In the Lives of Puppets, page 13
“Why were you hiding?” Rambo asked.
“I w-wasn’t,” Hap said. “I was inspecting the t-tree trunk.”
“Really?” Rambo rolled toward him, stopping at the base of the tree. “What are you inspecting it for? Is there something wrong with it?” He raced around the trunk before stopping where he started. “I don’t see anything.”
“He is making sure Vic does not die,” Nurse Ratched said, matter-of-fact. “I believe he is showing concern.”
“I am n-not.” He sneered at them. “I was j-just walking this way.”
“In the same direction as us?” Rambo asked. “That’s awesome. Vic. Hey, Vic! What are the chances that Hap would be here too? He should come with us!”
Vic said, “You can, you know. Come with us.”
Hap grunted as Rambo tried to push him toward the others. He tried to kick Rambo, but the vacuum was faster than he was. Hap almost lost his footing but managed to stay upright. His wooden leg—while still stiff—caught him at the last second.
“Squishy,” Hap muttered, not looking at any of them.
“So that is what this is about,” Nurse Ratched said. “Fear not, Hap. We would never let anything happen to Victor. While he is squishy, yes, we are not.”
Hap’s scowl deepened. “I d-don’t care.”
“Of course you do not,” Nurse Ratched said. “Why would you? Since we are going in the same direction, we might as well go together. Victor?”
Vic tore his gaze away from Hap. “What?”
“Hap will be joining us,” she said. “The more the merrier, as I always say.”
“I’ve never heard you say that,” Rambo said, and squealed when she whipped one of her tentacles at him. “What? I haven’t.”
“Do you want to come with us?” Vic asked. He didn’t know why Hap would. From the look on his face and the stiff way he was holding himself, Hap looked as if he would rather be anywhere else.
Hap shook his head. “N-no. But I will, since y-you insist.”
“We did not insist,” Nurse Ratched said. “But if it makes you feel better to think so, far be it from me to suggest otherwise. It might be beneficial to have some backup. Victor often finds himself getting in trouble when he least expects it.”
Vic groaned. “That’s not—”
“How is the cut on your hand, Victor? Healing nicely, I should think.”
It was. Scabbed over and itchy, but better. He didn’t think it would even leave a scar. “Fine,” Vic said. “But we’re going to move quick. We don’t want to be caught by the Old Ones.”
“They’re huge,” Rambo said as Hap joined them. “Bigger than you. I bet they would squash you flat.”
“N-no,” Hap said. “I w-would not like that. If they t-try, I will n-not be nice.”
“Come on,” Vic said. “We’ll be quick. What are the rules?”
“Stick together!” Rambo exclaimed.
“Run if we have to,” Nurse Ratched said.
“No dallying!”
“No drilling.”
“And above all else, be brave!”
Hap cocked his head as he narrowed his eyes, but he did not speak.
The moment they crested the hill that overlooked the Scrap Yards, Vic knew something was wrong. Be it morning, noon, or dusk, the Old Ones were always moving. Not now; birds perched on one of the cranes seemingly without a care. The silence was oppressive in ways Vic had never felt before: thick, as if the very air had grown heavier, making it harder to breathe. Part of him—a loud, insistent part—demanded he turn around and forget the Scrap Yards altogether. Go home. Don’t look back.
Rambo said, “I don’t like this.”
Nurse Ratched beeped once, twice. “There is something here. Something I have never felt before. It is . . . bright.”
“Bright?” Vic asked, looking off farther into the yards. “What do you mean?”
“Power,” she said. “It feels like power.”
“The Old Ones?”
“No. Something else. Hold, please. Scanning. Scanning. Scanning.” The light above her screen flashed on as she began to scan the area around them.
“What is she d-doing?” Hap asked as he squinted at her.
Vic shrugged. “Looking. It’s how we found you. Maybe there’s someone like you that we missed. Another android. A machine. It happens, sometimes. Usually we can’t fix them.” He glanced at Nurse Ratched. “What is it?”
She finished scanning, and the light went out. Her screen remained blank. “There is something here.”
“Where?”
