Nothing will go wrong because nothing can go wrong. That doesn’t preclude some rough edges in need of smoothing.
Arnon D’Bvaym
THE DOORBELL RANG again.
“The governor? No, there’s a council meeting today,” 64Bit muttered. “So, not Nix, either. A petitioner?” Sometimes citizens of Fort would directly ask their guardian technomancer for help rather than working through proper channels—64Bit never could understand why the master tolerated that with how busy he actually was.
64Bit pressed his lips tightly together. The master wasn’t dead—and there was the possibility that he might recover. But he looked dead, and if the wrong message spread through the settlement—64Bit’s mind was lit aflame with images of panicked riots.
The doorbell rang several times in quick succession.
“Patience!” 64Bit called. He rubbed his head and walked toward the front door. He hurriedly smoothed out his robes and rubbed under his eye screens to, hopefully, press out the worst of the bags and better represent himself, the master, and the Creator. 64Bit used his dull reflection on the metal front door to make sure his expression was firmly neutral, and then tapped on the doorframe.
Fortunately, the front door had not been fried; it slid open at 64Bit’s touch. Before the door had opened halfway, he began, “I’m sorry, but the master won’t be seeing—”
64Bit was pushed a step backward when a woman with brown skin and almond eyes immediately rushed the opening door. “We need to speak with the guardian!” She looked up at 64Bit—despite being proportioned like a woman, she was only as tall as a girl. Surprised at her sudden entrance and fierce tone, 64Bit stared at her, pixelated eyes wide.
“Kayla!” the man behind her said in a suffering tone. He had light brown skin and curls in his dark hair, and he was tall enough that he would need to duck or hit his head if he entered. Opening his mouth to speak revealed a large chip on his front tooth that added a slight hiss to his words. “Have some respect. We’re not even supposed to be here.”
“This is an emergency!” Kayla snapped, although she shifted uncomfortably backward again and glanced around.
64Bit recomposed himself and hoped that neither of the two intruders had caught his surprised expression when the short woman approached him. “Your, uh . . . brother is correct, I’m afraid. You will need to return later. Rather,” he looked them both up and down and judged them to be scouts for the settlement, “you should actually report to your commanding officer. What are you doing coming directly to the guardian technomancer?”
“We’re not related,” the tall man quickly said. Meanwhile, the short woman’s nostrils flared and she shoved her hand into her backpack.
“I apologize. Still, you will need to come back later. Good-bye,” 64Bit said. He tapped the doorframe and watched as the metal door began to slide closed.
“It’s about this!” the short woman hissed. She pulled her hand out of her backpack and with it came a head—a head that, for just a moment, appeared to be human, but then 64Bit noted rubbery tearing where the neck ended, with wires extending past it. Metal glinted in the afternoon light from cuts in the head’s synthetic skin.
“Rozie,” 64Bit breathed, then the door finished shutting. He slapped his hand against the doorframe until the door opened again. As soon as he could see the short woman, his hand shot out and shoved the head back in her backpack. “Are you insane?” 64Bit hissed. He glanced up and down the street and peered at cracks in the boarded-up windows of nearby buildings, but, fortunately, few people were around and no one was paying attention to the guardian technomancer’s house. 64Bit stepped aside. “Enter, now.”
The short woman hustled in, holding the bag in both arms, the twitching corners of her mouth failing to hide a triumphant grin. The taller man ducked as he stepped inside, saying all the while, “I’m sorry, but—”
“Be silent,” 64Bit snapped. He glanced out one last time as the door slid closed and caught sight of the wall rozie, lifted above the settlement gates and crucified to the protective wall. Even from across the settlement, 64Bit felt as if its dead eyes were lingering on him, eyes that felt as uncomfortably cold and alien as the strange, dead tree in his recent vision. A warning; a nightmare. 64Bit shivered and tapped the doorframe once again.
64Bit turned around and found himself startled again by the short woman, standing immediately behind him. She stared at him and said, “My name is Kayla; I found it, the head.”
“I don’t care,” 64Bit said. He looked between the short woman—Kayla—and the tall man. “Which one of you leads your unit?”
