their yelling over the chaos. Their words brought a chill to his heart, but a strange calm to his head.
“Rozies!” Nix cried. “Rozies! The wall has been breached!”
Cortex moved without thinking. He stepped inside and closed the door, then touched it with his hand and commanded the door to lock.
What am I doing? thought Cortex as he walked into the kitchen and grabbed the head. He then walked to the forge room, set the forge to incinerate, and tossed the head in. The head screamed as Cortex watched, synthetic skin bubbling off its metal skull and then dripping down its face, until its voice speaker gave out. Cortex heard the front door pounding; he ignored it and watched as the rozie’s eyes fried, then bits of steaming brain matter dribbled out to be consumed by the intense heat. Soon, only the skull remained.
He’d disposed of . . . something important, Cortex felt, though he wasn’t sure.
There was a splintering noise, then a slam as the metal front door was knocked from its fittings onto the floor. Heart pounding, but his head feeling an ethereal calm, Cortex stepped out of the forge room and walked toward the sound of pounding feet.
This was all a mess; he was only good at making messes. He didn’t need to be told, for he saw it in the eyes of the master and 64Bit.
And so, Cortex, in a strange way, finally felt at home.
Nix rounded the corner, flanked by two scouts on either side. Face red, breathing heavily, Nix marched up to Cortex, grabbed him by the front of his robes, and slammed him against a wall, then breathed into the boy’s ear.
“The governor believed that the technomancer was in the settlement, that he could save us.” Nix whispered. “But I’m not here to play games, or to wait any longer for the old fool. You show me where he is now, or tell me where he’s gone, and we can dispel the illusion; I’m only here in case I’m wrong and he can do something for the civilians.”
Cortex pointed at the master’s room; the door was still open. Nix dropped him, motioned at the other four scouts, and they approached the door. Cortex landed on his feet and smoothed his robe.
Nix stopped at the door, looking into the room. He spat on the wooden floor, then looked at Cortex. “I’ll be damned. The old man didn’t abandon us; he was just sick or dead the entire time, wasn’t he?”
Cortex nodded.
Nix turned to his men, expression grim. “That was our last hope. Fort has fallen. Your final assignment is to collect as many men, women, and children as you can possibly care for and get them out of this settlement. Protect them with your lives. I’m sure you are all aware of . . . unauthorized exits through the wall—try those before bringing anyone to the gate or trying to go over. I don’t believe in any gods out there, but may something go with you as you escape this hellhole, and persuade me otherwise.” He glared at them. “What are you standing here for? Go!”
Cortex realized the men were crying. They each wiped tears from their faces, gave a smart salute, and then ran from the building into the shadows, fires, and screams. Their tears made sense; after three years without a single rozie sighting in their valley, it would have been easy to believe that the world was safe again, before it suddenly, senselessly burned down.
Nix breathed heavily for a moment, looking old. His balding head glistened with sweat; the lines around his crow-like eyes seemed deeper than ever before. Then steel returned to his expression and his glare returned to Cortex. “Fort is fallen because you and the other boy didn’t apprise us of this,” he said. The way he spoke, it was clear that Nix intended no accusation—he was making an observation. “But that only mattered because of our over-reliance on false gods. The governor’s unwillingness to listen to my warnings. It doesn’t matter anymore; my final duty is to get you and anyone else out that I can. Come with me, boy.” Nix grabbed Cortex’s arm and began dragging him toward the front door.
Caught in a steel vice, Cortex twisted and thrashed. “I’m staying with the master! You can’t take me with you.”
Nix dropped Cortex and kept walking. “I won’t waste energy on someone who doesn’t want to be saved.” At the door, he looked out, then sprinted into the chaos. Cortex watched him go, and through the smoke he saw men and women and children screaming, running, being chased by . . . men and women: men and women with strangely flat eyes and ragged clothing. They moved with jerky coordination—almost birdlike, but without any sense of grace. Rozies—and well-built ones, Cortex guessed. He saw a dirty-haired woman on the ground, face inside the stomach of a boy who was wriggling, weakly, as she feasted on his flesh. Cortex’s ethereal peace broke, the terror in his heart overwhelming him. Crying, he ran to the master’s room and knelt beside the old man’s bed, palm over his own heart, and prayed that the Creator would spare them.
