LEGENDARY! - Chapters 5 and 6
Jan 2, 2018 21:08:51 GMT -5
Post by skirtwithaweapon on Jan 2, 2018 21:08:51 GMT -5
Happy new year!! Yes, I'm still alive, and I'm still writing! The good news is...I have completed (as much as i care to write) for this fanfic, all I need is to steal away some time here and there to post it. There's still quite a bit left to read, so I hope you remain and enjoy it to the end.
I've decided on a double-chapter post to try and apologize for my absence. Cheers
5.
It took until the third full week of living within the Puritans’ main compound for Jory to feel as though he had integrated, and no one suspected anything about him. Jordan and his family quickly took him in, and he paid them back by helping Jordan with his daily chores.
“There used to be more of us. I had one other sister, and two older, twin brothers, but they had the misfortune of being out in the field just over a year and a half ago when some of the freaky synths rode in on some lightning outta thin air, and just opened fire,” Jordan relayed his family’s tragedy a few days after Jory’s arrival as the two picked wild silt beans beyond the compound’s walls. “It was terrible. Pa managed to get his shotgun, and a few other of the farm hands we had at the time grabbed their weapons, and between them they took the synths down. We never recovered. The damage to the crops, and, well, having lost three children, my parents never were able to get their hearts back into farmin’ again. Few months ago, pa heard the Puritans were gatherin’ regular folk like us for the cause, and that’s that.”
The fact that Jordan’s family had five children plus the two adults threw Jory for a loop. Reproductive restrictions in the Institute were extremely firm. He found himself becoming lost in the train of thought that his was the only family he even knew of where there was more than one child…
Jory realized that Jordan was expecting a reply. He nodded solemnly. “I’m so sorry for your loss. That’s…awful.”
“Thanks. You went through the same kind of thing, right? I know that you know the same pain.” Jordan tossed his handful of beans into his crate. “Synths are the worst. The fact that the Railroad even thinks that any should be saved, and let out of the Commonwealth is just pure insanity. I’m so glad the Puritans are trying to rip them all apart.”
Jory had merely nodded.
At first he was only helping Jordan and his family with their chores. The compound was tightly woven enough that soon, word of an eager, helpful orphan spread among the ranks. Jory found himself carrying crates for seniors, babysitting toddlers, steadying ladders, and hanging laundry. Later that third week, he snuck into a ruined pre-war daycare overrun with deranged Miss Nannys to retrieve a case of powdered infant formula, and returned unscathed. News of his success blew through the camp like wildfire.
“Both Mr. Hollys want to see you,” the runner had told him, mere hours after his return with the stash. “Immediately.”
He and Jordan had exchanged a look over the dishes they were washing. “You better go,” Jordan dismissed him, frowning.
Jory followed the runner back to the inner gate, who waved to the guards, then led Jory through. He was brought down the fabricated ramp and into the bunker. Panels of pre-war tech lined the left wall, its purpose no longer known. Unlit LEDs poked out of the plastic faceplate, joined together with drawn lines. He hadn’t seen anything like that since the Institute. He swallowed an ache of homesickness. The room was rectangular, with an abandoned desk set up on the far right side. Next to it, in the far wall, was a door with an electronic maglock and an angry red light posted above it.
The runner knocked on the door four times. It was a hollow, metallic sound. “Just stay here,” he instructed Jory as he walked by the young teen and exit the room back outside.
The red light began to blink in tandem with a buzzer sound that filled the whole room. Jory cringed and searched the ceiling to locate the source when saw a small, embedded speaker in the center. The door swung open inward, and two men walked through the opening. When the door shut behind them, the light ceased blinking, as did the buzzer. Jory recognized the taller as Oscar Holly, the man he conversed with before. He wore his denim vest over a red shirt. The other man, only slightly shorter, kept a trim haircut compared to his brother, though it was similar in colour. He also wore a denim vest, over a black t-shirt. Jory realized then that the denim vest was their uniform, of sorts, as the heads of the gang.
Oscar stepped over to the ancient desk and sat on it. “Hi, Ira. This is my brother, Ethan Holly,” he gestured to the other man. “Ethan, this is that kid, Ira Dorval. I met him the day he got in.”
Ethan looked Jory up and down, and nodded. “Yeah, okay. I probably have seen you buzzin’ around camp once or twice.”
“Nice to meet you, sir,” Jory replied.
“We heard you lifted a case of baby formula from Doom Daycare,” Oscar went straight to the point.
Jory glanced between the Holly brothers. “Yes, Mr. Holly. That’s right. Dropped it off in camp this morning, sir.”
“How many bots were there?”
“Uh…” Jory thought back. “Five.”
“How did you get past five crazy Miss Nanny bots?” Oscar’s face appeared bemused, though his tone was completely serious.
Jory elected to simply tell the truth. “I didn’t rush it. I kept to the shadows and watched them for a while. Those bots just…moved in a circuit. I stayed behind them, didn’t cross their paths, moved really quietly. That’s really it.”
“Undetected.”
“Are you a synth?” Ethan growled before Jory could respond. Jory’s heart rate jumped immediately and he felt the pounding in his temples. He was relieved of having to answer as Oscar stood from his perch on the desk to hammer punch Ethan on the younger brother’s left bicep. Jory flinched at the fleshy thud Oscar’s fist made in contact with Ethan’s arm and the resultant angry red mark left behind.
Add to the same list, do not get punched by Oscar Holly.
“There ain’t any child synths, moron. We were told that.” Oscar didn’t even shake out his hand after levelling such a harsh blow. “Though, it might be interesting to know how you pulled it off. Those bots have three eyes, each.”
“My older sister was a really light sleeper. I liked to play practical jokes on her, you know, for fun. I’d leave dead roaches next to the foot of her bed to step on in the morning, stuff like that.” Jory shrugged in an attempt to appear modest. “I just had to learn to be dead quiet, real quick.” He shifted his weight, his nerves beginning to show a little bit. “Did I do something…wrong? Did that baby formula belong to someone else, and I stole it?”
Oscar laughed. “Kid, if it’s layin’ out, it’s up for grabs.”
“Our mom would have called someone like you a ‘cupcake,’” Ethan added, as though he were saying something intelligent.
Jory relaxed. “Oh, uh…thank you.” He had no idea if that was really a compliment. Both men laughed, again.
Oscar had returned to his perch on the desk. “Ira, we’ve been trying to get that baby formula out of there for months. Seemed no matter what we tried, those Nanny bots would catch sight of our scavver and attack as a throng.”
“A couple people lost a few limbs,” Ethan shuddered.
”We thought getting in there was going to be impossible, unless we could somehow draw the robots out, one by one, and shut them down or break them or somethin’. But they were a group, every time, and we just gave up.” Oscar took a breath and flicked his ponytail back over his shoulder. “How’d you find out about the formula? You piss someone off, they thought they’d send you on a suicide mission?”
“I babysat for the Dawkins a few times, and Kelly brought it up. I don’t think she knew about anyone losing limbs. All she knew was the camp stopped trying to get the formula.” Jory toed the ground. “You asked me to be useful, I was just acting on that, sir.”
“You called that one right, E,” Oscar grinned. “Definitely a cupcake.” He kicked his feet out in front of him and leaned back, crossing his arms.
“If all that’s really true, if you crept in like a little mouse and none of them crazed robots were the wiser, then we can use you.” Ethan seemed to finally have found his words to say something relevant.
“There’s all sorts of things out there, cached away, that we haven’t been able to crack into. Sometimes there’s high security, like the Miss Nannys, and sometimes low functioning thugs but a lot of them,” Oscar continued. “Problem is, our compound keeps growing, and basic food and supplies we get off the caravans, but stuff like medicine, and electronics? Not so easy to get.”
“We cleared out all the ruins within a day’s walk of here, in all directions, that didn’t have more than some wildlife livin’ in them. Trouble is, we’re tryin’ to train an army, and we can’t really spend time teaching people how to stay alive while stealing. Right?” Ethan finished.
Jory had an intense feeling of déjà vu as the brothers described their situation. “You want me to sneak into the really hard places, and bring back the good stuff, you mean?”
“Pretty much,” Oscar answered, very seriously.
Jory shrugged. “Okay. When do I start? And where?”
Ethan raised an eyebrow and looked at Oscar, who tilted his head but maintained his gaze on Jory. “Tomorrow, but we’ll have to find someone to go with you.”
“Why?” Ethan asked, before Jory had even opened his own mouth.
Oscar rolled his eyes and gesticulated with his hand. Ethan flinched, bracing himself for another blow, but it didn’t come. “Because letting him loose out in the wasteland alone would be irresponsible, numbnuts. He’s no help to us if he gets killed.”
“With all due respect, sir,” Jory interjected, “it’s better if I do work alone. I know my abilities and weaknesses, or I guess, I just know how to be quiet. If I have to explain to someone what I’m doing all the time, it’ll…defeat the purpose.” He thought of Rita, and the only prank they played together.
“Damn,” Ethan swore, “this kid’s a fucking genius.”
“Yeah,” Oscar replied, a slight smile on his face, “I think you’re right about that.”
Jory blushed. “Oh, well…”
“Be back here tomorrow morning, cupcake, and we’ll tell you what we want and from where.”
“Yes, sir! Absolutely, sir.”
Ethan smiled. “Congrats, Ira. You’re officially part of the Puritans.”
Jory stood outside the inner gate after his dismissal and gathered his thoughts. Ethan’s congratulations had made him feel ill. Becoming integrated into the Puritans was a crucial part of his assignment from the Railroad, but he hadn’t expected to have an emotional reaction to it. Jory took some deep breaths, and regret it, as he inhaled the smog that always hung in the air. He gagged.
“You all right, there, half pint?” one of the guards nudged him with the stock of her rifle.
“Y-yeah, I’m okay. Just…yeah, I’m fine!” Jory blushed again, embarrassed he was caught gagging on the noxious air of the compound. He spun on his heel and took a left, deliberately avoiding the direction back to Jordan’s family’s camp. He needed some time to think.
