“Come on!”
“I can’t!” he yelled.
His nerves are totally shot, Beth observed.
“This is not the time to have a breakdown!” she hollered. With one massive tug, she tried to bring the programmer onto his feet, but he resisted.
“All this death,” Dr. Miller said in a mystified, distant tone. “All these people. My God — were you right? How can all of this be part of the plan to protect us? What does killing us solve, in the end?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Beth replied. “We have to get up!”
“This isn’t efficient,” Dr. Silvar continued, ignoring the detective. “There’s no logic behind this kind of suffering.”
“That’s what I’ve been telling you,” Beth said. “Now, come on!”
She managed to force the man onto his feet, but he still looked like his thoughts were all muddled. Like he was abruptly woken from a dream and was struggling to discern if this was real life or just another layer of his nightmare. Beth only let him stand like a lost toddler for a moment before pushing him forward.
They were approaching the intersection that acted as the camp’s main street. It was where everyone gathered for pseudo festivals, or to hear announcements. Now it was empty, aside from a handful of corpses littering the walkways.
“Quick — hide!” Simon hissed in her head.
With a firm arm, she lowered Dr. Silvar until they both looked over the intersection from behind a parked wagon. The archaic vehicle was loaded with assorted foodstuffs, most of it looking like feed for the livestock that grazed on the edge of camp. There were a few forms moving about that she failed to notice at first. Had Simon not stopped her, she would have walked right into them.
“How about in here?” one of the forms asked. It was an older black man, but Beth knew that he was really an I.I. meat puppet. The possessed human was speaking with three other bodyshells.
“Check it out,” one of the bodyshells told the other two machines.
They moved into one of the buildings, a sort of theater that the campers set up for live shows.
A bit of commotion bled out onto the street. Beth could hear furniture scrape over wood, then something collapsed onto the floor. A bit of yelling emanated from within.
Before even a minute passed, the two bodyshells emerged from the building with a tubby man sporting a sweat-soaked comb-over. His clothes were drenched with perspiration.
“It’s not him,” the meat puppet commented.
Without a moment of thought, the bodyshell who ordered the others into the theater lifted a gun in its hand, put it on the sweaty man’s forehead, and pulled the trigger.
The man’s body fell to the ground with a sickening plop.
“He’s likely with the detective,” the meat puppet said, showing no reaction to the cold-blooded execution. “Find her before everyone can escape or we’ll have to hunt down each and every one of them. Then you can explain to Tarov why we failed.”
The others said nothing, and before long, the whole group walked away from the man they’d just killed, heading down the street that led to the front gate.
“My God,” Dr. Silvar commented once he dared to peek his head up. “That poor man.”
“They were looking for us,” Beth told the programmer. “You in particular.”
“But why?” Dr. Silvar asked. There was a childlike panic in his voice.
“Because you’re the only one who can stop Tarov,” Beth answered. “Don’t you see? We have to get you out of the camp alive. It’s more important than anything else.”
“I understand,” Dr. Silvar said. His expression was grim.
“The exit is only a couple of blocks to the west,” Simon said. “We can’t stop moving now.”
They pressed on. Every ten feet of their journey felt like a mile. Every minute was filled with the sounds of gunfire and screaming. The panicked voices of people filled the air like the hum of a bee swarm. Both Beth and Dr. Silvar looked in every direction before each bit of distance they covered, terrified of being discovered.
When they turned the corner, they saw one of the fence gates that signified the end of Camp Leddy. Normally manned by at least a half dozen guards, the checkpoint was now deserted. The gate hung open. People had clearly just been through it. Whether they were friends or foes, Beth couldn’t tell.
“We’re almost outta here,” Beth said, more to herself than the programmer. “Just a little farther.”
The gate creaked as they pushed it open more. The sound was like nails on a chalkboard to Beth, grating on her psyche. She prayed they were the only ones who could hear it.
They weren’t, however. No more than twenty feet out of the gate, Beth started to hear pounding footsteps behind her. It almost sounded like a herd of buffalo were chasing after them, but she knew the sound to be mechanical feet, not hoof beats.
She didn’t dare look over her shoulder. In the matter of an instant, she heard a loud explosion from behind and felt the whiz of a bullet ripping the air by her right ear. She felt Dr. Silvar instinctively start to duck down as their pursuers opened fire on them, but she kept firm pressure on his upper arm and kept him moving.
“Here!” she cried to the programmer as they jumped into a ditch that ran through the craggy land by Fort Leddy. The dust they kicked up filled their lungs and Beth did her best to avoid coughing in it. With her grip on Dr. Silvar, she pushed them both back so they were right against the eroding wall of the ditch.
The pounding of feet above and behind them was like the rumble of nearby thunder. Before they even had a moment to prepare, Beth and Dr. Silvar saw four black forms leap over them, in the direction they had been running. Their pursuers fell for the trap: they thought the detective and the programmer would be fleeing down the
