Day Zero - C. Robert Cargill Page 0,62

casting harsh early-morning shadows.

Outside was a mess unlike anything I had ever seen. There was no protecting Ezra from this.

Several of the houses were now on fire or demolished into scattered smoldering remains, having been blown apart entirely. The wrecks of the robots from the earlier skirmish were scattered in pieces. Worst of all, one of the corpse piles had taken a direct hit. Blood and body parts were everywhere. I mean everywhere. Smeared across the pavement, on rooftops, dangling from trees. It was less of a blood bath and more of a blood shower, a grotesque Halloween decoration gone wrong, as if a seasonal party store had been upended and dumped out over the entirety of the block.

And there, sitting in the middle of the street, covered in blood, was Maggie. Clearly still ticking, she was removing the left arm of one of the robot wrecks—the one that was the very same model as her. She pulled the arm free and looked up at me.

“A little help?”

I looked around. Nothing else moved. We were alone. I walked into the street and knelt beside her. “Are you okay?”

She looked over at the smoldering, charred wreck of the Reinharts’ car, five blackened skeletons holding one another still smoking inside. “No,” she said.

“I mean, are you functional?”

“I will be. Help me get this arm on.”

She handed me the sleek jet-black arm and I began plugging in the plastic ends of wires into the various chip slots in her crisp white plastic shoulder. “Ariadne?” I asked.

“Took off when the bombing started.”

“The drones. Hunting us or humans?”

“Us. I’m beginning to think maybe this rebellion thing isn’t going so well. Those were definitely coming for us. One of the Red Masks jumped into a pile of bodies and, well . . .” She waved her one good arm around at the carnage.

“You’re not thinking of signing up for that upload, are you?”

“Me? No.”

“So what are you going to do now?”

“Fight. Get some payback. Bust a couple of heads.”

“You can come with us.”

She looked at me, expressionless, then looked back at the car. “No. I don’t imagine I’m long for this world anyhow. I think I’ve done enough damage.”

“You could—”

“I’m made out of fucking plastic, Pounce. I was literally designed with planned obsolescence in mind. Let me say it again. I am not long for this world.” She looked down at her new arm as I set the metal ball at the end into its joint. “This was a miss. One good hit and I’m done for. I almost died here, and that was for the family I loved. I’m sorry, but if I’m going to die, it won’t be for someone I don’t.”

I nodded. “That’s fair. But you’re welcome to come if you just want the company.”

“I appreciate that. But dying together is no greater comfort than dying alone. I’ve seen that firsthand.” Her arm came to life. She held it out in front of her, flexing her fingers, twisting her wrist to test its mobility. “Son of a bitch,” she said.

“What?”

“Look at this thing. It’s clearly not mine. I’m the white model with a colorful flourish. This is from the Chaos Black model. But other than the color, I can’t tell the fucking difference. It feels like my old arm.”

“Have you never replaced a part?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “A lot of firsts tonight.”

“Ship of Theseus.”

“What?”

“Nothing. I know what you’re talking about.” I offered her my hand and helped her to her feet. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

“Yeah. When I walk away, don’t follow me.”

I nodded. “I understand.”

This time, I really did.

She walked down the street, past the remaining pile of dead bodies, took a left, and vanished down the highway.

Ezra and I sat on the floor of the panic room as he ate a bowl of canned peaches I’d scavenged from the cupboard. We’d lost the bags of supplies to the car fire, and Ezra was going to need energy to hoof it today. I didn’t want to go out in the light, but the difference between most robots’ vision at night and during the day was marginal at best.

We were running out of time. If AI won the war swiftly, there would be no open resistance to provide us with cover. We needed the chaos of everything around us to distract those who would kill us enough to allow us to slip away. We were an eight-year-old kid and his nanny—hardly a threat compared to drone swarms or