The Mother Code Read online

  “The dust storms,” he said. “Looks like they survived that big one two days ago. But Mac has picked up a much larger one on the satellite, and more behind it.”

  “It was just a matter of time . . .” William muttered. He turned toward Rick. “We need to figure out a way to get them all out of here.”

  Rick refocused his glasses. Where was Rho-Z? “My guess is that the third bot couldn’t have gone too far. Maybe it went to get water?” Suddenly he caught a glimpse of something, a thin child with darkly tanned skin, climbing down from the bot closest to the cave entrance. “See there?” he said.

  “Yes.” William smiled. “But that other bot . . . She’s yours, right?”

  Squinting, Rick searched the second bot for the bright yellow tattoo. He felt a surge of welcomed relief. He could see it now—a streak of yellow peeking out from beneath the grime at her wing’s edge. “Right,” he murmured. “The one I’ve been looking for.”

  He willed himself to stay calm. But his heart skipped a beat as Rho-Z’s hatch cracked open and a boy emerged—a boy with bushy hair like his, reddish brown like Rose’s. The boy moved in a familiar way, his arms held crooked at the elbows, his posture stooped slightly forward as he made his way down to the ground. As the boy turned back to face his Mother, she reached her powerful arm toward him, the gauntlet at the back of her hand opening. Her yellow tattoo glinted in the sun as her soft inner hand emerged to touch the top of the boy’s head.

  “Kai . . .” Rick breathed.

  “What?”

  “If it was a boy, she wanted to name him Kai. That would be his name.” The desert was silent, the sound of his own weak pulse the only thing in Rick’s ears. He closed his eyes, imagining the life that might have been—a house in the country, a wife, a son . . . He heard Rose’s voice. Safe in his embrace, she’d whispered to him on the night before he lost her.

  “Did Detrick okay our request?”

  “Yes. But if the fertilization didn’t go well, they had my permission to use another donor’s sperm.”

  “I don’t want another donor.”

  “But, Rose, I want you to have a baby.”

  He watched the boy bring something up to his mouth—a water bottle. He had water. But of course he would. He was smart, like his mother. Resourceful, like his father. His son. This was his son. He was sure of it now. A tear streaked down Rick’s face as, reluctantly, he removed the glasses. How he wished Rose could be here . . .

  Rose? He turned his head, looking for her on the road behind him. She wasn’t there. But he remembered her voice—urgent, pleading, her eyes locked on Blankenship’s as they sat in his cramped Pentagon office: We need those Code Black homing coordinates, General . . .

  Rick turned over on his back, clamping his eyes shut. How he wished he could hear that voice again. How many things had she tried to tell him, when he’d been too distracted or pigheaded to listen? Even her final words had been lost in the heat of the moment. His mind reached out, trying to remember . . .

  Then he heard her, calling out from the bunker at Langley: I know I didn’t follow procedure. Special protocol . . .

  He opened his eyes, staring up at the pearlescent sky. Had Rose, in the end, done something without authorization? In her desperation, might she have gone ahead and inserted the coordinates herself? But if she had, why hadn’t the Mothers homed? Tell Kendra . . . Kendra had turned over every rock in her search for a solution. She’d looked everywhere, except . . .

  “I’ve got an idea,” he said. “Maybe Rose can help.”

  “Rose? But—”

  “I need to get to San Francisco.”

  * * *

  IN THE FILTERED atmosphere of the transport cockpit, Rick removed his mask. Like the bots, the transport could fly at ten thousand feet or lower, skimming the tops of mountain peaks, darting through valleys. In the ’30s, the ominous thwack of its triple blades had become an all-too-familiar signature of U.S. involvement in the Israeli Water Wars, and in the later skirmishes at the India-Pakistan border. But his mission today was a peaceful one. Today he flew at altitude, skimming the clouds. Running his hand over his unshaven chin, he caught sight of the gleaming towers of the once great city of San Francisco, rising through the fog like masts. He imagined the life that had once pulsed here, now extinguished.

