“When we’re actually dying, are you going to brag that you were right? I’m just curious,” Marc says.
“Shut up,” I tell them.
The ceiling lights hum on half-power. It’s darker than I’m used to, especially after the Aurora Borealis. I’m blinking and feeling my way with my hands.
We find another elevator. Beckon it. This one goes down to 14.
At the very bottom, a chatter along with the click-clack of hard shoes slows us down.
“People?” Marc asks.
We find around thirty settlers squatting in the cafeteria. They’ve made their own shelter, stocked with giant boxes from Wal-Mart, gallon-sized liters of gasoline stolen from the AFB gas stations, and scores of ivy and palm plants, which strikes me as brilliant—they’ll scrub the air. I walk into the room like I’m supposed to be there. Nobody raises a gun, which I take as a good sign. My guess is, they’re the families of cleaning staff and enlisted.
“Do you know where the executive hospital’s at?” I ask a young woman who’s texting on a phone that can’t possibly get reception. She shrugs. The phone’s screen is dark.
Two young soldiers approach. They’re privates, in their twenties, both fresh-faced. They’ve emptied several sleeves of beef jerky and neatly arranged the plastic into a rubber-banded circular wad. “We can show you, ma’am!”
I smile, like it’s the old world. “Great. I’m fixing to see if we can’t build a nice robot for when we need work done Above. That okay by you soldiers?”
They not only point out the hospital, but bust down Operating Room One’s door for us, and carry our robotics equipment inside.
“Like us to stand guard, ma’am?” they ask.
“Of course I would!” I say, and they do just that.
When we get to a good stopping point, I head out to my usual post. It’s dark now. Two hours until impact. Gravity’s light. I imagine Aporia’s twins across the world. Aporia Minor would be low on the horizon, just a half-moon invisible against the daylight sun. Aporia Major would seem huge by comparison, her rocky moons streaming around her like crumbs.
I place the call to Jay, but it doesn’t connect.
It occurs to me that even if we survive, we’ll evolve differently in the dark, without fresh air. I ought to give up this notion of a caretaker, who’ll turn the lights back on and usher us through our dark ages. We ought to meet our fate out in the open, with our children in our arms.
My tenth—or who knows, twentieth?—call goes through. It’s a small miracle, and I decide it’s a sign from God. I’m Midwestern, so I believe in all that. The Holy Trinity, transubstantiation, the virgin birth. Why not?
“Hey,” I say. “I love you. I hope you get this and come find me at Strat Com.” Then I’m looking at the phone, even though the connection’s still live. I ought to be saying all the right, last things, but I can’t bring myself to surrender.
“I’m going to do something desperate,” I say. “But it’s for you. And me. And the boys. No. that’s not true. It’s because I don’t know what else to do.”
“Volunteers?” I ask. It’s a bad joke. I’m back in surgical. News has traveled that there’s an operational shelter with open doors. The settlement has grown to about one hundred. My team’s been sent by someone in charge to save them. Inside the operating room, it’s just Jim, Marc, and Troy, who’s been readying the metal casings, and me.
“You really slowed us down, insisting on AI. I’d have solved the singularity by now if it wasn’t for you,” Troy says. The entire right side of his face is twitching.
“Okay. How’s your progress?” I ask.
“I think it makes sense to eliminate the parietal. It’s worse feeling the loss. They might develop phantom limb syndrome. The Network interface should provide plenty of sensory feedback.”
“You sure?” I ask. “I’m worried it’ll shock them too much, psychologically.”
Troy looks up at the cement ceiling, then around the operating room. “You’re worried about psychology?”
“Do what works for you, Troy.”
Jim and Marc show me some intercepted transmissions they’ve hacked from Shelter Nine’s network, which we’ve imported into this installation and plan to use for automation. It’s scary stuff. Before Macun’s nukes brought the whole thing down, the Dorothy cult convinced some thousand people to down cyanide pills. The National Security Council and Joint Chiefs were murdered by Shelter Nine scientists, led by the cybernetics department.
“Jesus,” I say. “What a clusterfuck. Our families? Are they gone, too?”
“The itinerary’s complete and our people weren’t listed. Looks like they made the Bluebird, but that’s all I can figure out.”
I send another enlisted out to look for them, then head back to surgical. “Volunteers?” I ask again.
Nobody answers. As their leader, it should be me. But I’m not a martyr. I want to see my family. “You’d get to live forever,” I say.
Marc lifts his hot-dog greasy fingers from the keypad. “You can’t spare me. I have the best hands.”
“No, I do,” Jim says. “I have a doctorate in medicine! I’ve actually performed brain surgery!”
“Should we ask a soldier?” Marc asks.
“No. We’ll lose their trust if it goes wrong,” I say.
We all get quiet. I smell the ammonia and metal grease. The surgical lamps are bright and I picture what’s to come. I remember reading about leeching in the 18th century, and doctors who didn’t wash their hands between surgeries. Lobotomies. Botched tracheotomies. My knees lose their lock and I’m propping myself over a surgical table.
“This is crazy. I don’t want to go out like a butcher,” I say.
There are tears in my eyes. It might be the first time I’ve cried this week. I can’t remember. It occurs to me that my family might be dead, or lost, and instead of looking for them, I’m in a mile-deep basement, parsing dendrites.
“Let’s kill ourselves,” Jim says.
Marc punches the wall.
“It’ll be easy. We’ll do it together,” Jim says.
“I want to see Jenny,” Marc says. “I was wrong when we broke up. I never told her I love her.”
I’m still crying. “This is too hard,” I say. “I can’t take it.”
Troy stands up. He pats my back, awkwardly. I don’t know what possesses me, but I hug him. “It’s okay,” I say. “We did our best. You, especially. It’s okay. I’m proud of all of you.”
“I’ll do it,” Troy says. “I volunteer.”
“No,” I say. “I won’t let you.”
“I’ve decided.”
“It’s 99.9% likely to fail,” I say.
Troy sneers. He’s terrified. “Let me do this. It’s all I’ve got.”
We do it. We insert Troy’s brain into an articulated steel husk with oxygen gills and tiny needle holes through which he can inject his own calorie serums. We connect his spine and central nerves within rubberized sheaths. When we’re done, his body’s an empty husk on the table.
I run my hand along the steel casing. We’ve pulled its articulations so that it’s exactly Troy’s height: 6’2”. Its face is carved like a human face, with camera-lens eyes that in monkeys have provided successful peripheral and central vision. Small flaps under its sharp chin open and close to intake air. The air is drawn into its chest, where it’s filtered and if necessary, converted to oxygen, then returned to the head, where it circulates through its organic brain.
I’m thinking about Troy’s mom, for some reason. Did he dream of her, watching him from the very chair in which she died, for the rest of his life? What dreams will come now?
Jim injects the calorie solution. Marc inserts the battery within the robot’s chest, then screws it closed. We’ve got plenty more suits. Plenty of parts. I can hear the crowd outside surgical. The settlement is excited. It’s something to take their mind off the Aporias.