Jory leaned up against the inside of the outer wall, as he had the last time he left the inner gates. He looked at his feet and frowned. What is happening to my life? As far as he could tell, the best thing for him to do was to just do as he was told, even if it meant fetching things to help their cause. The Railroad – Desdemona – had to know that something like this was bound to occur, by sending him in here. How else was he to get close to the leaders, to the information he needed to relay back to them?
It crashed on him like a load of bricks.
I’ll be able to leave the compound freely, and alone. They’ll send me to places they haven’t been able to penetrate. I won’t always have to even bring back the equipment, I could just leave it for the Railroad, and tell the Puritans I never found it.
Not to mention, actually use the dead drops like I’m supposed to. I hope they aren’t mad. I hope they don’t think I’m dead, myself.
Jory closed his eyes. Focus, pal. For now, they’re interested in what you can bring. Stay cool and get some information you and the Railroad can use to take these guys down, for good. He straightened up and rolled his shoulders back, listening to them pop, then walked back to Jordan’s camp.
The next morning, Jory returned to the inner gate, as instructed. The nasty, plastic-infused smoke was thinner at dawn, before most of the camp awoke and started throwing synth parts back into the barrel fires. The haze that remained made the sky appear to have an angrier tinge to its pink than he was used to. He dressed in loose cargo pants with a light t-shirt and a polyester jacket, and his leather purse that he packed with a few snacks and water. He wasn’t sure what to expect for this job and didn’t want to be caught completely without any supplies.
The gate opened and there stood Ethan Holly, himself. He seemed to have a similar idea to Jory and wore a simple jacket over his denim vest and a green shirt. “Well, well! Right on time and everything. You sure are somethin’ else,” the man greeted Jory.
“Good morning, sir,” Jory responded.
Ethan stepped out of the gate and made a circular motion in the air with his finger. The guards pulled the gate shut behind him. “Okay, first thing’s first, tank the ‘sir’ business. My brother’s real into that respectful address shit, but me, it’s gonna just irritate me. Got it?” He started a brisk walk through the camp.
Jory swallowed and hopped to match Ethan’s pace. “Y-yes, I understand.” He followed a few paces, more. “Were there some instructions for me?”
“Huh? Oh, sorry Ira. We’re going together on this trip, today, back to Doom Daycare. I guess I could’ve told ya that.”
“We are?” Jory’s stomach sunk. He had planned to make his way to the dead drop before worrying about the job. “You changed your mind about letting me go alone, then?” His voice was a sheepish squeak.
“Not really.” Ethan’s height advantage allowed him to nearly glide over and around random obstacles lying about the campsite, but Jory had to manoeuvre more deliberately. “There’s more formula in that place, right? We’re going to go get it. Which really means, I’m gonna help you carry it back here and watch how you get in and out. I’m just…curious.” He glanced behind him and flashed Jory an odd smile.
Guess I postpone the dead drop visit for another day. He nearly tripped over a duffle bag just sticking out from a heap of crates. Maybe if he can see that I am competent, they’ll give me even more leeway to leave the camp when and how often I want to. That could be a good thing.
The two emerged into the clearer air outside the compound. Ethan made a facetious bow towards Jory. “Lead the way, cupcake.”
The location known as “Doom Daycare” was an hour or so walk from the Puritans’ compound, a unit in a strip of buildings featuring a pre-war parking lot that backed on to a hill. Either by war or circumstance, the other buildings were ruined beyond exploration or long abandoned, leaving the daycare the only site featuring life, even if they were merely robots.
Ethan crouched next to some bushes at the edge of the ruined parking lot. “If I watch from here, do you think that will keep me out of sight of the robots?”
Jory took a moment to realize that Ethan posed a serious question. He nodded, then shed his bag and his jacket. “If they come after you this way, though, I am running in the opposite direction.”
“Heh. That’s fair.” Ethan’s eyes twinkled. “Good luck.”
If I didn’t know better, he’s either rigged this somehow, or he still doesn’t believe that I can do this. Jory gave a single, closed-mouth nod, then made his approach.
He breathed calmly through his nose only, a habit he conditioned himself into years ago when he started creeping around the Institute pulling pranks. He took an identical path to the one he used the day before, following the rough line of the disintegrated edge of the parking lot, across the road, then onto the sidewalk of the strip. Jory pressed himself into a shadow cast by the steel beam of a ruined traffic light that had fallen onto the building long ago. He leaned against the building, slowing his heart rate, and listening. The daycare was two units over yet, but the distinct hiss-and-pause sound of the Miss Nannys moving around was easily heard over the relative quiet of the wasteland.
Satisfied he had calmed his mind and body sufficiently enough, he started the slow creep towards the daycare. It sounded like the robots were stuck in an infinite dance, the music for which had died centuries ago. These bots were supposed to take care of babies, yet none of them seem to have noticed the cribs are empty. I guess a nuclear war and 200 years of neglect can cause some screws to come loose…
Jory scrunched himself up to squat below the bottom edge of the broken window’s frame, listening to the Miss Nannys chatter away at each other, but more importantly, to their compressors and the soft sound of the air as one would drift by. He held his breath before turning and hoisting himself through the window and into the daycare in a fluid movement, then immediately crawled beneath the empty cribs still standing against the inner wall. From there, he waited for a second Nanny to go by, then for a third to approach from within an inner hallway to stop at the junction, slowly rotate 360 degrees, then go back down the hallway. Jory then slipped out from beneath the crib and directly to the storage room, a closet between the outer wall and the inner hallway. He soundlessly stepped into the storage closet and closed the door behind him.
Jory lowered himself to the floor and exhaled as slowly as possible, once again allowing himself a moment to catch his breath. He listened to the sounds of the Nannys moving around in the next room, concentrating on how close they were, seeing an image in his mind of their positions. He pulled down a case of the baby formula and waited. When the last Nanny had retreated back down the inner hallway once more, he exited the closet and went back to the window. He leaned out as far as he could, his hands still a good foot from the ground, and dropped the case of formula that landed with a dusty thud. Jory didn’t stick around to see if Ethan was truly watching and ducked back beneath the crib once more.
He repeated the trip two more times, effectively emptying all the formula from the closet. As Jory climbed out the ruined window one last time, to compensate landing on the stack of formula, he lifted his left leg higher than he would have to just exit through the window, but a dangling lace from his sneaker caught on a snag. He pulled it loose but lost his balance completely and fell in a heap over the formula and directly onto the ground. Jory recovered quickly and scrambled around the edge of the formula to press himself against the wall, beneath the bottom frame of the windows.
“Hello? Who is there?” called the Miss Nanny making her round back past the windows. Jory didn’t dare look. He could hear the robot hovering next to the window, its compressor hissing on and off, as it scanned the environment. He closed his eyes and concentrated on breathing through his nostrils very slowly. Jory was very glad the robots couldn’t detect his heart rate, because to him, it felt like it was going to pound itself out of his body.
“Is there something there?” called a second Miss Nanny, joining the first.
“I do not see anything,” replied the original robot. “Perhaps some children playing Nicky Nicky Nine Doors again.”
“How they do love that game,” the second one gushed, then floated away. After another moment or two, the first followed suit. Jory wasted no time in picking up the first case of formula and walking it down the strip, back to the edge of the parking lot once more. Ethan, from across the way, immediately saw what Jory was doing and followed the teenager’s path along the edge of the pavement up to the strip building, carrying Jory’s affairs. Once the third and final case had been retrieved, Ethan lifted two of them under one arm, while Jory carried the third, wearing his jacket and bag once again. Neither spoke until they were clear of the parking lot and back on their way to the compound.
“You’re the real deal, Ira. That was impressive,” Ethan complimented. “Stuck to shadows, stayed out of sight. I get it, now. It took you about an hour, but I can see that not rushing it really just paid off.”
Jory shifted the case of formula from one arm to the other. “I learned their movements yesterday, I spent a lot more time just laying low and listening than I did, today. Plus, I knew what I was looking for. Otherwise, we could have been a while…”
“If you’re really that modest, you’re definitely a cupcake,” Ethan barked. Jory remained unable to understand what that really meant, but he just smiled and shrugged. They walked for a few minutes, the sound of their foot falls an irregular rhythm and tenor as they clomped along the broken ground. Suddenly, Ethan reached his arm out to stop them both in their tracks. “Well, what do we have, here?”
Jory followed his gaze to see a Gen 1 synth making a slow approach towards them from around the side of a decrepit pre-war café. It was heavily damaged from some unknown altercation, limping badly on its right side, missing several pieces of plastic plating, and shooting sparks off all over its body. It held its laser pistol down at its side and seemed to be staring straight at the teenager. “COMMAND?” it buzzed.
Jory shivered. He had never seen a synth outside of the Institute. The image was at once familiar and completely foreign at the same time.
“Almost too easy!” Ethan hooted. He set the formula down and drew his own pistol. “It’s so damaged, it can’t even raise its weapon.”
“COMMAND?” the synth repeated. It fully ignored Ethan, directing its attention, and question, to Jory.
Can it know I’m from the Institute? That’s not possible, right? I don’t have an ID badge, or a jumpsuit. It’s so far from the mainframe that it can’t possibly pull facial recognition.
“COMMAND?” it repeated once more, slowly closing the gap between itself and Jory.
Ethan squeezed off two rounds into the synth’s chest. It twitched dramatically, then stiffened entirely, and fell face-first into the dirt. “Never seen one do that before! Clearly it got banged around elsewhere and lost its wits.”
Jory wasn’t so sure, but he definitely wasn’t about to suggest otherwise. He nodded.
Ethan softened slightly. “Aw, you okay, partner? The Gen 1s are the ugliest and freakiest. You never seen one of these, before?”
Yeah, that’s it. I’m scared of the synth, not that it could have blown my cover. Jory sniffed and shook his head. “What was wrong with it?”
“Eh, just damaged from some other wasteland wildlife or something. They usually say nasty things, but this one kept babbling. Probably had a few chips knocked loose.” Ethan scooped up the two cases of baby formula and walked over to the synth. He rolled it over with his foot, then picked it up by the ankle and started dragging it with him. “Don’t need to be scared now, Ira, once they shut down, they’re nothin’ but scrap.”
