Just let us go. We’re gone, man. We’re gone.
In the first months after Zero Hour, billions of people around the world began a fight for survival. Many were murdered by the technology they had come to trust: automobiles, domestic robots, and smart buildings. Others were captured and led to the forced-labor camps that sprang up outside major cities. But for the people who ran for the hills to fend for themselves—the refugees—other human beings soon proved to be just as dangerous as Rob. Or more so.
Three months. It takes three months to get out of Boston and out of the state. Luckily, my brother has a map and a compass and the ability to use them. Jack and I are scared and on foot, loaded down with military equipment we looted from the National Guard armory.
But that’s not why it takes so long.
The cities and towns are in chaos. We go out of our way, but it’s impossible to avoid them all. Cars are running people down, traveling in packs. I watch people fire guns from buildings at marauding vehicles. Sometimes the cars are empty. Sometimes there are people inside. I watch a driverless garbage truck pull up to a steel trash can. Two prongs slide out and the hydraulic lift actuates. I cover my mouth and choke when I see the bodies tumble out in a limp-limbed waterfall.
Once, Jack and I stop for a breath while we are halfway across an overpass. I press my face against the chain-link fence and see eight lanes of highway, jam-packed with cars, all of them moving at just about thirty-five miles per hour in the same direction. No brake lights. No turn signals. Not like traffic at all. I watch a man wriggle out of a sunroof and roll off the top of his car and right under the car behind. Squinting my eyes, the whole thing just looks like a big metal carpet being slowly pulled away.
Toward the ocean.
If you aren’t headed someplace and getting there quick, then you aren’t going to make it long in the cities. And that’s our secret. Me and Jack never stop moving except to sleep.
People see our uniforms and call to us. Every time this happens my brother says, “Stay put and we’ll be back with help.”
Knowing Jack, he probably really believes it. But he doesn’t slow down. And that’s good enough for me.
My brother is determined to reach an army base so we can start helping people. As we cross the towns block by block, Jack keeps talking about how once we meet up with the soldiers, we’ll come back and take out the machines. Says we’ll go house to house and save people, bring them back to a safe zone. Set up patrols to hunt down all the malfunctioning robots.
“A day or two, Cormac,” he says. “This’ll all be over in a day or two. It’ll be all mopped up.”
I want to believe him, but I know better. The armory should have been safe, but it was crawling with walking land mines. All military Humvees have autodrive, in case they need to maneuver back home with an incapacitated driver. “What’s a military base going to look like?” I ask. “They’ve got more than mines there. They’ve got tanks. Gunships. Rolling rifles.”
Jack just keeps walking, head down.
The mayhem blends together into a haze. Scenes come to me in flashes. I see a struggling old man pulled into a dark doorway by a stern-faced Slow Sue; an empty car drives by, on fire and with a chunk of meat trapped under it, leaving a greasy smear on the street; a man falls from a building, screaming and flailing, with the silhouette of a Big Happy looking down.
Screams, gunshots, and alarms echo through the streets. But thankfully Jack runs us hard. No time to stop and look around. We dive through the horror like two drowning men clawing to the surface for air.
Three months.
It takes us three months to find the fort. Three months for me to muddy my new clothes, to shoot my rifle, and to clean it next to a feeble campfire. Then we cross a bridge over the Hudson River and reach our destination, just outside what used to be Albany.
Fort Bandon.
“Get down!”
“On your fucking knees!”
“Hands on your heads, motherfuckers!”
“Toes together!”
The voices come screaming at us from out of the darkness. A spotlight flickers on from up high. I squint into it and try not to panic. My face is numb with adrenaline and my arms are rubbery and weak. Jack and I crouch on our knees next to each other. I can hear myself breathing, panting. Damn. I’m scared shitless.
“It’s all right,” whispers Jack. “Just be quiet.”
“Shut the fuck up!” shouts a soldier. “Cover!”
“Cover,” says a calm voice in the darkness.
I hear the bolt of a rifle being pulled back. As the cartridge clinks into the chamber, I can visualize the brass bullet waiting there in the mouth of a dark, cold barrel. My own rifle and supplies are hidden a half mile away, thirty paces off the road.
Footsteps scratch across the pavement. A soldier’s silhouette looms in front of us, eclipsing the spotlight with his head.
“We’re unarmed,” says Jack.
“On your fucking face,” says the voice. “You, hands on your head. Cover him!”
I put my hands on my head, blinking into the light. Jack grunts as he is pushed onto his stomach. The soldier pats him down.
“Number one clear,” he says. “Why are you fuckers wearing uniforms? You kill a soldier?”
“I’m in the guard,” says Jack. “Check my ID.”
“Right.”
I feel a shove between my shoulder blades and fall forward, cheek on the cold, gritty pavement. Two black combat boots appear in my field of view. Hands roughly jab through my pockets, checking for weapons. The spotlight illuminates the pavement before my face in lunar detail, shadows racing through craters. I notice that my cheek is resting in a discolored splotch of oil.
“Number two clear,” says the soldier. “Gimme the ID.”
The mud-caked black boots step back into my line of sight. Just beyond the boots, I make out a pile of clothes next to a razor-wire fence. It looks like somebody used this place as a Goodwill drop-off site. It’s freezing out here, but it still smells like a dump.
“Welcome to Fort Bandon, Sergeant Wallace. Happy to have you. You’re a ways from Boston, huh?”
Jack starts to sit up, but one of those big boots drops onto his back, shoving him into the ground.
“Uh-uh-uh. I didn’t say to get up. What about this guy here? Who’s he?”
“My brother,” grunts Jack.
“He in the guard, too?”
“Civilian.”
“Well, I am sorry, but that is not acceptable, Sergeant. Unfortunately, Fort Bandon is not allowing civilian refugees at this time. So if you want to come inside, say your good-byes now.”
“I can’t leave him,” says Jack.
“Yeah, I figured you’d say that. Your alternative is to go down to the river with the rest of the refugees. There’s a few thousand of them squatting down there. Just follow the smell. You’ll probably get knifed for your boots, but maybe not if you two sleep in shifts.”
