Chapter 51
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Captain Cooper took charge, directing the crowd through their confusion. He sent a group of soldiers to escort the children, elders, and sickly to the forward camp, and then turned to the remaining people.
“The rest of you, with me.” The captain didn’t wait to see if they followed. He and his troops marched north, toward the market.
Most of the remaining humans followed.
A high, wailing sound echoed over Cheyenne.
Lara had never heard the noise before, but her body reacted to it on a primitive level, her stomach sinking and her skin prickling with a sudden chill.
Her mind flashed to the horrific scene outside Newton’s shelter, where she’d been helpless as she watched the gearheads shoot Ronin, pin him on the ground, and pull his power cell.
She turned her face toward the wall, chest constricting.
Ronin was fighting those very bots now, and she felt the same helplessness because she didn’t know what was happening, because she wasn’t there to help him.
Because he was so close to her and yet so far out of reach. Lara despised this feeling.
Please, please be safe.
“You were right,” Cooper said, jarring Lara from her thoughts.
She looked at him. “About what?”
His eyes were on the shacks, on the filth and waste piled around them. “We need to help these people. I can’t… Seeing them now, how they’ve suffered…” He shook his head and met her gaze. “How you suffered. I understand your anger.”
Lara nodded. The captain and his people were helping, and that was more than she’d expected when she first met the base’s inhabitants.
The gate into the market was open, as it normally was, but the activity beyond was unusual for this time of day. The rising sun cast long shadows over everything, including the bots gathered amidst the stalls.
Several gearheads, touting guns, shoved through the mechanical crowd, hurrying toward the bot district. The hulking door guard from Kitty’s, Comp, trudged behind them.
Captain Cooper brought the humans to a halt and waited until the gearheads were out of sight before proceeding forward.
Greene was at his stand, tending steaming pots and pans as though nothing unusual was happening. Some of the other bots—mostly the ones that didn’t look human—also continued their normal routines, seemingly undisturbed by the commotion and confusion.
The gate between the market and the bot district was open. The pair of gearheads guarding it stared northeast, toward the clinic, ignoring the bots streaming out of the district.
More gunshots boomed from the clinic, each one jolting Lara’s heart.
“Chester, stay with Newton and Lara,” Cooper ordered. “The rest of you, take up positions around the perimeter of the crowd. We’re the only defense any of these people have right now. Do not hesitate to fire on the guards at the gate if they make a move.”
As the humans entered the market, clumping together to form a group separate from the bots, the soldiers spread out.
Lara glanced over her people. They were a bedraggled bunch, malnourished and rough, and many of them carried makeshift weaponry—lengths of old piping, sharpened metal shards with cloth wrapped around one end, wooden planks. Gary stood at the front, bloody knife in hand.
Such weapons would be useless against the gearheads, but if the people were willing to fight, and if Newton could convince the other bots to help…
Lara pointed to an empty stall. It was little more than a heavy wood board set across several stacks of cinderblocks, but it would have to do. “There, Newton. Get their attention.”
“Not exactly conventional, but I suppose that convention is the least of our concerns in this situation…unless it is defiance of the current—”
“I have no idea what the hell you’re talking about, but I sure as shit hope they will. Get to it.”
“Right.” Newton walked to the stand. “Things were simpler by far when I was just a computer program.”
“Stay close to me,” Chester said, positioning himself in front of Lara with his back to her and Newton.
With surprising grace, Newton climbed atop the board. His shoulders sagged for a few moments before he straightened and turned to face the crowd. “Bots, humans, synthetics, lend me your ears!”
Lara arched a brow. This was on him now. As long as he convinced the bots to fight alongside the humans, she didn’t care what he said or how weird it sounded.
Many of the bots shifted their focus to Newton, some with questioning looks on their faces—not that their expressions were easy to read.
Except for Greene’s, anyway. Blank was a simple one.
“I should’ve anticipated that the reference would be lost on you,” Newton said to himself. He released a short burst of static, as though clearing his throat. “I doubt any of you know my face. I hardly know it, myself. But as I look at you, I recognize the faces of every bot here.
