Machines of Eden (4 page)

The thought of evening was
sobering. He didn’t want to spend a night in the jungle. He needed
to find shelter
. But his training came
readily to mind in the repetitive voice of his former
sergeant.
S
helter
is
n’t the primary concern
,
Fletcher!
The first
problem
, the one that will kill you
quickest,
is
dehydration.

The tropics leached water
out of you, and it was crucial to find clean water. He was already
soaked in sweat, and his headache was worsening. He needed water
soon. Shelter could come later.

It took him longer than
he’d anticipated to walk the kilometer. The going was slow and he
dared not hurry. One slip on the sodden mulch underfoot and he
could twist an ankle. He took the long way around fallen logs and
thick brush. The heat increased and with it the insects, which
buzzed in a frenzy around his neck and ears, settling into creases
in his flesh for the salt. They stung, whizzed
,
and fluttered, and he slapped his
neck until it was sore.

Finally the ground began to
rise, and despite his thirst and growing fatigue he eagerly pushed
forward. There might be a breeze at the top to rid him of the
insect plague. The slope grew steeper, and he paused for breath.
Although his physical condition was by no means flabby, it was not
in peak operational capacity either. The exertion and heat brought
memories which he savagely pushed back down.

After another twenty
minutes he reached the top of the nearest hill. The jungle was
thick but much lower, with fewer trees, and he could see in a wide
radius. The
bright
sun was arcing
to his left and
behind him a bit, toward the beach he’d left. That
meant that he was traveling
north-
east. He spun in a slow
circle, taking in every hill and valley. The
re was a small
gorge
near him
now, and he saw
a glint of sun on the bottom.

A river. Water.

The hills
rose to a series of craggy heights ahead of him,
studded with greenery. They rolled away to his right,
marching
down
toward the east
where he
could s
ee the ocean.
To the west and north, beyond the hills and gorges, he could
make out nothing more than a blue haze of open water. He
was on an island, about thirty kilometers
in
length and not quite that far across in
the direction he had traveled. Probably volcanic, judging by the
central mountain heights and the way the top formed a semi-circular
ridge that suggested an ancient, crumbled crater.

Then he noticed an anomaly
that set his heart racing. Rising from
the
highest of the series of hills along the eastern edge of the
island
was an antenna tower, poking up
from the trees like a beckoning finger. It was an XC-88 Commstack,
a type he recognized well
despite the fact
that it was obviously in a state of disrepair. It
looked shaggy and unkempt, draped with
something
green that broke up its profile.
That brought memories and questions to his mind, but he pushed them
away. Probably
just
creepers – they gr
e
w freakishly fast
in humid climates
and
covered everything that didn’t move.

He would have to travel
inland
at least a klick or two to
climb the
slope
that led
up to the
tower.

Fine; now I know
there
’s some vestige of civilization
here
, I can afford
an uphill
hike. I'll probably meet
the access road to the antenna, and then I won't have to
bushwhack.
With luck I’ll find a supply
cache or some people, if any are still around.

Feeling substantially
relieved at the thought, he
started toward
the distant tower, whistling a tune.

So what
if the antenna
is
covered with camouflage
netting
instead of vines
?

The war is
over.

Earth called to her
children and begged us to stop using her. We laughed at
her.

We had Science, the Great
God.

Science would save us and
save Earth, make it all right again. Science would feed our hunger,
would glut us with everything possible, and our appetites would
stretch to meet the stars. How we loved ourselves, our hunger,
the
limitlessness
of it.

The
U
sed outnumbered the
U
sers more than twenty
to one, but what was that to us? We ignored them and cranked our
auditory implants even higher and licked the grease from our
fingers. When at last they rose against us in a swarm, bitter with
the years and bloody-muzzled
like
hyenas with eyes glowing in the night, we sent
Science to fight for us.

Science failed.

Science cannot kill
rage.

Science cannot outwit
hunger.

Nine billion prewar humans
on the planet. Too many. Earth supported the burden until she could
no longer do so, and then purged herself. Only so many, and no
more. We forgot that law. We forgot only so many and no more, and
we paid for the forgetting.

War came, war like nothing
we’d ever imagined. The used died by the thousands, by the hundreds
of thousands, by the millions. Like locusts they came, locusts with
a hunger swollen and never satisfied, enraged at the devastation of
the Earth. At the waste.

Science could not kill them
all without killing the users as well, and we were not so far gone
that we had forgotten that. Not so far gone as that. There were
ways to end it all, end everything, but we wanted to live. In the
end, we strove for survival like any animal.

Chemicals, bleak clouds
that shriveled leaves from trees, burned lungs, blinded babies,
choked and killed and maimed, poisoning the already groaning Earth
with miasmic vapors.

Viruses, bacteria, the
superbugs of a thousand sealed jars were let loose like the plagues
of Egypt, dropped from the sky in silent bombs with silent
detonations. Humans dropped like flies, vomiting blood, the Red
Death tearing at Prospero’s throat. The worms feasted.

