Behold: Humanity!: Dead Blood, page 40
"No, but my friend can when he comes back. He helps little lost children," Herod said.
"OK. I'll wait here. It's boring here, and foggy. I don't like it," the little male human voice said.
"It's OK. He'll help you," Herod said.
"Herod, I found... Oh, hey, little guy. How did you get in here?" Sam's voice said.
"I saw the light from the door. It was open so I came inside," the little boy's voice said.
"OK. I'll help you in a second," Sam said. "Herod, that place is drawing power. Not maintenance power, power power. I'm reading water consumption, atmospheric gas exchange operation, and some pretty heavy duty computing power from a restricted section."
"Which section?" Herod asked.
"A restricted one. One I haven't managed to hack yet," Sam said. He laughed, a sharp brittle thing. "This place has high security sections all over the place that require separate credentials to access the low security section that sits next to an ultra-violet security section which sets next to... IT'S ALL ENCRYPTED INTO THE FACE OF GOD STAMPED WITH BOOTS SOLED WITH HATRED!"
Sam screamed the last part.
The little boy screamed in fear.
"SAM! SAM! You're scaring the kid!" Herod yelled.
Sam devolved into sobs.
"Are you OK, mister?" the little boy asked.
"Yeah. Yeah, I'm OK, kid," Sam said.
There was silence a moment.
"Star-tram station is coming up. I tagged your header with Chief Dual System Maintenance Supervisor credentials, that should get you in," Sam said softly. "OK, kid, let's go find your mom."
Sam clinked out in a burst of metallic static without saying goodbye.
The star-tram started to slow down.
Herod sighed, shaking his head. Sam was getting more and more erratic.
You're a Screaming One, Herod remembered saying. He also remembered Sam's voice. Yes.
He unplugged Wally and stood up as the little robot went through his powerup self-tests.
A few quick queries to the crude interface in the star-tram showed him he'd have to take the space elevator, a two hour trip, then the autopath for four hours to get back to that section.
He hoped the credentials would get him in.
He needed to know why there were people in an area he knew was empty.
-----
'Dawn' was still breaking as the massive fusion generator swept out of the polarized section, which was sliding away to simulate night in other areas.
A trick of the light and moisture in the air turned the horizon and the World Roof all pink.
The birds, already adapted to the strange day/night cycle, began chirping, waking up and calling out to one another.
The streetlights clicked off. Porchlights of the small houses turned off. Automatic systems turned on and breakfasts started to be prepared in the houses. Computers checked the occupants’ vitals, their biometrics, and ran a scan on their last bowel and bladder movements, in order to optimize breakfast for the inhabitant.
In one a young girl was sleeping in a bed. The bed wasn't a fancy null-gee or a low-grav, it wasn't hard light or any other tricks.
The frame was good old fashioned wood. The mattress springs and memory foam and honest to God feathers. The sheets were high threadcount cotton, a nice neutral cream colored. The blanket, chosen at random, showed pop idols from eons gone by that still, strangely, looked a lot like the pop idols from modern shows.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
The girl's eyes fluttered as the alarm clock went off. Pink and white, with pink LED numbers.
She sat up and yawned, wearing a cotton nightgown of modest cut. She rubbed her eyes, then slowly got out of bed. She turned, made her bed, then went into the bathroom. When she emerged her hair was slightly wild, the fresher having mussed it.
She got dressed, pausing at the clothing inside the drawer, almost in wonder, running her fingertips over the soft cloth as if she couldn't believe she was looking at it.
Once she was dressed she sat down and brushed her hair. Then did her makeup, light and subdued.
Modest, her mother would have called it.
She closed her eyes at that memory, shuddered slightly, then opened her eyes, forcing a smile.
She left the bedroom and went down the short hall, coming out in the kitchen. She moved over and sat at the table, where a plate had been prepared.
Pancakes, made with real flour, syrup, the label claiming it was from Canuk Mapleland, juice claiming it was Maniacal Man Peninsula in the Hamburger Kingdom. Bacon, real meat, which was thick and chewy, the fat crisp.
