I take a closer look. Every niche and crevice of the colossal, creeping monster teems with life. The water below flickers with spawning fish. A haze of flying insects clouds the lower petals, while rodents creep through the folds of the central trunk. The structure is riddled with burrows and covered in animal shit and dancing with sunlight—alive.
“Some kind of research station. Maybe the avtomata are studying living things. Animals and bugs and birds.”
“This is not good,” murmurs Jabar.
“Nope. But if they’re collecting information, they must be sending it somewhere, right?”
Jabar lifts up his antenna, grinning.
I block the sun with one hand over my eyes and squint at the towering, shining column. That’s a lot of data. Wherever it’s going, I’ll bet there’s one smart fucking avtomat on the other end.
“Jabar. Go east fifty meters and plant your stick. I’ll do the same. We’re gonna figure out where our enemy lives.”
Paul was correct. What he and Jabar had found was not a weapon but a biological research platform. The massive amount of data it collected was being sent via tight-beam transmission to a remote location in Alaska.
At this time, a little less than a year since Zero Hour, humankind had found the whereabouts of Big Rob. Postwar records indicate that although Paul and Jabar were not the first to discover the whereabouts of Archos, they were the first to share that information with humanity—thanks to help from an unlikely source half a world away.
7. BACKBONE
It’s not me, Arrtrad…. I’m sorry.
As Brightboy squad continued to trek across the United States toward Gray Horse, we marched in an information vacuum. A lack of satellite communication plagued the survivors of Zero Hour, preventing widespread groups of people from collaborating and fighting together. Hundreds of satellites fell from the sky like shooting stars at Zero Hour, but many more remained—operational but jammed.
The teenager called Lurker pinpointed the source of this jamming signal. His attempt to do something about it sent reverberations through human and Rob history. In the following pages, I describe what happened to Lurker based on street camera recordings; exoskeleton data logs; and, partially, the first-person account of a submind of Archos itself.
“A single mile, Arrtrad,” Lurker says. “We can make it one single fucking mile.”
From the security camera image, I can see Lurker and his middle-aged comrade, Arrtrad. They stand on a weed-filled street alongside the Thames, within running distance to the safety of their houseboat. Lurker, the teenager, has grown his hair and his beard out. He’s gone from a shaved head to being the jungle man of Borneo. Arrtrad looks and sounds the same as ever—worried.
“Straight through Trafalgar Square?” asks Arrtrad, pale face lined with anxiety. “They’ll see us. They’re bound to. If the cars don’t track us, then those little… things will.”
Lurker mimics Arrtrad’s nasal voice without mercy. “Oh, let’s save the people. We’ve been sitting on this boat for ages. La-di-fucking-da.”
Arrtrad lets his gaze drop.
“I schemed,” says Lurker. “I plotted. I found a way, brother. What happened to you? Where have your balls gone?”
Arrtrad speaks to the pavement. “I’ve seen it out scavenging, Lurker. All this time, the cars still sit on the streets. Start their engines once a month and idle for ten minutes. They’re all ready for us, mate. Just waiting.”
“Arrtrad, come over here,” says Lurker. “Have a look at yourself.”
The security camera pans over as Lurker motions at Arrtrad to step next to a panel of sun-baked glass attached to a mostly intact building. The tint is peeling off, but the glass wall still holds a bluish reflection. Arrtrad steps over and the two look at themselves.
A data readout informs me that they first activated the exoskeletons a month ago. Military hardware. Full body. Without a person inside, the machines look like a messy pile of wiry black arms and legs connected to a backpack. Strapped into the powered machines, the two men each stand seven feet tall, strong as bears. The thin black tubes running along their arms and legs are made of titanium. The motorized joints are powered by purring diesel engines. I notice that the feet are curved, flexible spikes that add a solid foot to their height.
Grinning, Lurker flexes for the mirror. Each of his forearms has a wicked notched spike curving out, used to pick up heavy objects without crushing human fingers. Each exoskeleton has a roll cage that arcs gracefully over its occupant’s head, with a bluish-white LED burning in the middle of the frame.
Together in the mirror, Arrtrad and Lurker look like a couple of supersoldiers. Well, more like a couple of pale Englishmen who’ve been living on sardines and who happen to have scavenged some abandoned military technology.
Either way, they are most definitely badass.
“See yourself, Arrtrad?” Lurker asks. “You’re a beast, mate. You’re a killer. We can do this.”
Lurker tries to clap Arrtrad on the shoulder, and the other man flinches away girlishly. “Careful!” shouts Arrtrad. “There’s no armor on these things. Keep your hooks away from me.”
“Right, brother.” Lurker chuckles. “Look, the British Telecom Tower is one mile away. And it’s jamming our satellites. If people could communicate, even for a little while, we’d have a fighting chance.”
Arrtrad looks at Lurker, skeptical. “Why are you really doing this?” he asks. “Why are you putting your life— our lives—on the line?”
For a long moment, there is only the
“Yeah,” responds Arrtrad slowly.
“We thought we were different than everyone else. Better. Thought we were taking advantage of a bunch of fools. But we were wrong. Turns out we’re all in the same boat. Metaphorically speaking.”
Arrtrad cracks a small smile. “But we don’t owe nobody nothing. You said so yourself.”
“Oh, but we do,” Lurker says. “We didn’t know it, but we were running up a tab. We owe a debt, mate. And now it’s time to pay up. Only phreaks like us would know about this tower. How important it is. If we can destroy it, we’ll help thousands of people. Maybe millions.”
“And you owe them?”
“I owe
On mention of his children, Arrtrad turns away from Lurker, blinking back tears. Eyeing his own sinuous reflection, he shrugs one arm out of his exo-suit and smoothes back the puff of blond hair on his balding head. The exoskeleton arm automatically settles down to his side. Arrtrad’s cheeks puff out as he exhales loudly, slipping his
