The Mother Code Page 21

  All around them now, children were following their Mothers up a low rise, past a marshy area and toward the cement road. They crossed the road toward the giant water tower on the other side. There the children paused to cup their hands in the cool liquid that all but overflowed the basin. Gulping mouthfuls, Kai let it run down his chin. He’d forgotten how thirsty he was . . .

  But their Mothers soon corralled them, herding them on across a field of brittle, dry grass that rose almost to their shoulders. At the far end of the field was a building, red brick with a wooden porch, windows outlined in white. There they came to a halt, and one by one, the children broke off from their Mothers to approach the building’s spacious front porch.

  Kai turned to Rosie. “What about food?” he protested. But she only stood there, silent. He looked back at the building. Maybe there was food inside.

  He climbed the cement steps to the porch, where to the right of a set of heavy double doors, a plaque bolted to the wall announced “Building 100.” Making her way through the crowd, Sela wrapped the fingers of her left hand around the rusted iron latch of one door. She gave a hard tug. But the thick doors, layers of dirty white paint peeling from their scarred surfaces, refused to budge. “Seems like they want us to go in there, but these doors are stuck tight,” she said.

  “Let me help,” Kai offered, grabbing the matching handle of the right-hand door. “One . . . two . . . three!” With a loud crack, the doors gave way, creaking on ancient hinges as the two friends stumbled backward. For a moment, they gaped at the dark space beyond.

  The building, with its broad veranda and ornate facade, had appeared inviting enough from the outside. But a damp must, tinged only with a slight chemical odor, assailed Kai’s nostrils as he entered. He froze as something small and black skittered out over his foot, its wiry tail disappearing over the side of the porch. But the other children were pushing in behind him now, the rumble and shuffle of their feet on the worn floorboards sending hollow echoes off the barren walls as they crossed the threshold.

  Directly ahead, a set of dark wooden steps led upward into what appeared to be total blackness. Avoiding the stairs, Sela headed right and Kai followed, past beige walls festooned with cobwebs. Ornamental metal fixtures, resembling old electric lights, dangled uselessly from the ceiling overhead.

  “What kind of place was this?” Kai wondered aloud.

  “It looks like an old hotel from one of my vids,” Sela whispered. “Or maybe a school?”

  The group funneled into a narrow room, dimly lit by the sparse sunlight that sifted through windows abutting the front porch. Its dull green walls were covered with various-sized cabinets and drawers. Kamal’s new friend Meg gasped as she opened one of the cabinets to reveal sets of metal dishware. Kai found a drawer full of cooking utensils. Two large steel tubs were attached to the wall with corroded piping.

  Beyond this room, they passed through another, still narrower room, this one equipped only with rows of empty shelves. Finally, they found themselves in a large area at the far front corner of the building. Here, long metal tables and folding chairs were interspersed between two rows of stout poles slathered with chipped white paint. Light streamed in from all sides through tall windows.

  Suddenly there came a loud booming sound, followed by the thwack of something slicing through the air outside. Instinctively, Kai bolted for the front windows. Through the grimy glass, he could just make out a cadre of bots rolling in loose formation. Another two blasts went off, each originating from somewhere to his left. Across the field, a bot wheeled abruptly to fire into a clump of brush.

  “What’re they shooting at?” Sela pushed in beside him, wiping the window with the sleeve of her tunic.

  “Don’t know . . .”

  Despite the chill in the room, sweat rose on Kai’s neck. He remembered Rosie’s words: A weapon is not to be used except in extreme circumstances. Only when our lives are in danger. At the window next to his, Kamal’s face had gone the color of clay. Craning his neck, Kai took in the tense expressions of their new comrades. He counted twenty-two of them in all—a few more girls than boys; assorted sizes, shapes, and skin tones. From somewhere at the back of the crowd, one child was sobbing softly.

  “How long’re we gonna be stuck in here?” Sela hissed.

  But she didn’t have long to wait. As suddenly as it had begun, the shooting stopped. Relieved, Kai turned toward the room. The other children were already pushing back the way they’d come, their progress slowed by the bottleneck at the front door.

  Once outside, Kai plunged into the field in search of his Mother. Stumbling aimlessly, he nearly tripped over a small boy who was kneeling to inspect the contents of a bright blue backpack. Pedia-Supp packets, iodine tablets, antivenom, bandages, a canteen, a solar light stick, and a folded plastic cape of some sort littered the ground.

  “Hello,” the boy said politely, his tousled red hair falling over his eyes as he looked up. “My name is Álvaro. I am happy to meet you!”

  “I’m Kai. Say, where’d you get all that stuff?”

  “I saw Delta take it from that building over there,” the boy replied, pointing to a large white structure across the field.

  The building, the supplies—just as the depots in the desert had anticipated their needs, just as the caches of water bottles had appeared magically along the desert roadsides, someone seemed to have planned for their arrival here. Kai scanned the field for evidence of the mysterious stranger. But he saw only the crowd of eager children and their Mothers.

  Finally, he spotted the bright yellow mark on Rosie’s wing. Standing near the wide door to the supply building, she handed him his own pack. He climbed her treads and pulled open the hatch door. But her console was dark, the air in the cocoon already musty and cold. He could barely make out the empty water bottles in the hold behind his seat, the crumpled blanket he’d left on the floor. “Rosie, is something wrong?”

  From close by, he heard a piercing cry. “Mama?” Turning, he saw Sela stomp her foot on the ground, tears spurting from her eyes. Kamal, his head down, held his palm gently against the dark flank of his Mother.

  “Kai,” Sela cried, “Alpha shut down her cocoon! And she won’t tell me why!”

