Feed the Machine (42 page)

Chapter 65

Ash

The hasdee hit one-hundred percent and started printing.

“C’mon faster!” Ash urged it. But it wasn’t advanced like the junkcube hasdee. It laid out the layers of the bomb methodically.

Jit. Jit. Jit.

He was alone in the underground room. He’d rushed down with the final materials (bottles of sulfur), meeting Silver who was waiting in the doorway. She told him to put the bomb as close as possible to the white block. The instant he turned his back she was gone and he was left yelling up the tunnel.

Jit. Jit. Jit.

Halfway but an eternity to go. The white box in the center of Cago was humming, increasing in volume and pitch. The sound of it magnified as it bounced down the mine.

It was the sound of a thousand bad things.

Jit. Jit. Jit.

The EMP was a dull red squat cube. Inside it was a complicated mess of wires and what appeared to be an explosive. As the hasdee printed it covered the circuits and wires, closing the top and printing a single green button. The hasdee chimed completion.

Ash knelt down and slid the cube out. The button had DETONATE printed on it. No timer, no other information.

“Fuck,” he swore and picked it up. It was heavy but manageable. He turned around and raced out the door.

Up the silver tunnel tracked with mud and into the mine. Fat Man’s lights were still operating but growing dimmer by the second. Soon they’d blink out and he’d be in the dark. Ash stepped around dropped tools and other pieces of junk that had fallen from the ceiling in the night. Water trickled down through it and landed on him in cold droplets.

Soon his legs were burning and the bomb seemed to double in weight. The mine was a steady gradient upwards but it felt like he was back in the Scour again, running from Scabs up steep slopes.

The world narrowed as the lights dimmed away. He crashed through a pile of junk he didn’t see, lost his balance, recovered. The edges of the bomb dug into his forearms, every step a new jab.

Agony grew as the pain in his legs deepened. Once more he was running up a mine and a bomb was involved. Last time he’d ended a charred corpse according to Kin, saved only by three doses of heal.

What would happen when this bomb went off?

The ring of light appeared in the distance but there was no joy to it. Only pain that burned his lungs, set fire to his throat. It was jagged and sharp. The lights above died but he was close to the exit now.

A silhouette moved past the entrance. A hazel, full grown.

It was only a few meters from the mine entrance to the fence and the holes. Sprint through, sprint through. Ash kept moving, more a trudge than a sprint. He burst out into the daylight and heard the howl right beside him.

He saw a flash of black and the howl became a scream. He turned his head, legs moving on their own, the world shuddering.

Kin, clinging to the hazel’s back, slashing at it with his paws.

“Run!” Kin shouted. The hazel rolled and Kin went under him.

There was no time to stop, no way he could fight such a creature. Ash shot through the hole in the three fences and into the streets of Cago.

The humming was piercing and then it stopped abruptly. There was a crack from the center of town, deeper than the guns.

Ash kept running even as the screams arose from ahead of him.

The street became a blur of faces. Some people were standing still but others were running, a tide coming towards him. He crashed past a woman carrying a baby—she jarred his shoulder and he stumbled before righting himself. A man bolted down the street shouting RUN RUN RUN at the top of his voice. Panic filled the air. There was not a single pet in sight—they’d all fled Cago to escape the range of the bomb.

Ash found himself on the ground, his hands in agony, scraped bloody by the cobblestones. He staggered to his feet, picked up the bomb and turned a corner.

The white box was half-gone. It was splintering down the sides as silver bugs ate their way free and flowed outward in a churning torrent. A man lay on the edge of their expanding range screaming, both legs missing at the knees.

Ash stumbled forward, his momentum carrying him. He stepped on something and then he was falling, down into the heaving sea of bugs.

He hit the button.

Chapter 66

Silver

The gold man raised his arm and flicked his fingers towards them.

The EMP hit and he turned black as every tiny machine that made up his body was destroyed. The dead liquid splashed to the floor. Some of it splattered Silver and Nola.

Silver tasted something bad in her mouth and spat on the ground. Her saliva was black. Her stomach turned and she vomited on the beautiful carpet. The vomit was black. Nola and the others in the room did the same. All black.

She stood straight and cleared her throat. The humming outside had stopped. Moments later came the pressure. Ash had detonated the EMP.

He’s dead.

“No he’s not,” she snapped and opened her bag. She’d lined it with mesh and connected a power supply. Hello blinked from the depths.

“Safe?” he croaked.

Silver nodded and pulled him out. He flapped across to the sofa.

“What the fuck are you doing here?”

Nola, her face red and frantic. She was smeared with dirt and blood.

She’s angry. Use it.

“Fat Man is here and all the guards have no weapons now.”

Nola aimed her gun at the floor and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened.

“Neither do we.”

“But we have this. Put out your arm,” Silver replied and took the modified shockstick bracelet out of the bag. It maybe had ten charges left in it. Nola held out her arm and Silver clamped the shock bracelet around it.

She took a long wickedly sharp knife out of her bag.

“He’s in the back room. We need to hurry. Touch people to shock them.”

“Wait! He could still have weapons.” Jarrah, leaping in front of Silver to stop her from leaving the room.

“No, we have to go now! The machines will come back soon and he might have some bugs hidden away. It has to be now!”

He loves Nola, use it.

Silver smiled at Jarrah.

“Come with me and Nola, keep us safe,” she said. She turned to Emi. “Go out and tell everyone Fat Man is undefended. Tell them all to come here right now!”