The factories spewed forth
their guns and cartridges by the billions. Tanks, choppers, planes,
hovercraft. Mines. Grenades, missiles, rockets. Smartbombs.
Clusterbombs. Burrowbombs, bunkerbusters, laser guided precision
systems, gunpowder giving way to particle beams, light energy
weapons. The technology jumped ahead, spurred by the men in white
coats who took such meticulous notes and sipped their coffee with
such dedication.

Bots. Androids and gynoids.
Cyborgs. Oceans of money evaporated into war clouds which rained
down the bots and bombs. Joysticks clutched in chubby fists that
steered death through the sky in streaks and never saw the starving
things they vaporized.

We will win, they said. We
will win. It is our right. Earth is ours. We are not the
Earth’s.

That was when I left
them.

Sick with anger, I swore I
would end them. Cleanse the earth. Take off the mask and breathe
clean air again.

We wore them down, and
spent ourselves like water doing it. We won. The Greens won. The
Grays lost.

I wish it was that
simple.

We all lost. When the Earth
dies, no one wins.

And Earth
is
dying. Too little,
too late. After all the killing, all the death, all the rot and
waste and ashes, we may have past the point of no return when the
Earth begins her swan song and we can do nothing but
watch.

So we wait.

We watch.

We hope.

We ally Science with
Nature, as we should have done from the beginning, and pray that
together they can heal Earth.

Pray for a new
Eden.

If we are given another
chance, we will change, we will be different.
Human
ity
can
change.

The serpent has
left the garden. Eden is safe.

Please
.

John
almost ran into the fence.
He
had
been moving fast, in as straight a
line as he could manage, toward the antenna
on the heights
. The forest floor was
dank and slippery and so he focused on his feet and where he was
putting them. The fence was in his face almost before he could
stop.

It was an old fence made
of chain links, rusted in the humid air. Taller than he was by a
good meter and a half, disappearing in either direction. There were
the remains of some razor wire along the top. On the far side, he
could see that the jungle was cleared in a meter-wide swath
parallel to the fence; a maintenance track of some sort. He threw a
stick against the fence to check for current. Nothing. The fence
looked long abandoned, and the track was
already choked with undergrowth
.

The rusted links bit into
his fingers as he clambered up awkwardly, fence bending inward with
his weight. A
distant
memory of childhood, when his sneaker toes could fit easily
into the links, crossed his mind. At the top he paused a moment,
picking a landing spot, and then jumped. He landed with a
grunt,
brushed
the moist earth off his hands, and straightened up. Through a
break in the trees he could see the hill. He was much closer. The
ground should start rising soon. He took a step forward.

A twig snapped
somewhere in the trees
.
He froze. There was no movement
from the jungle. His eyes raked the foliage.

He smelled it before he saw
it, a mix of silicone, hot electrics, and plastic. A shape moved
behind some palm fronds, and then it lurched from the jungle three
meters away and paused, analyzing. The ASKALON-9 was obsolete these
days, but you still saw them in the backwaters and sinks, and it
enjoyed a reputation as a dependable service bot. The 9’s were
androids, humanoid in shape and size and designed to interact with
humans.

This one was a
mess.
It hadn’t been cleaned or serviced
in a long time; moss and mud-stains covered its carapace, and he
noticed exposed wiring at the joints where the rubber seals had
torn away. Its sensory apparatus, located on the bulbous head, was
damaged; one optical bulb was smashed and its antennae were snapped
off half their length.

He raised his hand to hail
it in the standard greeting, smiling for the benefit of whoever was
monitoring its cams.

The ASKALON did not
respond.

John
felt a frisson of unease. Standard programming was either
erased, or malfunctioning. Neither option inspired
confidence.

The ASKALON remained
motionless, coolant vents softly whirring, staring at him. He
hailed it again, more slowly, passing his hand clearly in front of
its remaining optical sensor.

No response.

He forced himself to
breathe calmly and focused on slowing his heart rate. It was
difficult. The pre-war ASKALON units had been harmless enough, but
the war changed everything and it was amazing what a techie with
some nasty hardware and a blowtorch could add to even the most
mundane bots. The ASKALON units weren’t originally designed to
kill, but they more than capable of doing so when programmed that
way. Most machines were
, and there was a
chance this one was preparing to kill him
.

Sweat trickled down his
back as he studied it. There was no way to tell what it would do.
It seemed stuck in analysis mode, and he hoped its sensory damage
had limited or even disabled its logic centers. This one had no
overt weapons systems, but there could be some concealed under the
carapace, and even when unarmed the ASKALON-9’s
were incredibly strong
.

Gnats whined in his ears.
One bit dangerously close to his eardrum, and despite himself he
flinched.

The ASKALON charged, arms
outstretched.

John
ran. There was nothing else to do; he had nothing in his
hands and no time to find anything. He plunged into the jungle,
leaping over fallen trees and bursting through nets of creepers.
The maintenance track along the fence provided a clearer escape
route, but he knew he couldn’t outrun the bot on the
straightaway.