Kai chose a white Honda minivan. The back half of the van was badly melted, the back tires nothing but puddles around the rims, but the front was intact and open. As he shut the door, he heard a shout that curdled his insides.
The transport vehicle roared toward him.
They’d spotted him, or maybe spotted the movement of the closing door. He should have crawled under a vehicle, he realized, not inside.
Could he surrender? He’d never heard of defenders taking prisoners. Kai watched as the defender trained his rifle on the van, waiting to get close enough for a clear shot.
Kai dove across the front seat, threw open the passenger door, and rolled out as gunfire tore through the van, rocking it. The windows blew out, raining glass down on Kai.
He crawled along the row of vehicles, seeking cover, an angle from which to return fire with the pathetic rifle dangling from a strap on his back. When he reached the end of the row he looked for the other two defenders. He spotted one, moving along the row, bent, looking for Kai. Kai turned to make a run for cover. The other defender was blocking his way, rifle raised.
Kai put his hands up and opened his mouth to tell this giant towering over him that he’d had enough, that he was ready to fold.
The rifle roared. Bullets hit him, like teeth tearing into his shoulder, his hip, his thigh. The impact spun him around, then the ground seemed to come up and catch him. He thought he would pass out, but he didn’t; he just lay there panting.
“How many were in there?” he heard one of the defenders ask. The defender sounded far away.
“Four.”
“What about the one who was outside with you?”
“He’s not hurt too bad.”
“Get him and let’s go.”
They drove away. In wide-eyed shock, Kai took in his own body. His right side was nothing but raw, open meat. It hurt. He knew it was going to get much, much worse, unless he died first.
Most of his right hand was gone. He pulled out his phone with his left, called Shoelace. It rang long enough for Kai to suspect Shoelace was dead, then, miraculously, Shoelace answered.
“Kai. What’s up?”
“I’m in bad shape, Shoelace.” The pain—the real pain—suddenly kicked in, all at once. It was worse than he’d expected. It was blinding, intolerable. “I’m shot, like, three or four times.”
“Oh, shit. Are you near help?”
“I’m way behind the lines. I just wanted to tell you, I got some of them. Four of them. Blew a roof down on them.”
“That’s killer, Kai. Good for you.” Shoelace sounded like he was crying. “Where are you, buddy? I’m gonna come and get you.”
“That’s really nice of you.” Kai grunted as another truly hellish wave of pain lanced through his side. His hand, or what was left of it, was still mostly numb. “I’d appreciate that.”
Kai got most of the way through telling Shoelace where to find him before he blacked out.
60
Lila Easterlin
July 13, 2045. Sydney, Australia.
Lila took a break from her work and went to the single window in her office/jail cell. From forty defender-sized stories high, she could see much of Sydney, stretching to the river and beyond. It looked just as it had when the last of the Alliance forces had fled or been killed. As far as she could see, not one shard of glass had been swept. The streets were mostly deserted, the bulk of the defender population off fighting elsewhere.
Elsewhere. Lila had only a vague idea where that might be. The Internet she had access to was a static Internet—a snapshot in time the defenders uploaded just before they began knocking out the power sources that allowed the Internet to function. It told her nothing about what was happening in the outside world. Everything she knew came from the bits of news Erik chose to share.
Time to get back to work. She was monitored at all times and didn’t want some defender poking his head in to tell her to get back to work. They never threatened; they just told her what was expected of her. The threat was implicit.
Sitting at her human-sized desk in front of her human-sized computer, Lila considered the files she’d compiled—the first steps toward creating a defender production facility in Sydney. Erik assured her the personnel she’d need to actually construct and run a functional production facility would eventually join her.
That certainly set her mind at ease.
She kept thinking of Kai dropping food into that church basement. The Boy Who Betrayed the World. Now here she was, drawing up plans to create more of the creatures her species was at war with. They were quite the couple.
Ironically, she was able to draw most of the information she needed from the Internet. Project Defender had been top secret during the war, but because it had been a truly global effort, detailed specifications for the project had been made available to the world scientific community after the war. It was all there, right down to the genetic codes.
She knew her cooperation was all that kept her and her colleagues alive, so as far as she was concerned, she didn’t have a choice. Maybe the heroic thing to do was to let the defenders torture her as she steadfastly refused to cooperate, but she didn’t have it in her to be that kind of hero. Her hope was that the information she was gathering would never be put to use.
If they’d only let her make changes. She kept coming back to that. She would do this work gladly, enthusiastically, tirelessly if they’d let her improve on the design. But no; other humans would check her work, and if it was discovered that she had tampered with their genetic code in any way… The threat was implicit.
There was a knock at her door, which meant Erik was paying her a visit, because no one else knocked.
“Come in.”
“How are you today?” Erik asked as he let himself in.
“I’m lonely, and I’m worried about my people, and yours.” She always gave the same answer, yet Erik kept asking.
“I’ll have to find time in my schedule to visit more often. I don’t want you to be lonely.”
Lila had decided Erik was simply incapable of grasping that loneliness involved yearning not just for company, but for the company of specific people.
“How nice,” she said.
Erik made himself comfortable in the plush defender-sized seat near the window. He planted all three of his feet firmly on the floor, as a warrior does. There was no more banter between them, no playful moments.
“Our most renowned philosopher has come out with a new treatise.”
“Oh? Is this Ravi?”
Erik seemed pleased. “You remember him. His new treatise argues that when you created us, you left out the things you value most in yourselves.”
“What would those be?”
“Your capacity for joy, humor, and affection. Ravi refers to them as the three pillars of madness. He argues that we’re superior for lacking them.”
Lila folded her arms, stared at the slate-gray carpet. They knew there was something missing in them, and they were angry about it. Maybe they had a right to be. She had no energy for this; she was tired of carrying the weight of how carelessly the defenders had been designed. She’d been fifteen and running for her life at the time.
“Maybe you are superior for lacking them. I don’t know. What I do know is you lack them because your brains lack serotonin, and they lack serotonin because it renders Luyten incapable of reading your minds. Like your third leg, there was a reason for the design decision.”