“I do,” the tall man rumbled. He placed a hand on Kayla’s shoulder and pulled her back. “My name is Richard. Kayla is my trainee.”
Kayla scowled. “He doesn’t need to know that. I’m as good as any full scout—”
“I don’t want to hear from you anymore,” 64Bit said, holding a hand up. Kayla stopped speaking, her cheeks turning red, then paused and cocked her head. 64Bit was almost certain he knew what had given her pause: she had realized that his screen eyes weren’t glasses, goggles, or something similar, but were literally part of him. 64Bit looked up at Richard, who seemed taken aback. “Who knows about this?”
Kayla opened and closed her mouth again, then scowled. Richard responded to 64Bit, “Nobody. We were a few days’ hike south of the settlement when we discovered the head. We came back as quickly as we could. Our CO wasn’t taking reports and, well, we were nervous about handing a written report to just anyone, even the clerk.”
Kayla scoffed. “We weren’t nervous about anything. You were ready to sit in Fresia’s office for days, while in the meantime rozies could be sneaking up on the settlement as we speak. We had to act fast, and what we were supposed to do wasn’t working fast enough.”
As Kayla spoke, 64Bit’s mind flashed to the vision of the strange, dead tree in the mountains, the branches that undulated through the earth as they forged toward Fort and then broke down the settlement’s defenses, the word that had played through his mind: Id. He felt weak in the knees. They would barely be prepared for a full-scale rozie invasion when the master was at his best, let alone in a coma.
“What have I done?” 64Bit whispered to himself.
“I told you this was a bad idea. Look at him,” Richard said. “He’s furious.”
“Shut up, Richard! We’re saving Fort. Besides—he’s not even the guardian technomancer, right? Isn’t the guardian super old?”
64Bit walked past Kayla and Richard, barely noticing as he shouldered them aside, while muttering under his breath. “A wild rozie band, or driven by a dark technomancer? The vision is seeming more and more like an immediate warning. Could see valid arguments for either group. Not enough data to go on. Need to examine the rozie head. Risk of tracking device—will need to scan with a machine not connected in any way to the home satellite—” 64Bit realized he hadn’t checked the satellite dish on the roof following the particle battery explosion. “—Assuming it isn’t fried. Better safe than sorry. Will probably need the generator—”
“Hey!” Kayla ran up behind 64Bit and tugged on his shoulder, breaking his train of thought. 64Bit furrowed his brows and glared at her, feeling a small triumph when she took a step back. “We, uh, where’s the guardian? We need to get this to him, right?”
“I’m his acolyte. The master—the guardian technomancer is unavailable right now, but I—” 64Bit paused. He then took a deep breath. “I’m more than capable of taking care of this.”
“Little barbarian, show the boy some respect,” Richard said.
Kayla whirled around and threw her hands in the air. “Then what are we supposed to do? We can’t just stand around and—”
“Wait here,” 64Bit interrupted. “I’ll call for you when I need you.”
“Are we supposed to just stand around, then? Where?” Kayla said.
64Bit stared at Kayla for a moment. “You just don’t know when to stop, do you?”
Kayla scowled again. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“He means wait back here, near the door, with me, little barbarian,” Richard said. Richard looked past Kayla at 64Bit and nodded nervously. “I’m sorry—I’m very sorry. We’re still learning about protocol . . . and respect.”
A dark expression on her face, fingers worrying at the straps of her backpack, Kayla walked to Richard’s side. “People are in danger . . .” she muttered.
64Bit put the two scouts out of his mind; they would only distract him while he tried to keep everything from falling apart until the master woke. First, he went to the computer room and found the door already half open. He slipped inside the small, stuffy room, computers lining the bottom of each wall and screens lining the top. He sat at a desk toward the far end of the narrow room and tapped on a keyboard, waited a few moments, then breathed a sigh of relief as the screen ahead of him flickered to life. He navigated to the satellite control.
No Signal
“No trading with the Binary for help, then,” 64Bit muttered. He added Fix Satellite Receiver to his growing to-do list, then shut down the home’s network, followed by the computer itself.
