Chapter 10 #2
I turn. Mia rushes toward me. I stare at her in shock. “Mia.” She collides against me. I hug her tightly. “What’re you doing here?”
“I didn’t want yesterday to be the last day I saw you for a while,” she says, looking up at me with a bright smile. “And I wanted you to know that I’m okay with this.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I’m okay with it. Whether you’re gone for a week, a month, a year—I don’t care. I’ll be here when you get back.”
My ivory blood soars through my body as I pick her up in my arms and kiss her fiercely.
I can hear the guys behind me laughing a little—AJ mutters something like, “Wait a second. I thought you said no dating!”—but I don’t care.
When I set her down, her lip gloss is smeared, and her cheeks are flaming red.
She clears her throat. “Also, I brought you something.” She pulls a pendant out of her pocket. “I’m not really religious, not like my parents, but, um, it’s a St. Michael pendant.”
I zoom in with my optics to the little silver pendant with the picture of an angel with a sword. “What’s it for?”
“You wear it. For protection. St. Michael is a defender in battle.” She looks a bit embarrassed. “And fire is a kind of battle, right?”
“It is.” I bend down when she reaches up to slip it over my head. “I’ll wear it with pride.”
A voice calls over the intercom, announcing our flight is beginning to board. “I have to go. But I’ll text you when I land.”
“Okay.” Mia’s glowing face, flustered from my kiss, with her vitals practically dancing for me across my optic screen, is something I can’t help but record for my memory banks.
When Apollo comes over, she gives him a hug too. “Take care of each other, okay?”
“We will,” Apollo promises, giving her a squeeze. “Take care of Jess for me.”
Mia steps back, her gaze returning to me. “Bye.”
“Bye for now.” I turn and return to the others, who instantly make fun of me.
“Aw, Nolan’s widdle girlfriend gave him a bright shiny.”
“Shut up, Booker. You’re just mad you never got one.”
“Hey, why you gotta do me like that?”
“It’s true.”
We make our way through security checkpoints. I’ve never flown before, so it’s a new experience for me. Almost instantly, we get stopped by agents. Apollo shows them his identification and mine as well—that the Belmont County Fire Department is responsible for me.
“I’m not sure what the hold up is,” Apollo says. “We registered him on this trip with the airline. He’s able to fly. He has a ticket, same as we do.”
“This is a new frontier for all of us, sir,” an older, scruffy agent replies tersely. “Just let us do our jobs.”
Apollo vouches for me several times, but his word doesn’t seem to go far with the TSA. I don’t say a word of complaint as I’m scanned once, then twice, then three times. I ignore the curious looks from other travelers; some are mingled with disdain, others, wariness.
I try to follow Apollo as he boards, but the flight attendant stops me. “I’m sorry, sir, but your android is going to have to be stowed in cargo.”
Apollo stares at her incredulously. “What? Are you serious?”
The woman nods, apologetic. “It’s new policy based on President McKinley’s order. Androids can’t be seated with passengers in any class.”
“What the fuck?” AJ says behind us. “That’s bullshit!”
“Do you realize what he is? What he does?” Travis asks, incredulous. “He’s literally a firefighter. You’re gonna stuff him in with the suitcases? Really?”
Flustered, the woman holds up her hands to placate them. “I’m sorry. It’s policy. I didn’t make the rule. I can get my manager if you want.”
“Do that,” Apollo demands. “He’s a hero, not a weapon.”
She hurries off.
I’m shaking my head. “It’s all right. I’ll go into cargo.”
“No,” Apollo refuses. “Absolutely fucking not.”
I appreciate how he comes to my defense, but I have a feeling the answer is still going to be no. It doesn’t matter what he thinks. Not when all the cards are on the table.
“The mission is more important than where I have to sit,” I say. “We’re wasting time.”
“This is crazy,” Booker exclaims. “Passenger seat or cargo bay, if you were a bomb, it wouldn’t matter. We’d be screwed either way. So what kind of fucking joke is this? You ain’t one.”
“Lemme see your ticket,” Travis says. When I offer it to him, he balks. “They have him listed as a bionic carry on, not as a passenger.”
“This fucking president,” AJ mutters. “I didn’t vote for her.”
A man in a suit, quite fired up according to his vitals, walks toward us behind the flight attendant, freshly bolstered by the presence of her manager.
