My hand. It almost looks like some kind of prosthetic. A particularly sophisticated one. It’s not just a blocky piece of robotics. It is my hand. It is my forearm. In terms of feeling, dexterity, and shape, nothing has changed. Which doesn’t make any sense, because what I’m looking at is more like a metallic replica, with gaps and seams and a metal ball joint at the elbow. There’s no skin, just hard surfacing with a silvery, gunmetal texture. I move the fingers, and while I can't hear the mechanical parts shifting around inside, I can imagine them, and they look like the scene in Terminator 2, when Schwarzenegger peels back the synthetic layer of skin to reveal the machine parts underneath.
Is that what it's like under there? Is that...what I am?
Not that it matters, because this is all just a dream. Right?
Yeah. Right. That's what I've been telling myself.
Really, if you think about it, life itself is just a dream, like in the song. Everything you experience is just chemicals and electric impulses. Like the whole 'brain in a jar' thing.
But then, isn't that just another type of coping mechanism? Just another way of dissociating from the real world?
I should be feeling something. I should be feeling...a lot of things. 'Shaky' and 'violently ill' come to mind. I'd almost prefer either or both of those things. Instead, I'm just staring at myself, waiting for something to happen, waiting to be distracted. The inevitable questions are rising up, bubbling toward the surface. The implications. I wish I could keep them at bay. I wish I could opt out of whatever this is. I wish I could go back.
Go back? To what?
An empty house, full of the memories of the things I'd lost. Reminders of what I'd done scattered everywhere, around every corner. Inescapable.
Back there, in that world, there was certainty. The certainty of my faults, and the consequences of those faults. The reality of a future without the people I loved. And yes, that included my father as well. Things were never the same after what happened at Granite Falls, and they never would be. The rift was too great. Sure, my father and I—we might find a way to co-exist. But we both blamed ourselves, and we blamed each other, and what's the answer to that? Is there one?
Here, in this hallway, there is crippling, sickening uncertainty. The terrifying unknown. An episode of the Twilight Zone; probably one with a bad ending. And yet, I wonder if I would choose this over what I've left behind.
The girl who isn't Gemma spasms in my arms, blessedly tearing me out of my thoughts and into the present moment, giving me an excuse not to think.
Her eyes are open, irises bright emerald rings as she looks up into my face. She opens her mouth, makes a weird gagging sound, and coughs, spitting up bouts of clear fluid she must have inhaled somehow while she was unconscious in the tank.
I lift her so she's upright. The fluid stops coming, but she keeps coughing, clearing her throat. Once her coughing fit is done, she leans back, wincing, one hand pressed against the wound in her abdomen.
Her hands are like mine, albeit smaller, debatably more feminine.
She tries to get up, winces again, and eases her butt back onto the floor.
She looks at me. "They're gone?"
She's soft-spoken. Amid all the other sounds, I'm surprised to hear her so clearly. I suppose the echo in the hall helps to amplify her voice.
I lean to one side so she can see past me, the charred robot parts partially submerged in fluid.
She nods. "Good. And the others?"
'Others' as in the ones like us. In the tanks.
I shake my head. "Just us."
She tenses in my arms. Her brows knit into a frown. Disbelieving. But then she relaxes, as a shadow falls across her face, and a darkness permeates her eyes, Like a drop of black oil in a glass of water.
"If nothing else," she says, "They'll be dead from the explosion."
I nod. Not sure what else I should say beyond that.
I have no recollection of her, or the people in the tanks. But she seems to know them. Care about them, whoever they were.
More than that, she clearly recognizes me. She is very familiar in the way she looks at me, scanning my face and body; for injuries, I can only assume.
She tries to move again, but stops herself. "Can you also not run a System Check? Or is that just me?"
System Check. Like on a computer?
Am I supposed to know what she's talking about?
Sorry, lady. I think you’ve got the wrong guy. I’m new here. I’m new to all of this.
"Something's wrong," she says, before I can formulate an actual response. "OS is down. So are the weapon systems. Can you carry me?"
I nod. It’s the one question so far I can give an actual answer to. Or at least, an answer she wants to hear.
She leans over, wrapping one arm around my neck and grabbing my shoulder with her opposite hand. "Let's go to the armory."
"The what?"
She freezes, and then searches my face. Our noses are inches away from each other. "Blast, are you putting me on?"
"Blast?" I say.
She scans my face again. Then frowns. "Okay, then. I guess it's worse than I thought."