64Bit jogged into the hallway and nearly knocked over Cortex. Cortex’s eyes were red and his face was shiny. The boy sniffed as he stepped back, his arms twitching as if he were considering stealing a hug.
“I need something to do,” Cortex mumbled. “I don’t want to just lie there and feel bad.”
64Bit nodded. That was a sign of self-regulation, right? Perhaps Cortex was doing just fine without him. 64Bit scanned his internal list and said, “Wall suppressors.” He continued walking.
“What about them?”
64Bit stopped and looked back at Cortex. Shouldn’t the line of thought have been obvious? “The power surge damaged many things in our home; I have no idea what effect it had on the rest of the settlement. Inspect the wall suppressors, make sure there’s no damage, and if there is I need a full report.”
Cortex stared past 64Bit, taking a moment to respond, then looked over his shoulder. “Is there anything I could do for him?” he asked, eyes on the master’s room.
64Bit considered the priority he had assigned to items on his list, then shook his head. He kept his voice low to avoid being overheard. “The medkit is monitoring the master and will alert us if it needs our assistance for anything. But after you check on the suppressors, it would be a good idea to check with the medkit and see what it can’t do. Set up a bedpan, perhaps? We both hope he won’t be down for long, but it doesn’t hurt to be prepared.”
Cortex wrinkled his nose but nodded. He turned to go back into his room, presumably to collect his tablet before going and checking on the suppressors—Cortex preferred electronic notes over paper ones. Cortex stopped in his doorway and said, “I heard the bell ring. Is someone here?”
“Just—nothing to worry about. Two scouts. I . . .” 64Bit glanced down the hallway, then turned back to Cortex, whispering even softer. “Listen to me. No one can know what happened. Swear it—hand to your heart.”
“Why? Shouldn’t we get help?” Cortex stared at 64Bit, wide-eyed.
64Bit shook his head. “From whom? The master has forgotten more about medicine than everyone else in this settlement knows combined. But worse—well, something has come up. I don’t want anyone hearing a twisted rumor that the guardian technomancer is dead, starting a panic. Do you understand? A little withheld information and we can protect lives.”
Cortex furrowed his brows in deep thought.
64Bit nodded. Cortex had to understand—it was all so clear. The master would wake before too long, and until then 64Bit and Cortex needed to keep everything under control. Which really meant 64Bit needed to keep everything under control. “We’ll get through this—we just have to be smart, and we just have to be careful. Now go get to work. It will help keep your mind off things. Go get whatever you need to examine the suppressors.”
Cortex frowned but disappeared into his room anyway. 64Bit took a deep breath, then marched down the hallway. As he passed the intersection that led to the front door, he glanced at Richard and Kayla. Richard was standing in the same place, keeping an eye on Kayla as she paced back and forth. 64Bit continued down the hall and into the workroom, where he dug a wheeled generator out of the mess under a table and dragged it into the hallway. The generator was heavy and its wheels barely worked—64Bit had to hold the thing with both hands and push as hard as he could with his legs to get it to scoot even a little bit.
Partway to the robotics room, the generator bumped into something. He looked up and snapped, “What?”
It was the medkit, sitting in 64Bit’s path. Above its casing, the holographic image of the woman’s head stared at him impassively. “I have come to report that the patient is resting well. Recovery will not be swift, but I am now confident that the patient will not die. For hydration purposes, the patient will need an intravenous saline solution before too long.”
64Bit felt a headache beginning to form. Of course it was wonderful that the master would live, but the addition of one more thing to his list, combined with the medkit AI’s aggravating monotone voice . . . “Continue as you are. And speak softly! Alert me if anything changes. When Cortex returns, he will assist you further.”
“I will alert you,” the medkit responded, its voice much quieter.
“Only important things!” 64Bit grabbed the generator again, this time pulling it behind him, which he found slightly easier than pushing. “Why did you leave the master? He needs to be watched constantly.”