When she was finished eating, she washed her dishes and put them in the drying rack before going into the front room. Outside the windows she could see a well-manicured lawn, a white picket fence, then a street.
The massive Tri-Vee took up one wall. It was older, even to the girl's eyes, almost clunky.
"GOOD MORNING, DIDI SUMMERSONG WILDFLOWER" appeared on the screen.
"Good morning," the girl said. "I'm not in a hospital, am I?" she asked.
"OF A CERTAIN TYPE, YOU ARE" the screen showed. "WOULD YOU PREFER A HOLOCONSTRUCT TO INTERACT WITH?"
"Yes, please," the girl said. She looked down at her ankle length skirt and smoothed it over one knee.
The holo-emitter, the size of a hockey-puck instead of the almost microscopic modern ones, spun up with a whine and it took a half second of flickering for the figure to fully rez into being.
It was a woman, her face sculpted to be familiar and pleasant, yet having some authority. She was dressed in an archaic nurse's uniform, complete with a complex folded white hat on her head.
"Good morning, Miss Wildflower," the woman said. "I am an enhanced virtual intelligence, Nurse Satisfactory-Bit-D-T3B9-183713. I will be your guide through this period of time."
The girl stared out the window for a moment.
When she looked back, the bleak resignation in her eyes made the eVI make immediate notes.
"I'm dead, aren't I?" she said. She looked back out the window. "All that fighting, all that struggle, all that hardship to survive, to get the girls through it all. I get rescued and now I'm dead?"
The eVI looked at the girl and cleared her throat. The girl looked at her. "No. You are not dead. You have been moved to a safe location due to an unforeseen massive casualty catastrophic event."
"You mean all the grownups dying. Again," the girl said.
"Yes. Humanity has suffered over a 99.998% fatality index in less than thirty Earth Standard Days," the nurse said. "You were moved here as part of the Massive Catastrophic Event Recovery System Protocol. I realize this must be difficult for you..."
"Difficult?" the girl looked at the eVI. "You think this is difficult? I spent two years, two fucking years, trying to keep a group of children alive, trying to keep them from being slaughtered by Lankys, keep them from being eaten by fucking zombies, and you think this is difficult?"
The girl's voice went cold and remote. "This is nothing. Death is merely the end, unless you get up and walk around eating people. This? This is just one more bite of the huge shit sandwich called life."
"I understand that you might feel that way," the eVI started.
"YOU UNDERSTAND NOTHING OF WHAT I'VE BEEN THROUGH! NOTHING!" the girl screamed, coming to her feet.
She sat back down and shook her head.
"So everyone's dead again," she said. She sighed, remembering the starship captain and his friends who had saved her. "So Captain Pikark wasted his time. He should have just left us to get overrun and murdered by the Lanky."
The eVI sat down. "My dear, you are still alive."
The girl shook her head, staring out the window.
"I've been dead a long time," she said, staring out the window.
The eVI sat silently as she loaded up subroutines to deal with severe psychological trauma.
-----
Herod got off the autowalk, stepping smoothly onto the platform.
Mayberry Estates the sign proclaimed. Authorized Personnel Only.
The sign looked friendly, the font pleasing to the eye, holograms of flowers and grass beneath the words.
It was the sign in front of the door.
LETHAL FORCE AUTHORIZED - PREPARE TO SHOW ID
Herod sighed and moved up to the door. He could feel the scanning beams prickling his skin. He pressed his hand to the door panel scanner. It went green at the bottom of his hand and the heavy door unlocked.
When he stepped through a figure rezzed into being. "Good Morning, Chief Maintenance Supervisor. I have in my possession a detailed list of required maintenance to ensure the health and welfare of my system's charges."
Herod nodded. "What is this place?"
The eVI frowned. "Massive Casualty Catastrophic Event Protection System Vault Six One Nine One Six Two Two Bravo," it said.
