Chapter 2
He broke the law. Tenet Bradwin, IV, son of the Exalted Leader on the Grand Council itself had broken the law. He knew it. He knew going into this insane adventure that it was beyond illegal. He knew it when he was planning with his friends, all of whom backed out at the last moment. He knew it when his father questioned the equipment he found stashed in Tenet's room. He knew it when he poured over his plan and his lists and his supplies. He knew it every step of the way.
For some reason, though, he never imagined that he'd be one of “them”. There was a long list of foolish folks who, for whatever reason, rejected the mandated migration, both Summer and Winter. Those poor saps would spend the rest of their lives chained in the bot factories across the world. But not him. Surely not Tenet Bradwin, IV. He never once allowed himself to entertain the idea that there might just be serious consequences.
Tenet plodded for hours behind Scarab in silence. He had a bounty on his head. A real bounty. That changed everything. He never dreamed he'd be in this much trouble. He thought at the worst there would be a public reprimand, his father would shake his head and slap his wrist. The Council would go along with it publicly, of course. A society had to have law and order, after all. But he imagined pats on the back over brandy in the back rooms of the Clubhouse away from the public eye. He imagined the secret “attaboy” and “way to go” and honestly thought deep in his heart that there would be pride, not condemnation, for his actions. The serious misjudgment was the most humbling part of it all. Too humbling to swallow.
Maybe the bounty was a show? An act? Tenet's brain seized the nugget of hope and squeezed it for all it was worth. Yes, that had to be it! They needed a public show, after all. Make a point about it. The more he thought, the more certain he became. That's all it was. A public example. Surely nothing would actually come of it.
Scarab stopped suddenly and turned to the left. “That way,” she said.
“What's that way?”
“The end of your land.”
Tenet nodded. “Can we rest after that?”
“Yes. The bots won't be looking for anyone off your land. Not tonight, anyway.” She trudged ahead as if that cleared up everything.
“How far will we go past that?”
“Oh, I don't think too much. Another ten minutes or so. It's about all I have in me until I eat. It's been a trying day,” she said dryly.
Tenet ignored the barb. “But won't they see us there? I mean, ten minutes...that's nothing. Wouldn't we be better off to push on a bit more? You know, just to be on the safe side.”
She stopped and looked at him like he had lost his mind. “Safe side? We are on the safe side. That's why we're heading east.” She said it in a tone someone speaking with a toddler would use, and Tenet felt about as competent in that very moment.
He took a deep breath, swallowed his pride, and said, “Ok. You got me. I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about and I admit it. There. Are you happy?”
Instead of the smirk he was expecting, she frowned. “You mean you honestly don't know how the bots work?”
“I know exactly how they work. They tally the crops, report on crop loss, warn of wraiths and...”
She waved him off. “No, idiot. I mean in the off seasons.”
“Oh. Well...” he started, then stopped. It suddenly occurred to him that he, in fact, had no clue. Instead of trying to bluster his way through it, he shook his head.
Scarab threw her hands in the air, turned and started walking. He thought for a minute he'd have to just suppose on his own, but then she started speaking.
“The bots are useful in season, for all the purposes you listed and more. Message carrying, secret service patrol, general policing...all that. Off season, though, all bets are off. You know nothing about it at all?” she asked abruptly.
“Well, a little. I mean, I know they are programmed to find the forgottens.”
Scarab scoffed. “Find them. Yeah. Right. If that were the case, then why would we need bounty hunters?” He opened his mouth, but she waved him off. “They were supposed to do that. They were also supposed to kill off wraiths and gilla and all the other nasties that can live in this.” She waved an arm around the expanse of ash and heat. “Anything that can naturally survive in a climate like this...trust me, it ain't pretty. Or nice. We're talking the nastiest of nasties. Teeth and claws and survival of the fittest.”
“What has that got to do with the bots?”
