AlexMcGilvery Array - Nano Bytes

The two of them meandered to the edge of the «endless» desert, another hundred yards or so away. At least he thought that’s where he’d stashed the holo projector. The damn thing was so good at concealing itself, he was already down on his hands feeling around for it, overturning every rock and cracked piece of mud.

«For a plotter and a schemer, you’d think you’d have figured out a less trying way of crawling out of your own delusions,” the deer said.

«Yeah, what’s with that, I wonder?» There. He’d found it. He picked up the nearly perfectly round piece of red clay, and squeezed.

The desert disappeared and in its place was the world he’d left behind. Not too much more enticing, all things considered. The high chaparral country was nearly as dry and as lonely looking. The half dead shrubs and squat trees mostly rubbed him the wrong way whenever he brushed up against them. Got rid of the dead skin cells real good though, which cut down on the need for bathing. Mindful of the painful grooming in store for him, he sucked in a deep breath and took his first step forward.

«I guess we’re heading towards the Airstream,” the doe said, absently overturning a rock with a front hoof. «Whose idea was it to stick a mobile home on a piece of land that makes it visible in all directions for hundreds of miles?»

«Maybe eyesores were all the rage once upon a time. And nah, definitely not headed towards the mobile home. The other way.»

«We keep going that way, we’ll be in real desert soon enough.»

«That’s the idea. Supposed to be an airplane graveyard out there. Hoping I can get one of them running.»

«Oh, no. Bad enough I have to figure out how to pivot my backside inside of a mobile home, but this deer don’t do planes. Nope, not enough bucks in the world to get me to gallop onto that thing.»

«Up high we might spy us a piece of land worth spending some time on. You might even find one of those bucks you keep dreaming about. Just don’t smile at him. Could put a real crimp in his self–confidence.»

«Fine. But if what we see from above just traumatizes us more…»

«Yeah, yeah. I’ll crash us into the nearest cliff,” Peter reassured her.

«You better. I’m overdue for a mercy killing.»

«Is this the best you can do, after all this time?» Sasha said, staring into the doctor’s eyes with a look meant to scare his soul back to heaven, where he might obtain the answers he needed for a more authoritative response. Her tone accomplished just what she hoped it would; registering like a knife to the belly, it nearly caused him to double over.

«I’m afraid so,” he said. He was a short, fat, round man. He’d make a hell of a beach ball, which Sasha was all too tempted to kick inside her son’s cage so he could play with it.

She returned her eyes to the observation window showing her son, Peter, in his staging area. The therapy room was meant to be necessary only so long as Peter needed that reality more than this one. She supposed she couldn’t blame him, considering what her reality was like. She’d nearly checked herself into this place herself on more than one occasion.

Her sixteen year old son’s body was lean and sculpted and tanned, not to mention fully exposed with just the loincloth to cover him. His poignant green eyes at once piercing and dreamy. He was marked up like an Indian with his war paint on now that he had the blood of the coyote smeared all over him. He was at that age where he was half boy, half man. Only… «He’s still age regressed.»

«Yes, but now he’s sixteen going on twelve. Last time you checked in he was sixteen going on eight. So we’re making progress. I’m sorry it’s not fast enough for you.»

She caught the you thankless bitch connotation of his voice. Figured she deserved it. But damn it; it had been nearly a year. Would he ever come back to her? «What do you suggest I do?» Sasha asked.

«Go back to your daily routines. Try to find in them something which might entice him back.»

She snorted. «You’d think that would be longing to be with his parents, but, as it is…» Her voice trailed off, lost in a fog of self–recriminations.

«It’s not your fault. Ours is a harsh world. Few adults are coping properly. It’s no surprise most of the children don’t make it. No way to shelter them the way we’d like. And not sheltering them, leads to this more often than not,” he said, pointing to the glass wall that was camouflaged from Peter’s side.

She stared into the doc’s gray bloodshot eyes one last time, registered the empathy he seemed to genuinely feel for her. Maybe that was all she needed from him for today. Some sign he actually gave a damn. Then she turned and left.

Sasha made sure when she exited the underground bunker not to reveal her position. That’s the last thing she needed was to have their little oasis in this desert of the soul taken from them.

«You took your sweet time?» her husband said. She wondered what he looked like anymore under all the camouflage paint. It had been years since she’d seen him without it. Even the square jaw and bird beak she remembered from once upon a time found their lines softened and altered by the makeup. The horror of the scars hidden by the swaths of black and gray grease following similarly irregular lines across his face.

«Come on,” he said. «Let’s get our asses out of here. You know the drill. Never too long in one place.»

«Don’t you even want to know about your son?»

His look bore into her with such intensity she stopped wondering why he hadn’t asked her to remove her face paint, not once in however many years, to say nothing of her camou fatigues, so he could get a better look at her. Those x-ray eyes saw clear through to her soul, layer by layer, and when they hit bottom and came up dry, he probably figured what was the point of getting her to peel it all back. There was nothing to get closer to. She hadn’t just disappeared to the naked eye on the surface where once was a pretty, smoothly complexioned, round face with a shaved head and big brown eyes; she’d disappeared even to herself. What was left of her soul was inside Peter now. And that’s why she couldn’t let go.

«What son?» he said. «That’s your fantasy. You do what you need to carry on. Just don’t expect me to play along each time.»

Sasha realized he was just being true to himself. Whoever couldn’t hack it out here was dead to him. You were either a survivor or you were nothing. She supposed he kept himself hard and heartless because to get in touch with his feelings wouldn’t exactly be adaptive out here. Their bodies were no less steeled, what with being on the run nearly twenty–four seven.

They darted to the nearest blind in their urban jungle, an overturned jeep. Lebanon, after decades of urban warfare, bombed out, with no building entirely intact, never looked this bad. Of course, they didn’t have robospiders to deal with. All spawned from «Mother.» A suspension bridge stretching across the San Francisco Bay. They had called it The Golden Gate once upon a time. Its value to their world was more priceless than golden. Upgraded to repair itself, it spawned robospiders in response to earthquakes, hurricanes, terrorist attacks of all sorts, able to squirt «spider silk» in the form of metal strands and solder, or asphalt. Except something had gone wrong with the AI. Now it just kept spitting out babies. And those babies were no longer solely interested in maintaining the bridge. They mostly wanted to supply «Mother» with more feedstock to keep making more babies. When they weren’t busy razing humans for getting in their way.

The irony, or more appropriately speaking, the irony of ironies, the day the bridge went AWOL, abandoning its original mission, was the day someone had upgraded it to provide an energy shield that was bombproof. It was deemed the ultimate antiterrorist device. Usually claims of «ultimate» were overblown. Not in this case.