Jory met Ethan’s pace once more and couldn’t help glancing at the synth more than he knew he should. The way its head had turned, it looked like it was staring into Jory’s eyes every time he looked back at it. “COMM-MM-MMA-A-A-A-AND?” it gargled one final time. Jory jumped and kept his eyes forward for the remainder of the walk.
“Got some rain comin’,” Ethan huffed as they approached the outer gate. “If you get too wet under a lousy tent, you can come inside the bunker, all right?”
“Ah…oh! Okay, thanks.” Jory was surprised at the offer. He wasn’t sure what it meant and was too confused about the synth’s behaviour to think much of it.
Ethan turned his attention to the guards at the gate. He grinned. “Add another one to the tally!” he hollered, whipping the synth around his body to fling it across the ground. It skid over the packed dirt and made a plastic sounding crunch as it made contact with the metal gate post. The guards replied with hoots and hollers of their own. Jory gave a lame smile and ducked into the gate, plunking the case of formula down on a pile of salvage and disappearing quickly into the gathering crowd, drawn by the noise.
6.
As the days continued, it became nearly impossible for Jory to move around the camp and not be recognized, or greeted, by the other Puritans. Kelly Dawkins personally made a point of gifting him a hooded sweatshirt she had bought off a trader and mended for him.
“Ira, you sweet, wonderful, selfless guy,” she gushed, nearly suffocating Jory in her hug. “I had no idea that formula was in such a dangerous place. I thought we just didn’t have enough people to spare to scavenge it from those ruins. Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
“You’re…welcome…!” he puffed out in response.
Jory’s first off site, independent assignment came a few days after the success of the second formula raid. He had started to think that the Holly brothers weren’t serious about sending him out to help them, and that he’d have to revisit his strategy for getting out to the dead drop. He was summoned to the bunker once again. Oscar was waiting for him when he arrived.
“Ira, good to see you’re still keeping busy out there. New sweater?” Oscar nodded his head towards the teen.
“Yeah, Kelly Dawkins gave it to me.”
“That was kind of her.”
Jory shrugged. “She was really thankful for the formula, I guess.” He rocked on his heels with his arms crossed behind his back.
Oscar nodded. “It’s nice to have a tangible reward for hard work done, right? Keeps you motivated. Ready for another assignment?”
“Yes, sir!”
“Good.” Oscar flipped his ponytail over his shoulder and placed his hands on his hips. “More robots, different context. There’s a pre-war military checkpoint a bit to the north of here. We clashed with the Railroad there a while back and drove them off, but one of the idiots in our party left behind a cache of ammo. Since then, an old Sentry Bot seems to have found its way back to the area, maybe drawn by some signal we didn’t know about.”
“I’ll go get the ammo for you,” Jory finished for Oscar.
Oscar raised a hand. “There’s a lot of it, including some mini nukes. What we need you to do is just move it from the checkpoint and cache it somewhere else, and I’ll send a separate team to recover the ammo later.” He pulled out a piece of paper and motioned for Jory to approach. “Here’s the checkpoint, and here, off to the east, is where I need you to re-stash the stash. There’s some picnic tables and a bit of a park area next to the river, you won’t miss it.”
Jory took the crude map and studied it. “I won’t let you down, sir.”
“You haven’t so far,” Oscar agreed. “Go see Richards, just outside the inner gate and to the right. I asked him to wrap up some rations for your trip.” He turned and went back to the inner door and knocked four times. “I need to get back to work. Good luck out there, Ira.”
Jory went to say something in response but his thoughts were completely drowned out by the klaxon of the alarm going off. He nodded and waved, then took his leave. He collected some rations, as instructed, then swung back to Jordan’s family’s camp to pick up his jacket and his bag.
Jordan was tossing vegetables into a pot to stew for most of the day. He hardly raised his head to address Jory. “Got your new assignment, then?” he muttered. Jory detected more than a little bitterness in his voice.
“Yeah. Gotta clear out a cache of ammo from a checkpoint patrolled by a Sentry Bot,” Jory replied while stuffing his rations into his bag. “Not sure how long it’ll take. I don’t know what kind of cover is out there. Could be a few days.”
“We’ll be sure not to worry about you, then.” Jordan stood and wiped his hands on the front of his pants, then topped the stew pot off with its dented lid.
Jory had spent most of his time that past month with Jordan and had begun to see the older teen as his friend. It hurt him to hear Jordan behaving so jealously. “Look, it probably seems cool that I get to go out there while you’re here, cooking for your mom and dad. But for what it’s worth, you’re doing an important job taking care of your family. Me, the whole camp is my family, you know? I don’t have my parents, I don’t have my sister, anymore. My whole home is…” He closed his eyes as flashes of memories swung through his mind of the Institute and what it had been.
Jordan nodded moodily but did not reply. Jory swallowed and said nothing more. He picked up his jacket and made his way to the outer gate.
It’s not my fault Jordan has to cook and organize all day. He didn’t have to be such a jerk.
The wind picked up, and Jory glanced skyward to see a radiation storm about to blow in from the direction he was headed. The idea that the wasteland had an atmospheric climate remained interesting, to him. Weather was simply not taught as a formal subject in the Institute, since they never had any. He zipped his jacket over his hoodie, made a point of pulling up the collar and directed his way back towards Malden. The rain remained steady as he drew up to the ruined convenience store, across the road from the alley featuring the dead drop. The patter of the raindrops hitting the pavement, pinging off old windowsills and roofs, splattering against ancient metal signage, all made for a natural muffle to his own footsteps. The downside being, it muffled any other footsteps that may have been approaching, too. Jory tucked himself into a dry corner beneath a fallen wall, feeling miserable.
Tally one up for my ancestors, for avoiding this kind of nastiness for centuries. The air temperature continued to drop as the rain fell, causing Jory to be thankful for his extra layers of the gifted hoodie underneath his jacket. He exhaled, his breath a quickly dispersing cloud, and focused his gaze on the dead drop box. It looked as miserable as he felt, dented and forever fused into the other rubble around it, with no protection from the rain pelting it from above.
It’s only a pre-war mailbox. Get it together, Jory. He slipped the strap of his bag up and over his head and set it onto the ground. He didn’t dare look inside it just yet, avoiding finding out whether all of his things were soaked until afterwards. He looked slowly between both major directions, straining his ears for footsteps and voices. After a few minutes of concentration, he heard neither, and assumed himself to be in the clear. Jory dashed out from under the fallen wall to the dead drop and pulled it open. The hinge made a metallic squawk, something that didn’t happen the last time he opened it. He extracted the collection of papers inside, and tucked them into a pocket inside his jacket before galloping back across the road to all but dive under the dry shelter of the fallen wall.
Hidden from the road and sheltered by the rain, Jory carefully pulled the papers back out of his jacket. There were only two notes, their content strictly business. They read:
HEARD INSTALLATION OF NEW MODULE WAS SUCCESSFUL. MAKE SURE TO UPDATE YOUR SOFTWARE!
and:
YOU FORGOT YOUR UMBRELLA. LET ME KNOW WHEN YOU WANT TO MEET FOR LUNCH NEXT, AND I’LL BRING IT TO YOU.
Jory inhaled and exhaled slowly. He knew the dead drop messages had to be written in thinly-veiled riddles so that sensitive information wouldn’t be revealed to a passing scavenger. He and Deacon had spent a few hours going over basic communiqué and the different ways they could be construed so as not to be direct, or obvious. He could almost hear Deacon reminding him with a smile, “but don’t overthink it.”
He was fairly certain the first was a reminder for him to write to the dead drops, with the reassurance that the Railroad had somehow found out he got in with the Puritans, safely. “Huh,” he puffed aloud. Knowing that they knew he wasn’t dead was more relieving than he expected.
The second note took him a little longer to decipher. He knew that none of it was to be taken literally, but he couldn’t shake his fixation on the segment ‘meet for lunch.’ Did that mean the dead drop, again? What could he have possibly left at the training yard that someone would want to return to him?
Jory set both notes down onto the ground and leaned his head back into the corner made by the fallen wall and portion that remained. He was glad for the relative safety of his little spot that was also dry. Not having to check down the road every few minutes or so was a relief.
He opened his eyes and threw himself to sit upright. That must be it. Jory picked up the second note and read it for the nth time. It’s an extraction code. It’s how I ask to come home. The umbrella is just a red herring, or maybe, like a symbol of safety. He grinned, feeling proud of himself, but it quickly vanished as his next thought was on how to craft a coded message in return.
Well, what were you going to tell them, anyway? “Secret hideout underground, haven’t been inside it yet. Got a new hoodie. Let me know if you need some baby formula”?
He took another slow breath to try and calm his frustration and listened to the rain. The storm seemed to have continued by on its journey north, leaving the immediate outside wet slick, dripping, and humid. He chose to just stick to basic facts. He turned over the first note and simply stared at the back of the aged paper for several moments. Eventually, he came up with the following:
software updated but still can’t connect to the network
working on identifying the outlets manually, causing delay
the solution seems buried deeper than expected
Jory scrunched up his nose as he re-read his note a third time, then sighed and folded it to leave behind in the dead drop. He worried it was both genius but perhaps cryptic as well. I guess the worst case scenario is they can’t make any sense out of my notes and the call me in to ask directly. Meanwhile, I better get working on that ammo cache.
He sprung out from under the makeshift shelter to leave his message in the dead drop, then went back for his bag. The old bag, handed down in his family since before the war, must have been treated at some point, since it managed to keep his things dry after all. He tucked his pencil back in and was fastening it up when he froze. The footsteps were practically on top of him.
Oh fuck oh no oh shit! Something’s snuck up on you, Jory, how are you gonna get out of this?!
Three figures appeared next to the fallen wall. Jory knew immediately why their approach didn’t set off any alert signals in his brain: gathered before him were two Gen 1 synths, and one Gen 2, the familiar footsteps of which he had heard around him for most of his life. They stood there idly, almost aimlessly. Jory slowly crawled out from beneath the wall and stood in front of them.
“WHAT IS YOUR COMMAND?” spoke the Gen 2. It stood just in front of the other synths. Jory took it to mean its designation was higher.