  William, asleep in the seat to his right, was his only passenger. His motorcycle occupied the midsection of the rear cargo space, surrounded by a case of MREs, six five-gallon carboys of fresh water, fresh filter canisters for his mask, and a few extra phones. The supplies were all “just in case.” This was to be a surgical strike.

  Intentionally avoiding the city, they soared in across the bay to make a soft landing at Crissy Field, the overgrown marsh grass almost enveloping their craft. Filtered through thick fingers of fog, the dim yellow glow of the sun illuminated the worn red roof of the nearby hangar. Rick flipped on the cockpit light and groped on the floor for his rifle. Strapping the rifle over his back, he checked his pocket for his inhaler, then for the small, rectangular external storage drive that Kendra had given him. Donning his filter mask, he strapped on his leg, opened the pilot’s-side door, and hoisted himself down to the sodden ground.

  “We there?” William rubbed his eyes, peering down at him.

  “Yup.”

  With William’s help, Rick popped the back side door and activated the ramp to bring down his motorcycle. As he mounted the cycle he breathed deep, as deep as his failing lungs and his mask would let him. He sensed the familiar weakness, the tingling in his hands and feet, the creeping mental confusion. He should have heeded Edison’s pleas to undergo lavage before venturing out here. But time was ticking for the children in the desert. Kai was out there. If the files at the Presidio could offer any clue as to how to call them . . . he had no time to worry about himself.

  Cold sea mist seeped under his jacket, wetting his skin. He thought of Rose, how she’d loved this fog . . . “Hop on,” he said.

  Rick gunned the cycle toward Lincoln Boulevard, heading south. In a stubbly field off to his right he spotted a mangy dog, foraging for food. Ironic, that humans had once worried so much about destroying wildlife habitats; now those “lesser species,” unaffected by IC-NAN, were multiplying out of control in areas formerly dominated by humans. The rabbits and coyotes he’d come across in the desert were timid enough. But the spawn of former pet dogs and cats, rabid and starving, and the mountain lions and bears of the California hills, always on the prowl, might pose more of a threat.

  They swung right to pass a row of boarded-up houses. Straight ahead was the Presidio Institute.

  Rick could see the remains of the little ballpark where the members of the institute’s staff had once made their way around the bases, and the now-overgrown field where they’d held picnics and flown kites. Overlooking these, the window of Rose’s office on the second floor of the Mission Revival–style headquarters offered a commanding view of the other institute buildings. Scanning their dark windows, Rick shivered. If there were any human remains, he supposed they would be here. Slowly, he circled the field to pull up in front of the headquarters. William shouldered a rifle he’d strapped to the back of the cycle and followed him up the cement steps to the main entrance.

  The door hung open, and a layer of gritty dust littered the lobby floor, a light breeze carrying it up the staircase to their right. Rick’s breath hitched. From across the room, a face was staring at him. Reflexively, he reached for his rifle . . .

  But behind him, William remained at ease. The man across the room was not a man at all—not anymore. “He’s dead, Rick,” William mumbled.

  As Rick’s eyes adjusted to the gloom, more ghosts appeared. A group of five—mere skeletons, picked clean. Their tattered uniforms—for they were all military—were in disarray. At the table where they sat, whisky bottles sat empty. Old playing cards were scattered like discarded
love notes. Their service rifles lay on the floor. And except for the man who’d first caught his eye, all were slumped in their seats.

  He shook his head, forcing his eyes to focus instead on a rectangular metal door set into the side wall—marked “Power Station.” He yanked on the handle and the door swung open. But to his chagrin, the solar storage batteries were all gone, ripped from their moorings. “I don’t blame them,” he said, imagining a scramble in the end, a vain attempt by some to leave the plague-ridden city. “We brought replacement batteries, right?”

  “Two spares, in the back of the transport,” William said. “But couldn’t we just bring the computer home?”

  “We can’t be sure if what we came for is on Rose’s computer or somewhere else in networked storage. I promised Kendra I’d power up the Presidio network and link it to Los Alamos.”