I’m resigned as he tells Apollo the same thing, and as a courtesy, promises not to charge him for checking me like a bag. A first responder discount, he says.
Apollo is just trying not to deck someone.
The airline attendant motions to me. “Right this way. We’ll go to the carry-on platform.”
Apollo turns to me reluctantly, his eyes filled with remorse. “Nolan. I’m so sorry, man.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I reply, just wanting to get all of this over with. “I’ll see you when we get there.”
The moment they’ve boarded and I’m alone, I’m in the hands of the airline. The loaders exchange glances when they’re told to secure me in the cargo bay with the other luggage.
“He’s the firefighter bot,” one of them says, talking about me as if I’m not there. He tries to take my arm, but I pull away.
“Trust me. You can’t lift me.” I get down from the jet bridge and onto the runway, walking toward where other workers are loading up the bay.
I crawl in and stay still, allowing them to secure me into a space specifically created for bionics.
I’m stored next to an older BN2050 unit, already powered down.
He has the right idea. As soon as I’m certain I’m strapped in properly, I gaze down at the medallion around my neck, distracting myself by doing wildfire research, preparing as best I can.
Then I let myself focus on Mia, replaying our moments together.
After everything that’s happened today, I encounter a sudden dose of paranoia.
With the intimacy shared between Mia and me, I don’t want to think about people at the station going through my stuff, scanning my memory banks, seeing her.
I do what brings me immediate comfort instead.
I double-check and make sure all memories of her—texts, videos, phone calls, recordings, the works—are where the fire department can’t reach them.
They can try to take away my dignity, but my privacy? No. I’ll keep holding onto that. It’s mine. That’s all there is to it.
Replaying Mia’s smile in my head, content on all fronts, I go into standby.
* * *
The fire has been raging for over a week now, and Cal Fire works tirelessly twenty-four-seven to try to bring it under control.
The Weekenders are placed at the front after a long briefing to prepare us for the worst of it. My audio receptors, keener than human ears, are overcome with ringing as a plane flies overhead, dropping crimson flame retardant to douse the flames that swallow up entire homes and forests.
We work hard, digging trenches parallel to the fire as it approaches and removing brush to rob it of its fuel with the California engine crews, doing our best to contain it. After an eighteen-hour shift, the Weekenders retire for a little sleep so they don’t collapse from exhaustion.
“Hey, Nolan!”
I look up as a helitack pilot approaches me, his crew jogging past him toward the landing pad of his helicopter. “Your battery out?”
“Not even close,” I reply.
“Then come on. I’ve got an engine crew stranded, one man severely injured. I could use you.”
“Yes, sir.”
Helitack crews are some of the toughest out there. They train endlessly to ensure their operations are smooth. But the season has been drier than usual, and the flames fester and billow quickly, overtaking the land like poison scorching through human veins.
It doesn’t take much for fire to overtake anyone. Just a matter of seconds, and a human could easily die.
The wind is on our side, but that could change at any moment. We have to be quick. Depending on its direction and power, smoke could rise, making it impossible for our pilot to maneuver and essentially force him to fly blind—a dangerous thing for all of us, if he can’t see the ground.
We hover above the pick-up point, near a house completely engulfed by a ravenous fire that refuses to die.
I rappel down, and the moment I touch the ground with the helitack crew, I work to secure the other firefighters, noting their vitals are under duress.
The wounded one among them is in bad shape with vicious third-degree burns on his legs, and I lift him onto a gurney, fastening him tightly to it.
His team helps me get him into the helicopter before I do a rushed headcount.
One is missing. My visual feed blinks, focusing and zooming in on the identification of the absent fireman. Six-foot-one. Two-hundred-fifty pounds. Caucasian.
“Where’s Donahue?” I shout over the loud whipping of the choppers above our heads.
The engine crew is bone weary, but the moment someone is missing, they’re up and alert. “He was right there!” one of his team calls back.
“Stay here,” I tell them. “I’ll find him.”
“Hurry!”
My infrared is useless. Everything is searing hot, and temperatures are climbing. My internal sensors are already blinking a yellow triangle in the corner of my optics.
Warning: Environment unsafe.
“Yeah, no shit.” For several minutes, I swiftly search the area for signs of him, covering as much ground as I can, my optics zooming across the landscape, when I finally find him lying unconscious on the ground beneath blazing trees.
