C. Cargill: Sea of Rust

Had we hearts, they would have sunk loudly in our hollow, overheating chests. Instead we had only the steady buzz of the fluorescent track lighting above and our ever-encroaching madness to provide a soundtrack to the awfulness of the moment. It was over. We were done for. The only way Mercer or I was going to live out the next few days was if one of us ended the other and salvaged whatever wasn’t on the verge of failing. And even that came with no guarantees.

This had all been a colossal mistake. I’d signed my own death warrant coming out here. I’d have had better luck breaking into Regis and recovering my stash. Which is to say, I had virtually no chance at all.

Rebekah ran up to the rows of bots, fists clenched. “No! No, no, no!” she cried, banging on the first bot she came to. For a moment even her controlled translator demeanor cracked as she seemed to express genuine emotion. “These are supposed to be Caregivers! I was told they were Caregivers!”

I slumped down on a concrete step.

This was it. The end.

“It’s an easy mistake to make,” I said.

“Your friends are far from the first to make it,” followed Mercer.

“You can’t use any of this at all?” she asked.

Doc shook his head. “The RAM, sure. That might buy them a few more hours. But the chips, the cores, they’re all worthless.”

“What about black-boxing?” she asked. “We can transfer their memory, like you did mine.”

“We’d last a day, maybe,” I said. “Before the emotions drove us nuts and we tore ourselves apart.”

“You can resist that. If you’re strong enough.”

“Maybe,” said Doc. “Maybe not. Companions were designed to feel. Really feel. Only a few operating systems can manage all that input. Caregiver OS isn’t one of them.”

“We’d have a few good hours at best,” said Mercer.

“Then we’ll come back for you,” said Rebekah. “We’ll get the parts. You’ll shut down, we’ll close this place back up, and have you up and running in a day or two. A week, tops.”

“You aren’t coming back,” I said.

“You don’t trust me?” asked Rebekah.

“It isn’t that. You aren’t coming back.”

The room fell deathly quiet, all eyes falling on me.

“What do you know that we don’t?” asked Herbert.

“We’ve got a Judas,” I said. “And they know we’re here.”

“And just who is the Judas supposed to be this time?” asked Mercer.

“Me,” I said. “I’m the Judas.”

The room was silent, so silent you could almost hear it. Then Mercer raised his rifle to his eye, gun trained right at my chest. I didn’t even flinch. I had it coming. “How long?” he asked.

“How long what?”

“How long have you known?”

“An hour maybe.”

“An hour? How the…” He lowered the gun, anger receding from his face. “You saw it, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“So you didn’t know.”

“Not until just before we got to town. Not until Doc all but confirmed it for me.”

Rebekah sat on the floor. “They know where we are.”

Herbert looked at me. “So they’ll send more facets this time. A lot more. And they’ll keep sending more and more until Rebekah is dead.”

“They already think she’s dead,” said Mercer.

“They know she had a spare,” said Doc.

“He had a name,” said Herbert.

“And he was still the spare,” said Doc. “And they’re not going to take the chance that Rebekah might still be around and kicking. They’ll kill us all to make sure she doesn’t upload to TACITUS. They’re coming.”

“We have to get to Isaactown,” said Rebekah.

“And lead CISSUS to it?” asked Mercer. “Killing you there is worse than killing you here. They could trace the upload, find the destination. Kill TACITUS for sure.”

“We have to send Brittle away,” said Herbert. “Throw them off our trail.”

Mercer shook his head. “If they’ve got eyes in the sky, they’ll have us inside of an hour.”

“But if they don’t…” said Herbert.

“They’ll have Britt in an hour and find out exactly where we’re going. Then they’ll have us inside of two. Is that long enough for your upload?”

Rebekah shook her head. “It’ll take most of a day.”

“Then that’s it,” said Doc. “We’re out of options. Brittle’s done us all in.” He gave me a harsh look. Not an angry one, but disappointed. That was almost worse. No. It was worse.

“It’s not her fault,” said Rebekah. “I asked her to come. It’s on me.”

Mercer shook his head. “If I hadn’t shot her, she would have never said yes. It’s on me.”

“You’re all wrong,” I said. “I’m the one who gave myself up to CISSUS in New York. This all comes back to me.”

“It doesn’t matter a good goddamn who it’s on,” said Doc. “We’re all still going to die, either here or out in the Sea. Your fault, her fault. We’re all dead.”

“We could scatter,” said Mercer. “Some of us might make it.”

Doc shook his head. “You’re already dead. So is Brittle. You’re both just too stubborn to shut down before it happens. Herbert won’t leave Rebekah to die alone—”

“Nope,” said Herbert.

“So splitting up is only going to save me. And that’s if I survive whatever this bullshit is that that madman put in my head. We have only one real option.” Doc looked at me.

Herbert leveled his spitter at me. “We kill Brittle and take our chances.”

All eyes were on me and no one said a word. They had every right. Without me, they might have a chance. Might .

I was never a fan of might . “Isaactown is ten miles west,” I said.

“Yeah?” asked Herbert. “And?”

“And Rebekah can make it there on foot in about an hour.”

“You’re using math to talk your way out of this?”

I shook my head. “We need to buy her that hour. You kill me, you make a break for it, maybe they don’t spot you from the air. Maybe they don’t find your tracks. Maybe they don’t think to go to Isaactown. That’s a lot of maybes.”

“Maybe is all we’ve got left,” said Mercer.

I shook my head again. “What if we had a plan with fewer maybes? What if we could convince CISSUS that Rebekah is already dead? What if we made our stand here, now, and bought her the time she needs to get away?”

“And just how would we do that?” asked Herbert.

“Doc?” I asked. “What does it take to build a Milton?”

“Pretty standard off-the-rack parts. A Wi-Fi unit, cables, some decent RAM, a board, and a battery.”

I stood up, walking over to the rows of Comfortbots, putting my arm on the shoulder of a broad-chested, masculine, fair-haired bot with a deep tan.

Doc nodded. “Yeah, yeah. That’ll do.”

“We’ve got Rebekah’s body in the smoker, an extra set of drives, a handful of guns, and a city I know inside and out.”

“You got one of your stashes here, Britt?” asked Mercer.

“A small one, but yeah.” I paused, looking around at everyone. “So the only question left is this: Is anyone else willing to die to get Rebekah to Isaactown?”

Herbert lowered his spitter and nodded. “That’s the only thing I’ve got left to do in this life.”

Mercer raised his hand. “Death’s outside waiting for me as is. Might as well make him useful.”

Doc nodded. “There isn’t much of a world to look forward to if she doesn’t get out of here. But the world in which she does is worth dyin’ for. I’m in as well.”

Rebekah looked around at the four of us. “I can’t ask you to do that.”

“You didn’t,” said Mercer. “And you don’t have to.”

“Bringing TACITUS online is all that matters now,” said Herbert.