  “Okay. Just sit tight.”

  As William headed back out, Rick surveyed the ruins. In the twelve years since the Epidemic, he’d made a point of avoiding scenes like this—abandoned cities; dead families cowering in crumbling houses; cars loaded high with luggage, headed nowhere. But it was hard—they were everywhere. His leg throbbing, he made his way up the stairs toward Rose’s office. Her door, so familiar, creaked open at his touch, and he peered into the wood-paneled dim. Thank God—no skeletons here. Exhausted, he slumped onto the divan along the left wall, sinking into its dusty leather cushions . . .

  He could see Rose, just across the room, her silhouette in the window. “I’m telling you, Rick,” she said, “I can’t quite get used to the way you people do things . . .”

  “You’re one of us now,” Rick murmured. “One of us . . .”

  “Rick?” William’s disembodied voice piped up the stairs from the lobby.

  Rick turned toward the door, jolting awake. “Up here!” he called.

  “I installed the batteries. Everything’s up and running.”

  Wrenching himself off the sofa, Rick rubbed his eyes and steadied himself against the wall. He hobbled to Rose’s desk, plopped down on her chair, and flipped on the computer. To his relief, her screen emitted its familiar green glow. Safety Mode. OK to proceed?

  He pressed “enter,” and an empty dialog box appeared. Slowly, he keyed in Rose’s secure password, transcribing it character by character from the display on his wrist phone. He closed his eyes as he pressed “enter” again. When he opened them, Rose’s home screen was there—a photo of the Golden Gate Bridge underlying an orderly array of icons that marched toward him as though in three dimensions. He touched the radio icon and used a second code to switch it on, enabling the secure satellite connection with Kendra at Los Alamos that Rose had used to transmit code. There was only one thing left in Kendra’s list of instructions. Just in case the satellite connection wasn’t up to snuff, he plugged the external drive into a port on Rose’s computer and activated a system download.

  As the drive loaded he watched the display, the background photos shuffling through familiar scenes of redwood forests, rolling fields, rounded hills—all the sights that Rose had loved. His gaze drifted to a panel on the right-hand side of the screen: Personal Journal.

  Raising his index finger, he pointed to the header. But the file didn’t open. Instead, he was greeted with yet another dialog box, requesting yet another password. Luckily, Rose tended to keep these subpasswords simple. “Gen5,” he typed. No. He clamped his eyes shut. Two more tries before Kendra would have to hack in. “Journal,” he typed, the simplest of passwords. Access Denied. Then he remembered. “Rho-Z.” The Mothers had initially been issued numeric barcodes, each containing the usual information—project number, date of manufacture, operating system rev, followed by the numbers 01 through 50 to designate the specific bot. But these numbers held no meaning for Rose. It had been her idea to name them using letters of the Greek alphabet, followed by letters of the English alphabet, in a system that mimicked the name of the donor mother. She was Rho-Z, Bavishya Sharma was Beta-S. In some small way, it helped her to realize the humanity inside each of them. “And when the children are born,” she said, “their Mothers will have names they can say.”

  Rick smiled as the file opened, a list of entries spilling down the screen in reverse chronological order. He leaned forward, squinting at the last journal entry:

  May 23, 2053

  Rick will be here tomorrow to help with the presentation. Thank God. Not sure I’m ready for the questions. I hate all these secrets.

  With a sigh, he brought up a search dialog and typed in “Code Black.” The response was immediate:

  May 14, 2053

  Shipped the latest rev of the Gen5 code to Kendra at 0900. No decision has been handed down on Code Black. Specifically, on the location specified for their gathering. It keeps me up nights, thinking about those poor things wandering alone in the desert. But the issue hasn’t gotten any traction. For no reason at all, they’ve severely downgraded the probability of a Code Black launch.

  Pending an official call, I’ve made my own. I’ve built in code to call them here.

  His eyes widening, Rick read on.