She pulled up the grid of the Scrap Yards on her screen. One of the squares blinked.
3B. Where they’d found Hap.
Vic frowned. “Maybe we missed something.”
“It is possible,” Nurse Ratched said slowly. “Hap’s power signature could have blocked out what is there now, or it could have activated after we left.”
“But?”
“But,” she said. “I do not think that is it. This is bigger. Or there is more than one. I cannot separate them if that is the case. They are too far away.”
The warning in his head grew louder, telling him to turn around and leave this place. Tell him, it whispered. Tell Dad. Tell Dad that something is here and let him take care of it.
But the warning was drowned out by something far more dangerous: curiosity. It tugged at Vic. He wanted to see what it was. What Nurse Ratched could be reading. It had power. That much was clear. And Dad’s heart wouldn’t last forever. Maybe they could use it, if the machine it belonged to was beyond repair. And if it wasn’t, Vic could help.
He said, “Careful. Quiet. Stick together. We’ll keep our distance.”
“I knew you were going to say that,” Nurse Ratched said. Then, louder, “Hap, remember what Victor is?”
“Squishy,” Hap said immediately.
“Exactly. Squishy, breakable Victor. We will need to protect him in case it is something that can harm him.”
“What about me?” Rambo asked.
Nurse Ratched bumped into him gently. “You have the most important job of all. If the need arises, you will sacrifice yourself so the rest of us can escape.”
“Yes!” Rambo cried. “I have purpose!”
They moved through the scrap heaps, soon reaching a small ridge that looked over quadrant 3B. Vic crouched low as they approached the crest of the hill. Hap watched him for a moment before doing the same. He was so close, Vic could hear the gears in his chest.
The slate sky hung heavy over their heads, the air sharply cold, and Vic’s breath billowed from his mouth in a stream. He thought it would snow soon. Maybe not today, but soon. He shivered again as he crawled toward the top of the hill, Hap to his right, his skin warm when his arm accidentally brushed against Vic’s.
They reached the top and peered over, Rambo whispering, “I’m brave, I’m brave, I’m brave.”
At first, Vic didn’t understand what he saw when he looked down the other side of the hill. Piles of discarded body parts where they’d found Hap: arms, legs, torsos, all scattered around on the ground.
And the people. The people. A furious gut-punch, enough to knock the breath from Vic’s chest. Proof. Here, at last. Others. Three of them, wearing what looked like uniforms: black boots, black pants, black coats with red collars that rose up around their necks. On the right breast of each coat was a symbol, though they were too far away for Vic to make it out clearly.
But the more he studied them, the more the feeling of wrongwrongwrong snapped and snarled within him, a cornered predator lashing out anyway it could. All had their scalps shaved cleanly. Two of them stood upright, swiveling their heads from side to side. The third was crouched on the ground, hand pressed against the soil. They didn’t speak.
It was then Victor saw them for what they were: exactly the same. Their skin was pale, their faces smooth. No eyebrows. No facial hair. No ears. Male, or at least they seemed to be.
They did not look like Dad. Or Hap.
They did not look like Vic.
They weren’t human at all. No. The third android—the one crouched on the ground—lifted his head. He was exactly like the other two. Triplets. Clones. The same model.
“They are not human,” Nurse Ratched said in a low voice, as if she could read Vic’s mind. “They are machines.”
“What are they doing?” Vic asked. “What are they looking—” The words died on his tongue as an awful noise came from beside him. He turned his head.
Hap had bared his teeth in a furious snarl. The skin around his eyes tightened. His fingers were hooked into claws. “What is it? Do you know them?”
Hap sounded angry when he said, “No. I d-don’t know. I c-can’t—error. It is an error. Lost. It’s l-lost in f-fog.” Vic almost fell back when Hap began to savagely beat the sides of his head with his hands. The sound was bizarre: metal and synthetic skin and wood. Vic tried to grab his hands, but Hap was too strong.
“Stop,” Vic hissed at him. “They’ll hear you.”
But Hap didn’t. He hit his head again and again.
“What’s wrong with him?” Rambo asked nervously. “Is he malfunctioning?”
