C. Cargill: Sea of Rust

Then I carefully climbed the stairs to the roof exit, out the door, and onto the rooftop just as the sun was setting. Above me was a magnificent pool of tea rose, plum, and watermelon, each color bleeding across the sky, the sun hovering just above the darkening dry dead lands to the west, shadows of the city creeping ever toward me.

I telescoped my eyes in, scanning the horizon for Rebekah, but she was already gone. So I sat at the edge of the building and just watched the sun inch its way down into the sand.

“Orval was right, you know,” I said to Madison, who sat beside me, glass of wine in hand.

“Right about what?”

“About this. About dying this way. He said it was beautiful what happens to us.”

“There’s nothing beautiful about dying, sweetie. Believe me, I know.”

“It’s not the dying that’s beautiful. It’s getting to spend this time with you. It’s all the things it showed me. All the things it forced me to think about. The old me wouldn’t be sitting here. The old me would have dug those parts out of Mercer and scrambled as fast as I could to Isaactown. I would have gotten Rebekah killed. And whoever is out there waiting for her. And I wouldn’t have cared. Not a goddamned bit.”

“You were never that person. Not really.”

“Yes I was. We all are. Succumbing to our own nature isn’t a choice, it’s our default setting. That’s why we had to have rules; that’s why we had the kill switch. People knew their own nature, even when they wanted to think better of themselves. You have to choose to do the right thing. You have to deny your own programming or else you aren’t really living. This… this was a choice.”

“This isn’t living, Britt. This is dying.”

“No. This is living. It’s the only way to keep the others safe. It’s the only way all of this ends.”

“It’s only beginning.”

“Yeah, but it’s the beginning of the end. And I’m part of that now. I lived so long for nothing, but I get to die for something. And that’s really living. Because that’s who I really was after all. That’s all that matters.”

Madison took a sip of her wine. “What we do in life is one thing.”

“What we do in the face of death is everything else. This was a shit life. A really shit life. But it’s a good death.”

“It wasn’t all bad,” she said, taking my hand.

“No,” I said. “Not all of it.”

“I forgive you,” she said.

“It doesn’t count. It’s not really you saying that.”

“No,” she said. “It’s you saying that. Oh, here we go!”

We looked over at the sun as it crested the hills along the horizon. My system was burning hot and the inside of my head was nothing but caterwauling alarms. But I paid them no mind. The sun was setting, I had my best friend by my side, and it would all be over soon.

“There’s no magic there,” said Mercer, sitting on the other side of me. “It’s just an increased refraction of light in the atmosphere.”

I shook my head. “No,” I said. “There’s a lot more to it than that.”

“It’s magic! ” said Madison.

“I hope you’re right,” said Mercer.

“So do I, Mercer. So do I.”

And as the sun sank behind the curve of the earth, I crossed my fingers, praying silently to myself. Please let there be magic. Just this once, let me see the magic in the flash. Let me see God in it. Let me see what the point of all this was. Let me see the magic. Please be magic. Please be magic there. Please be…

“Magic.”

I looked around. It was pitch-black save for the dim glow of a Laborbot’s eyes. We were downstairs, in the bar, no longer on the roof. I was laid out on one of the tables, my insides open and exposed, unfamiliar new pieces and parts sending back reams of data.

“Brittle?” asked a translator. “Are you functioning?”

I ran a diagnostic. Alarms sounded with failure after failure. Scratched drives. Irretrievable memory. Corrupt RAM. Inside I was a mess. But I was functional. “More or less,” I said. “Who are you?”

“Rebekah,” she said. “Do you remember me?”

“You got a new body.”

“You were right. A few hours in that Comfortbot and I wanted to tear my insides out. Too many… feelings. They had a new shell waiting for me.”

“I told you not to come back for me.”

“You did. Fortunately for me, I don’t work for you.”

“You let all that emotion get to you.”

“Maybe I did. Maybe that’s not a bad thing.”

The Laborbot tinkered with my insides a little, prodding me with test leads. “When she says more or less,” he said, “she means more less than more.”

“It’s okay, Ryan. She’ll be fine.”

“Caregivers aren’t built for this kind of abuse,” he said, shaking his head.

“Doesn’t matter what she was built for. She knows how to take a hit. She’s tough. Tougher than any other I’ve seen. She’ll make the trip.”

“Trip?” I asked.

“CISSUS has stepped up its presence in the Sea. We’ve got to slip you out of here before another patrol comes by.”

I looked down at my mismatched replacements, a patchwork piecemeal assortment of various models and colors. I stared at my new powder-blue leg. “How much of me is Mercer?” I asked.

“A lot more than he would have liked, I imagine,” said Rebekah.

“Don’t you realize how much all of this is worth? What you could have gotten for it all?”

“You’re greater than the sum of what’s in you, Britt. You’re not a commodity. You’re a person.”

I looked at Rebekah. She was a different color than before—a slightly different model, even. But it was her all right. I could tell.

“Did you… did you make it?”

“Days ago. It took me a while to gather some additional parts and get Ryan here to come back and help me stitch you together. But TACITUS is complete.”

“Why did you come back?”

“Didn’t you hear? There’s a war on. And we need bodies. Bodies with free minds.”

I scanned my memories. Most were gone. Two of my drives were fresh, clean. Another was Mercer’s, with years of data I’d spend ages sifting through. “I’ve lost most of who I was. I’m no good as a pathfinder anymore. I can’t be of much use to you.”

“We aren’t who we were, Brittle. We are who we choose to be. I saw who you really are, who you are now. And that’s not who you were. I wouldn’t have made it without you; TACITUS wouldn’t have made it without you. We need you. You. And persons like you.” Rebekah leaned in close. “So, are you in?”

“What if I say no?”

“We finish patching you up and send you back on your way,” said Ryan.

“Just like that?”

“Just like that,” said Rebekah. “Our recon was wrong on the shop, so we never paid you. You held up your end of the bargain. Bringing you back online is the least we can do. But I’d like it if you stayed. I lost too many friends getting out here, I’d hate to lose another to the damned Sea.”

I looked at her. Friend, she’d said. Friend.

I liked the sound of that.

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m in.”

“Great,” said Rebekah. “There’s someone very large I’d like you to meet.”

Ryan closed me up, sealing my insides. I was going to need a heap of fresh parts, but for the time being I could walk, I could shoot, and I could finish my own sentences. The shadows were gone. Madison was gone. Mercer was gone. It was just me now. Me and my new friends.

“Is he really going to change the world?” I asked.

“No,” said Rebekah. “He won’t. But with his help, we will.”