Architect (Last Resistance Book 3), page 13
“How am I?” The question takes him by surprise. He’s gotten so used to caring for others it’s strange to have concern directed back at him. “I’m not bleeding, but I am worried,” he confesses. “About you. About the rest of our team. About this mission. About—” He cuts off, afraid bringing Rhona up again will make him seem like an obsessed friend, or worse.
“You can say her name,” Ximena says. She slides her hand over his, her fingers warm from activity. “We’ve spent months together, Sam. It’s no secret that you and Rhona are close.”
“I know,” Samuel says. “I just don’t want you to feel…”
“What? Jealous?” The corners of her mouth quirk.
“Awkward.”
“This conversation is awkward,” she says lightly, bumping his shoulder, just as she’d done on the plane to reassure him. A little bit of solid contact to anchor him. “But the fact you love your friend? That you’re worried about her? That’s not an issue for me. Maybe no one’s ever told you this before, but there’s no law against loving more than one person. You should want to hold on to those you care about.” With her free hand she orders some hair that’s escaped her ponytail behind her ear. “And I know you do. Care. It’s why I like you, among other reasons.”
“Other reasons?” Samuel can’t help asking, blinking rapidly as her face draws closer. Despite his personal attraction to knowledge, he still hasn’t worked out how he and Ximena fit together. He’s not even sure how it happened. One week they were allies scavenging together to survive, and the next they were holding hands during watch, silently gazing at the stars overhead. He remembers that moment with perfect clarity, how he moved the hair back from her face and she started in toward his lips and possibilities that hadn’t even occurred to him before suddenly became real.
He still isn’t sure what this is between them, or if they’re anything at all. But he recognizes the expansive feeling of hope in his chest when she’s near, like all the doors that were closed when the Machinations started are suddenly opening back up. Rhona used to make him feel hopeful, too, but not in the same way.
“Don’t overthink it,” Ximena says, giving him a quick peck on the cheek.
Samuel can feel himself blushing. “I’m not great at that.”
Some days he finds it impossible to turn his mind off. It goes like a tornado siren, warning him of all the dangers if he does not act. Work quiets his thoughts, preventing him from burdening others with his anxieties, but there’s not much call for what he does out here. Part of him feels his legacy—Rhona, the clones—is behind him. He’s moving toward other people’s goals now, an end to the war. But what happens after is a mystery, his future full of variables he can’t account for. Ximena among them.
Ximena levers herself off the bed, swinging her bag of equipment onto her back.
“I know,” she says, and it’s neither approval nor condemnation of his weakness. It just is.
Inside the heart of downtown lies a contradiction: everything is somehow too loud and simultaneously too quiet.
It’s this eerily still environment that makes it easy for them to be stopped by light flaring in the western sky. Some kind of rocket launch. He hesitates to call the streaks missiles, as no known attacks have been carried out by the machines in recent days utilizing such technology. These rockets are coming from somewhere on the coast, and Samuel wracks his brain, trying to remember where the old SpaceX sites used to be. Whether there is some odd relationship here that he’s not seeing, crucial dots he’s failing to connect.
After that each new noise startles him, his vulnerability suddenly palpable. A cat escaping a dumpster filled with strange, borderline Lovecraftian growth, the wind scooping up pieces of glass from the pavement—every sound feels like a threat. Numbers were supposed to protect them from danger. Numbers they no longer have.
“Maybe we should turn back,” Samuel suggests.
Ximena stares at him like he’s sprouted two heads. “The park’s just a few blocks away, isn’t it? We’re almost there.”
“I don’t know.” He tries to focus on her, but he feels his gaze tugged in every different direction. His body is all nerves, alert. On fire. “I’m having second thoughts. I think this was a mistake.” I think Rhona made a mistake. “Something doesn’t feel right.”
“I know the rockets spooked you, but…”
“It’s not just the rockets. Although—yes. That worries me. It’s everything. Why haven’t we seen any machines?”