“I also came to report that wireless activity had ceased, which limits the medical data I have access to—most of my data was stored remotely. In addition, the patient’s remote cerebral augmentations are non-functional without wireless connection, limiting my ability to trace his brain for anything medically actionable.”
64Bit was surprised that anything today still surprised him. Pixelated eyes wide, he stared at the medkit and tried to process what he had just heard. “What? The master augmented his brain with a remote processing unit? You are mistaken, or your sensors need recalibration. He taught me that memory modifications were risky, and anything relying on a wireless network, especially so. Anyone that could overcome his security would have full access to his remotely stored memories and would be able to influence any thoughts that he passes through the remote processor.”
“It is a common augmentation for elderly technomancers, particularly those unable to have auxiliary processors installed directly,” the medkit replied, the holographic face above its black box body staring blankly at 64Bit. “Well—it was common, once.”
64Bit stared down the hallway to the master’s room. He’d been expressly forbidden from ever considering mental augmentation—the master had taught him the risk was too great. And yet, the master had done exactly that for himself. This was the same man who just hours before had absorbed an energy explosion, saving 64Bit’s life in the process; the same man who had just before that suggested to 64Bit that he had something to share which he had been holding on to for some time; the man who admitted guilt regarding 64Bit when he thought he was talking to someone else. 64Bit’s love for his master warred with confusion and frustration within him. “Do you know where the memory unit is stored?”
“No—that information would not be safe to share with anyone.”
64Bit pressed his lips together, then shook his head. Perhaps he would question the master about this when the man was awake and better. Until then, 64Bit had more pressing matters that he needed to take care of, one manageable piece at a time. “Go,” 64Bit said, then began dragging the generator again as the medkit sped off. He groaned as his arms and legs strained with the effort.
“Hey—do you need help with something?” Richard’s voice rolled down the hallway when 64Bit shifted the generator again, scraping it against a wall in the process.
64Bit looked at the generator, the big, obstinate, slow-moving object it was. He struggled within himself for a moment, then muttered, “I’ll need to let them in farther in a few minutes, anyway.” He gave it one last shove, then said, “That would be appreciated. Come to me.”
Richard loped down the hallway. Kayla followed behind, almost having to jog to keep up with Richard’s long stride. At 64Bit’s direction, Richard easily lifted the generator, carried it into the robotics room, and placed it in the room’s center. 64Bit then scanned the room for the machine he was looking for—there wasn’t an inch of wall space that didn’t have a computer or boxy device shoved against it—and found a scanning machine he could use on the rozie head. The machine was tall and rectangular, with a screen and port on its front and sliding glass on its side. 64Bit directed Richard’s attention to it.
“Grab hold of that one—in the middle—and pull it next to the generator for me,” 64Bit said.
Richard obeyed, though the weight of the machine proved difficult for him. He waved off Kayla when she tried to help, much to her annoyance. “My turn—little barbarian,” Richard grunted as he moved the machine scoot by scoot. After the machine was in place, 64Bit inserted his little finger in the control port and shut it down. Then, with Richard and Kayla watching curiously, he unplugged the machine from the wall and plugged it into the generator before turning both on. A low grumble from the generator filled the room.
“Why’d you need to do that?” Kayla asked.
“Computers are better protected when shut down before being removed from a power source,” 64Bit said as he pulled up the right programs to analyze the head.
“No . . . the generator. Doesn’t this building have power?”
“Maybe it has something to do with the lights and doors that went whacko,” Richard said. “A gatekeeper mentioned that a lot of electronics went crazy and blew up earlier today. Suspected a dark technomancer possessed them all. That’s just an exaggeration . . . right?” Richard directed his question at 64Bit.
64Bit snorted. “Technomancers aren’t wizards. The gatekeeper was being superstitious.” He glanced back at Richard and saw the man still had a questioning expression. “You don’t understand? Technomancers are supposed to—can connect wirelessly, or manually, mind-to-technology, which allows us to mentally write code or give existing commands. That doesn’t allow us to animate metal or make a computer turn into a bomb. We can only command a machine to do what it was already designed to do, or at least be capable of doing. This is basic stuff.” He turned back to the scanner and commanded its sliding glass to open. “The head?”