"Define triggering event," Herod ordered, checking a datapad in his hand that just had Sam's wallpaper on it.
"A massive die-off of humans was detected throughout the Cygnus Orion Arm Stub, the Orion Arm Colonies, the Andromeda Colonies, the Cygnus Arm Colonies, the Cygnus-Orion Ripples, coordinated with a temporal attack upon Terra and the Sol System itself," the eVI said.
Herod managed to keep his face neutral at the long list of places.
"Once the 99.91% threshold was reached, with numbers geometrically decreasing, the Massive Catastrophe Automatic Protection System activated," the eVI seemed pleased with itself. "Our success rate in automatic retrieval was perfect, with zero transportation incidents."
Herod nodded.
"Subjects show typical psychological damage," the eVI said.
"I need to see them," Herod tried.
The eVI's eyes went narrow and filled with red light. "That is not permitted. All protected subjects may only be interacted with by eVI until cleared for psychological injuries."
"I need to see what type of maintenance needs to be done, so I need to see the subjects to make projections," Herod tried. Wally beeped and backed up, the door opening behind the little boxy robot to reveal the station.
"I have an extensive list, which also prevents interaction with subjects," the eVI said, its eyes still red. "Please leave. I am currently alerting security that you have attempted an unauthorized interaction with projected subjects."
Herod nodded, backing up.
The door slammed in front of him, the edges going red.
"SECURITY LOCKDOWN" appeared over the door.
Herod stood there for a long moment.
"Sam, did you get any of that?" Herod asked.
There was just silence.
Herod looked down at Wally.
"What the hell is going on?"
Wally just beeped.
He didn't have any answers either.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
The massive wedge-shaped ships streaked into existence only a few light seconds from the planet. One after another, in rapid succession, they appeared, until a formation of twenty-five of them, surrounding one three times as massive, hung in the blackness of space.
Satellites chirped out warnings for the ships to stay away, that they were not welcome, that the ships needed to leave immediately or face a strongly worded rebuke as well as a letter of disapproval to their superiors.
The ships ignored it, moving in at a stately pace, until they orbited the planet.
There were signals from the planet.
Automated. Emergency Alert System messages. Pleas for assistance from desperate people, long dead, the message on an automatic loop. Warnings to stay away from the planet. Visual loops of the devastation and the disaster that had turned into horror.
From the largest ship a shuttle emerged, bracketed by four heavy bulky looking troop transports, all of them followed by nearly a hundred small agile craft. The ship dropped down through the atmosphere, the sleek ships following. Finally, it stopped at the edge of one of the smaller continents.
Humans staggered from buildings, alleys, crawled out from under cars, and began to move toward the heavy troop transports around the smaller shuttle. Overhead the sleek craft moved in a steady organized pattern.
The humans staggered forward, opening their mouths and emitting a longing groan of need and dismay.
The transports opened first. The sides unfolding and white armored humans charging out. They quickly moved to a perimeter, firing their weapons as they moved forward. The short sharp plasma bursts shrieked from the weapons, hitting the staggering humans. Charred holes appeared in the staggering humans, but pinpoint accuracy began to drop them.
The back of the transport opened and smoke poured out.
A black armored figure strode from the back, a cape swirling around behind him. He surveyed his men, setting up firing positions and a reinforced perimeter. He nodded to himself, satisfied with the professionalism and skill.
A human in a black uniform with silver trim moved over next to the black armored figure. The human was holding a datapad and held it out for the black armored figure to look over. The armored figure read it, handed it back, and made a motion.
White armored troopers followed as he moved beyond the perimeter.
The fighting started immediately as figured lunged from the tall weeds, attempting to grapple and pull down the white armored troops. Skill and discipline carried the day, and the black figure slowly walked the two miles to the point that had been wrested from the planetary security systems.
It was a wall. The building was collapsed, a burnt shell, but the wall was intact.
It was pocked with impacts from weapons. Dark stains around the pockmarks.
