“Eliza.” I nudged her gently. “Eliza, where are the guns?”
“Huh?” She was really knocked out.
“Eliza, I need the guns. An android drone’s in the sky.”
“Leave it to the people patrolling, honey. They’ll shoot it down.”
“Eliza, I can’t even see the damn thing. What makes you think they’re going to be able to even hit it?” I was getting annoyed now.
“We have night vision goggles?” She was more awake now, but still drowsy.
“So why haven’t they shot it down?” That got her attention. The people patrolling should have been able to knock a drone out of the sky easily. Whatever that drone was equipped with, it was using some kind of shielding. “Call them in.”
“Why the hell would I do that? They’re the only thing standing between us and the army of androids that is probably coming over the horizon as we speak.”
“I promise, please, just do it, beloved.” Every second that the people patrolling stayed in the open was another chance for the androids to see what kind of security we had. Eliza held a radio up to her lips and bid the security patrolmen to return to their tents. The drone passed overhead one more time and then the air pressure changed again. I stayed still for a few minutes and when it seemed like the android army wasn’t rushing into camp to slaughter us, I risked a peek outside. The camp remained as it was when we retired for the night. I stuck a ‘thumbs up’ to Eliza and she radioed for the patrolmen to return to their positions.
“Well, shit. It’s not like I’m going to be able to go back to sleep now.” Eliza grabbed a bag and put it under her head so she could sit up. “We should get moving, it’s not like the machines will wait until the morning to come rip us open.”
“…I’m not sure they’re out there, actually.” For all I knew I was talking out of my ass. There wasn’t anything to back up my feeling, but Eliza made me think. The androids certainly wouldn’t wait until morning to slaughter us. In fact, they wouldn’t have waited five minutes. The fact that we weren’t lying dead in our tents meant that they weren’t out there. I grasped my weapon tightly and told Eliza to stay behind. Just as I thought, no machines came to slice me to ribbons. The drone had disappeared. Why the androids hadn’t roared over the horizon to kill us all I had no idea, but I wasn’t complaining. “All clear.”
“Why wouldn’t they obliterate us in our sleep?” Eliza followed me from the tent and put her good arm around me.
“Because they want us to lead them to the other human colony. You saw how scared they were when that aircraft buzzed by. It doesn’t make any sense for them to wipe us off the face of the earth when we can lead them to the pesky humans who have the capability of causing actual damage to their city.” I hadn’t thought about that. Getting ourselves support in the form of another, better established colony had blinded me to everything except taking care of our people. Shit.
“We don’t have a choice, Fiona. We can’t go back.” It was like she heard my thoughts. “The contact the other people have had with us suggests that they have some kind of defenses. I admire the fact that you want to protect them, but we’re in a serious spot here. We have to trust that they have the ability to keep their people safe. They are clearly trying to lead us to them. If they have the kind of technology we think they have, they are already well aware of our robotic pursuers and preparing for their arrival as well. It will be okay.”
I hated myself for not taking her word for it. One thing Eliza and I built our relationship on was a promise to never lie to each other. Yet over years of marriage I still had the niggling feeling that she was lying to me just to be nice. The truth is, I had no way of telling. That’s the thing. I just had to trust her.
“All right. We’ll get moving at first light. According to the coordinates, we’re only about a day and a half from our destination. Let’s keep morale up and high tail it before something worse than a drone comes to get us.”
As soon as everyone was packed up and ready to move, Eliza, Marcus, and I made a point of traveling around the caravan to spread the news that we were almost there. It was a good thing, too. Most of the people traveling with us had never spent a significant amount of time outside. The brief period they lived on the surface had helped a little, but we were dealing with sunburns, scrapes, and pains galore. Things that by themselves didn’t add up to much but asking someone suffering from exhaustion to carry a large sled didn’t go so well. We were traveling across fields with no end in sight. If we didn’t come across another colony soon, we were going
