Daniel Wilson - Robopocalypse

Our robes blend in with the rocks. Still, we usually stay a half mile apart from each other, minimum. Being so far apart helps determine the direction of avtomat radio communications. Plus, if one of us gets hit by a missile, the other can have time to hoof it or hide.

After five or six hours following the biped, we spread out and take a final reading for the day. It’s a slow process. I just sit down in my pile of robes, prop my stick up into the air, and put on my headphones to listen for the crackle of communication. My machine logs the time of arrival automatically. Jabar’s doing the same thing a half mile away. In a little while, we’ll compare numbers to get a loose direction.

Sitting out here in the sun, there’s a lot of time to think about what might have been. I scouted my old base once. Windblown rubble. Rusted hunks of abandoned machinery. There’s nothing to go back to.

After a half hour sitting cross-legged and watching the sun drop over those sparkling mountains, a comm burst hits. My stick blinks—it’s logged. I flash my cracked hand mirror to Jabar and he reciprocates. We start the hike back toward each other.

It looks like the biped avto went just over the next ridge and stopped. They don’t sleep, so who knows what it’s up to over there. It must not have sensed us, because it’s not raining bullets. As it gets dark, the ground radiates all the day’s heat into the sky. The heat is our only camouflage; without it we’ve got no choice but to stay put. We pull out our sleeping bags and bivouac for the night.

Jabar and I lay there, side by side, in the cold dark that’s getting colder. The black sky is opening up overhead and out here, I swear to god, there’s more stars than there is night.

“Paul,” whispers Jabar. “I am worried. This one does not seem like the others.”

“It’s a modified SAP unit. Those were pretty common, before. I worked with lots of them.”

“Yes, I remember. They were the pacifists who grew fangs. But that one was not made of metal. It had no weapons at all.”

“And that worries you? That it was un armed?”

“It is different. Anything different is bad.”

I stare into the heavens and listen to the wind on the rocks and think of the billions of particles of air colliding against each other above me. So many possibilities. All the horrible potential of the universe.

“The avtomata are changing, Jabar,” I say finally. “If different is bad, buddy, then I think we’re in for a whole lot of bad.”

We had no idea how much things were changing.

Next morning, Jabar and I packed up and crept over the broken rocks to the next ridge. Over it, another eye-searing azure lake lapping a white-stone shore.

Band-e-Amir used to be a national park, you know, but we’re still in Afghanistan. Meaning that a bronze plaque never stopped the locals from fishing here with dynamite. Not the friendliest approach, but I’ve used a trotline or two myself back in Oklahoma. Even with the dynamite and leaky gasoline boats and sewer lines, Band-e-Amir stood the test of time.

It outlasted the locals.

“Avtomat must have come this way,” I say, peering down the rocky slope. The jagged slate boulders vary in size from basketball to dinner table. Some are stable. Most aren’t.

“Can you make it?” I ask Jabar.

He nods and claps one hand against his dusty combat boot. American-issue. Probably looted by his tribe members from my base. So it goes.

“That’s great, Jabar. Where’d you get those?”

The kid just smiles at me, the world’s most haggard teenager.

“All right, let’s go,” I say, cautiously stepping over the lip of the ridge. The boulders are so unsteady and steep that we have to go down facing the slope, pressing our sweaty palms against the rocks and testing each step before we take it.

It’s a damn good thing we do go backward.

After thirty minutes, we’re only halfway down. I’m picking my way through the rubble—kicking rocks to see if they’ll move—when I hear some rocks falling farther up. Jabar and I freeze, necks craned as we scan the gray rock face for movement.

Nothing.

“Something’s coming,” whispers Jabar.

“Let’s move,” I say, stepping now with more urgency.

Keeping our heads up and eyes open, the two of us descend over the wobbling rocks. Every few minutes, we hear the clack, clack of more rocks falling from above us. Each time, we stop and scan for motion. Each time we find nothing.

Something invisible is coming down the slope, stalking us. This thing is taking its time, moving quiet and staying hidden. The oldest part of my brain senses the danger and floods my body with adrenaline. There’s a predator coming, it says. Run the fuck away.

But if I move any faster, I’ll fall and die in an avalanche of cold slate.

Now my legs are trembling as I inch my way over the rocks. Glancing down, I see there’s still at least another half hour before we reach bottom. Shit, that’s too long. I slip and gash my knee open on a rock. I bite down hard on the curse before it gets out.

Then I hear a low, animal moan.

It’s Jabar. The kid crouches on the rocks ten feet up, lying stockstill. His eyes are fixed on something above us. I don’t think he even knows that he’s making that sound.

I still don’t see anything.

“What, Jabar? What’s there, man?”

“Koh peshak,” he hisses.

“Mountain what? What’s on the mountain, Jabar?”

“Uh, how do you say… snow cat.”

“Snow? What? Did you say a fucking snow leopard ? They live here?”

“We thought they were gone.”

“Extinct?”

“Not anymore.”

With an effort, I refocus my eyes on the rocks above us. Finally, I catch the twitch of a tail and the predator emerges from concealment. A pair of unblinking silver eyes are watching me. The leopard knows that we’ve spotted it. It bounds toward us over the unstable rocks, heavy muscles quivering with each impact. Quiet, determined death is on its way.

I scrabble for my rifle.

Jabar turns around and slides toward me on his ass, wailing in panic. But he’s too late. The snow leopard is suddenly just a few feet away, landing on its front paws with a great bushy tail outstretched as a counterweight. That wide flat nose collapses into a wrinkled snarl, and white canines flash. The cat gets hold of Jabar from behind and yanks his body back.

Finally, I get my rifle up. I fire high to avoid Jabar. The cat shakes him back and forth, growls radiating from deep in its throat like the idle of a diesel engine. When my bullet hits it in the flank, the cat screeches and lets go of Jabar. It coils back, tail protectively wrapping around its forelegs. It snarls and screams, looking for what caused so much pain.

Jabar’s body falls onto the rocks, limp.

The leopard is divinely terrible and beautiful, and it absolutely belongs here. But this is life or death. My heart breaks as I unload my rifle on the magnificent creature. Red stains spread through the mottled fur. The big cat falls back onto the rocks, tail lashing. Those silver eyes squeeze shut and the snarl is frozen forever on its face.

I feel numb as the last echo of gunfire races away across the mountains. Then, Jabar grabs my leg and pulls himself up to a sitting position. He shrugs off his backpack, groaning. I drop to a knee and put one hand on his shoulder. I pull his robes back away from his neck to see two long stripes of blood. His back and shoulder have been shallowly filleted, but otherwise he is unharmed.

“It ate your backpack, you lucky bastard,” I say to him.

He doesn’t know whether to grin or cry and neither do I.

I’m glad the kid is alive. His people would execute me straightaway if I was dumb enough to come back without him. Plus, he’s apparently got a knack for spotting snow leopards just before they pounce. That could come in handy someday.