Jory looked between the three synths. He was overwhelmed with several feelings. In the Institute, these types of synths never engaged with him, other than to occasionally offer an acknowledgement as he passed them by in a hallway. Otherwise, they were directly subordinate to elders, controlled by the mainframe network.
“WHAT IS YOUR COMMAND?” the Gen 2 prompted again.
This is really happening! “Holy shit,” he slipped.
“INVALID,” responded the Gen 2. “UPDATE REQUIRED.” It paused, before speaking again. “CENTRAL MAINFRAME IS OFFLINE. UPDATE UNAVAILABLE. WHAT IS YOUR COMMAND?”
Jory took a breath, butterflies soaring and bouncing around in his stomach. He cleared his throat. “State your business.”
“AFFIRMATIVE. DEFAULT DIRECTIVE, PATROL AND SECURE. CENTRAL MAINFRAME IS OFFLINE. UPDATE UNAVAILABLE. WHAT IS YOUR COMMAND?”
There were so many questions. The entire situation was extremely confusing. “Why are you here?”
“DEFAULT DIRECTIVE, PATROL AND –“
“Yeah, yeah,” Jory interrupted. “I mean, why are you here? Why are you talking to me?”
“CALL SIGNAL DETECTED FROM ORIGIN, CURRENT COORDINATES. OVERRIDE DEFAULT DIRECTIVE, RETRIEVE NEW ORDERS.” The synth shifted, as though it were annoyed at the line of questioning. “WHAT IS YOUR COMMAND?”
“I didn’t call you,” Jory replied. “How did you find me? Is it…something in my bag?”
All three synths turned their robotic gaze to the leather purse and paused, then returned to an idle gaze. The Gen 2 responded. “NEGATIVE. CALL SIGNAL EMITTED FROM YOUR PERSON, SIR.”
“That’s not possible, I’m not carrying any tech.”
“NEGATIVE. CALL SIGNAL ORIGIN FROM YOUR PERSON. SIGNAL STRENGTH: 97.2%.”
Jory fell silent. What could that even mean? “Define the call signal.”
“GENERAL BROADCAST, ENCRYPTED SIGNAL, CLASS BETA. ALL SYNTHS WITHIN SIGNAL RANGE TO APPROACH FOR NEW ORDERS.” It shifted again. “SECOND SIGNAL, HIGHER FREQUENCY, SHORTER RANGE, CLASS ALPHA. REMOTE OVERRIDE UPLINK AVAILABLE.”
“Wait, hang on – define the second signal.”
The Gen 2 shifted its gaze. Jory imagined it would blink, if it had more human expressions. “CLASS ALPHA. REMOTE OVERRIDE UPLINK,” it repeated.
I might regret this. “Demonstrate.”
“AFFIRMATIVE.”
A humming buzz began between Jory’s ears, before engulfing his entire body. He blinked, but when he opened his eyes, it was as though he were looking back out into the world from inside of a terminal. Various notifications blinked in his field of view, an assortment of digital readouts, but none of them made sense to him.
Yes, they do. That one’s the ambient temperature and wind direction. That one there is a compass, with the current coordinates. Over there is battery level and damage status.
His eyes widened. He looked back up at the Gen 2 synth. Just as he was thinking about what to say next, he saw a logic string pop up at the bottom of his field of view. An instruction appeared that said “PROMPT.”
“WHAT IS YOUR COMMAND?” the Gen 2 asked, yet again.
“What does this mean?” Jory breathed. He had the answer before the Gen 2 spoke, the search and retrieve scrolling up into his view.
“CONTROLLER HAS EXCLUSIVE RIGHT TO BYPASS DEFAULT PROTOCOLS. OPTION TO OVERRIDE MOVEMENT. OPTION TO LAN NEARBY OPERATIVES. OPTION TO COMMUNICATE OVER DISTANCE WITH INSTRUCTIONS, REMOTELY.”
“Demonstrate!”
“AFFIRMATIVE. MOVEMENT OVERRIDE, INITIATED.”
Jory took another breath. System updates were scrolling onto his vision. Lift your right arm, he thought-commanded towards the Gen 2. It did.
Lower it. Command followed.
Jory frowned. He wasn’t sure how useful that would be, considering how inefficient it was. Can’t I just override from within, move like I do my own body? Making the thought to move and waiting for the response is just cumbersome.
“AFFIRMATIVE,” came the verbal response from the Gen 2. Before he knew what was happening, a jolt like a large static shock rocked Jory’s body. Next thing he knew, he was watching his eyes roll into the back of his head from the perspective of the Gen 2, and his body fall onto the ground. He reached forward and saw the synth’s hands probe out front of its body, to touch his human form, and roll it over.
Disengage! Disengage, right now!
He opened his eyes and gasped. The expressionless face of the Gen 2 loomed over him.
“ARE YOU ALRIGHT?”
Jory’s pulse was hammering through his veins. “Y-yes. Help me up.”
One of the Gen 1s turned and looked towards the intersection where he had encountered Rocky’s caravan all those weeks ago. “INCOMING,” it buzzed.
“What? What’s coming?”
“SENDING VISUAL.”
An image appeared before Jory’s mind’s eye. A caravan was coming down that main road, starting to emerge into the intersection. Jory couldn’t tell who the trader was from the transmitted image.
The Gen 2 pulled Jory to his feet. “WHAT IS YOUR COMMAND?”
“I…I don’t know,” he replied, starting to feel panicked.
“INVALID. UPDATE REQUIRED. CENTRAL MAINFRA—“
“Yes, yes, I know, shut up,” Jory burst out, flustered. “I need to think.”
“T-MINUS SEVEN SECONDS BEFORE CONFIRMED VISUAL CONTACT,” offered the other Gen 1.
This is bad this is bad oh this is so bad. He ran his hands back and forth through his hair as his mind worked as fast as it could to figure out a solution. I can’t be caught talking to synths. It will blow my cover, or get me tortured, or dead, or worse.
But what do I do? I can’t just…
The three synths stared at him, saying nothing. Jory gulped. There was no other choice.
That caravan is probably going to the Puritans, anyway. If I chase them off, they will end up delayed with their arrival, and maybe set the Puritans back a little, too. I stay alive, it looks like a random synth attack, no one suspects a thing.
“COMMAND?”
Jory replied with no hesitation. “Engage.”
“AFFIRMATIVE.” All three synths raised their weapons in spooky synchronicity, turned, and ran with frightening speed towards the caravan. Jory scrambled back underneath the fallen wall and made himself completely unseen. When he closed his eyes, he could see the transmitted image updates from the Gen 2.
What happened next was completely unimaginable, even after everything he’d heard from Puritans and others alike. The synths showed no mercy, moving in and shooting the caravan on sight. The Gen 2 provided instant feedback, but it was also connected to the two Gen 1s, and received their battle info as well. For the most part it looked like smoke, laser fire, blood splatter, and occasionally the twitching view of the synth taking fire. He didn’t get the audio feedback from the synth, but he could hear the fight from where he cowered. There was screaming as the laser weapons severed some limbs and wounded others, taunting in the robotic synth voices, grunts, battle calls, and the distressed cawing of the pack brahmin.
One of the Gen 1s fell. He didn’t see or hear it, but the instant feedback report showed it as so. The Gen 2 was taking damage but holding its own, and the other Gen 1 lost use of one of its arms and sustained heavy damage to its midsection. Jory plugged his ears in an attempt to stop hearing the fight, but it was no use. The feedback from the Gen 2 was clear, and immediate. Both caravan guards had fallen, one decapitated, the other out of commission with wounds likely to kill him. The remaining fighter, which Jory guessed was the trader, seemed to be trying to fall back but kept reloading and shooting at the synths.
It felt like years, but finally the sounds of battle ceased and were replaced with the approaching footsteps of the synths returning to Jory’s little hideout. He emerged to meet them. The Gen 1 that remained was shooting sparks off its body, not unlike the one encountered as he and Ethan Holly had made their way back to the camp from the old daycare. The Gen 2 appeared to have sustained a few bullet holes, but its system report showed generally an all clear.
“COMMAND?” the Gen 2 prompted, as if on cue.
“Disengage all connections. Now.” Jory wanted nothing more to do with being able to see the inner workings of a synth. His body buzzed with a static shock once more, and the digital information was gone.
“AFFIRMATIVE. WHAT ARE YOUR ORDERS?”
“Don’t you get it? Leave me alone! This, all this, could be really bad for me! Turn off whatever it is calling you to me and just…just go away, okay? The Institute is gone forever. We can’t go home. We can never go home.” His voice cracked unexpectedly.
The Gen 2 didn’t immediately respond. Jory thought he could almost hear the electronic relays communicating between each other within its head. “NEGATIVE. THIS UNIT CANNOT DISABLE CALL SIGNAL. OVERRIDE THETA OMEGA REQUIRED.”
“That’s not funny. Disable the homing beacon right now and call it a day.”
“NEGATIVE. OVERRIDE THETA OMEGA REQUIRED. DO YOU HAVE THE PASSCODE?”
Jory blinked. “What? Of course I don’t. I didn’t even know I was carrying that tech.” He sighed. The synths were built a little too well. “I have your orders.”
“PROCEED.”
“Go north. There’s a military checkpoint with a sentry bot. Engage the bot. Also, you and the other synth,” Jory gestured towards the Gen 1, “are to complete this task and go back to your default. You do NOT follow the call signal override, ever again. I must be authorized to issue that command?”
The Gen 2 hesitated. “WE WILL ENGAGE THE SENTRY BOT AT THE CHECKPOINT. REVERT TO DEFAULT REQUIRES THETA OMEGA PASSCODE OVERRIDE. DO YOU HAVE TH—“
“Fucking hell – no, I don’t have the passcode,” Jory interrupted, exasperated. “Engage the sentry bot. Retreat forbidden. Understood?”
“AFFIRMATIVE.” The Gen 2 turned to nod at the Gen 1, then both synths plodded along the road towards the north.