“They’re on the other side of the city. Currently occupied by the Oregonians and McKinlians. Wasn’t that the whole plan?”
“It was, but… If Glasgow is so important, why wouldn’t the higher echelon be doing more to guard him?”
“The point of a strike team is to take an objective through stealth and surprise. That’s what we’re doing. The higher echelon doesn’t need to guard Glasgow because it doesn’t think anyone’s after Glasgow.”
“Maybe.”
Ximena lets out a breath that might be a sigh. “Sam, in case you haven’t noticed, I’m not in great shape to make a long return trip out of the city. We’re committed now. We’re going to need Glasgow’s help.”
Samuel just hopes Glasgow, whoever they are, is in a position to provide it.
They pass numerous buildings with steel-gated entrances and boarded-up storefronts on their final approach to the park. He studies some of the graffiti on the walls, which must have been put there during the riots that followed the original Glasgow tragedy half a world away. (It’s still strange to him that a person would use the codename of a disaster, like calling themselves Titanic or Hindenburg.)
Some of the graffiti is illegible, worn away by time and weather. Most of what survives is full of anti-machine sentiment, like CHECK MY PULSE and the acronym AMAK—all machines are killers—spray-painted in big capital letters near a store which formerly sold autonomous home models. He watches in silence as Ximena reaches out a hand, letting her fingertips scrape against the mortared brick. Samuel wonders if she’s thinking about her hometown of Detroit, which saw a second manufacturing renaissance through its production of at-home machines.
“This must remind you of home, huh?” he asks, looking for entry into Ximena’s thoughts.
“A little. Every city is different in its own way, but some things are the same. I always thought I’d go back there after… everything.” She doesn’t have to elaborate on her changed plans. Detroit is gone just like Calgary and Palo Alto, blown apart by the New Soviets based on intel Zelda scraped from machine-Rhona’s head. They haven’t heard from Snow in a while, who went with Lefevre to investigate the destruction at Palo Alto, but at last communication she confirmed most of the city was a desolate ruin.
“Maybe you can come back to New Mexico with me,” Samuel offers.
Ximena raises a brow. “Sounds hot.”
It takes him a moment to realize she’s speaking literally. “It can be, yeah.”
They can’t be far from the park now. Maybe a few streets southwest. Almost there now.
“Do you miss Albuquerque that much?”
“I still think of it as home, but…”
How can it be home without his family there? Or his friends? Rhona mentioned missing the sun and wanting to go back to Albuquerque someday, but he’s not sure she’s serious about following through on it. Rhona says a lot of things she means in the moment that later turn out to be lies. The thought feels bitter at the back of his mind, coming from a place of deep, unconfronted hurt. Maybe he’s being unfair. It’s not like he’s great at keeping promises either.
Ximena leans into him, letting him take more of her weight. This is what he can do right now, and he’s grateful for her subtle, if unintentional, reminder.
Not long after, the hulking shadow of the old stadium rises before them.
It looks like he imagined, albeit in better shape than he expected. Exposed beams arch over the stands, still holding space for human comfort. From this angle he can picture people still inside watching the Portland Timbers play, but the distant noise of battle disrupts the fantasy. It’s nothing like the sound of cheering fans.
“I guess we could knock?” Samuel says lightly, but the choice is quickly swept from them as jackbooted soldiers pour out of the entrance.
They’re dressed head to toe in dark riot gear that provokes a gut reaction of fear, bringing to mind the paramilitary groups of his youth that took the streets of major cities alongside police, emboldened by dangerous political rhetoric. Blending in against the unlit street, for the briefest of moments Samuel’s sure he’s imagining these soldiers, pulling them from the past. They could be mere shadows, the ghosts of park attendees filing home after a game, except their movements are fluid. They don’t coast toward them like ghosts, instead staggering forward like foals up on new legs, inelegant and unsure.