"What is?"
"Just...pick me up. I'll point the way."
Why argue?
The whole thing feels presumptuous. She expects something of me, and the expectations aren’t quite fair. But I can’t put my finger on why.
I stand, holding her. “The danger isn’t over, is it?”
She shakes her head. “Of course not. There’s always more where they’ve come from. But you’ll remember, soon enough.”
There’s a loud, clanging impact somewhere in the complex. Everything shakes. Subtle ripples ebb outward on the surface of the water in the hallway, reminding me of those scenes in Jurassic Park.
“I’m guessing that’s them,” I say.
Not-Gemma doesn’t answer. She doesn’t need to. Instead, she points down the hallway.
I jog, splashing up water, holding the girl tight against me.
That’s what she feels like to me. A girl. A person. Not a mechanical construct, like those robots from before. She’s too light. Too real-feeling. If a bit…hard. No soft skin to cushion the way her body digs into my elbows and arms.
She points me round a corner, down a hallway, down a flight of stairs, and up a different flight. We're past the water now, every step a tremulous echo in the tight corridor. I jog up the stairs two at a time, starting to get a little out of breath. The air is stale and lukewarm. There's oxygen in it all right, but it's been through years and years of recycling and filtration. Don't ask me how I know that. But I'm certain of it all the same. Makes me long for a breath of fresh air after a storm.
“What makes you think there’s anything for me to remember?” I say, as I reach the top of the stairway.
“There is,” she says, pointing left at an upcoming fork. “Your memory’s been corrupted. It might have happened when they hacked into the facility’s security system. That’s my theory, anyway.”
“But your memory isn't corrupted?” I say. “For some reason?”
I feel her shrug against me. Then, “Stop. This is it.”
I slide to a stop, my feet grinding against the cement floor. An unpleasant sensation, but not terribly painful.
I've yet to examine my new feet. Not really sure what's going on down there. And I'm not yet sure I want to know.
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There's a definitely shut, very secure-looking sliding door. I'd swear it's airtight. There's a little module next to the door, with some buttons, and a screen with a blinking red X on it.
"We're locked out," says the girl who isn't Gemma.
"I can see that."
"And with the OS down, we can't integrate, or use our Nanobits."
"Sure," I say. "Nanobits."
Here's another theory. I'm in a loony bin, waiting for my meds to kick in.
There's another crash, somewhere above us in the complex, making the floor tremble.
The girl bites her lip, looking at the door like it's a puzzle. Her nose is wrinkled in concentration. And probably pain.
"Can I break it in?" I say.
"Without injuring yourself?" She says. "Maybe. They’re reinforced with Grade Four titanium sheets.”
Grade…Four? Titanium? I have no frame of reference. But shouldn’t I at least try?
I lower her to the floor and stand, sizing up the door.
"Aim high," she says. "Three-quarters of the way up. The middle, not the corners."
I nod, stepping in close to my target.
If I was actually human, I wouldn't do this—assuming I believed any of this was real. It would be a sure way to break my hand, maybe even my entire arm. But I'm not about to get got by whatever's out there looking for us. Even if this is a dream.
I step forward, pivoting my torso as I jab with my fist, putting extra mass behind the punch.
Impact. The hard, metal surface of the door craters a little, folding in. Just a little.
The force of the hit jutters up the length of my arm and shoulder, but it's a subdued feeling, as if there's a mechanical system in my arm absorbing the brunt of it.
Emboldened, I pull back for another punch.
This time, the top half of the door goes concave, folding in, peeling away from the frame. I can see the ceiling of the room through the opening, and the tile-shaped lights up there.
I grit my teeth and lash my leg forward in a front kick, striking the middle of the door with my heel. The motion comes naturally, though I'm sure I've never performed a martial arts kick before in my life.
As before, with the punch, my foot and leg barely register the impact.
The door crumples, making a high-pitched squeal as more of the door pulls away from the frame of the doorway.
"That's good," the girl says, leaning against the wall as she gets to her feet. "Can you get me through?”
Grunting, I kick the bottom portion of the door, knocking it the rest of the way off. It goes flying, grinding and scraping along the concrete floor.
“Huh,” the girl says, as I pick her up. “Sometimes I forget what you’re capable of as a base model."
“Guess I’m just that awesome,” I say.
“You’re a Blast Model, is what you are,” she says.
"I don’t know what that's supposed to mean," I say, carrying her through the busted doorway.
"Your frame has to be able to- nevermind."