“I'm getting there,” she said with annoyance. “The bots are, at core, actually very simple machines. Contrary to popular urban legends, they can't think. Never could. People tell tales of bot injustice...but it is really nothing like that. They can't think, so to them there is no such thing as justice.”
“Imagine the world if they could think,” said Tenet, proud to be able to offer anything at all to the conversation. He knew about the mechanics of bots. Everyone learned about them. Everyone who attended the Academy, of course. Though there had been several attempts to make a safe “thinker”, they always failed. In the end, twenty or so years before, one of his father's first official acts as exalted Leader was to ban artificial intelligence chips in bots. It was a measure that was only opposed by a handful, and ended up being touted as “the start of a wonderful leadership,” according to his history professor.
“No thanks, I'll pass on that thought," Scarab said. "So bots can't think. They only follow their programming. During the off season, their programming is quite simple: kill.”
Tenet was shocked. “No. I'm sorry, but no. The Grand Council would not allow...”
“I thought you didn't know anything about it? You want me to stop?”
He shook his head, but kept his mouth shut.
“They kill. It's what they do. As I said, anything that lives here naturally is terrifying and deserves it.” She glanced at him, waiting for his objection. When none came, she continued. “Enter human error. What happens when someone is left behind? What if the skiffs take off without them? What if a child wanders off just at the last moment and becomes a forgotten?”
Tenet looked to her and saw she was actually expecting a reply. “Er, I suppose the bots would find them and report it to the authorities...” He knew it sounded naïve, but he really didn't want to believe the sinking feeling of dread.
“They kill, Tenet,” she said evenly in a voice that left no room for debate. “They see something move, and they kill. They don't care that it's human...they have no way of distinguishing.”
Tenet swallowed hard, feeling he needed to defend the governments, his father. “Surely you're mistaken. I mean, the programming is simple in a bot, but there are ways to program in characteristics for the bots to assess and...” Scarab was shaking her head slowly through his little speech, waiting for him to wind down.
“What would you use for characteristics, huh?”
Logic. Time for logic. There was still a way for it not to be true. “Well, for starters, there's the fact that humans walk upright, and...”
“So do wraiths.”
“Oh,” he said quietly. “That's right. Well, how about faces? Surely there's a way to program them to recognize human facial features.”
Scarab sighed and stepped over a small electric fence. “We're here,” she said, plopping to the ground right on the other side. “Facial features are fine and all, and it's a good idea that's been tried. And failed.”
“Why?” he asked, sitting next to her, glad for the rest.
“Have you ever seen a raptor attack? Or a wraith? Hell, even a coonskunk?”
“Attack? No, I suppose not.”
“You will. And when you do, maybe you'll understand how pointless it is to program facial recognition into a bot. Won't work. They'd need to get far too close in order for it to be successful. Wraiths...they stand near human height, but they can jump forever. Since they're from monkey stock like us, you'd have to be pretty damned close to tell the difference. When our ancestors screwed aroun
d in the old labs, they didn't go halfway. If you get close enough to tell the difference, you're destroyed. Period.”
“DNA sampling," he said, thinking out loud.
"What?"
"DNA sampling. They can take a sample of the specimen and analyze it on the spot and...What's that look for?"
She stared at him blankly.
Then it dawned on him. “Oh. They'd have to get too close, right?”
She saw that there was actual hurt in his eyes, as if the knowledge betrayed him somehow. “Look, don't take it hard, okay? All of those things have been thought about and tried. And failed. Voice recognition, heart rate monitoring, clothing verses fur...all of them were tried. Honestly, I'm not really blaming the governments for this one.” She reached up and unsnapped the seal on her mask. “Sun's low. Go ahead. Even the heat of the evening breeze feels better than being trapped.”
Tenet reached up and tried to unsnap his mask, but found the task too difficult with his gloves on. Without a word, Scarab reached over and deftly unclipped it. He was grateful, but pride held his tongue.
