“Hey there, hot stuff.” I bent down and grinned at her. “All shirtless on the table...” I wolf whistled and she shot me the finger with her good hand.
“Mooooommmm. I know I’m an adult and everything but you can’t keep it in your pants? Momma’s been shot.” Marcus whined from his bed.
“I can’t help myself Marcus, your Momma is just the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen!” Eliza smiled gently and I knew the distraction worked. I punctuated my lecherous leering with a healthy dose of kissing noises and both Marcus and Eliza groaned.
“Fiona, if you don’t stop making my patient move around, I’m going to strap you down to the gurney. And not in a fun way.” Phoebe didn’t look up from her console behind the AutoDoc.
“Yes ma’am.” I moved to Eliza’s side and clasped her hand in mine. “Uh, I love you.”
“What.” She started to look up and then swore as the AutoDoc injected the area around the wound with anesthetic.
“That. Sorry. Squeeze the hell out of my hand anytime you want. I am here to be your personal punching bag.” Man, those banana bags were something else. I was feeling no pain and a little light headed. I wondered if Phoebe had put a little something extra in them to sedate us.
The operation on Eliza’s shoulder was blessedly fast. She would have to be monitored for a couple of days but otherwise she would be as good as new. Phoebe gave her something to help her sleep and closed the curtains around her bed. As soon as we could stand to deliver the news, I asked Phoebe to fetch Jason and Nicole for us. They appeared with concerned looks on their faces. I waved them in to the infirmary.
“We need to talk.”
The five of us sat in the cramped office space. It wasn’t strictly necessary for Phoebe to attend, but she had been such a help to my father and I felt she was one of the best people to hear the news first.
“You’re telling me there is a city full of androids that used to run the other shelters.” The three of them stared at us, unbelieving.
“Yes.”
“And they decided to put your father on trial for murdering a homicidal A.I.”
“Yes.”
“And between your entering the city and your escape from it they murdered one of our own, split him in half, and killed your father.”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“Well, fuck.” Jason put his head in his hands and took a deep breath. “All right, what do we need to do?”
“The androids told us that we are the last of humanity, but I don’t buy it. We were only able to escape that place because an old-tech unmanned aircraft flew overhead. None of us got a really good look at it, but the body was far different than anything we saw in that machine city. They make everything out of glass and metal; the plane was plastic. Maybe some metal plating in the vulnerable areas, but when have you seen anyone using plastic in the last half thousand years?” With his body replenished, I could see that Marcus was itching to go. His family was in danger yet again and sitting in an office rankled. Like a wolf who interpreted hesitating as weakness.
“We also intercepted two transmissions, both appearing to be from humans.” That really got their attention.
“How do you know?” Phoebe spoke up. In her hands was a rosary, her thumb steadily moving over the beads as she spoke. “I’ve seen those A.I. do some really crazy things, Fiona. It wouldn’t be difficult at all for them to fake a transmission from another human colony.”
“The truth is, I don’t. But the majority of the androids seemed to share Gabriel’s mindset in so much as they consider themselves a wholly separate species from humans. If they were trying to trick us or lead us into a trap, they wouldn’t bother being vague. Or breathing. There were breaths interspersed with the words.”
“On our second night out there we also had a visitor. About halfway through the night, a drone appeared. It looked just like the plane. Plastic body, ancient build. It stayed far away from the campsite and didn’t bother us. Mom had the brilliant idea to flash some Morse code at it and I swear to you all that I saw the thing wag back and forth in acknowledgement. Machines don’t do that. They don’t wait around to see what you’ll do once discovered and they sure as hell don’t waggle their drones. Ever.” Marcus’s voice had grown a little deeper during the conversation. It was like he remembered his position as one of the shelter leaders and was racing to fill that role once again.
“The long and the short of it is that we need to move. Now I’ve had great success in splicing oil palm DNA with the potato DNA; I’ll need a quick spin by the labs to make sure my math is correct, but I think I’ve got the formula nailed down. Until we can find this other group of humans, or another place to settle, it’s somewhat pointless, however. The four of us can work to triangulate any radio signal on the way. If we're lucky, maybe we’ll run into the group of humans who has access to military hardware. If we’re not...well, there isn’t much we can do about that, is there?” The whole thing was a somewhat fatalistic plan but hell, our lives had become beholden to fate a long time ago.
With the help of aid from the androids there were very few who were too sick to move. Those who were would be given a choice; either they could risk the journey with us or they’d be welcome to stay with whatever was left of the supplies. I certainly wouldn’t condone execution of the infirm; neither would Eliza, when she woke up.
I was cleared to leave the infirmary a couple of hours later. My first stop was the hydroponics lab; the place had