I almost have to stop myself from pausing and staring as I pass through the doorway.
The armory—as she calls it—is immense in scope. I'm reminded of the battlecruiser hanger bays in Star Wars. The ceiling isn't so high, but it's of the same magnitude overall. The whole place is brightly lit, with what must be hundreds of those little lamps overhead. The walls and floor are grey, smooth, and immaculate.
Along the side walls are positioned various racks and shelves which house weapons and equipment. Some are fairly obvious and recognizable to me. Different types of rifles. Handguns. There's an entire rack of carefully slotted orbs that I can only assume are some kind of grenade. There's a selection of sleek, backpack-looking things I'm guessing are some kind of jetpack? Vehicles, from glossy, fast-looking sedans, to dune buggies, to motorcycles, to what seems like some kind of four-to-eight-person hovercraft.
Against the back wall, taking up a good quarter of the whole space, is a shooting range area, with obstacle courses, and rails for targets to move around on, perhaps popping up and down like a shooting gallery minigame.
I've gone down the rabbit hole and ended up somewhere that looks a lot like the tutorial level in a sci-fi shooter.
"Blast, come on."
She's pointing at one section of the wall, where there's some equipment making up what looks to me like some kind of futuristic medical bay. There's a control panel, and a flat, bench-like surface, with little surgical robot arms on rails above it.
I jog over to the contraption. The girl drops out of my arms and limps over to the control panel. A screen lights up. She taps the screen, makes a few squiggly motions with her finger, and taps the screen again.
“You should gear up,” she says, her back to me, surveying the screen.
“Gear…up?”
“Shooty shooty boom boom.”
Shooty shooty…boom boom??
“You’re being condescending,” I say. “I can tell.”
“You’re gonna be dead in a matter of minutes if you can’t protect yourself,” she says evenly, without turning around.
She’s bent over, navigating the screen, completely focused.
I was wrong to confuse her with Gemma. She’s got the frame, and the hair, but upon closer inspection, she looks and acts years older than Gemma. And her temperament is on the complete opposite end of the spectrum.
Gemma was fiery. Excitable. Prone to big emotional shifts and outbursts, and in a contagious sort of way. Flames would ignite, coursing, spreading, until you were suddenly all up in arms over the same things she was.
This chick, though—she’s cold. Not in an ‘ice-cold bitch’ way, but in a temperature-controlled way. She maintains her structural integrity under pressure. She doesn’t like to ‘overheat’. And because of that, she has the exact opposite effect on me that Gemma used to.
Still. I’m annoyed she would say something like that so offhandedly when I’m the one who literally just saved her life.
But whatcha gonna do?
Get ready.
For what?
I’m…not sure yet.
First things first. Attire. I’m wearing a thin, black layer of smooth fabric, covering most of my body. Reminds me of pajamas or thermal underwear. Not exactly something I would intentionally wear to a fight.
There’s a clothing section, with various items on hangers, or folded neatly on shelves, like Old Navy inventory. Shirts. Jackets. Pants. Helmets. Boots. Gloves. Different varieties for different locales and conditions.
It doesn’t behoove me to stare at everything, taking my time like I’m shopping on a Saturday afternoon. I move quickly, acting on intuition.
There’s no need to take off the tight suit I’m currently wearing. I dress over it. I throw on a grey, sleeveless shirt. A black pair of…tactical pants? Military pants? Whatever you call them.
Next comes the shoes. I grab a pair of boots with deep treads. There are no socks in sight. I crouch down to slide them directly onto my feet.
I stare. For too long.
Like with the first look at my hands and arms, there’s something discombobulating about seeing a part of yourself and realizing it isn’t quite human. It isn’t quite…you.
I flex my toes, fascinated and disturbed at the same time. Bars of gritty light from the lamps above shift across the surface of each toe. Each one curved and aerodynamic along the top, but blocky and flat on the sides, linking like keys on a piano. I can both hear and feel parts moving inside the appendage as I take turns lifting and lowering each toe. I can operate each toe independently, in contrast to the connected, web-like feeling feet usually have, where when you move one part, everything else wants to shift with it. It’s strange to behold. To feel. Mesmerizing, in fact.
As I witness it, a disconnection of mind to body threatens to come over me. A disassociation. A…severing.
My vision blurs. There’s a ringing in my ears, getting louder and louder.
I shake my head forcefully, and that seems to help. I snap myself out of it. Because, what else should I do? What else can I do?
