Architect (Last Resistance Book 3), page 12
He points his finger at me. “See? I got the same response. Does no one have a sense of humor anymore?”
I pick at some of the glass still embedded in my face which my companion has been kind enough not to point out. The pain helps focus me in light of this new information. “So then was that girl some kind of Ganger?” Gangers aren’t usually literal clones or human-machine hybrids, but people whose mind and humanity have been stolen by the higher echelon, usually through torture. Sometimes by threats. Then like birds set on fire and sent back to their nests, they either willingly or accidentally smoke out their home bases.
He wrinkles his brow, before understanding lights up his face. “Oh! You mean a clone like you? Doubt it. Although honestly, I’ve never given it much thought.”
His airy tone catches me off guard, almost more than the words themselves. It’s so conversational. Rather than falling into the trap of a careless response, I deflect. “Who are you?”
The man straightens like a child called on in a classroom, aiming a proud thumb at himself. “Benjamin Levine. Prefer Benji, though. And you’re Rhona Long, right?”
“What gave it away?” I thought dyeing my hair a few shades darker would make recognizing me harder, but maybe that was giving my reputation—and my features—too little credit. “Was it my unmatched wit or sparkling personality?”
I’m being deliberately sharp, but Benji doesn’t seem to pick up on it. He leads us into one building and out into the back alley of another, carefully avoiding the boulevards. In each derelict store we’re forced to maneuver around ransacked clearance racks or cages of sporting goods. He talks the whole time.
“Everyone remembers where they were when they knew the machines had turned on us and we were fucked. I mean, you don’t, probably. Because of the whole clone thing. Which, by the way, fascinating. Would love to hear all about what that’s been like.” I open my mouth, but Benji is a fountain, all the words gushing out at once, like each of his thoughts are in a constant race to beat the other. “Not the time, I know. Relevant though, I promise. Everyone remembers where they were, not because that moment itself was significant, but every moment after became suffused by it, you know? Like a drop of milk into stark black coffee.” The way he says coffee holds an element of longing. Not all that surprising if he’s a Portland native. All those little losses add up over time.
“That’s how I felt after I saw one of your broadcasts for the first time. Not fucked that is, but fucking hopeful. Others could probably tell you the same, where they were when they saw or heard Rhona Long for the first time. It was the first positive moment in a long unbroken line of shit moments—if that makes sense?”
“And did I live up to the hype?” I ask, my chest tight. These personal stories still catch me off guard, especially the ones that suggest I made a difference or that my predecessor did. It’s an odd feeling to mean so much to a complete stranger.
“Not the point.” Ouch. “You’re kind of like a cultural touchstone. Like… I don’t know, Star Wars. Hard to avoid, harder to forget.” I raise my brows at that last part, but Benji isn’t making eye contact, except for the spare glance to check that I’m still with him as we step back out onto the street. “Also helps that I see you all the time these days.”
I assume he’s talking about the broadcasts I attempted to get out in the months after Calgary. That was a while ago, but what’s time anymore. “Probably didn’t hurt that Glasgow was expecting company. I tend to show up where I’m not wanted,” I joke, trying to steer the conversation back to my main objective. Talking with Benji is like playing a game of tug of war. I’m constantly fighting to keep us on track. Ordinarily I’d like his high energy, but right now, after everything that’s happened and everything still happening, it’s an effort to deal with. “Are you part of an Oregonian attachment?”
“Oregonians,” he repeats, pronouncing it like a fancy butler, turning his nose up and everything. “You know half of those assholes out there tearing up the city aren’t even from Oregon. They’re from California.”
Now I know Benji’s a Portlander. No one disdains California more than its neighbors.
“I’m guessing that’s a no, then. Have you just been… living in Portland this whole time? Are there others besides you and Glasgow?” I was given the impression that Glasgow was a solitary prisoner, sending coded messages from Providence Park or somewhere nearby to the resistance at great personal risk. “Are we meeting up with them at Providence Park?” I add, hoping I’ll get an answer to one of these questions.