Jory spent several moments with his mind swirling in a tornado of confusion. He realized that he needed help making sense of what happened, and if there were any true synth authorities he could ask, the Railroad was it. He pulled the second note from the inside of his jacket and dove into his bag for his pencil. On the back side of the paper, he wrote a single line, before folding it and tucking it into his last dead drop:
let’s do lunch two days from now, meet me at the lake.
I've decided on a double-chapter post to try and apologize for my absence. Cheers
5.
It took until the third full week of living within the Puritans’ main compound for Jory to feel as though he had integrated, and no one suspected anything about him. Jordan and his family quickly took him in, and he paid them back by helping Jordan with his daily chores.
“There used to be more of us. I had one other sister, and two older, twin brothers, but they had the misfortune of being out in the field just over a year and a half ago when some of the freaky synths rode in on some lightning outta thin air, and just opened fire,” Jordan relayed his family’s tragedy a few days after Jory’s arrival as the two picked wild silt beans beyond the compound’s walls. “It was terrible. Pa managed to get his shotgun, and a few other of the farm hands we had at the time grabbed their weapons, and between them they took the synths down. We never recovered. The damage to the crops, and, well, having lost three children, my parents never were able to get their hearts back into farmin’ again. Few months ago, pa heard the Puritans were gatherin’ regular folk like us for the cause, and that’s that.”
The fact that Jordan’s family had five children plus the two adults threw Jory for a loop. Reproductive restrictions in the Institute were extremely firm. He found himself becoming lost in the train of thought that his was the only family he even knew of where there was more than one child…
Jory realized that Jordan was expecting a reply. He nodded solemnly. “I’m so sorry for your loss. That’s…awful.”
“Thanks. You went through the same kind of thing, right? I know that you know the same pain.” Jordan tossed his handful of beans into his crate. “Synths are the worst. The fact that the Railroad even thinks that any should be saved, and let out of the Commonwealth is just pure insanity. I’m so glad the Puritans are trying to rip them all apart.”
Jory had merely nodded.
At first he was only helping Jordan and his family with their chores. The compound was tightly woven enough that soon, word of an eager, helpful orphan spread among the ranks. Jory found himself carrying crates for seniors, babysitting toddlers, steadying ladders, and hanging laundry. Later that third week, he snuck into a ruined pre-war daycare overrun with deranged Miss Nannys to retrieve a case of powdered infant formula, and returned unscathed. News of his success blew through the camp like wildfire.
“Both Mr. Hollys want to see you,” the runner had told him, mere hours after his return with the stash. “Immediately.”
He and Jordan had exchanged a look over the dishes they were washing. “You better go,” Jordan dismissed him, frowning.
Jory followed the runner back to the inner gate, who waved to the guards, then led Jory through. He was brought down the fabricated ramp and into the bunker. Panels of pre-war tech lined the left wall, its purpose no longer known. Unlit LEDs poked out of the plastic faceplate, joined together with drawn lines. He hadn’t seen anything like that since the Institute. He swallowed an ache of homesickness. The room was rectangular, with an abandoned desk set up on the far right side. Next to it, in the far wall, was a door with an electronic maglock and an angry red light posted above it.
The runner knocked on the door four times. It was a hollow, metallic sound. “Just stay here,” he instructed Jory as he walked by the young teen and exit the room back outside.
The red light began to blink in tandem with a buzzer sound that filled the whole room. Jory cringed and searched the ceiling to locate the source when saw a small, embedded speaker in the center. The door swung open inward, and two men walked through the opening. When the door shut behind them, the light ceased blinking, as did the buzzer. Jory recognized the taller as Oscar Holly, the man he conversed with before. He wore his denim vest over a red shirt. The other man, only slightly shorter, kept a trim haircut compared to his brother, though it was similar in colour. He also wore a denim vest, over a black t-shirt. Jory realized then that the denim vest was their uniform, of sorts, as the heads of the gang.
Oscar stepped over to the ancient desk and sat on it. “Hi, Ira. This is my brother, Ethan Holly,” he gestured to the other man. “Ethan, this is that kid, Ira Dorval. I met him the day he got in.”
Ethan looked Jory up and down, and nodded. “Yeah, okay. I probably have seen you buzzin’ around camp once or twice.”
“Nice to meet you, sir,” Jory replied.
“We heard you lifted a case of baby formula from Doom Daycare,” Oscar went straight to the point.
Jory glanced between the Holly brothers. “Yes, Mr. Holly. That’s right. Dropped it off in camp this morning, sir.”
“How many bots were there?”
“Uh…” Jory thought back. “Five.”
“How did you get past five crazy Miss Nanny bots?” Oscar’s face appeared bemused, though his tone was completely serious.
Jory elected to simply tell the truth. “I didn’t rush it. I kept to the shadows and watched them for a while. Those bots just…moved in a circuit. I stayed behind them, didn’t cross their paths, moved really quietly. That’s really it.”
“Undetected.”
“Are you a synth?” Ethan growled before Jory could respond. Jory’s heart rate jumped immediately and he felt the pounding in his temples. He was relieved of having to answer as Oscar stood from his perch on the desk to hammer punch Ethan on the younger brother’s left bicep. Jory flinched at the fleshy thud Oscar’s fist made in contact with Ethan’s arm and the resultant angry red mark left behind.
Add to the same list, do not get punched by Oscar Holly.
“There ain’t any child synths, moron. We were told that.” Oscar didn’t even shake out his hand after levelling such a harsh blow. “Though, it might be interesting to know how you pulled it off. Those bots have three eyes, each.”
“My older sister was a really light sleeper. I liked to play practical jokes on her, you know, for fun. I’d leave dead roaches next to the foot of her bed to step on in the morning, stuff like that.” Jory shrugged in an attempt to appear modest. “I just had to learn to be dead quiet, real quick.” He shifted his weight, his nerves beginning to show a little bit. “Did I do something…wrong? Did that baby formula belong to someone else, and I stole it?”
Oscar laughed. “Kid, if it’s layin’ out, it’s up for grabs.”
“Our mom would have called someone like you a ‘cupcake,’” Ethan added, as though he were saying something intelligent.
Jory relaxed. “Oh, uh…thank you.” He had no idea if that was really a compliment. Both men laughed, again.
Oscar had returned to his perch on the desk. “Ira, we’ve been trying to get that baby formula out of there for months. Seemed no matter what we tried, those Nanny bots would catch sight of our scavver and attack as a throng.”
“A couple people lost a few limbs,” Ethan shuddered.
”We thought getting in there was going to be impossible, unless we could somehow draw the robots out, one by one, and shut them down or break them or somethin’. But they were a group, every time, and we just gave up.” Oscar took a breath and flicked his ponytail back over his shoulder. “How’d you find out about the formula? You piss someone off, they thought they’d send you on a suicide mission?”
“I babysat for the Dawkins a few times, and Kelly brought it up. I don’t think she knew about anyone losing limbs. All she knew was the camp stopped trying to get the formula.” Jory toed the ground. “You asked me to be useful, I was just acting on that, sir.”
“You called that one right, E,” Oscar grinned. “Definitely a cupcake.” He kicked his feet out in front of him and leaned back, crossing his arms.
“If all that’s really true, if you crept in like a little mouse and none of them crazed robots were the wiser, then we can use you.” Ethan seemed to finally have found his words to say something relevant.
“There’s all sorts of things out there, cached away, that we haven’t been able to crack into. Sometimes there’s high security, like the Miss Nannys, and sometimes low functioning thugs but a lot of them,” Oscar continued. “Problem is, our compound keeps growing, and basic food and supplies we get off the caravans, but stuff like medicine, and electronics? Not so easy to get.”
“We cleared out all the ruins within a day’s walk of here, in all directions, that didn’t have more than some wildlife livin’ in them. Trouble is, we’re tryin’ to train an army, and we can’t really spend time teaching people how to stay alive while stealing. Right?” Ethan finished.
Jory had an intense feeling of déjà vu as the brothers described their situation. “You want me to sneak into the really hard places, and bring back the good stuff, you mean?”
“Pretty much,” Oscar answered, very seriously.
Jory shrugged. “Okay. When do I start? And where?”
Ethan raised an eyebrow and looked at Oscar, who tilted his head but maintained his gaze on Jory. “Tomorrow, but we’ll have to find someone to go with you.”
“Why?” Ethan asked, before Jory had even opened his own mouth.
Oscar rolled his eyes and gesticulated with his hand. Ethan flinched, bracing himself for another blow, but it didn’t come. “Because letting him loose out in the wasteland alone would be irresponsible, numbnuts. He’s no help to us if he gets killed.”
“With all due respect, sir,” Jory interjected, “it’s better if I do work alone. I know my abilities and weaknesses, or I guess, I just know how to be quiet. If I have to explain to someone what I’m doing all the time, it’ll…defeat the purpose.” He thought of Rita, and the only prank they played together.
“Damn,” Ethan swore, “this kid’s a fucking genius.”
“Yeah,” Oscar replied, a slight smile on his face, “I think you’re right about that.”
Jory blushed. “Oh, well…”
“Be back here tomorrow morning, cupcake, and we’ll tell you what we want and from where.”
“Yes, sir! Absolutely, sir.”
Ethan smiled. “Congrats, Ira. You’re officially part of the Puritans.”
Jory stood outside the inner gate after his dismissal and gathered his thoughts. Ethan’s congratulations had made him feel ill. Becoming integrated into the Puritans was a crucial part of his assignment from the Railroad, but he hadn’t expected to have an emotional reaction to it. Jory took some deep breaths, and regret it, as he inhaled the smog that always hung in the air. He gagged.
“You all right, there, half pint?” one of the guards nudged him with the stock of her rifle.
“Y-yeah, I’m okay. Just…yeah, I’m fine!” Jory blushed again, embarrassed he was caught gagging on the noxious air of the compound. He spun on his heel and took a left, deliberately avoiding the direction back to Jordan’s family’s camp. He needed some time to think.
Jory leaned up against the inside of the outer wall, as he had the last time he left the inner gates. He looked at his feet and frowned. What is happening to my life? As far as he could tell, the best thing for him to do was to just do as he was told, even if it meant fetching things to help their cause. The Railroad – Desdemona – had to know that something like this was bound to occur, by sending him in here. How else was he to get close to the leaders, to the information he needed to relay back to them?