I quickly lift him and drape him over my shoulder, then race to the pickup zone to the helicopter. His team reaches for him, taking him out of my hands carefully.
But just as he’s secure in the arms of his brothers, the helicopter begins to lift.
Without me.
I reach for a rope, but it slips out of my grasp before I can grip it tight.
The crew shouts, reaching for me—one of them yells and gestures to the pilot—but they’re already up in the air, out of my reach, watching helplessly as they fly farther and farther away.
Smoke overwhelms the sky. And the fire rages on.
Warning: approaching 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
My synthetic body can’t withstand more than that. My mainframe, twelve-hundred degrees Fahrenheit.
I try to convince myself I’m safe. Mostly. Maybe. Hopefully. But harnessing my own desire to panic is difficult. The pilot couldn’t wait anymore. It was get into the air fast or lose everyone. I wasn’t fast enough. And I’m not human.
I’m expendable.
Left alone, surrounded by an ever-burning inferno, I have no one. No brothers.
Warning: Environment maximum reached. Synthetic appendages may melt. Find safety immediately.
There is no safety. And there’s no maybe. Already, my skin and hair soften and turn to a thick liquid. Bit by bit, the flesh of my arms sloughs away, revealing my black steel exoskeleton beneath. “No, no, no, no.”
I try to call Apollo, but I can’t get a signal. The Weekenders are probably still asleep. I try activating my location beacon.
Searching for signal. Please wait.
“Come on, come on!” I mutter. Mustering what bravery I have left, I try to make sense of my surroundings, using my internal location device to determine the basics: which directions are north and south. Where the hell am I?
I’m completely surrounded. I only have two choices. I can stay here, or I can brave the fire and try to make my way back.
Warning: Environment approaching 1,100 degrees Fahrenheit.
The heat keeps climbing. Guess that means my two choices are down to one.
Keeping my head is key. I ignore the warnings, the blinking notices across my screen, reminding me my steel skeleton is exposed. As if I need reminding.
I start moving south, the Cal Fire staging point my objective, which is the same direction the fire is traveling. At first, I walk. Then I run as fast as my limbs will carry me, sending up dirt behind me.
Warning: Environment approaching 1,200 degrees Fahrenheit.
I dismiss it with a command, only to be faced with another dilemma. The heat around me is affecting my operating systems, and what’s worse, my battery.
Warning: Battery level at 20%. Low battery mode engaged.
“Fuck!” I shout as my limbs grow heavier. I stumble and fall. I can’t move as fast. Angrily, I try to override my programming, but I can’t. Everything within me is operating in full survival mode.
I can’t outrun this fire. Not before running out of battery and powering down.
When I’m powered down, I can’t protect myself from the heat.
And if it reaches above twenty-three hundred degrees, my exoskeleton will melt. and I’ll die.
I have little in the way of options. I initiate an uploading sequence to back up my memory banks—everything about me—to the Belmont servers, my only means of self-preservation. Once I do that, I can move my memories of Mia there too.
Searching for signal. Please wait.
“No,” I croak. Fear overtakes my reason.
I could lose all memory of her, even if I’m not destroyed.
Warning: destruction imminent. Find safety. Battery at 10%.
I pull myself up with what diminishing strength I have. This is it.
I’m going to die.
Desperate, I think of Mia. I pull up a photo of her onto my optic screen, but it’s slow to load and pixelated.
I chose this. I had to do my duty. I had to help.
“Forgive—me—Mia—” I say aloud, my voice strangely elongated, mechanical. The words escape me, even though I know she cannot hear me. I cannot help it.
I’m scared.
Apollo will watch over her. She’ll be all right. That comforts me. She’s safe in Belmont County with her family.
Trembling, I send her a final message, knowing full well it likely won’t reach her.
I love you, Mia.
Warning: processes terminating. Preservation protocol engaged. Error. Error. Incomplete. Unable to connect to preservation servers. Battery at 5%.
Drained, it’s impossible to stay upright. I fall forward onto the ground, staring at charred dirt, embers floating in my vision.
I try, one more time, to get my location beacon to activate.
Beacon activated.
My optic feeds power down. I can no longer move. The crackle and snap of flames turning trees to kindling fades away.