  They’ll have food, water, whatever they might need. I stocked up Building 100 after we cleared it out. Useful tools, cookware, tableware, etc. The homing protocol includes the coordinates of the old storage shed on the Main Post, currently being used to store the supplies for the archaeological dig. We can leave other supplies there.

  Then he saw it:

  SPC = “Please and Thank You.” Two things my father taught me never to forget.

  SPC. According to Kendra, this was the “special protocol command,” the key command necessary to turn on an ancillary program. It was the treasure he’d come seeking. Rick sank back into the arms of Rose’s chair. He could feel his heart fluttering weakly in his chest. “Special protocol . . .” he murmured. “Why, Captain McBride. And here I thought you didn’t like secrets.”

  * * *

  BY THE TIME they emerged onto the front porch, the sun was high in the sky.

  “Ready?” William said.

  Through the resistance of his filter mask, Rick drew in a breath. Then he pulled the mask briefly away from his face to cough out a spray of pink sputum. His vision wavering, he noticed that his fingertips were a sickly blue in the crisp daylight.

  “Geez, Rick. You look like hell.”

  “I feel like hell. But I got what I came for.”

  “Here, let me drive.” William boarded the cycle.

  With the last of his strength, Rick hefted his prosthetic leg over the seat. His arms looped around William’s waist, he watched the roads of the Presidio speed beneath their wheels. The cycle stopped, and he allowed William to help him up into the transport passenger seat. He felt the man’s able hands securing his safety harness. Next to him, the door closed.

  He heard the pilot’s-side door slam shut, then the silence of the cabin. Then he heard William’s voice, as if from far away. “Let’s get you some clean air.” He heard the air system engage, and felt William’s hands again, unclasping his filter mask.

  “. . . you sure you can fly . . . ?”

  “You taught me, remember?” William assured him. And soon, he felt the familiar downward push as the transport rose slowly up from the reeds.

  As his head lolled back on the seat, Rick’s mind returned to Rose’s sunlit apartment, the deep nest of her clean white sheets.

  27

  JAMES LEANED AGAINST the bench next to the DNA synthesis machine, his mind lulled by its hum. He’d never been the NAN synthesis expert—this job, both tedious and demanding of unique skills, had been relegated to Rudy and his team. But Rudy had had plenty of time to train him on the process at Los Alamos, and they’d been taking turns monitoring the C-343 production. The lavage system at the hospital in Polacca required substantially more antidote than did their inhalers. A few failed batches had put them behind. And now, in the roo
m where Sara had died, Rick Blevins lay gasping for air. They needed more antidote, and fast.

  He stared at the machine, its small robotic arms whirring through an unending series of intricate operations beneath its dark glass. He no longer had the energy to man the synthesis overnight, and Rudy was going through a bad patch. They’d run out of precursors years back—now they relied on the Hopi scouts to raid bio labs in Santa Fe and Phoenix for supplies. Soon they’d have to train Hopi techs, just to keep up the production.

  “James?” He turned to find Kendra standing in the doorway. Her hands were empty, folded in front of her, devoid of the tablet that was her constant companion.

  “How’s the general?” He didn’t like the look on her face.

  “Pulling through. But it’s slow going this time.”

  James took a deep breath, enduring the tightness in his chest that was now a constant. He swallowed down the feeling of weakness that went beyond the physical, of anger with no target. He hadn’t been the one to launch IC-NAN into the biosphere. He hadn’t been the one to send off the Gen5 bots, without any assurance that he could ever get them back. Those things had been done by people more powerful than he—people like the general. But he couldn’t afford to think about that now.

  He pushed back from the bench. One foot in front of the other. “As I understand it,” he said, “Rick Blevins has found a way to call the Gen5s?”

  “Seems so. I’ve studied the downloads from Rose McBride’s computer. And I’ve figured out how to implement her SPC.”

  “SPC?”

  “The special protocol command. The one that will activate Dr. McBride’s code to home the Mothers to the San Francisco Presidio.”

  “San Francisco? We can’t home them directly to the Hopi mesas?”