The rush of the intense heat was at first almost too much to bear. Gradually, though, his skin became accustomed and he indeed felt much better for not being completely trapped. With the sun low, the searing light had waned significantly, and he was able to look around with naked eyes in daylight for the first time in days. “It's so different,” he said softly, still unable to recognize anything.
“That, Tenet, is the whole point.” Scarab reached into her sack and took out some food. “Eat. Not much, because we can't have a fire, but it's something.” Tenet took the lump from her hand and tried to chew it. She passed him some water, and told him to take a bite, then a swig and it would make chewing easier. He tried, and she was right. Still, it was absolutely disgusting.
Scarab laughed at the face he made. “Oh, come now. It's not so bad. You'll get used to it.”
He shook his head. “I'm just trying to figure out what it is.”
She opened her mouth, but closed it quickly. He was not ready for that yet. “Just enough to keep us alive.”
Tenet chewed as well as he could and nodded. His own food supply had been as poorly thought out as the rest of this journey. Being a privileged son on a corn farm meant that in real life he never wanted for food. It meant that people lined up to be the ones to furnish the pantry. It meant more bargaining power than anyone else, and it meant he wanted for nothing. It also meant that any “emergency planning” was beyond him. He had packed fruits and vegetables, all kinds of them, as many as he could fit in his sack. Flour for making breads, egg protein powder and he even managed to find cheese. His sister turned her nose up at the idea, but he read somewhere that cheese was a good source of protein. All of these items would have him eating well for weeks...if they hadn't succumbed to the heat so quickly. He knew it was going to be hot. He never dreamed it would be this bad. Within a day things were rotting and drying up. The stench was horrendous, and he had cast aside his sack. He was very grateful for whatever it was that he was eating, even if he couldn't manage to chew it completely.
Scarab finished off her chunk of mystery nourishment and chugged the rest of her water. “Ah. Life on the run. Fun, isn't it?”
Tenet ignored the comment. “The bots,” he said, reminding her where they left off in the conversation.
“Oh, yes. So the bots kill. Doesn't take a genius to figure out that it's not exactly the kind of system that'll bring forgotten loved ones home. I'm sure they'll keep trying, keep striving for that perfect bot. Since we're not there yet, they have to use what they've got. Can't let the wraiths and the like get out of control. Imagine how bad it could be on migration day if everyone came home to find their lives were destroyed? Or worse, walked in their front doors and got eaten.”
Tenet forced down the last of his dinner with his water, then wiped the back of his mouth with his glove. “I think you're exaggerating a bit,” he said, leaning back on his elbows. “I don't think it would be as bad as all that. First, I've been out here nearly a week already and have yet to see either wraiths or a bot. Nothing. You're the first moving thing I've seen.”
Scarab shook her head. “You're the one that's wrong. First, you haven't seen wraiths or anything like that because it's still early in the season. Right now they're prowling south, where they go when it's Winter. But they'll be back. I guarantee it. In, oh, two weeks' time we'll start seeing them. As for the bots, and getting back to the whole point of this discussion, you haven't seen them because they haven't been here. Yet. Bots patrol in sectors. Your land happens to be its own sector and...” She stopped abruptly and looked up. Tenet looked in the same direction but could see nothing.
“What's the matter?”
“Shh. Look. To prove my point...” She raised her hand and pointed across the fence.
Tenet squinted but could see nothing. He hastily put his mask back on and amplified the display. Way off in the distance, five little dots could be seen hovering. “Are those...”
“Bots.”
Tenet took off the helmet and squinted, but again could see nothing. “How the hell can you see those?”
“I don't see them, I hear them.”
It was faint, but if he concentrated he could hear a tiny hum similar to a bee. “Oh.”
“Your land is their sector through tomorrow. This land we're on now was their sector yesterday. This early in the season, the go sector to sector in groups of five and comb the area. Seek and destroy.” The words were spoken quietly, but they may as well have been shouted. The effect on Tenetts nerves was the same.