“Is that where you were headed? I for sure thought you were aiming for Powell’s,” Benji replies, managing to avoid answering. I don’t think he’s being deliberately obtuse, but it’s hard to know for sure. “You wouldn’t believe the amount of people who tried for it in the early days. Something about the books being a comfort, I guess. We actually headquartered there for a little bit, but it’s really not as defensible as you’d think. Anyway, good thing I came along when I did then. You don’t want to go to the park. That place is creepy.”
That’s a lot of information to take in at once, but I cordon off the most important part. You don’t want to go to the park. I’ve felt something was off since spying the machines marching across the bridge, but now that quiet, worried murmur has grown to a blaring alarm inside my head. Don’t panic. Maybe Benji is just uninformed. “But the park is our rendezvous point,” I answer calmly. “That’s where Glasgow said they’d be. Why are you smiling?”
“Sorry.” Benji tries and fails to hold a frown. Instead, a wry smile creeps back to the corners of his lips. “I’m not trying to be a dick. It’s just funny. You keep talking about Glas like he’s a person.”
The ground feels suddenly unstable, like the world is coming apart. The one I know how to deal with anyway. “I’m confused. Are you saying Glasgow isn’t a person?”
“Technically, no. But in spirit?” Benji pauses, considering. “Also no. Glasgow is a developing AI—closer to an algorithm, really. Glas isn’t nearly as complex as all of the wartime AI consumed by the higher echelon, which is probably how he got missed. You’re certainly not going to find any of the machines he’s running at the park. That’s echelon territory. We give it a pretty wide berth.”
I’m gutted and it must show on my face, because Benji reaches out a hand to my shoulder, as if to steady me. He stops just shy of touching me, less for my comfort I think than his own.
There’s genuine sympathy in his eyes. “You thought you were coming to rescue a person. That’s rough. But hey, it’s the thought that counts, right?”
I back up, hands raised, as if I can physically distance myself from the truth. “You’re saying an algorithm asked us here.” I want him to deny it, to tell me I’ve mistook what he said.
Benji looks baffled. “I’m certainly not saying that,” he says, and for a moment my heart lifts with hope. Before crashing back down with his next words. “Because that would be nonsense. Glas exists in a closed network for his own safety. He doesn’t communicate with anyone outside of us.”
“Who’s us?”
“I’m glad you asked.” Benji beams, starting forward again. “We’re going to see the others now. They’ve been wanting to meet you—”
“Hold on,” I say, mind spinning even as I begin to follow again. I know well enough that remaining on the street is a bad idea, even if this part of the city seems largely abandoned. Regardless of how much I do or do not trust Benji, he’s the only person who seems to know what the hell is going on here. I need him. For now. “Those people you called assholes out there fighting—they’re not pushing into the city for their health. They’re retaking Portland and fulfilling a promise to rescue Glasgow. He asked them to come here personally. My team intercepted the same message.”
Benji shakes his head, smiling uncertainly. “That can’t—that’s not possible.”
“The resistance has been receiving coded messages about machine operations and enemy movements from Glasgow for the past several months,” I insist. “You’re saying you know nothing about that.” He can’t meet my eyes. “Benji? Is there any possibility that you’re mistaken?”
Benji claws at the light scruff around his mouth, tugs at his beanie. “Glasgow isn’t a person,” he repeats.
“I know. You said that.”
“No,” he growls, startling me with the ferocity of his denial. His tone quickly eases. “Sorry. You’re just… not getting it. Glas is doing good, important work. Glas is good.”
“I didn’t say he wasn’t.” My heart is beginning to race, my anxiety ratcheting up to a ten. Wrong wrong wrong, my nerves buzz. “But someone—or something—has been communicating with the resistance. It’s offered the Oregonians enough solid intel that they’re willing to throw themselves into a siege. If Glasgow isn’t responsible, then—”
Then it hits me. My heart drops through me. “Benji… does the higher echelon know about Glasgow? He was missed originally, but has the higher echelon learned of his existence since?”