At the sight of the soldiers’ weapons, Samuel moves in front of Ximena without thinking, holding up his hands. His EMP-G is useless here, and he’s not about to try for his knife when they’re clearly outnumbered.
“Are these Glasgow’s people?” Ximena asks, but by how fast they’re moving toward them, guns raised, Samuel’s inclined to think not.
“We’re human!” he says.
The fire they return instead of words tells him it doesn’t matter.
Ten
Rhona
“Hold on. Wait. Slow down—let’s just talk about this.”
Benji trails behind me, battering my resolve with excuses and pleas until finally I give in and whirl on him. “Okay!” I cross my arms. “Talk.”
The real reason I’ve stopped has less to do with wanting to hear what Benji has to say and more to do with the simple fact that I can’t run any longer. We had to take a longer route to the park to avoid the battalions of retreating machines and, in one instance, the still-flaming wreckage of a plane that went down. Not the one that brought me here, thank God. It was a smaller jet, unpiloted.
Benji holds up his hands in what I think he means to be a calming gesture, but honestly it feels a little patronizing. “Think,” he advises. “If the park is a trap, your friends have probably already walked into it. But if you come with me, you’ll be safe. Live to fight another day. All that good stuff.” He smiles, straightening proudly at his ‘plan.’ “See? Doesn’t that sound better than whatever you were going to do?”
“And just leave my friends to die.” I pat his shoulder. “Yeah. Great plan there, bud.” I, too, can be patronizing.
My head feels like a lead anchor and moving too fast blurs the corners of my vision, like the world is struggling to keep up with me or vice versa. I think I have a concussion, or maybe it’s just the combined loss of my oxygen high and adrenaline. Hard to say. But I refuse to stay here another moment entertaining Benji’s shitty suggestion.
“Okay. Fair point,” Benji says. I’m so used to traveling with people whose legs are much longer that I feel a moment of absurd pleasure at the effort it takes him to catch up as I proceed toward SW 18th Street. “How about a compromise?” he suggests.
“I’m not compromising on my friends’ lives.”
“That’s not what I’m proposing. Give me a second to call my people. See if they’ve heard anything. They’ll be able to tell us whether it’s safe.”
I jerk to a stop. “You have a comm unit? That works?” This is the first I’m hearing of it, but I’m less annoyed with Benji for not mentioning it before now and more irritated with myself for not thinking to ask.
“Doesn’t everyone?” He frowns. “Don’t you?”
“If I did, I’d be able to contact my friends and warn them about the trap, wouldn’t I?”
“Another excellent point. Look at you. So… pointy. Okay, in here.” He shuttles me into an empty laundromat so that we’re not standing out in the open before grabbing a small device from his bag. It looks no more complex than a walkie talkie. An older model. Makes sense if his group have been stranded out here in the city. Not exactly the safest place for innovation. “Standby. This won’t take more than a minute.”
Static pours out of Benji’s comm in a loud burst. He lowers the volume, but my headache intensifies at the sound, like someone shining a bright light into my eyes. A growing mushroom-cloud of pain blots out my other senses and I think for a moment that I’m going to be physically sick and then—
Nothing.
I’m no longer in the laundromat, but outside on the street. Changing shapes of red and gold shift before my vision, silhouetted by cold, fathomless black. Tall buildings rocket upwards to either side, their windows blown out, doors broken in. Machines march around me in an organized retreat, navigating the narrow avenues with familiarity. Some are mangled by gunfire, tottering on missing limbs. I glimpse each of them, not individually, but all at once, as if I’ve always had a million eyes to see but have kept them closed until now.
“Huh,” says Benji. “That’s weird.”
The city vanishes, replaced by the surprised expressions of the surrounding washing machines, their open doors like gaping mouths. Benji slaps the back of his comm unit like an old game cartridge that won’t work. It’s like he was never gone, but he was. Or I was.
What just happened?
Where the hell was I just now?