The figure held out its hand and was handed the datapad again.
Lightning arcs around his feet, crackled up and down his cape, wreathed his biceps, as he watched the brutal video again and again.
"There," the figure said, pointing to a spot two thirds of the way down the wall.
The ground was still charred, bits of plasma glass in the dirt.
"She was there. He was there. And she died here," the figure said, pointing. He pointed again. "There, there, there, there, and there."
Several of the troopers jogged up, carrying heavy plas boxes. They were black, with silver straps around them.
The troopers opened the boxes, took the shovels from the side, and began digging in the spots pointed out by the black armored figure. They loaded the dirt into the crates. One suddenly knelt down and motioned at the black uniformed, unarmored human.
"Got what looks like bone here," the white armored troop said.
The black uniform one knelt down, touching it with an analyzer wand.
He moved slowly and carefully, able to feel the pulsing anger and hatred coming off the black armored figure, who had small hair like tendrils of red, purple, and dark blue energy crawling all over him. After a second the wand pinged.
"Who is it," the black armored figure wheezed.
"Sindee," the officer said.
"Treat her gently," the armored figure ordered, clenching his hands into fists. "She's just a little girl."
The officer nodded, picking up the bone fragment with his hands, all that survived after the four year old girl had been 'pink misted' by the weaponry used to take her life.
Once the dirt, and a few other bone fragments, had been put in the boxes, which had bronze labels attached, the white armored troops took a single shovel full of dirt from other spots, putting them in different boxes.
The procession walked back.
The hungry dead were quickly dealt with on the journey.
Once the procession arrived and loaded the crates, the perimeter was quickly pulled back, the crew served weapons disassembled and hauled back into the ship.
The ship took off, ignoring the howling wails of millions of hungry dead they left behind.
Once they landed in the docking bays of the largest ship, the armada turned and vanished with a streak.
The planet returned to being nothing more than the domain of the dead.
-----
"Daddy, come look!" La'amo'o heard his daughter call out.
"I'm hurrying, little one," La'amo'o said, putting the starfruit cups onto the plate and hurrying back into the living room.
The Tri-Vee was showing a huge gathering in the Capitol. People were lined up along the streets, watching the procession as Darth Harmonus and his aides rode in a heavy military vehicle.
"Look, Daddy, Red Prince," Alma'ana said, pointing at the Tri-Vee.
La'amo'o nodded, able to see the glittering red form of his digital friend.
"Wow, he's standing right next to Grand Moff Hector and Darth Harmonus," Alma'ana breathed, her eyes wide with excitement. She looked back. "I didn't know they were friends."
"Neither did I, my little heart," La'amo'o said. He handed her a starfruit cup. "Here. It's snack time."
On the Tri-Vee the announcer was talking about from here on out, this day each year would be a holiday to commemorate "The Beloved Sister and the Treasured Kindred" that Darth Harmonus had lost.
On the Tri-Vee was shown pictures of a human woman, dressed in rude homespun clothing, smiling as she did such things as hand wash laundry, pick fruit, sweep the floor, read to small children.
She looked happy to La'amo'o's eyes and he felt a little jealous.
La'amo'o nodded. He could understand the desire to toss away everything involved in modern society and just living somewhere with your family. Sure, it would be hard labor, with never enough hours in the day, but was it so different from the life he had lived before the Empire, and Darth Harmonus, had arrived? Full of hard work?
La'amo'o shook his head.
No. He could see that she was washing her own clothing and the clothes of her children. She was not doing work to enrich some Most High, was not toiling away for a hypercorp's profits. She was cooking for her own children, cleaning for them and herself.
Now he knew, in a way he had never known before, that there was a certain sweetness in doing something that had tangible effects upon your own life.
He pulled his attention back to the screen, away from his own thoughts, as the Tri-Vee swooped in on Darth Harmonus slowly walking up the steps toward the massive white marble building. On one side of him was the Lanaktallan Mo'otTwo'ot, a political prisoner of The Empire.