“Rambo, back away,” Nurse Ratched said, her tentacles spooling out and twitching dangerously.
Hap clutched the side of his head and bent over, face toward the ground.
“Hap,” Victor whispered. “Hap, you need to stop. You need to—”
A sound filled the world, one Vic had never heard before.
It started small, as if crossing from a great distance. He looked around wildly, trying to locate the source. It echoed flatly against the scrap metal before them, the heaps beginning to vibrate, bits and pieces falling to the ground.
The sound only grew louder.
Hap lowered his hands, turning his face toward the sky. “L-look.”
Vic lifted his head.
He wasn’t sure what he was seeing at first. A smudge on the horizon above the expansive forest, black against a gunmetal sky. He thought it an errant cloud until it moved oddly, expanding and contracting. The hum around them increased as the smudge grew and took shape. Vic felt the vibrations it caused down to his bones. His hands shook.
When he saw it for what it was, he still couldn’t believe his eyes. It didn’t seem possible. He’d read about them in books, had seen a picture of their massive size. In one of Dad’s books—Creatures of the Sea—there’d been a drawing of one with the outline of a man next to it, shown for scale. The beast dwarfed the man, a great monstrosity that Vic couldn’t believe actually existed. He’d never seen the ocean, though he could imagine how vast it had to be if it held creatures such as this.
He couldn’t remember what it was called; Nurse Ratched did not have that problem. “A whale,” she said. “It is a whale.”
But it wasn’t rising from the depths of any sea. It was flying toward them.
The whale moved up and down as if swimming through the air. The top of it was black, the underbelly white with thick lines that ran along the length. It didn’t have eyes. Instead, across the middle of its head was a row of glass that wrapped around the front to either side. The flippers were thick and massive as they rose and fell. The horizontal tail moved up and down, propelling the beast forward. Its great mouth was closed.
“What is that?” Rambo cried as the sound grew louder. “Is that a fish? How is a fish flying?”
Vic couldn’t answer. He was struck dumb.
Now that it was closer, Vic could see the lines underneath weren’t part of the flesh of the creature. They were panels. It wasn’t alive at all.
It was a machine.
A massive machine that dwarfed even the Old Ones. Across the side, above the flipper, were three white words in the black of the metal skin.
THE TERRIBLE DOGFISH
The flying machine stopped above the Scrap Yards, hovering in place. Air began to whip ferociously as it lowered toward the earth, scrap heaps collapsing in showers of dust and sparks.
With a magnificent groan, the whale’s mouth dropped open, the lower jaw folding down and back. The throat of the whale was metal and lined with what looked like railed walkways. Vic squinted against the dust blowing, sure he could see movement inside the whale’s mouth on the platforms, though it was too far away for him to make out what exactly it was.
As he looked on, black cables dropped from the whale’s mouth. At the tip of each cable was a flat, circular disc, large enough to carry people or machines. They lowered toward the ground where the three figures stood.
In silence, they watched as the humanoid figures inspected the area around them as the discs reached the ground near them. The crouched figure scooped up what looked like dirt, letting it filter through his fingers. Lifting his head, he looked directly at them. Vic flattened himself to the ground, heart in his throat. He counted to five in his head and looked out into the Scrap Yards once more . . .
. . . in time to see the smooth men stepping onto the discs and rising up and up toward the whale. Once inside, the mouth of the whale closed. It remained suspended in air.
“Victor,” Nurse Ratched said, “we need to move while we still can.”
Vic was startled out of his daze. He looked back at the others. Nurse Ratched’s screen was flashing red in warning. Rambo was moaning quietly to himself. Hap’s eyes were narrowed, his gaze on Victor, never looking away.
Vic nodded. “Head for the trees. Don’t look back. Don’t stop.”
Nurse Ratched lifted Rambo from the ground and they fled for the safety of the forest. Vic looked back only once as they hit the tree line. The Terrible Dogfish hadn’t moved. Fear clawed at his throat, but he ran and ran and ran.
They were in the trees when a deep note emanated from the whale, a blast that rolled through the forest, causing the birds to take flight.