My senses reassert themselves. Even though my hands are trembling now.
That’s weird, right? To be in this mechanical vessel, supposedly, but to still be experiencing biological things? Human things? Aren’t I supposed to be some kind of robot, in this scenario? Isn’t that what she called me? Some kind of ‘model’?
The boots fit just right, slotting into place snugly. Perfectly. Which I suppose shouldn’t be much of a surprise.
The boots are tall, riding up my shins, with straps along the front. I pull them tight. Lock them with metal fasteners.
The quiver in my fingers steadily dissipates as I focus on my task.
That's always the trick, isn't it, when you get overwhelmed? Just gotta focus on something. No matter how catastrophic things seem, everything comes out in the wash, eventually.
Well, not everything.
I have a sudden flash of a memory. Sitting in the coroner's reception area, holding an urn. Shiny and smooth, cold to the touch. I can almost make out my reflection in it, convex and warbled, like on the underside of a spoon.
There’s a tag attached. My mother's name is written on it, in cursive, using a ballpoint pen.
No, not that. I'll take killer robots and mechanical body horror over that.
I stand. I grab a jacket off a nearby rack without giving it much of a second glance. I don't know what things are like out there, or where I am technically, and Frosty hasn't bothered to tell me. Not that I'd asked. If it's the middle of the Mohave up there, I can always ditch the jacket later.
The jacket is dark grey, with a thick zipper, a high collar, two outer pockets, and five pockets on the inside. It’s also long, like a duster, extending down to my knees. As with the boots, it’s a comfortable fit. I have a good range of motion, in contrast to some coats I’ve worn in the past, which restricted my shoulders and arms.
I unclip a gun belt hanging from a metal bar. I put it on. It sits at an angle, one side notched at my waist while the holster part rides down toward my lower hip.
I grab a Glock-esque pistol off of a rack. I keep it pointed toward the ground, remembering the times I went shooting with my dad. I grab one of the dozens of full magazines lined up nearby. Looks to be the right size.
I load it. It slides in easily, and clicks.
Mechanically, I grab the slide, pull it all the way back, and let it ride forward.
SCHLACK.
Now the first bullet is in the chamber. Ready to fire.
There doesn’t appear to be a ‘safety’.
Don’t get shaky fingers, now.
Barrel pointed at the floor, taking care not to touch the trigger, I slot the handgun into the holster.
I grab one of the backpacks, then stop, listening. There are new sounds now. Not the crashes and bangs and booms from before that made the floor shake underneath me. It’s subtle, now. Like there’s someone jogging in the apartment one or two floors above me.
Whatever’s in the complex now, it’s not like the robots from before. Those were precise and sneaky and conniving. This is a big, bulky, lumbering thing. It didn’t creep its way in. It bulldozed. Perhaps it had some trouble navigating the tighter corridors at first, but it seems to have found a workaround, from what I’m hearing now. It’s hit its stride.
Am I supposed to just stand here, organizing inventory while there’s a monstrous machination thudding down the stairs toward me?
Do I have a choice?
The robots are coming from somewhere. The self-destructo-bot didn’t 'off' itself right away. It got permission remotely. That bot banging around up there somewhere? That’s backup. Which begs the question: what’s the backup to the backup?
Silas. The robots are coming from somewhere.
Right. Hadn’t the girl said that earlier? And that they tended to keep coming?
I zip open the backpack. I grab several of the orb grenades, all strung together on something that looks like a belt. I grab more magazines of the handgun ammo. I grab a rifle that reminds me of an M16, if a bit heftier and more dangerous-looking. There are some mags on a shelf underneath it. I load one into the rifle itself, then grab a bunch more, throwing them into the pack. I zip the pack shut.
“Blast.”
It’s the girl. And it takes a second for me to remember she’s not using it like a curse. It’s what she likes to call me.
She’s no longer at the med station. She’s with the clothes. When I look over at her, she’s just finished throwing on a shirt. I have a brief glimpse of her back. Most of what I see is silver, burnished metal plates going down the middle of her back. There’s some skin as well, toward her lower back and sides, with some kind of grey, rubbery partition connecting the skin to the plates, which flexes as she arches her back.
The last thing I notice, before she finishes pulling down the hem of her shirt, is a swollen diagonal ridge on her lower back, where the exit wound from the metal rod would have been. As if a cauterizing material has been used to close up the opening.
“Yeah?” I say.
She opens her mouth.
Behind her, the wall explodes.