Daniel Wilson - Robopocalypse

That’s all I can get out.

“Your mom stopped the operation,” he says. “Good for her.”

Tom stands up. “Dawn,” he says, “this is amazing. The implant has no governor on it. Rob didn’t get the chance to hobble it. I don’t know. I mean, there’s no telling what she can do.”

A wave of rising heartbeats cascades toward me.

“Why are you all excited?” I ask.

“Because,” says Dawn. “We think maybe you can talk to the machines.”

Then Nolan moans. It’s been two hours since we arrived here and he looks terrible. I can hear him breathing in little pants.

“I have to help my brother,” I say.

Five minutes later, Marcus and Tom have placed Nolan next to the autodoc. The machine has its legs raised, poised like needles over my little brother’s sleeping body.

“Make an X-ray, Mathilda,” says Dawn.

I put a hand onto the autodoc and speak to it in my mind: Hello? Are you there?

Indicate preferred function .

X-ray?

The spider legs begin to move. Some move out of the way, while others creep around Nolan’s body. A strange clicking sound comes from the writhing legs.

The words come into my mind with an image. Place patient in the prone position. Remove clothing around the lumbar area .

I gently turn Nolan over onto his stomach. I pull his shirt up to reveal his back. There are flecks of dark, crusted blood all around the knobs of his spine.

Fix him , I think to the autodoc.

Error , it responds. Surgical functionality unavailable. Database missing. Uplink not present. Antenna attachment required .

“Dawn,” I say, “it doesn’t know how to do surgery. It wants an antenna so it can get instructions.”

Marcus turns to Dawn, concerned. “It’s trying to trick us. If we give it the antenna, it will call for help. They’ll track us down.”

Dawn nods. “Mathilda, we can’t risk that—”

But she stops cold when she sees me.

Someplace in my head, I know that the arms of the autodoc are silently rising into the air behind me, instruments gleaming. The countless needles and scalpels hover there on swaying legs, menacing. Nolan needs help and if they won’t give it, I’m willing to take it.

I frown at the group of people and set my jaw.

“Nolan needs me.”

Marcus and Dawn look at each other again.

“Mathilda?” asks Dawn. “How do you know it’s not a trap, honey? I know you want to help Nolan, but you also don’t want to hurt us.”

I think about it.

“The autodoc is smarter than the spiker,” I say. “It can talk. But it’s not that smart. It’s just asking for what it needs. Like an error message.”

“But that thinking Rob is out there—” says Marcus.

Dawn touches Marcus on the shoulder.

“Okay, Mathilda,” says Dawn.

Marcus gives up arguing. He looks around, sees something, and strides across the room. Reaching up, he grabs a wire dangling from the ceiling and swings it back and forth to unloop it from a piece of metal. Then he hands it to me, eyeing the autodoc’s swaying legs.

“This cable goes to the building above us. It’s long and metal and it goes high. Perfect antenna. Be careful.”

I barely hear him. The instant the antenna touches my hand a tidal wave of information comes flooding into my head. Into my eyes. Streams of numbers and letters and images fill my vision. None of it makes sense at first. Swirls of color blow through the air in front of me.

That’s when I feel it. Some kind of… mind. An alien thing , stalking through the data, searching for me. Calling out my name. Mathilda?

The autodoc begins speaking in a constant babble. Scanning initiated. One, two, three, four. Query satellite uplink. Database access. Download initiated. Ortho-, gastro-, uro-, gyno-, neuro…

It’s too fast. Too much. I can’t understand what the autodoc is saying anymore. I’m getting dizzy as the information surges into me. The monster calls for me again, and now it is closer. I think of those cold doll eyes that night in my bedroom and the way that lifeless thing whispered my name in the darkness.

The colors spin around me like a tornado.

Stop , I think. But nothing happens. I can’t breathe. The colors are too bright and they’re drowning me, making it so that I can’t think. Stop! I shout with my mind. And my name comes again, louder this time, and I can’t tell where my arms are or how many I have. What am I? I scream inside my head, with everything in me.

STOP!

I drop the antenna like a snake. The colors fade. The images and symbols drop to the floor and are swept away like fall leaves into the corners of the room. The vivid colors bleach away into the dull white tile.

I take one breath. Then two. The autodoc legs start to move.

There are tiny motor sounds as the autodoc works on Nolan. A spotlight flicks on and shines on his back. A rotating scrubber comes down and cleans his skin. A syringe goes in and out almost too fast to see. The movements are quick and precise and full of little pauses, like when the petting zoo chickens used to turn their heads and peck at corn.

In the sudden quiet, I can hear something beneath the static of the tiny motor noises. It is a voice.

… sorry for what I’ve done. I’m called Lurker. I’m bringing down the British Telecom tower communications blockade. Should open up satellite access, but I don’t know for how long. If you can hear this message, the comm lines are still open. The satellites are free. Use them while you can. The damned machines will—Ah, no. Christ, please. Can’t hold on any longer. I’m sorry…. Catch you in the funny pages, mate .

After about ten seconds, the broken message repeats. I can barely hear it. The man sounds very scared and young but also proud. I hope that he is okay, wherever he is.

Finally, I stand up. Behind me, I can feel the autodoc operating on Nolan. The group of people still stand, watching me. I have barely been aware that they are here. Talking to the machines takes such concentration. I can hardly see people anymore. It is so easy to lose myself in the machine.

“Dawn?” I say.

“Yes, honey?”

“There’s a man out there, talking. His name is Lurker. He says he destroyed a communications blockade. He says the satellites are free.”

The people look at each other in wonder. Two of them hug. Tom and Marcus slap their hands together. They make small, happy noises. Smiling, Dawn puts her hands on my shoulders.

“That’s good, Mathilda. It means we can talk to other people. Rob never destroyed the communications satellites, it just blocked them off from us.”

“Oh,” I say.

“This is very important, Mathilda,” she says. “What else do you hear out there? What’s the most important message?”

I put my hands on the sides of my face and concentrate. I listen very hard. And when I listen beyond the man’s repeating voice, I find that I can hear further into the network.

There are so many messages floating around. Some of them are sad. Some are angry. Many of them are confused or cutoff or rambling, but one of them sticks out in my mind. It is a special message with three familiar words in it:

Robot defense act .

Mathilda had only scratched the surface of her abilities. In the coming months, she would hone her special gift in the relative safety of the New York City underground, protected by Marcus and Dawn.

The message she was able to find on this day, due to the ultimate sacrifice made by Lurker and Arrtrad in London, proved instrumental in the formation of a North American army. Mathilda Perez had found a call to arms issued by Paul Blanton, and the location of humankind’s greatest enemy.