Cortex was unaware of how long it was before he heard the sounds of footsteps behind him. He leaped to his feet and turned around, holding his fists in front of him and scowling as threateningly as he could. A tall, blond, female rozie stood at the door. Her synthetic skin was cut in various places, revealing metal underneath; her eyes didn’t mimic human eyes, but were gray spheres with red camera lenses in their center. She walked into the room gracefully rather than jerkily, and nothing about her betrayed the animal bloodthirst of the creatures Cortex caught glimpses of outside. Despite her industrial eyes, the expression on her face was serene. Cortex lowered his fists slightly.
“Prophet issues you a warm invitation to the Gates of Heaven,” she said. Her voice was soft, feminine, its peace terribly discordant with the mad world around Cortex. Unlike that rozie head, this rozie’s words matched her lip and tongue movements exactly. “We can take you there, safely, with only one stop along the way.”
Cortex looked at the master, still asleep, then back at the rozie. “Will he be safe?”
She nodded. “Yes. We committed to bring both of you with us, and to refrain from partaking of your corrupted temples.”
Cortex thought for a moment. What other option was there? Fort was destroyed. The master was unconscious. 64Bit was gone. Cortex wiped tears from his eyes and looked up at the rozie woman.
“We will go.”
The rozie smiled, the expression all movement and no feeling. “Excellent. You will come with me. You may call me Hannah. This one here, Gabriel, will take the elder technomancer. And, I’m sorry, but this one must tear down this desecrated house.” Gabriel, sandy-haired and slightly shorter than Hannah, nodded. The last rozie looked around the room with a blank expression.
Cortex nodded, then stood, feeling detached again as the rozie woman placed a soft hand over his shoulder and escorted him from the house. Gabriel stooped and cradled the master, then followed close behind. The third rozie kicked in a wall, then picked up the master’s dresser boxes and threw them against another wall before picking up the medkit and hurling it out the window. As Cortex left the room, he saw the third rozie kick open a wall to reveal a secret compartment full of weapons and tools—Cortex felt too separated from the moment to wonder what else the master had hidden from him. The rozie then began throwing items to the floor and stomping on them, or else tearing them apart with its hands.
This dreamlike haze firmly gripped Cortex as he walked through the settlement. He saw houses, narrowly packed together, going up in flame, screams coming from within them as rozies carried flaming debris and piled it in front of doors and windows. He saw a rozie grab a man, tear his arm off, then take a deep bite out of the flesh of the man’s arm. He saw scouts ushering civilians through streets, followed by groaning rozies. He saw a rozie woman holding a man easily twice her size over her shoulders; where she was carrying him, Cortex had no way of knowing. It was easy to tell the rozies from the humans, as most rozies had eyes that glowed slightly, giving them a diabolical appearance combined with the darkness and the fires. The screaming chaos was so uniform now that it blended into a white noise for Cortex, pierced only by occasional gunfire.
The rozies seemed to instinctively keep a wide circle around Hannah. The nearest Cortex came to direct danger was near the settlement wall, when a wall guard rammed an ATV into the wall, pinning a rozie; the ATV exploded in a great, green sphere of energy, destroying several rozies and part of the wall. Hannah used her body to shield Cortex from metal shrapnel as the wall blew apart, then they continued walking.
After what felt like an eternity, they were outside the settlement. Cortex saw more rozies coming from the woods, eyes softly lit in the dark of the late evening, mouths gaping as they moved toward the settlement, some running, some walking, many with arms outstretched. Many already had blood on their mouths or carried trophies of kills, likely scouts that had been in the forest.
Something small landed on Cortex’s head. He looked up and lifted his hand, and a drop of water fell into his palm. Other droplets followed. Seemingly from nowhere, a small rain cloud had crested the mountains and began drizzling on the settlement. In Cortex’s mind, it was the Creator, crying over his creation, crying over lives lost . . . but not crying too hard. Cortex hoped that the rain did not entirely put out the fires—if everything burned, it denied these rozies a settlement to loot, assuming they even cared—then berated himself for the thought. The survivors, if there were any, might return in time, and it would be good for them to find something.
The rozie woman’s hand pressed against Cortex’s back, and she led him away into the night.
\ END PART 1
Copyright © 2023 by David Ludlow
Boo Ludlow 