He offers a noncommittal shrug, which I take to mean yes.
“This whole thing is a setup.” I start to run. “Providence Park is a trap.”
And my team is heading straight for it.
SAMUEL
He supports Ximena’s weight as they hobble to the edge of the forest, where the dense wilderness finally opens to urban sprawl.
“Still doing okay?” Samuel asks while he figures out the best possible way to descend the hill. Nature has reclaimed most of the manmade trails, but he thinks he sees at least one path through the overgrowth. “I can slow down. Or if you need a minute we can stop—”
“I’m okay,” Ximena says. Her dark hair flips around her face, the long strands tied up in the wind, and try as he might, he can’t read her expression.
It’s something he’s still getting used to, all that not knowing. With Rhona he’s always been able to tell when she’s struggling, hurt, in need of a friend. Her true thoughts and feelings never take long to surface. But with Ximena it’s different. Not bad different, just unfamiliar. She’s not withdrawn exactly. Private—that’s how he would describe her, like she has this whole inner life that she doesn’t feel the need to invite anyone else into. It makes the rare glimpses she has allowed him to feel that much more meaningful.
“I believe you,” he says. “But if anything changes, please tell me.”
She nods, lips compressed into a soft smile that quickly disappears as they start their descent. “Are we far from the park?”
“Maybe half an hour?” Samuel poured over maps of the city with Rhona and Charlene when they were deciding where to put the drop zone. He’s memorized Portland so well that at this point he probably knows the downtown region better than his own hometown. “It’ll get easier once we’re out of the woods.”
“Easier,” Ximena agrees, “but maybe not safer.”
There are machines in the city where there was only the occasional wildlife in the woods. But their only option now is to move ahead with the mission and hope the others are doing the same.
Thankfully, he came down almost exactly on target, missing the drop zone by a few hundred yards. He hadn’t initially recognized the clearing where he’d landed as part of the local cemetery until the large stone cross and chiseled white mausoleum clued him in. The grass was overgrown, long sepulchral aisles blending under one wild carpet of weeds, and every few steps he’d felt the hard face of a gravestone underfoot. He felt he should apologize but held back. The dead wouldn’t hear it, and there was no telling who—or what—else might.
He found Ximena not far from the drop zone, wrestling free of her chute and bleeding. She’d clipped the transmitter tower on the way in. A piece of jagged, weather-worn metal had opened a wound in her left thigh the size of a kitchen knife. Under normal circumstances her injury would have warranted immediate extraction. But there’s no possibility of that here. They’re on their own for the time being, which they’d known going in. Although Samuel hadn’t considered they would be this alone.
They waited at the drop zone—long enough for Samuel to patch Ximena up—but no one else arrived. Either the entire rest of their team were blown off-course, become trapped in trees somewhere, or…. Samuel doesn’t want to consider the possibility that they’re dead, but Occam’s razor holds that the simplest explanation is most often correct.
Most often. Not always. Science loves an exception, or maybe that’s just him.
“Should we try comms again?” Samuel suggests hopefully.
Ximena fumbles with her wrist comm, making sure it’s set to the right channel. “Couldn’t hurt, right?”
Static covers every channel, or a noise indistinguishable from static. He’s fairly sure their comms aren’t broken, but for some reason they’re not working either. Maybe the higher echelon is causing interference or the McKinley-Oregonian forces have detonated some kind of EMP. Samuel’s not great with this side of technology, but he doesn’t think it’s the latter. There are still planes in the sky, still the winking flashes of gunfire and electromagnetic weaponry off in the distance.
“We’ll keep trying,” Samuel says. “There have to be others who survived.” He’s thinking of Rhona, who at last contact announced she was headed for the river. If he dwells on her fate too long it tightens his chest, shortens his breath. Panic is not useful right now. He has to keep his mind focused, clear.
