Daniel Wilson - Robopocalypse

“We survived for a reason, Arrtrad. This monster. This thing . It’s played its hand, see? It’s using the machines to hurt people. But we’re savvy now. We can help. We’ll save all those poor sheep out there. We’ll save them and they’ll thank us for it. They’ll worship us for it. Me and you. We’re coming out on top. It’s all in the plan, mate.”

Arrtrad looks away. It’s plain that he doesn’t believe a word of it. Looks like he might have something to say.

“What? Go on, then,” I say.

“Well, pardon me. But you never seemed the helping type, Lurker. Don’t get me wrong—”

And that’s just it, isn’t it? I’ve never thought much of other people. Or thought about them much at all. But those pale palms against the window. I can’t stop thinking of them. I have a feeling they will be with me for a long time.

“Yeah, I know that,” I say. “But you’ve not seen my forgiving nature. It’s all in the plan, Arrtrad. You have to trust. You’ll see, yeah? We’ve survived. It had to have been for a reason. We have a purpose now, you and me. It’s us against that thing. And we’re going to get revenge. So stand up and join the fight.”

I reach my hand out to Arrtrad.

“Yeah?” he asks.

He still doesn’t fully believe me. But I’m starting to believe myself. I take his hand in mine and haul Arrtrad to his feet.

“Yeah, mate. Picture this. It’s me and you against the devil himself. To the death. All the way to the very end. And someday, we’ll be in the history books for it. Guaranteed.”

This event appeared to represent a turning point in Lurker’s life. As the New War began in earnest, it seems that he left all childish things behind him and started behaving as a member of the human race. In further records, Lurker’s arrogance and vanity remain the same. But his breathtaking selfishness seems to have disappeared along with the silver car.

This account is composed of a series of patched-together camera and satellite feeds, roughly tracking the GPS coordinates provided by the phone I owned at Zero Hour. Since my brother and I are the subjects of this surveillance, I have chosen to annotate with my own recollections. At the time, of course, we had no idea that we were being watched.

Shit, man. Here it is, the day before Thanksgiving. The day it all happened. My life up until now was never that great, but at least I wasn’t being hunted. I never had to jump at shadows, wondering whether some metal bug was about to try and blind me, sever one of my limbs, or infect me like a parasite.

Relative to that, my life before Zero Hour was perfection.

I’m in Boston and it’s as cold as a bastard. The wind is cutting my ears like razor blades and I’m chasing my brother through the Downtown Crossing outdoor shopping pavilion. Jack is three years older than me and as usual he’s trying to do the right thing. But I won’t listen to him.

Our dad died last summer. Me and Jack flew out West and buried him. And that was that. We left our stepmom alone in California with a lot of tear-streaked makeup and everything Dad owned.

Well, pretty much everything.

Since then, I’ve been sleeping on Jack’s couch. Mooching, I’ll admit it. In another few days, I’m flying to Estonia on a photojournalist gig for Nat Geo . From there, I’ll try to book my next gig straight, so that I don’t have to come home.

In about five minutes, the whole fucking world is going to go bat-shit insane. But I don’t know that, I’m just trying to catch Jack and calm him down and get him to be cool.

I grab Jack’s arm right before we reach the wide, open-air tunnel that runs under the street and across to the shopping pavilion. Jack turns around and without hesitation the jerk punches me in the mouth. My right upper canine cuts a nice little hole in my bottom lip. His fists are still up, but I just touch my lip with my finger; it comes away bloody.

“I thought it was never in the face, you fucker,” I say, panting clouds.

“You made me do it, man. I tried to run,” he says.

I know this already. It’s how he’s always been. Still, I’m kind of stunned. He’s never hit me in the face before.

This must have been a bigger fuckup than I thought.

But Jack already has that “I’m sorry” look creeping onto his face. His bright blue eyes are trained on my mouth, calculating how bad he hurt me. He smirks and looks away. Not that bad, I guess.

I lick the blood off my lip.

“Look, Dad left it to me. I’m broke. There was no other choice. I had to sell it to get to Estonia and make some money. See how that works?”

My dad gave me a special bayonet from World War II. I sold it. I was wrong and I know it, but somehow I can’t admit this to Jack, my perfect brother. He’s a damn Boston firefighter and in the National Guard. Talk about hero material.

“It belonged to the family, Cormac,” he says. “Pappy risked his life for it. It was a part of our heritage. And you pawned it for a few hundred bucks.”

He stops and takes a breath.

“Okay, this is pissing me off. I can’t even talk to you right now or I’m going to knock you out.”

Jack stalks away, angry. When the sand-colored walking land mine appears at the end of the tunnel, he reacts instantly.

“Everybody look out! Out of the tunnel. Bomb!” he bellows. People respond immediately to the authority in his voice. Even me. A few dozen flatten themselves against the wall as the six-legged device tap, taps slowly past them over the paving stones. The rest of the people flood out of the tunnel in a controlled panic.

Jack walks to the middle of the tunnel, a lone gunfighter. He draws a Glock .45 from a holster under his jacket. He clasps the gun in two hands, keeps it pointed at the ground. Hesitantly, I step out behind him. “You have a gun?” I whisper.

“A lot of us in the guard do,” says Jack. “Listen, stay far away from that scuttle mine. It can move a lot faster than it’s going now.”

“Scuttle mine?”

Jack’s eyes never leave the shoebox-sized machine coming down the middle of the tunnel. United States military ordnance. Its six legs move one by one in sharp mechanical jerks. Some kind of laser on its back paints a red circle on the ground around it.

“What’s it doing here, Jack?”

“I don’t know. It must have come from the National Guard armory. It’s stuck in diagnostic mode. That red circle is there to let a demo man set the trigger range. Go call nine one one.”

Before I can get out my cell phone, the machine stops. It leans back on four legs and raises its front two legs into the air. It looks like an angry crab.

“Okay, you’ll want to back up now. It’s target seeking. I’m going to have to shoot it.”

Jack raises his gun. Already walking backward, I call to my brother, “Won’t that make it blow up?”

Jack assumes a firing stance. “Not if I only shoot its legs. Otherwise, yes.”

“Isn’t that bad?”

Reared back, the scuttle mine paws the air.

“It’s targeting, Cormac. Either we disable it, or it disables one of us.” Jack squints down his gunsight. Then he squeezes the trigger and a deafening boom echoes through the tunnel. My ears are ringing when he fires again.

I wince, but there’s no big explosion.

Over Jack’s shoulder, I see the scuttle mine lying on its back, three remaining legs clawing at the air. Then Jack steps into my line of sight, makes eye contact with me, and speaks slowly. “Cormac. I need you to get help, buddy. I’ll stay here and keep an eye on this thing. You get out of the tunnel and call the police. Tell them to send a bomb squad.”