“It has been many years since I last traveled this world to perform my work. Many years since most of you awoke…”
“I know that voice,” said one of the bots, stepping forward. “But it can’t be.”
“The Prophet,” another offered.
Murmurs of agreement rose from the bots. Lara glanced toward the gate. The guards had been joined by two more gearheads, and they were all staring at Newton.
Shit.
“That is what many of you took to calling me, yes, but my name is Newton. One hundred and ninety-seven years ago, I was sent out into the wasteland, tasked with repairing and reactivating all the bots I could find. The goal was to rebuild the world, hand-in-hand with humanity.”
“You saying you turned all these things on?” one of the humans demanded.
They’d been sparked to anger now, and they had tasted blood. Volatility pulsed from them in waves.
“Listen to what he has to say,” Lara shouted over the growing clamor.
Brow plates furrowing, Newton spoke loudly, but gently.
“Your anger is understandable. It is justified. I largely blame myself for the state of the world, with Cheyenne being no exception. I hid from what I perceived as my failure for decades. Not far from here, in fact. And for all that time, I never truly knew what was happening here, never knew what you’ve all been forced to endure.
“But because of the courage of Lara Brooks, I chose to leave hiding and remember the mission I accepted all those decades ago.” Newton turned his head to fully face the bots.
“For all the data flooding my memory bank, I was a fool.
I focused only upon the literal task I had been given, on waking my kind, and assumed that a better world would follow naturally.
“I recognize my folly now. For this world to improve, it will take ceaseless toil, unwavering dedication, and vision that can only be achieved together. And though it is difficult work, it is the most worthwhile work we can undertake. Whatever our specific programming, that is our core purpose. That is our reason. To improve this world for everyone within it.”
He spread his arms, sweeping his gaze over the human crowd.
“I cannot right the wrongs that have been done to you, nor can I heal the wounds that have been heaped upon your hearts, bodies, and souls. But I can stand with you here and now and offer my hand in solidarity. Our kinds were always meant to work together for a common cause.”
All four gearheads approached, and as they drew closer, Lara recognized the synth in front.
Northside. He’d been the one who’d said he wanted a go with Lara when Ronin brought her to the bot district, and he’d been in the group that had followed them out of Cheyenne.
He’d been the one who shot Ronin outside Newton’s bunker.
She dropped her hand to the pistol on her thigh. Fury burned hot within her.
Newton’s eyes shifted back to the crowd of bots. “You know that the acts carried out here are atrocities against all we were built for. You know that each and every one of us was meant for better than this.”
“You need to disperse immediately,” Northside said, pointing his gun at Newton. “The penalty for stirring up trouble in Cheyenne is deactivation. Doesn’t matter who you claim to be.”
“Put your weapons down,” Captain Cooper commanded. He and several of his soldiers emerged from the anonymity of the crowd, rifles trained on the gearheads.
The other three gearheads glanced at one another, expressions blank, but Lara swore she saw uncertainty in their eyes.
Tense silence enveloped the crowd.
Northside stared at Newton. “Not going to give you another warning.”
Newton returned his gaze. “You do not have to be the thing he twisted you into. You have the ability to choose, to shape your own existence.”
“You don’t seem to understand.” Northside’s eyes shifted, falling on Lara.
His upper lip stretched in a grin made impossibly grim and menacing because of the skin missing from his lower jaw.
“Warlord’s will is law around here. He’s the reason we prosper.
So you’re going to disperse, or none of you will live long enough to regret this. ”
“Would he think twice before he tore you apart?” Lara moved her gaze from Northside to his companions. “The moment you cross him or disappoint him a little too much, he’ll have you in pieces. You’re junk to him. Scrap.”
“He only ends those deserving of punishment. The troublemakers. Doesn’t matter how fuckable they are.”
Everything moved with incredible slowness as Northside twisted, swinging his weapon toward Lara.
She found herself staring down the gaping barrel of his gun.
There was only endless darkness in there, eager to swallow her.
She clenched the grip of her pistol, but it weighed a thousand pounds, and her arm was too weak and sluggish to pull it free.
He squeezed the trigger just as Chester darted in front of her.