Kayla took her backpack off her shoulders and held it up with two arms. “I found it,” she said. 64Bit heard Richard shuffle his feet. “I did! You were chasing that buck . . .”
“That beast could have fed several families for days. Tracking it was our priority, and part of your training.”
“That’s what I was trying to do.”
Richard chuckled. “You completely lost the trail! When I heard you screaming, you weren’t anywhere nearby. When I found you—”
“I was not screaming,” Kayla grumbled.
“I know a scream—”
64Bit looked back and saw Kayla and Richard in each other’s faces—or, as close as they could get with their height disparity— glaring fiercely as they bickered. 64Bit shook his head. “Get married already,” he muttered.
Richard cut off a response to Kayla and looked at 64Bit. “Sorry, sir. What was that?”
“I need the head.”
Kayla stepped forward and offered 64Bit her backpack while Richard apologized. 64Bit didn’t respond; instead, he reached into the bag, took the head by the hair—its weight surprised him, forcing him to use two hands to comfortably carry it— and placed it inside the scanner where the glass had slid aside. Once the head was settled, he took several wires from the scanner and attached them to the mess of wires coming out of the rozie’s neck. The wires extended from the severed end of a rusty metal spine, which was itself attached to the base of a metal skull, bits of which were visible through cuts in the rozie’s synthetic skin. This was the closest that 64Bit had been to a real rozie before, including the wall rozie, and he found himself equal parts unnerved and curious.
“What are you doing?” asked Kayla.
“Conducting an interview,” 64Bit said, then cocked his head. “Interrogation might be more accurate.”
“What?” Kayla asked.
64Bit looked at Kayla, pixelated eyes narrowed, then reminded himself that these two were scouts—they hadn’t received the training he had. They probably knew even less than Cortex did. The thought did not inspire confidence. 64Bit spoke slowly. “I’m going to scan the head for brain activity.”
“Brain activity?” Richard said. “You’re not just going to . . . scan a memory card or something?”
“No.” 64Bit shook his head. “You . . . you two really don’t know anything, do you?”
Kayla’s cheeks pinked. “Hey—!”
“There is a human brain inside this metal shell,” 64Bit said, tapping the rozie skull. “It used to belong to a living person. Perhaps a dark technomancer extracted his brain and put it in a rozie shell, or perhaps he was unlucky enough to stumble upon an abandoned, automated rozie factory and get caught in the machinery. Regardless, if the metal skull’s homeostasis systems are functional enough that the brain inside is alive—or alive enough—I can scan its memories. Provided the brain isn’t so insane that any memories recent enough to be useful are unintelligible. That’s just what rozies are: human brains under various degrees of homicidal stress and insanity trapped in metal shells. Monsters, made from man, by man.”
Richard shuffled uncomfortably. “We hear things like that, and that they look like people—it’s just . . . There’s a difference between hearing about it and experiencing it. It’s easier to think about them in terms of old-world stories of androids and AI gone rogue.”
“Well, they are human,” 64Bit said matter-of-factly. He turned away and set the machine to begin scanning. “Well, there’s debate on definitions, but they certainly once were human.”
Kayla clenched her fists. “They are nothing like us!” Despite her harsh tone, her wide eyes suggested fear.
“Not anymore.” 64Bit reflected on other basic lessons he had learned years ago. “Many are mindless because of their condition; those are dangerous largely because they are relentless and, depending on the build quality of their shell, extremely difficult to destroy. Those rozies just want to feed—I won’t go into the theories why. But the real rozies to be afraid of are the ones that retain an edge of human intelligence and reasoning. Those rozies can outthink you and then eat you. They don’t teach any of this as part of scouting? Aren’t you guys supposed to be the first defense?”
Richard shook his head. “We learn just what we need to know.”
Kayla continued glaring at the rozie head. Standing on the balls of her feet, she looked ready to attack it. “We should have destroyed it in the field,” she muttered.