It sounded like it was screaming.
Dad was in the ground house. He appeared in the doorway as Rambo shouted his name, Victor too out of breath to get any words out. Dad frowned when he saw them running toward him. They skidded to a stop in front of him, Vic slumped over, hands on his knees as he gasped for air, lungs burning, chest constricted. Vic’s mind had been wiped clean, a sheen of static falling over him. He couldn’t think. He couldn’t speak, jaw clenched as he ground his teeth.
“What is it?” Dad asked, sounding alarmed. “What’s happened?” He cupped Vic’s cheeks, turning his face up. “Are you all right?”
Vic couldn’t find the words. “I . . . I don’t . . .”
“A ship!” Rambo cried as Nurse Ratched set him down on the ground. He began to spin in circles, arms flailing. “In the Scrap Yards! A fish! A flying fish!”
Dad’s reaction was instantaneous. He dropped his hands from Vic’s face, gripping his arms. He pulled Vic behind him, looking toward the sky. “Did they see you?”
Nurse Ratched’s screen filled with the recording from the Scrap Yards. Dad grunted as if punched. Vic looked over his shoulder to see an image of one of the machines inspecting the soil. “Victor,” Dad said, voice even. “The cut on your hand. When it happened, did you bleed in the Scrap Yards?”
Vic hung his head. “It was an accident—”
Dad cursed and turned toward the ground house, stepping around Vic. “Follow me. Don’t look back. Don’t ask questions. Do what I say. Hurry.”
They did as they were told. A record spun on the player inside the ground house. Miles Davis and his sweet, sweet horns. Dad stopped in front of one of the bookcases. “Victor, I need you to listen to me.”
Vic managed to nod. His breath whistled as he panted, throat dry and constricted.
“There is much I should’ve told you,” Dad said as he stepped to the side of the bookcase. He pressed his hand against the wood. A panel lit up, green and bright. It rose up and down as it scanned his hand. “Much that I’ve kept hidden. But you must believe me when I say I only wanted to keep you safe.” The scan finished, and a heavy click came from the bookcase, as if a lock had opened.
The floor beneath their feet began to shake. They all turned in time to see the floor shifting, the floorboards folding in on themselves as they parted. A staircase appeared, the metal steps snapping into place. At the edges of each step, lights turned on, pulsing again and again.
“Down,” Dad said. “Now.”
Nurse Ratched went first, her body rattling as she bounced down each step. She almost tumbled end over end, but her treads kept her upright. Dad picked up Rambo, shoving him at Vic.
“Dad,” Vic tried.
“Hush,” Dad said. “Go.”
Vic descended the stairs, hearing Hap following him. He looked back over his shoulder to see his father at the top of the stairs. The frame of the ground house began to rattle, and that strange sound roared around them once more. The Terrible Dogfish was coming.
“Hap,” Dad said as they reached the bottom of the stairs. “You don’t know me. You don’t even know yourself. But I must ask you for something, and it will go against every single part of your programming.”
Hap nodded.
“I am asking you to choose. Here. Now. I’m sorry it’s come at a time like this, but you must decide.”
“T-to do wh-what?”
“Protect Victor,” Dad said, and for the first time in Vic’s life, he heard fear in his father’s voice. “No matter what. Protect him with everything you have. Don’t let anything happen to him.”
Vic set Rambo on the ground before turning back toward the stairs. He tried to climb back up but stopped when his father shook his head.
“What are you doing?” he demanded. “What’s happening?”
Dad smiled, though it trembled. “What I hoped never would. Listen to me, Victor. You are a light in my darkness. I’ve loved you since the moment I saw you. Never forget that. No matter what you see, no matter what you hear, I have always loved you. You’re my son. And I couldn’t be prouder of the man you’ve become. One day, we’ll see each other again. I know we will. Hap, do I have your word? Will you do what I’ve asked?”
Hap hesitated before nodding.
Relief flooded Dad’s face. “Thank you,” he whispered. “Trust Victor. Trust my son. I’ll do what I can to keep them away. Nurse Ratched. Can you hear me?”