It crashed on him like a load of bricks.
I’ll be able to leave the compound freely, and alone. They’ll send me to places they haven’t been able to penetrate. I won’t always have to even bring back the equipment, I could just leave it for the Railroad, and tell the Puritans I never found it.
Not to mention, actually use the dead drops like I’m supposed to. I hope they aren’t mad. I hope they don’t think I’m dead, myself.
Jory closed his eyes. Focus, pal. For now, they’re interested in what you can bring. Stay cool and get some information you and the Railroad can use to take these guys down, for good. He straightened up and rolled his shoulders back, listening to them pop, then walked back to Jordan’s camp.
The next morning, Jory returned to the inner gate, as instructed. The nasty, plastic-infused smoke was thinner at dawn, before most of the camp awoke and started throwing synth parts back into the barrel fires. The haze that remained made the sky appear to have an angrier tinge to its pink than he was used to. He dressed in loose cargo pants with a light t-shirt and a polyester jacket, and his leather purse that he packed with a few snacks and water. He wasn’t sure what to expect for this job and didn’t want to be caught completely without any supplies.
The gate opened and there stood Ethan Holly, himself. He seemed to have a similar idea to Jory and wore a simple jacket over his denim vest and a green shirt. “Well, well! Right on time and everything. You sure are somethin’ else,” the man greeted Jory.
“Good morning, sir,” Jory responded.
Ethan stepped out of the gate and made a circular motion in the air with his finger. The guards pulled the gate shut behind him. “Okay, first thing’s first, tank the ‘sir’ business. My brother’s real into that respectful address shit, but me, it’s gonna just irritate me. Got it?” He started a brisk walk through the camp.
Jory swallowed and hopped to match Ethan’s pace. “Y-yes, I understand.” He followed a few paces, more. “Were there some instructions for me?”
“Huh? Oh, sorry Ira. We’re going together on this trip, today, back to Doom Daycare. I guess I could’ve told ya that.”
“We are?” Jory’s stomach sunk. He had planned to make his way to the dead drop before worrying about the job. “You changed your mind about letting me go alone, then?” His voice was a sheepish squeak.
“Not really.” Ethan’s height advantage allowed him to nearly glide over and around random obstacles lying about the campsite, but Jory had to manoeuvre more deliberately. “There’s more formula in that place, right? We’re going to go get it. Which really means, I’m gonna help you carry it back here and watch how you get in and out. I’m just…curious.” He glanced behind him and flashed Jory an odd smile.
Guess I postpone the dead drop visit for another day. He nearly tripped over a duffle bag just sticking out from a heap of crates. Maybe if he can see that I am competent, they’ll give me even more leeway to leave the camp when and how often I want to. That could be a good thing.
The two emerged into the clearer air outside the compound. Ethan made a facetious bow towards Jory. “Lead the way, cupcake.”
The location known as “Doom Daycare” was an hour or so walk from the Puritans’ compound, a unit in a strip of buildings featuring a pre-war parking lot that backed on to a hill. Either by war or circumstance, the other buildings were ruined beyond exploration or long abandoned, leaving the daycare the only site featuring life, even if they were merely robots.
Ethan crouched next to some bushes at the edge of the ruined parking lot. “If I watch from here, do you think that will keep me out of sight of the robots?”
Jory took a moment to realize that Ethan posed a serious question. He nodded, then shed his bag and his jacket. “If they come after you this way, though, I am running in the opposite direction.”
“Heh. That’s fair.” Ethan’s eyes twinkled. “Good luck.”
If I didn’t know better, he’s either rigged this somehow, or he still doesn’t believe that I can do this. Jory gave a single, closed-mouth nod, then made his approach.
He breathed calmly through his nose only, a habit he conditioned himself into years ago when he started creeping around the Institute pulling pranks. He took an identical path to the one he used the day before, following the rough line of the disintegrated edge of the parking lot, across the road, then onto the sidewalk of the strip. Jory pressed himself into a shadow cast by the steel beam of a ruined traffic light that had fallen onto the building long ago. He leaned against the building, slowing his heart rate, and listening. The daycare was two units over yet, but the distinct hiss-and-pause sound of the Miss Nannys moving around was easily heard over the relative quiet of the wasteland.
Satisfied he had calmed his mind and body sufficiently enough, he started the slow creep towards the daycare. It sounded like the robots were stuck in an infinite dance, the music for which had died centuries ago. These bots were supposed to take care of babies, yet none of them seem to have noticed the cribs are empty. I guess a nuclear war and 200 years of neglect can cause some screws to come loose…
Jory scrunched himself up to squat below the bottom edge of the broken window’s frame, listening to the Miss Nannys chatter away at each other, but more importantly, to their compressors and the soft sound of the air as one would drift by. He held his breath before turning and hoisting himself through the window and into the daycare in a fluid movement, then immediately crawled beneath the empty cribs still standing against the inner wall. From there, he waited for a second Nanny to go by, then for a third to approach from within an inner hallway to stop at the junction, slowly rotate 360 degrees, then go back down the hallway. Jory then slipped out from beneath the crib and directly to the storage room, a closet between the outer wall and the inner hallway. He soundlessly stepped into the storage closet and closed the door behind him.
Jory lowered himself to the floor and exhaled as slowly as possible, once again allowing himself a moment to catch his breath. He listened to the sounds of the Nannys moving around in the next room, concentrating on how close they were, seeing an image in his mind of their positions. He pulled down a case of the baby formula and waited. When the last Nanny had retreated back down the inner hallway once more, he exited the closet and went back to the window. He leaned out as far as he could, his hands still a good foot from the ground, and dropped the case of formula that landed with a dusty thud. Jory didn’t stick around to see if Ethan was truly watching and ducked back beneath the crib once more.
He repeated the trip two more times, effectively emptying all the formula from the closet. As Jory climbed out the ruined window one last time, to compensate landing on the stack of formula, he lifted his left leg higher than he would have to just exit through the window, but a dangling lace from his sneaker caught on a snag. He pulled it loose but lost his balance completely and fell in a heap over the formula and directly onto the ground. Jory recovered quickly and scrambled around the edge of the formula to press himself against the wall, beneath the bottom frame of the windows.
“Hello? Who is there?” called the Miss Nanny making her round back past the windows. Jory didn’t dare look. He could hear the robot hovering next to the window, its compressor hissing on and off, as it scanned the environment. He closed his eyes and concentrated on breathing through his nostrils very slowly. Jory was very glad the robots couldn’t detect his heart rate, because to him, it felt like it was going to pound itself out of his body.
“Is there something there?” called a second Miss Nanny, joining the first.
“I do not see anything,” replied the original robot. “Perhaps some children playing Nicky Nicky Nine Doors again.”
“How they do love that game,” the second one gushed, then floated away. After another moment or two, the first followed suit. Jory wasted no time in picking up the first case of formula and walking it down the strip, back to the edge of the parking lot once more. Ethan, from across the way, immediately saw what Jory was doing and followed the teenager’s path along the edge of the pavement up to the strip building, carrying Jory’s affairs. Once the third and final case had been retrieved, Ethan lifted two of them under one arm, while Jory carried the third, wearing his jacket and bag once again. Neither spoke until they were clear of the parking lot and back on their way to the compound.
“You’re the real deal, Ira. That was impressive,” Ethan complimented. “Stuck to shadows, stayed out of sight. I get it, now. It took you about an hour, but I can see that not rushing it really just paid off.”
Jory shifted the case of formula from one arm to the other. “I learned their movements yesterday, I spent a lot more time just laying low and listening than I did, today. Plus, I knew what I was looking for. Otherwise, we could have been a while…”
“If you’re really that modest, you’re definitely a cupcake,” Ethan barked. Jory remained unable to understand what that really meant, but he just smiled and shrugged. They walked for a few minutes, the sound of their foot falls an irregular rhythm and tenor as they clomped along the broken ground. Suddenly, Ethan reached his arm out to stop them both in their tracks. “Well, what do we have, here?”
Jory followed his gaze to see a Gen 1 synth making a slow approach towards them from around the side of a decrepit pre-war café. It was heavily damaged from some unknown altercation, limping badly on its right side, missing several pieces of plastic plating, and shooting sparks off all over its body. It held its laser pistol down at its side and seemed to be staring straight at the teenager. “COMMAND?” it buzzed.
Jory shivered. He had never seen a synth outside of the Institute. The image was at once familiar and completely foreign at the same time.
“Almost too easy!” Ethan hooted. He set the formula down and drew his own pistol. “It’s so damaged, it can’t even raise its weapon.”
“COMMAND?” the synth repeated. It fully ignored Ethan, directing its attention, and question, to Jory.
Can it know I’m from the Institute? That’s not possible, right? I don’t have an ID badge, or a jumpsuit. It’s so far from the mainframe that it can’t possibly pull facial recognition.
“COMMAND?” it repeated once more, slowly closing the gap between itself and Jory.
Ethan squeezed off two rounds into the synth’s chest. It twitched dramatically, then stiffened entirely, and fell face-first into the dirt. “Never seen one do that before! Clearly it got banged around elsewhere and lost its wits.”
Jory wasn’t so sure, but he definitely wasn’t about to suggest otherwise. He nodded.
Ethan softened slightly. “Aw, you okay, partner? The Gen 1s are the ugliest and freakiest. You never seen one of these, before?”
Yeah, that’s it. I’m scared of the synth, not that it could have blown my cover. Jory sniffed and shook his head. “What was wrong with it?”
“Eh, just damaged from some other wasteland wildlife or something. They usually say nasty things, but this one kept babbling. Probably had a few chips knocked loose.” Ethan scooped up the two cases of baby formula and walked over to the synth. He rolled it over with his foot, then picked it up by the ankle and started dragging it with him. “Don’t need to be scared now, Ira, once they shut down, they’re nothin’ but scrap.”
Jory met Ethan’s pace once more and couldn’t help glancing at the synth more than he knew he should. The way its head had turned, it looked like it was staring into Jory’s eyes every time he looked back at it. “COMM-MM-MMA-A-A-A-AND?” it gargled one final time. Jory jumped and kept his eyes forward for the remainder of the walk.