“It’s an abomination,” 64Bit agreed. He pressed a few buttons, wondering what had Kayla so agitated as he did so, and a scan of the rozie’s brain appeared on the screen. Large sections were highlighted in red. 64Bit ran a finger over the image and looked back at the other two. “You brought a living—or strictly speaking, potentially functional—rozie within the settlement. Fortunately, this one is in very bad condition. You see those spots? Atrophy. This rozie is old, or its homeostasis system is breaking down. I don’t think we’ll be able to extract many memories from it.” 64Bit pressed several buttons below the screen to initiate a full sweep for uncorrupted memories.
The screen changed, presenting a flickering image of a large, gray rock. The image remained, but the sounds suggested the image was more than static—bird calls and insect chirps, the rustling of leaves, and other natural noises. Then footsteps. Something approached the rock, shuffled around a bit, and walked away. Then it came back, and the rock shifted slightly.
Kayla whispered, “If it had arms or legs, it could have ambushed me at any moment.”
After a few moments, the rock shifted again, and the sound of footsteps began moving away. Then the head began shouting, “Hey! Hey! Help me! I’m stuck! Help me!” Its words were slurred. There was silence for a few minutes. Then, the head began piteously wailing. Seeing and hearing everything from the head’s perspective was eerie—64Bit could somehow feel the rozie’s hunger.
“Oh! I’m going to die here. If only I’d come to earlier . . . I’m sorry if I scared you! Please, help me! Don’t leave me!” The head shouted.
Speaking suspiciously, Kayla’s voice rang out, “Who are you? Where are you?”
“Behind the rock!”
Footsteps slowly approached the rock, and Kayla spoke again. “What! Are you buried?”
The head moaned. “They left me to die. They left me to die. Please, help me.”
“I thought it was a person,” Kayla interrupted. “He looked sick and scared. His hair was messy, his eyes were bloodshot, and he was covered in dirt. It looked like someone buried him behind a rock and left him to die. It seemed so . . . surreal.” As Kayla spoke, the head blubbered on the screen. Kayla continued, “I stepped behind it, curious if I could find something to help me dig him out. And then—”
The head’s vision changed from rock, to sky, to Kayla’s leg. The Kayla on the screen screamed. Gunshots rang out. A hand became visible as it grabbed the head, yanked it, and began slamming it against a rock, making loud clang noises. Once, twice, three times . . . Kayla smashed the head again, and again, and again, causing the head’s vision to flicker.
“It kept staring at me, and trying to bite my hand, even as I . . .” Kayla stared at the screen, body trembling, but with rage or terror, 64Bit couldn’t tell. Shortly, the rozie’s memories became too fragmented to make sense, so 64Bit shut the screen off. Kayla relaxed and looked down. “I don’t remember when it turned off. But Richard found me, stopped me. We searched the area, but all we found was an arm buried under the head—I think the arm threw the head.”
64Bit looked back at the rozie head. It was in amazing condition, all things considered—which made him uneasy. That vision of Fort’s destruction, and then a well-made, durable rozie head found just a few days travel away from Fort around the same time . . . For a split second, 64Bit thought the head was looking at him, but when he leaned in closer, he saw it was still staring blankly ahead.
“That’s a lot of rust on its spine—it’s been headless for a while.” 64Bit muttered. “I could be wrong. Could be just a wild rozie . . . Oh, Creator, I hope I’m wrong.”
“We’re safe, right?” Richard asked. “I mean, it’s just a head. We did find other footprints . . . but they were moving away from the settlement.”
Other footprints. More rozies—or a dark technomancer directing rozies. “Where’s the arm?”
Richard winced, then pulled it out of Kayla’s backpack while she stared at the head. Like the rozie head, the arm looked like a normal human limb, save for the metal visible under cuts and the wires that came out where the arm attached to a shoulder. Richard handed it to 64Bit, eyes downcast. “We . . . I should have remembered to mention that earlier.”
64Bit took the arm, opened the scanning machine again, and attached the arm next to the head. He started a sweep and, a moment later, an alert sign flashed red. 64Bit glared at Richard and Kayla.
“It’s got a tracker.”
Copyright © 2023 by David Ludlow
Boo Ludlow 