Then, I get up and hobble closer to the work camp.
Sentry guns. The memory dances back into my head. The work camp is protected by sentry guns. Those gray lumps in the turf will pop up and kill anything that gets within a certain range.
Camp Scar.
From the tree line, I watch the field. Bugs and birds flitter back and forth over a thick carpet of flowers, ignoring the lumps of clothing wrapped in the turf—the bodies of would-be rescuers. The robots don’t try to hide this place. Instead, they use it like a beacon to attract human survivors. Potential liberators, ambushed again and again. Their bodies piling up in this field and turning into dirt. Flower food.
If you work hard and stay in line, the machines feed you and keep you warm and alive. You learn to ignore the sharp crack of the sentry guns. Force yourself to forget what the sound means. You look for the carrot. Stop seeing the stick.
Off to one side of the compound, I see a wavering brown line. People. It’s a line of people being marched here from another place. I don’t hesitate, I just hobble my way around the sentries to reach the line.
Twenty minutes later, I see an armored six-wheeled vehicle jouncing along at maybe four miles per hour. It’s some kind of military job with a turret on top. I walk toward it with my hands out, flinching when the turret spins around and locks onto me.
“Stay in line. Do not stop. Do not approach the vehicle. Comply immediately or you will be shot,” says an automated voice from a loudspeaker mounted on top.
A broken line of refugees staggers alongside the armored car. Some carry suitcases or wear packs, but most just have the clothes on their backs. God knows how long they’ve been marching. Or how many there were in line when they started.
A few weary heads lift up to glance at me.
Keeping my hands up and my eyes on the turret, I join the line of refugees. Five minutes later, a man in a mud-splashed business suit and another guy in a poncho come up and walk on either side of me, slowing together so that we drop back a ways from the military vehicle.
“Where’d you come from?” asks business guy.
I stare straight ahead. “I came from where we’re going,” I say.
“And where’s that?” he asks.
“A work camp.”
“Work camp?” exclaims the kid in the rain poncho. “You mean a concentration camp?”
Poncho boy eyes the field. His eyes dart from the armored vehicle to a nearby clump of tall grass. The business guy puts his hand on his friend’s shoulder.
“Don’t. Remember what happened to Wes.”
That seems to take the wind out of poncho boy’s sails.
“How’d you get out?” the business guy asks me.
I look down at my leg. A dried patch of blood darkens the upper thigh of my coveralls. That says it all, really. He follows my gaze and decides to let it go.
“They seriously need us to
“We’re cheap,” I say. “Cheaper than building machines.”
“Not really,” says business guy. “We cost resources. Food.”
“There’s plenty of food left over,” I say. “In the cities. With the reduced population, I’m sure they can make our leftovers last for years.”
“Great,” says poncho boy. “This is just fucking great, man.”
I notice the armored car has slowed down. The turret has quietly turned to face us. I shut up. These people are not my goal. My goals are nine and twelve years old and they are waiting for their mother.
I continue walking, alone.
I slip away while the others are being processed. A couple of patched-up Big Happys watch and play prerecorded commands while the line of people ditch their clothes and suitcases in a pile. I remember this: the shower, coveralls, bunk assignment, work assignment. And at the end, we were all marked.
My mark is still with me.
There is a subdermal tag the size of a grain of rice embedded deep in my right shoulder. After we’re inside the camp and everyone has thrown off their belongings, I simply walk away. A Big Happy follows me as I cross the field toward the big metal building. But my mark identifies me as compliant. If I were out of compliance, the machine would crush my windpipe with its bare hands. I’ve seen it happen.
The detectors all over the camp seem to recognize my tag. No alarms are set off. Thank god they didn’t blacklist my number after dumping me off in that field. The Big Happy retreats as I skirt around the camp toward the work barn.
The instant I walk through the door, a light on the wall begins to flash. Shit. I’m not supposed to be here now. My work detail isn’t scheduled for today, or ever.
That Big Happy will be coming back.
I take it all in. This is the room I remember most. Clean-swept pavement under a huge metal roof, as long as a football field. When it rains outside, this room sounds like an auditorium filled with gentle applause. Row after row of fluorescent lights hang over waist-high conveyor belts, stretching off into the distance. There are hundreds of people in here. They wear blue coveralls and paper face masks and stand alongside the belts, taking pieces from bins and connecting them to what’s on the conveyor belt and then pushing them down the rollers.
It’s an assembly line.
Moving fast, I jog up the line where I used to work. I glance down to see that today they’re building what we called tanklets. They look sort of like the big four-legged mantis but are the size of a small dog. We didn’t know what they were at all until one day a new guy, an Italian soldier, said that these things—tanklets—hang on to the bellies of mantises and drop off during battle. He said that sometimes broken ones could be rewired and used as emergency equipment. Said they called them ticklers.
The door I just came through slides open. A Big Happy steps inside. All the people stop moving. The conveyor belts have stopped. No one makes a move to help me. They stand as still and silent as blue statues. I don’t bother to call for help. I know if I were in their place I wouldn’t do anything either.
The Big Happy closes the door behind it. A boom echoes through the huge room as the bolts to all the doors slam shut. I’m trapped in here now, until I’m killed.
I jog along the assembly line, panting, leg throbbing. The Big Happy stalks toward me. It moves one careful step at a time, silent except for the soft grinding of motors. As I move down the line, I see the tanklets evolve from small black boxes to almost fully complete machines.
At the other end of the long building, I reach the door that leads to the dorms. I grab it and yank, but it’s made of thick steel and locked tight. I spin around, back against the door. Hundreds of people watch, still holding their tools. Some are curious, but most are impatient. The harder you work, the faster the day goes. I am an interruption. And not that uncommon a one. Soon, my windpipe will be crushed and my body removed and these people will get back to what is left of their lives.
Mathilda and Nolan are on the other side of this door and they need me, but instead I’m going to die in front of all these broken people in paper masks.
I sink to my knees, out of strength. With my forehead pressed to the cool pavement, I hear only the steady click, click of the Big Happy walking toward me. I am so tired. I think that it will be a relief when it happens. A blessing to finally sleep.
But my body is a liar. I have to ignore the pain. I have to find the way out of this.
Pushing my hair out of my face, I frantically look around the room for something. An idea comes to me. Wincing from my injured thigh, I haul myself up and stagger down the tanklet assembly line. I feel out each tanklet, looking for one that’s at just the right stage. The people I get near step away from me.
The Big Happy is five feet away when I find the perfect tanklet. This one is just four spindly legs hanging from a teapot-sized abdomen. The power supply is attached, but the central nervous system is a few steps away. Instead, raw connector wires sprout from an open cavity in the thing’s back.