Emi nodded and ran to the exit.

“Fat Man is close?” Nola asked.

Silver nodded. “Fifty meters away.” She’d touched him at Feed, had been tracking him ever since.

She watched her sister, saw rage and fear battling. Rage won.

“Stay behind me,” Nola whispered.

Silver pointed the way.

They stepped through the dead gold man, now a puddle of cold wet metallic slush. The robot was where it had died. The hall was quiet and their footsteps echoed as they crossed it unchallenged. Jarrah held his gun like a club. The other three women crept along behind them.

They went around the back of the stairs. There was a door hanging open. Nola went through first, her hand outstretched.

The corridor was long and dark, lit only by thin slots carved high in the walls. Between the patches of light was ink. Dead solar lights hung from the ceiling. The EMP had wiped it all out.

“Hey!”

Two guards at the end of the corridor. One lifted his gun and pulled the trigger. Nothing. The other did the same.

Nola ran at them, Silver close behind.

The guards fumbled with their weapons, struggling to get them off. One rushed forward, swinging his gun. Nola dived for his feet, crashing into him. His body went rigid as the electrical shock went through him.

The second guard had held back. He lifted his gun to hit Nola. Out of the darkness Hello swooped in, scratching his eyes. The guard yelled, off balance and that was all it took. Nola lunged forward and grabbed his ankle. He stiffened and fell.

Silver stabbed the first prone guard with the knife and then the second before anyone could say a word.

Kill them all!

“Yes, yes,” Silver muttered, pulling the knife out of the dead guard.

Jarrah arrived with the other three out of breath. Nola had taken off so fast they hadn’t been able to catch her.

“Wow,” he gasped.

Nola stood and examined the door. It was solid steel, a vault door like the one in the medicine shop. She tried the handle. It was locked. She bashed it with her gun but it only thrummed, unbreakable.

Silver opened her bag and took out a small bottle of white liquid. After making the sedative for her mother she’d only had enough time to make two milliliters. More than enough.

“I’ll open it,” she said.

She took out the tablet also and stroked her fingers across the surface. Already the machines from outside Cago were colonizing, making their way back in. It wouldn’t be long before they were here and she didn’t know if her machines were stronger.

She opened the bottle and dripped the liquid onto the door. It trickled down in a thin white line.

Nola watched over her shoulder as Silver told her machines to go into the door. The white liquid came to life and vanished, seeping in. She directed them to the locking mechanism and told them to twist it.

Her tiny machines were strong for their size. Something inside the door groaned. The lock clicked and the heavy door swung open.

Fat Man was sitting on a comfortable sofa reading a book. The room wasn’t much larger than their kitchen at home. There was a sofa across the back wall, a double bed on the other wall, a metal chair, a pile of books and a dead hasdee. Dead bugs littered the floor. Small slits in the walls illuminated the room. A pile of sweet pastries sat on the table.

Silver stepped in and Nola followed.

“My lovely family members are here,” Fat Man said, looking up from his book.

Silver tapped the screen of the tablet and the vault door swung shut, slamming in Jarrah’s face. It locked itself.

“Shock him Nola,” Silver said. She opened her bag and took out handfuls of plastic ties.

“Do that and your entire family will die,” Fat Man replied. He put his book down and struggled to his feet.

“He kills babies.”

Nola was across the room in a flash. She punched Fat Man in the nose. A burst of blue light cracked from the end of her first and he slumped to the ground, his entire body shaking. A small wisp of smoke curled from the shock bracelet. Nola took it off and dropped it on the floor beside him.

“Fuck you,” she said and spat on him.

Silver took the plastic ties and bound his wrists and ankles together. Nola watched her work.

“What’s the point of that? Give me the knife so I can kill him.”

Silver stood and passed her the knife.

“You can’t kill him with that.”

“So what the fuck are we supposed to do then?”

Silver tipped her bag out on the bed. A bunch of metal clamps fell out. She picked one and spun the lever, loosening it.

“We need to get that meat off him,” she said, turning to her sister.

Chapter 67

Ella

Hateful chaos had reared its head, twisted the world.

The boy was close to dead. Same for his cat.

Bug was howling in sadness and she was typing with aching fingers, trying to find anyone still infested by nanites.

The EMP had worked wonderfully. The white box of bugs was fried. Same with the Machine that squatted in the center of town. Every hasdee, every bug, every nanite. All dead. Anyone alive had vomited after the EMP hit, their bodies rejecting the deceased nanites in their stomachs.

But now there was a massive dead spot. She was watching from a distance, struggling to see. The nanites outside Cago were flowing back but it wasn’t fast enough.

Since Silver had cracked the hasdee code and connected the people to the numbers there had been too many near misses. Taking control of Gress at the last minute. The Sheriff intent on upholding the law and hanging Silver. The guard Silver was going to murder. Sending a bug to Hefnan so he’d help Nola. Her pushed protégé had suddenly seized her power and was running with it and now disaster loomed.

The cat, Kin, had fought off the hazel, shredding its eye but then had been crushed and gouged. His back legs were broken, his spine too. He was gasping in the mud, his breath speeding up. The nanites were still alive there. His numbers were tipping out of alignment.

The boy, Ash, was blistered and bleeding. From what she could see he’d lost both his hands. It was hard to tell. He was on the ground in a pile of dead bugs.

It doesn’t matter. Let them die. You don’t need them.

“I do! Silver does!”

Her sadness will drive her. Her fury will free us.