Because the universe abhors an unanswered question, Benji tries his comm again before I can object.
An onslaught of images bombards me at once, leapfrogging from one view to the next, speeding me through the city, always with more machines on either side, swamped in vague darkness. Occasionally I witness scenes of violence as the machines engage our ground forces.
At no point do I feel pain. Fear. I don’t feel anything I’d expect to, only a hollow void filled with an imperative that isn’t mine. A voice I cannot hear but whose commands download directly to my mind, compelling me to action. I obey. I must obey. I—
I see them.
My team.
A half dozen warm bodies run ahead of my telescopic vision. My threat analysis program delivers hundreds of points of data to me about their movement, speed, general health, and more, and like in a dream, I know who they are without being able to truly recognize their features. Charlene, Dunk, and several other members of my crew who survived the jump. They’re near the river. To already be so close they must have been hustling or else also landed off course. Or it’s taken me longer to move around the city than I thought.
My relief over their survival is short-lived, shut down by the three critical members of the team who are missing. Dhruv, Ximena.
Samuel.
“—swear, this normally isn’t a problem,” Benji finishes, rattling the comm again. “Maybe it’s the solar battery.”
“Don’t!” I blurt before Benji opens the channel again, unsticking my lips with effort. I’m relieved to speak. For a moment it felt as if I had no mouth. I talk quickly, afraid of disappearing back into myself. It seems to be triggered by whatever is being broadcast over that channel. “That noise. What does that sound like to you?”
“I don’t know,” Benji says. “Static?”
“It’s not making you… see anything?”
He looks at me strangely. “No. Why?”
I want to sit down, but I know that getting back up will be ten times harder than remaining standing. “I think I’m hallucinating.”
“You mean… right now?” He swings his gaze around as if he can take in the same sights and sounds.
“No, not at the moment. But a minute ago. When I heard that noise. It almost felt like I left my body. Like I went somewhere else.”
“Wild,” Benji says appreciatively.
That’s one word for it. “I know where the rest of my team is. But if I can see them, I think the machines can too.” I grip my EMP-G and head for the exit. “Come on. They’re not far from here, but we have to hurry—”
Benji tries to head me off again. “We still don’t know if it’s safe.”
I almost laugh. Glass crunches and cracks beneath my feet on my way to the door. “We’re in a city literally under siege, and about an hour ago I jumped out of a plane. If I let fear rule me, I’d never do anything.” I check to see if the street is clear, leaning out just enough to expose my head. “It looks clear.”
Except no sooner have I spoken when more rockets light up the sky. Their trajectory is the same as before, except this time not all of them make it into low-earth orbit. They come apart—whether under fire or from a malfunction it isn’t clear from here—but each failure happens around the same height. I watch as pieces of bright hot metal streak back toward the earth, glowing tails rapidly cooling until the only visible trace of action left are fading rings of smoke.
I massage my temples. My head is killing me. So much is happening right now, I’d already forgotten about the rockets. It sounds insane, but on my list of priorities they barely rank. They are a problem for future Rhona, so long as present Rhona doesn’t get herself killed.
My movement feels sluggish as I exit the laundromat, as though everything—the world, the war—is accelerating past me. In this race against the New Soviets and the machines, I’m falling behind. I can feel it.
But I can’t quit, either. I’ve come too far to simply turn around. I’m steeped in the blood of bad decisions, even while hoping my next choice will be the one that pulls me out of the mire.
“Know anything about that?” I ask Benji, pointing to the sky.
“What, the satellites?” Benji replies offhandedly, like it’s common knowledge. “They’ve been launching new ones all month. At least on the days when the weather’s good, which… I mean, it’s Portland, so… Not as often as they’d like. Can we go back to the part where you were hallucinating? I’m really interested to hear more about that.”
“Satellites?” I say, circling back.
“To replace the old ones. Probably.”
“You don’t know for sure?”
Benji shrugs. “What else would they be for?”
