Chapter 5 A Vast, Decaying World #2
The sun is getting high in the sky. The ocean is shining on the horizon like a thousand diamonds. It’s been years since I saw the sea. Maybe we could do a little detour to the coast before heading back to the Market. Vex deserves to take a closer look.
“Something is happening over there,” she says, pointing to the coast.
I frown. It’s too far for me. “What do you see?”
“Humans and big animals. They do seem too small to be old gods. One of them is on the ground.”
I run back to the truck and grab my binoculars.
“Horses,” I say. “I’ve never seen one in real life!”
In the valley below, there is a group of people with horse-pulled carriages.
Those animals aren’t known to survive the conditions in the wastelands.
They need pastures to graze. They must have come from the north; some parts along the coast are still green.
One of the horses fell in a ditch, and eight men and women are struggling to pull it out.
They’re all wearing leather clothes that look straight out of a historical movie.
“We should go and help them,” I say.
Vex turns to me. “Is it safe?”
“We can never be sure. But I saw children in one of the carriages.”
And I want to think that the world can still be a better place where humans help each other to survive and thrive.
We climb back into the truck and drive to the valley.
By the time we reach them, the men and women have pulled out honest-to-gods bows and crossbows but they’re not aiming them at us yet. I slow down as we get closer and wave frantically to express that we’re friendly. I keep the gun in my belt but don’t grab it.
“Hello! We’re just here to help!” I say, coming out of the truck.
They relax visibly.
“Perri…” starts Vex.
“Stay in the truck for now. I’ll see what we can do.”
“One of our horses is stuck,” says a man wearing a green cape as I walk to him. He’s really tall, with brown hair and a square jaw.
They’ve all put their weapons away. They look like travelers from older times.
Their carriages, too, are made entirely of wood.
I go around one of them and find the poor beast. Its eyes are wide and panicked.
It’s struggling to get out of the ditch, even with five men and women pulling on ropes. I join the team effort.
But soon enough, it’s evident that we’re hurting the horse. It’s thrashing in pain. Tears well into my eyes. I could never stand the suffering of any living being. Stellan was always the one who hunted and fished before we lived in the Traveling Market.
Vex comes out of the truck. The fourteen men, women, and children gasp and freeze as they notice her.
“What on earth…?” says the man wearing the cape. He steps up, his hands going back to the crossbow on his back.
“Oh, Vex is fine!” I shout, putting myself between the group and my friend. “Don’t be scared. She’s an AI. She’s just like you and me, but with a different body.”
Vex comes to stand behind my back. “I just wanted to help the horse,” she says. “I think I can be of help.”
The group stares at us for a good while. Until, at last, one woman whispers something in their leader’s ear, and he nods.
“Sorry,” he says slowly. “You took us by surprise. But please, your help would be appreciated.” He gestures towards the struggling horse.
Vex walks among them and they step away from her, wary. My heart gives a painful twinge at the sight of their suspicion. She’s new to the world; she’s purer than they can imagine.
The horse, too, shies away from her. But she slowly lowers herself into the ditch and to its side.
The beast kicks and pushes. It would be terribly dangerous for any human to find themselves in this position.
Bones would break. However, Vex’s creators didn’t joke around when they built her; she’s made of tougher material than any of us.
She places her arms under the animal and gently pushes it out of the ditch, her pale face resting on its sweaty flank.
When the horse is finally out, lying in the dust, Vex shushes it with a hand on its muzzle.
I help her out of the ditch. Two of our new acquaintances run to care for the horse.
“Vex, that was amazing,” I say, holding her hands.
She smiles. “It was nothing.”
The tall leader and two women gather around to thank us. The others stay well away. I can’t blame them for their ignorance.
One of them offers me a bottle of water. It’s barely eight in the morning and we’re all sweating profusely. The sun is as unrelenting as always in the wastelands, even though we’re entering winter soon.
“I’ve never seen a machine like it,” says their leader. “Where does it come from?” he asks me.
I frown at the use of the word it. Vex is not an it.
“Her name is Vex,” I say, gesturing to my friend to continue.
“I’m an Artificial Intelligence created before the Rise,” she says. “I was built to become a great help to humankind. Perri saved me. I’m indebted to him.”
I snort. “You owe me nothing, Vex. We’re friends, aren’t we?”
Her perfect teeth shine like pearls in the sun as she smiles.
The man nods thoughtfully. Then to me, he says, “And you, Perri? What’s your story?”
“Oh, I’m just a hacker and engineer. If you have anything technological that needs looking at before we leave, I can do it,” I say, eyeing their wooden carriages.
“We don’t,” he says curtly.
The vibe feels… off. They keep staring at us. Stellan often says that I’m oblivious to the dangers of the world. That I’m so eager to see the good that I don’t see the bad coming.
And yet, I feel something coming right now, and it doesn’t feel good.
“Thank you for the water,” I say. “Happy to help, but we’re kind of in a hurry. Vex, let’s go.”
She must have caught on to something in my voice because she immediately follows.
But before we can reach my truck, the men and women gather around us, hands on their weapons once again.
I reach for my gun, and their leader raises his crossbow.
Vex throws herself between us, and the bolt ricochets over the plate of her chest. I shout in horror.
An arrow takes me in the calf, and I stagger back.
Before I have time to push through the pain and surprise, one of them is on me.
He kicks me in the ribs and rips the gun out of my hands.
Vex tries to throw herself over me but two women come back from a carriage with ropes and use them as lassos to catch her, as if she’s nothing more than unruly cattle. Once they have a hold of her, Vex stops resisting.
Tears are streaming down my face as they tie me up. What have I done? Why did I make a detour to help them? If Stellan had been here, none of this would be happening.
They throw me beside Vex.
“I’m sorry, Perri,” she tells me, her artificial blue eyes full of anguish. “I can’t fight them. I have to obey the three laws of robotics.”
We’ve talked about it before. I knew she couldn’t act against humans. The laws are intertwined with her existence. She can’t harm or disobey humans.
I brought her into this mess only hours after giving her freedom.
“Why?” I cry out to our captors. “Why are you doing this to us?”
Their leader crouches in front of me and says, “You’ll be the perfect sacrifices. Thank you for offering yourself up.”
I don’t like the sound of that at all.
“Fuck you,” I say. Dust clings to my wet cheeks.
One of the two people who have been tending to the panicked horse announces, “Marcus. It can’t go on. Its back leg is broken.”
Marcus—their leader and our soon-to-be executioner—sighs deeply and walks to the horse still on the ground. He places another bolt in his crossbow and, ignoring my pleas and screams, shoots the bolt between the animal’s eyes.