“Got some rain comin’,” Ethan huffed as they approached the outer gate. “If you get too wet under a lousy tent, you can come inside the bunker, all right?”
“Ah…oh! Okay, thanks.” Jory was surprised at the offer. He wasn’t sure what it meant and was too confused about the synth’s behaviour to think much of it.
Ethan turned his attention to the guards at the gate. He grinned. “Add another one to the tally!” he hollered, whipping the synth around his body to fling it across the ground. It skid over the packed dirt and made a plastic sounding crunch as it made contact with the metal gate post. The guards replied with hoots and hollers of their own. Jory gave a lame smile and ducked into the gate, plunking the case of formula down on a pile of salvage and disappearing quickly into the gathering crowd, drawn by the noise.
6.
As the days continued, it became nearly impossible for Jory to move around the camp and not be recognized, or greeted, by the other Puritans. Kelly Dawkins personally made a point of gifting him a hooded sweatshirt she had bought off a trader and mended for him.
“Ira, you sweet, wonderful, selfless guy,” she gushed, nearly suffocating Jory in her hug. “I had no idea that formula was in such a dangerous place. I thought we just didn’t have enough people to spare to scavenge it from those ruins. Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
“You’re…welcome…!” he puffed out in response.
Jory’s first off site, independent assignment came a few days after the success of the second formula raid. He had started to think that the Holly brothers weren’t serious about sending him out to help them, and that he’d have to revisit his strategy for getting out to the dead drop. He was summoned to the bunker once again. Oscar was waiting for him when he arrived.
“Ira, good to see you’re still keeping busy out there. New sweater?” Oscar nodded his head towards the teen.
“Yeah, Kelly Dawkins gave it to me.”
“That was kind of her.”
Jory shrugged. “She was really thankful for the formula, I guess.” He rocked on his heels with his arms crossed behind his back.
Oscar nodded. “It’s nice to have a tangible reward for hard work done, right? Keeps you motivated. Ready for another assignment?”
“Yes, sir!”
“Good.” Oscar flipped his ponytail over his shoulder and placed his hands on his hips. “More robots, different context. There’s a pre-war military checkpoint a bit to the north of here. We clashed with the Railroad there a while back and drove them off, but one of the idiots in our party left behind a cache of ammo. Since then, an old Sentry Bot seems to have found its way back to the area, maybe drawn by some signal we didn’t know about.”
“I’ll go get the ammo for you,” Jory finished for Oscar.
Oscar raised a hand. “There’s a lot of it, including some mini nukes. What we need you to do is just move it from the checkpoint and cache it somewhere else, and I’ll send a separate team to recover the ammo later.” He pulled out a piece of paper and motioned for Jory to approach. “Here’s the checkpoint, and here, off to the east, is where I need you to re-stash the stash. There’s some picnic tables and a bit of a park area next to the river, you won’t miss it.”
Jory took the crude map and studied it. “I won’t let you down, sir.”
“You haven’t so far,” Oscar agreed. “Go see Richards, just outside the inner gate and to the right. I asked him to wrap up some rations for your trip.” He turned and went back to the inner door and knocked four times. “I need to get back to work. Good luck out there, Ira.”
Jory went to say something in response but his thoughts were completely drowned out by the klaxon of the alarm going off. He nodded and waved, then took his leave. He collected some rations, as instructed, then swung back to Jordan’s family’s camp to pick up his jacket and his bag.
Jordan was tossing vegetables into a pot to stew for most of the day. He hardly raised his head to address Jory. “Got your new assignment, then?” he muttered. Jory detected more than a little bitterness in his voice.
“Yeah. Gotta clear out a cache of ammo from a checkpoint patrolled by a Sentry Bot,” Jory replied while stuffing his rations into his bag. “Not sure how long it’ll take. I don’t know what kind of cover is out there. Could be a few days.”
“We’ll be sure not to worry about you, then.” Jordan stood and wiped his hands on the front of his pants, then topped the stew pot off with its dented lid.
Jory had spent most of his time that past month with Jordan and had begun to see the older teen as his friend. It hurt him to hear Jordan behaving so jealously. “Look, it probably seems cool that I get to go out there while you’re here, cooking for your mom and dad. But for what it’s worth, you’re doing an important job taking care of your family. Me, the whole camp is my family, you know? I don’t have my parents, I don’t have my sister, anymore. My whole home is…” He closed his eyes as flashes of memories swung through his mind of the Institute and what it had been.
Jordan nodded moodily but did not reply. Jory swallowed and said nothing more. He picked up his jacket and made his way to the outer gate.
It’s not my fault Jordan has to cook and organize all day. He didn’t have to be such a jerk.
The wind picked up, and Jory glanced skyward to see a radiation storm about to blow in from the direction he was headed. The idea that the wasteland had an atmospheric climate remained interesting, to him. Weather was simply not taught as a formal subject in the Institute, since they never had any. He zipped his jacket over his hoodie, made a point of pulling up the collar and directed his way back towards Malden. The rain remained steady as he drew up to the ruined convenience store, across the road from the alley featuring the dead drop. The patter of the raindrops hitting the pavement, pinging off old windowsills and roofs, splattering against ancient metal signage, all made for a natural muffle to his own footsteps. The downside being, it muffled any other footsteps that may have been approaching, too. Jory tucked himself into a dry corner beneath a fallen wall, feeling miserable.
Tally one up for my ancestors, for avoiding this kind of nastiness for centuries. The air temperature continued to drop as the rain fell, causing Jory to be thankful for his extra layers of the gifted hoodie underneath his jacket. He exhaled, his breath a quickly dispersing cloud, and focused his gaze on the dead drop box. It looked as miserable as he felt, dented and forever fused into the other rubble around it, with no protection from the rain pelting it from above.
It’s only a pre-war mailbox. Get it together, Jory. He slipped the strap of his bag up and over his head and set it onto the ground. He didn’t dare look inside it just yet, avoiding finding out whether all of his things were soaked until afterwards. He looked slowly between both major directions, straining his ears for footsteps and voices. After a few minutes of concentration, he heard neither, and assumed himself to be in the clear. Jory dashed out from under the fallen wall to the dead drop and pulled it open. The hinge made a metallic squawk, something that didn’t happen the last time he opened it. He extracted the collection of papers inside, and tucked them into a pocket inside his jacket before galloping back across the road to all but dive under the dry shelter of the fallen wall.
Hidden from the road and sheltered by the rain, Jory carefully pulled the papers back out of his jacket. There were only two notes, their content strictly business. They read:
HEARD INSTALLATION OF NEW MODULE WAS SUCCESSFUL. MAKE SURE TO UPDATE YOUR SOFTWARE!
and:
YOU FORGOT YOUR UMBRELLA. LET ME KNOW WHEN YOU WANT TO MEET FOR LUNCH NEXT, AND I’LL BRING IT TO YOU.
Jory inhaled and exhaled slowly. He knew the dead drop messages had to be written in thinly-veiled riddles so that sensitive information wouldn’t be revealed to a passing scavenger. He and Deacon had spent a few hours going over basic communiqué and the different ways they could be construed so as not to be direct, or obvious. He could almost hear Deacon reminding him with a smile, “but don’t overthink it.”
He was fairly certain the first was a reminder for him to write to the dead drops, with the reassurance that the Railroad had somehow found out he got in with the Puritans, safely. “Huh,” he puffed aloud. Knowing that they knew he wasn’t dead was more relieving than he expected.
The second note took him a little longer to decipher. He knew that none of it was to be taken literally, but he couldn’t shake his fixation on the segment ‘meet for lunch.’ Did that mean the dead drop, again? What could he have possibly left at the training yard that someone would want to return to him?
Jory set both notes down onto the ground and leaned his head back into the corner made by the fallen wall and portion that remained. He was glad for the relative safety of his little spot that was also dry. Not having to check down the road every few minutes or so was a relief.
He opened his eyes and threw himself to sit upright. That must be it. Jory picked up the second note and read it for the nth time. It’s an extraction code. It’s how I ask to come home. The umbrella is just a red herring, or maybe, like a symbol of safety. He grinned, feeling proud of himself, but it quickly vanished as his next thought was on how to craft a coded message in return.
Well, what were you going to tell them, anyway? “Secret hideout underground, haven’t been inside it yet. Got a new hoodie. Let me know if you need some baby formula”?
He took another slow breath to try and calm his frustration and listened to the rain. The storm seemed to have continued by on its journey north, leaving the immediate outside wet slick, dripping, and humid. He chose to just stick to basic facts. He turned over the first note and simply stared at the back of the aged paper for several moments. Eventually, he came up with the following:
software updated but still can’t connect to the network
working on identifying the outlets manually, causing delay
the solution seems buried deeper than expected
Jory scrunched up his nose as he re-read his note a third time, then sighed and folded it to leave behind in the dead drop. He worried it was both genius but perhaps cryptic as well. I guess the worst case scenario is they can’t make any sense out of my notes and the call me in to ask directly. Meanwhile, I better get working on that ammo cache.
He sprung out from under the makeshift shelter to leave his message in the dead drop, then went back for his bag. The old bag, handed down in his family since before the war, must have been treated at some point, since it managed to keep his things dry after all. He tucked his pencil back in and was fastening it up when he froze. The footsteps were practically on top of him.
Oh fuck oh no oh shit! Something’s snuck up on you, Jory, how are you gonna get out of this?!
Three figures appeared next to the fallen wall. Jory knew immediately why their approach didn’t set off any alert signals in his brain: gathered before him were two Gen 1 synths, and one Gen 2, the familiar footsteps of which he had heard around him for most of his life. They stood there idly, almost aimlessly. Jory slowly crawled out from beneath the wall and stood in front of them.
“WHAT IS YOUR COMMAND?” spoke the Gen 2. It stood just in front of the other synths. Jory took it to mean its designation was higher.
Jory looked between the three synths. He was overwhelmed with several feelings. In the Institute, these types of synths never engaged with him, other than to occasionally offer an acknowledgement as he passed them by in a hallway. Otherwise, they were directly subordinate to elders, controlled by the mainframe network.