“And they do this all season?”
“No. They do this for a couple weeks. First 18 days of the off season, to be exact. After that, as the herds or gaggles or whatever you want to call them flood in to battle it out for their temporary mating land, everything changes.”
Tenet could see the bots now with his naked eyes. They panned back and forth, little dots in a perfect formation, searching for things to destroy. “What...what happens then?”
Scarab frowned, but kept looking straight ahead. “Each sector gets one bot. The bot patrols it around the clock. A bot on every sector, every moment of the day.”
“For the rest of the season?”
“Unfortunately, no.”
Tenet's eyes went wide. “It gets worse?”
“Toward the end of the season, in the last 22 days to be exact, when the heat cools and the plants start to grow and the animals with no common sense try to rush their own migrations, one bot per sector just isn't enough. It becomes a feeding frenzy. Wraith and raptor numbers skyrocket. Gotta feed all the young that were born that season. You look out over this land right now and it's dead. Give it two months, and you'll wish it was dead again.”
Tenet swallowed hard. “So, more bots?”
“Five per sector, around the clock. No sweep patterns like you see here, no formations. I know they can't think. I know it is absolutely impossible for them to feel anything. But I've seen it, more times than I ever wanted to. In those moments, in the heat of such intense battles where everything is either trying to kill or avoid being killed...” She turned and looked at him. “It's almost as if they enjoy it.”
Tenet looked away from her and stared at the bots with a growing feeling of dread. The little creatures of man were small, only about a foot tall and wide. Someone along the way decided that painting them to look like the were wearing uniforms would make them more palatable to the average person. Since these were military bots in design, they had the camouflage of a soldier, complete with little stars. In everyday life, he had actually found their paint jobs to be cute. Messenger bots with their little brown paint jobs, complete with a painted on package...it worked. They were cute and harmless, just another pack of schmucks in the rat race of life. In everyday life, it worked. In this wasteland of unfamiliarity, it sent a shiver down his spine.
True to her word, the bots got within a foot of the fence and
stopped. They hovered for a moment, and Tenet couldn't stop himself from taking a step back, waiting to bolt if it was necessary. But it wasn't. They hovered for a moment while their programming ran the next line of code, then simply turned around and started the sweep again.
He didn't even try and stop the sigh of relief. “You're sure it's safe here? You're sure they already did this sector?”
“They already did this sector. We're safe from the bots.” Scarab turned and picked up her mask that was on the ground. “Let's go.”
“What? I thought you said we'd stop here?”
“That's what I said and what we did. Now let's get going.”
Tenet threw his hands in the air. “If it's safe, what's the rush?”
“Do you ever listen?” she asked throwing her hands in the air. “We're safe...from the bots. But only from the bots.”
Tenet set his feet and planted his hands across his chest. “Of course I listen! You said we're safe from the bots. You also said there are no wraiths or any nasties here yet. So what's the rush?”
Scarab turned and placed her own arms across her chest. “You think that's all there is to worry about? Look, buddy. We've got precisely fifteen days to get to base camp before the bots step up their patrol. As you obviously haven't figured out, we've got no choice but to walk. Add to that the fact that you're delusional enough to assume that I'm the only hunter looking for you, and we've got ourselves one mighty tight time line. Now, I suggest you pick that mask up, stick it somewhere, and get moving.”
He was torn. She was a hunter after him. There was not one good reason for him to trust her. It would be so easy to once again defy reason and turn away. He knew where the bots would be and when. He now knew which direction they were heading. He knew her trick about covering tracks and would no doubt be able to master it if he had to. On the other hand...he had no food. Aside from generalities, he had no idea where they would actually be safe. He had no idea how many hunters were also hard on his heels, and no way of knowing when they'd get him. And if he was going to be truly honest with himself, and only himself, he couldn't even recover from tripping over a rock.
“Well?”
He sighed and grabbed the mask. When he got right down to it, what choice did he have?