Rhona, if she were here, would want him to stay optimistic.
But Ximena is all practicality. “What if there aren’t other survivors? Maybe we should operate as if we’re alone, because right now we are. For example, what happens if we reach Providence Park and no one’s there?”
He doesn’t want to consider that possibility, because it means their friends are dead. Rhona is dead. Worse: it means they died for no reason. If even Glasgow is absent from the park, what was the point of their rescue attempt? But the fact he doesn’t want to think about it proves he should. Contingencies aren’t for when everything goes according to plan, after all.
“Then we find a way out of Portland. Try to regroup south of the city if that’s possible. Or… we surrender ourselves to the Oregonian forces. Go back to McKinley.” The thought turns his stomach. Camus is at McKinley. Hanna and Ulrich. Everyone he will have to personally inform about Rhona’s death—her real one. It will be like reopening a stitched wound with a hot poker. Letting them hold that painful reality in their minds: the fact that she was alive and could have returned but didn’t. The fact that she was out here instead, where they might have been able to reach her. That they missed their window for goodbyes.
“You think that’s a good idea, cozying back up to the New Soviets?” Ximena asks, her voice intensifying with anger. “After everything they did. Everyone they got killed?”
She could be thinking of her friend Tucker who died during the McKinley invasion, or Mathis who perished protecting her during their hasty retreat from Calgary. Maybe she’s thinking of someone else altogether and their life together at McKinley, now gone forever. Machines were responsible for those deaths. But machines are mindless, lacking any malice aforethought. They aren’t a reason, only the result. Dumping blame on them is as good as blaming a car accident on the car. People make better monsters. People, you can hate.
Samuel doesn’t need to hate the New Soviets, not when hating himself for his own failures is so much easier. But he understands Ximena’s frustration. Her need for a better target—one that looks and thinks like her.
One that can be hurt.
“No.” He looks away. “I don’t think it’s a good idea. But I don’t see many alternatives.”
Ximena says nothing, processing everything in stony silence. He can’t help glancing over at her, wishing she would say what she was thinking. Is she going through all the variables of what they’ll find at Providence Park like he is? Or is she somewhere else entirely, visiting alternate timelines where they made better choices that didn’t lead them to here?
“I’d like to stop now,” she announces abruptly when they’re almost down the hill.
“Okay.” Samuel is surprised, but nods. “Yeah. Of—of course. Let’s find somewhere safe where we can—”
“Now,” she insists.
They find a house partially looted, door ajar. Ximena disappears into the master bathroom for a long time while Samuel waits in the bedroom, perched on the edge of the bed. He can hear cabinets being opened and closed with surprising care. She doesn’t slam anything, but with that level of control he can sense an anger underneath, like a live wire ready to snap at anyone who gets too close.
He waits… he isn’t sure how long. Several long minutes. When Ximena finally emerges, her thick dark hair is trapped in a ponytail, pulled away from her face in such a way that makes her expression look more severe than normal. Her eyes are red from the strain of not crying.
“Are you okay?” he asks for the hundredth time today, even though he knows it’s a stupid question. Neither of them is all right. They’re just surviving.
“No.” She comes to join him. “I’m tired. My leg hurts like hell…” Despite this she leans against the bed rather than sitting, as though giving the middle finger to her pain. “And I couldn’t find anything larger than a band-aid in there, so I grabbed a few maxi pads and made do.” She pulls the side of her pants low enough to see the edge of her underwear and upper thigh. In place of the gauze she’s bandaged her wound with three fresh pads, using what looks like cheap medical tape to hold them in pace. “Think that’ll work?”
He can’t help smiling at her ingenuity. “Actually? Yeah. I think so. Is it comfortable?”
“No, but they’re not comfortable when you use them the right way either.” Ximena smirks. “How about you?”
“I’ve never… used them?”
Her smirk graduates to a smile. “I mean, how are you doing?”