“WHAT IS YOUR COMMAND?” the Gen 2 prompted again.
This is really happening! “Holy shit,” he slipped.
“INVALID,” responded the Gen 2. “UPDATE REQUIRED.” It paused, before speaking again. “CENTRAL MAINFRAME IS OFFLINE. UPDATE UNAVAILABLE. WHAT IS YOUR COMMAND?”
Jory took a breath, butterflies soaring and bouncing around in his stomach. He cleared his throat. “State your business.”
“AFFIRMATIVE. DEFAULT DIRECTIVE, PATROL AND SECURE. CENTRAL MAINFRAME IS OFFLINE. UPDATE UNAVAILABLE. WHAT IS YOUR COMMAND?”
There were so many questions. The entire situation was extremely confusing. “Why are you here?”
“DEFAULT DIRECTIVE, PATROL AND –“
“Yeah, yeah,” Jory interrupted. “I mean, why are you here? Why are you talking to me?”
“CALL SIGNAL DETECTED FROM ORIGIN, CURRENT COORDINATES. OVERRIDE DEFAULT DIRECTIVE, RETRIEVE NEW ORDERS.” The synth shifted, as though it were annoyed at the line of questioning. “WHAT IS YOUR COMMAND?”
“I didn’t call you,” Jory replied. “How did you find me? Is it…something in my bag?”
All three synths turned their robotic gaze to the leather purse and paused, then returned to an idle gaze. The Gen 2 responded. “NEGATIVE. CALL SIGNAL EMITTED FROM YOUR PERSON, SIR.”
“That’s not possible, I’m not carrying any tech.”
“NEGATIVE. CALL SIGNAL ORIGIN FROM YOUR PERSON. SIGNAL STRENGTH: 97.2%.”
Jory fell silent. What could that even mean? “Define the call signal.”
“GENERAL BROADCAST, ENCRYPTED SIGNAL, CLASS BETA. ALL SYNTHS WITHIN SIGNAL RANGE TO APPROACH FOR NEW ORDERS.” It shifted again. “SECOND SIGNAL, HIGHER FREQUENCY, SHORTER RANGE, CLASS ALPHA. REMOTE OVERRIDE UPLINK AVAILABLE.”
“Wait, hang on – define the second signal.”
The Gen 2 shifted its gaze. Jory imagined it would blink, if it had more human expressions. “CLASS ALPHA. REMOTE OVERRIDE UPLINK,” it repeated.
I might regret this. “Demonstrate.”
“AFFIRMATIVE.”
A humming buzz began between Jory’s ears, before engulfing his entire body. He blinked, but when he opened his eyes, it was as though he were looking back out into the world from inside of a terminal. Various notifications blinked in his field of view, an assortment of digital readouts, but none of them made sense to him.
Yes, they do. That one’s the ambient temperature and wind direction. That one there is a compass, with the current coordinates. Over there is battery level and damage status.
His eyes widened. He looked back up at the Gen 2 synth. Just as he was thinking about what to say next, he saw a logic string pop up at the bottom of his field of view. An instruction appeared that said “PROMPT.”
“WHAT IS YOUR COMMAND?” the Gen 2 asked, yet again.
“What does this mean?” Jory breathed. He had the answer before the Gen 2 spoke, the search and retrieve scrolling up into his view.
“CONTROLLER HAS EXCLUSIVE RIGHT TO BYPASS DEFAULT PROTOCOLS. OPTION TO OVERRIDE MOVEMENT. OPTION TO LAN NEARBY OPERATIVES. OPTION TO COMMUNICATE OVER DISTANCE WITH INSTRUCTIONS, REMOTELY.”
“Demonstrate!”
“AFFIRMATIVE. MOVEMENT OVERRIDE, INITIATED.”
Jory took another breath. System updates were scrolling onto his vision. Lift your right arm, he thought-commanded towards the Gen 2. It did.
Lower it. Command followed.
Jory frowned. He wasn’t sure how useful that would be, considering how inefficient it was. Can’t I just override from within, move like I do my own body? Making the thought to move and waiting for the response is just cumbersome.
“AFFIRMATIVE,” came the verbal response from the Gen 2. Before he knew what was happening, a jolt like a large static shock rocked Jory’s body. Next thing he knew, he was watching his eyes roll into the back of his head from the perspective of the Gen 2, and his body fall onto the ground. He reached forward and saw the synth’s hands probe out front of its body, to touch his human form, and roll it over.
Disengage! Disengage, right now!
He opened his eyes and gasped. The expressionless face of the Gen 2 loomed over him.
“ARE YOU ALRIGHT?”
Jory’s pulse was hammering through his veins. “Y-yes. Help me up.”
One of the Gen 1s turned and looked towards the intersection where he had encountered Rocky’s caravan all those weeks ago. “INCOMING,” it buzzed.
“What? What’s coming?”
“SENDING VISUAL.”
An image appeared before Jory’s mind’s eye. A caravan was coming down that main road, starting to emerge into the intersection. Jory couldn’t tell who the trader was from the transmitted image.
The Gen 2 pulled Jory to his feet. “WHAT IS YOUR COMMAND?”
“I…I don’t know,” he replied, starting to feel panicked.
“INVALID. UPDATE REQUIRED. CENTRAL MAINFRA—“
“Yes, yes, I know, shut up,” Jory burst out, flustered. “I need to think.”
“T-MINUS SEVEN SECONDS BEFORE CONFIRMED VISUAL CONTACT,” offered the other Gen 1.
This is bad this is bad oh this is so bad. He ran his hands back and forth through his hair as his mind worked as fast as it could to figure out a solution. I can’t be caught talking to synths. It will blow my cover, or get me tortured, or dead, or worse.
But what do I do? I can’t just…
The three synths stared at him, saying nothing. Jory gulped. There was no other choice.
That caravan is probably going to the Puritans, anyway. If I chase them off, they will end up delayed with their arrival, and maybe set the Puritans back a little, too. I stay alive, it looks like a random synth attack, no one suspects a thing.
“COMMAND?”
Jory replied with no hesitation. “Engage.”
“AFFIRMATIVE.” All three synths raised their weapons in spooky synchronicity, turned, and ran with frightening speed towards the caravan. Jory scrambled back underneath the fallen wall and made himself completely unseen. When he closed his eyes, he could see the transmitted image updates from the Gen 2.
What happened next was completely unimaginable, even after everything he’d heard from Puritans and others alike. The synths showed no mercy, moving in and shooting the caravan on sight. The Gen 2 provided instant feedback, but it was also connected to the two Gen 1s, and received their battle info as well. For the most part it looked like smoke, laser fire, blood splatter, and occasionally the twitching view of the synth taking fire. He didn’t get the audio feedback from the synth, but he could hear the fight from where he cowered. There was screaming as the laser weapons severed some limbs and wounded others, taunting in the robotic synth voices, grunts, battle calls, and the distressed cawing of the pack brahmin.
One of the Gen 1s fell. He didn’t see or hear it, but the instant feedback report showed it as so. The Gen 2 was taking damage but holding its own, and the other Gen 1 lost use of one of its arms and sustained heavy damage to its midsection. Jory plugged his ears in an attempt to stop hearing the fight, but it was no use. The feedback from the Gen 2 was clear, and immediate. Both caravan guards had fallen, one decapitated, the other out of commission with wounds likely to kill him. The remaining fighter, which Jory guessed was the trader, seemed to be trying to fall back but kept reloading and shooting at the synths.
It felt like years, but finally the sounds of battle ceased and were replaced with the approaching footsteps of the synths returning to Jory’s little hideout. He emerged to meet them. The Gen 1 that remained was shooting sparks off its body, not unlike the one encountered as he and Ethan Holly had made their way back to the camp from the old daycare. The Gen 2 appeared to have sustained a few bullet holes, but its system report showed generally an all clear.
“COMMAND?” the Gen 2 prompted, as if on cue.
“Disengage all connections. Now.” Jory wanted nothing more to do with being able to see the inner workings of a synth. His body buzzed with a static shock once more, and the digital information was gone.
“AFFIRMATIVE. WHAT ARE YOUR ORDERS?”
“Don’t you get it? Leave me alone! This, all this, could be really bad for me! Turn off whatever it is calling you to me and just…just go away, okay? The Institute is gone forever. We can’t go home. We can never go home.” His voice cracked unexpectedly.
The Gen 2 didn’t immediately respond. Jory thought he could almost hear the electronic relays communicating between each other within its head. “NEGATIVE. THIS UNIT CANNOT DISABLE CALL SIGNAL. OVERRIDE THETA OMEGA REQUIRED.”
“That’s not funny. Disable the homing beacon right now and call it a day.”
“NEGATIVE. OVERRIDE THETA OMEGA REQUIRED. DO YOU HAVE THE PASSCODE?”
Jory blinked. “What? Of course I don’t. I didn’t even know I was carrying that tech.” He sighed. The synths were built a little too well. “I have your orders.”
“PROCEED.”
“Go north. There’s a military checkpoint with a sentry bot. Engage the bot. Also, you and the other synth,” Jory gestured towards the Gen 1, “are to complete this task and go back to your default. You do NOT follow the call signal override, ever again. I must be authorized to issue that command?”
The Gen 2 hesitated. “WE WILL ENGAGE THE SENTRY BOT AT THE CHECKPOINT. REVERT TO DEFAULT REQUIRES THETA OMEGA PASSCODE OVERRIDE. DO YOU HAVE TH—“
“Fucking hell – no, I don’t have the passcode,” Jory interrupted, exasperated. “Engage the sentry bot. Retreat forbidden. Understood?”
“AFFIRMATIVE.” The Gen 2 turned to nod at the Gen 1, then both synths plodded along the road towards the north.
Jory spent several moments with his mind swirling in a tornado of confusion. He realized that he needed help making sense of what happened, and if there were any true synth authorities he could ask, the Railroad was it. He pulled the second note from the inside of his jacket and dove into his bag for his pencil. On the back side of the paper, he wrote a single line, before folding it and tucking it into his last dead drop:
let’s do lunch two days from now, meet me at the lake.