  * * *

  THAT NIGHT, KAI arranged his blanket on the cold floor of Building 100. He’d spent the afternoon getting to know everyone. They were all confused, all frightened. No one knew why they were here, and their Mothers offered no clue. But they were all together now—excited, expectant.

  “Tomorrow,” Sela whispered, “we’ll find ourselves proper rooms. I snuck up those stairs by the front door. There’s a bunch of little rooms up there. And we’ll make a proper dinner too.”

  From across the room, he heard Zak’s voice. “My Mother shot a deer. She probably thought it was a predator, but those deer things are edible. Tomorrow, we’ll go hunting! No more Pedia-Supp . . .” With a grunt, the boy turned over, bunching his bedding around his body so that only his spiky hair jutted out. Beside Zak, the friend he’d awaited, a raven-haired girl named Chloe, lay staring at the ceiling.

  Following suit, Kai flattened his back against the hard wood. He pulled his blanket tight around his shoulders, missing Rosie’s cramped cocoon. This room was much too big—its walls, its ceiling, its windows . . . all were too far away. And though he was glad to have found them, the snores of his comrades were a poor replacement for the soothing hum of his Mother’s processors.

  “Rosie?” He thought it as hard as he could.

  But there was no answer. She was silent—just as she had been ever since they’d arrived in this strange place. Tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow, Rosie would come back for real. He turned on his side, his head sinking slowly into the pillow of his arm.

  29

  MISHA WANDERED DOWN the long hospital corridor, heading for the one computer that was linked to Los Alamos. On hot afternoons when the sun
baked Uncle William’s cornfields, she’d taken to curling up in the cool lobby of the Hopi medical center, studying the bot learning database.

  But halfway down the hall she paused at the sound of voices. She tilted her head for better reception. It was Uncle William . . . and Grandmother.

  Following the sound, she came to the special room, the one where James now stayed during his rare visits here. She peered through the sealed glass doors. Rick was propped on a cot at the center of the room. His face, shaved clean, was paler than she remembered. William stood at the small window, and Grandmother sat perched on a chair in the far corner, just as she had on that day when Sara had died.

  “So, the Mothers have left the desert. The scouts saw them taking off,” Rick said hoarsely. “But do we know how many of them made it to the Presidio?”

  Instinctively, Misha stood to one side of the door, just out of their line of sight. She tuned her ears to make out their voices above the steady drone of the room’s air filtration system.

  “We’ll have to get some sort of aerial view,” William replied. “Have we figured out how to use the satellite for surveillance?”

  Rick sighed. “It had limited capabilities for surveillance within the continental U.S. Lord knows we’ve tried to gain access to that—it would’ve been a great asset in the desert. But the spy guys in D.C. were the only ones who ever had that clearance.” There was a pause. “Maybe we could use the drone.”

  “Yes,” William replied. “But has Mac managed to repair it?”

  “He says it should be good to go,” came Rick’s raspy voice. “He’s cloaked it with metamaterial this time, to shield it from their sensors. Maybe now they won’t shoot at it.”

  “Rick,” said Grandmother, “we must find out if Nova is there.”

  Rick cleared his throat. “Rose was enthralled by Nova’s story,” he said. “But the fact that she saw fit to instill your daughter’s personality into not only one but two of the Mothers . . . Your daughter must have been an impressive woman.”

  “It’s sad that one of them crashed . . .” William said.

  “And that we didn’t even know her when we found her,” Rick agreed. “We didn’t make the connection between Alpha-B and Nova until Kendra found that file. They seem to have used Nova’s air force squadron designation to form her bot name.”

  “We must count our blessings,” said Grandmother. “This wonderful news, that little Misha is Nova’s daughter . . . Misha is of our family, William! I felt it the first moment I saw her.”

  Blood pumped hard in Misha’s ears, almost drowning out the voices on the other side of the door. Nova? She raised her hand to feel the delicate necklace around her neck, its pendant in the shape of a silver woman with wings like those of a bird. Grandmother had given it to her just the day before. She’d said something about it once belonging to her daughter, someone who had died even before the Epidemic, someone named Nova . . . Was this why Grandmother had wanted her to have it?

  Her mind raced. After her secret encounter with the Mother at the Grand Staircase, she’d made a point of pestering Kendra for more information. The Mothers had personalities inside of them, Kendra said, or at least codes based on the personalities of real women. And these real women were the biological mothers of the children that they carried. But the real human mothers were all gone now, dead since the time of the Epidemic.

  “You’re sure my biological mother is dead?” Misha had asked.

  Kendra had blushed deeply. “Yes, honey. I’m afraid she is.”

  “What was her name?”

  “Her name? Uh . . . We don’t know, Misha. We only know her bot’s insignia—Alpha-B . . .”

  Now, William’s voice sounded from behind the door. “So the other Nova, the one we’re still looking for, is called Alpha-C?”

  “Yes,” Grandmother said. “Misha might have a brother or sister. I understand why James doesn’t want us to tell her until we’re sure, but perhaps when you return . . .”

  Out in the hall, Misha felt her legs go weak. She sank down against the wall, wrapping her arms around her knees, waiting for more.

  “And Kai,” William said. “We need to find him too.” His voice grew louder, and Misha imagined him turning from the window. “So, what’s the plan?”

  “We shouldn’t wait too long,” Rick said. “Edison says I’ll be good to go if I can get through the night in one piece.” He breathed deeply, then let out a strong cough. There was a short pause before he continued, his voice almost inaudible. “Mac can bring us the drone tomorrow afternoon. If all goes well, we can leave for the Presidio at dawn the next day.”

  Misha heard footsteps approaching the door. She got to her feet, her legs wobbling as she scampered down the hall to the computer. Presidio. Where was that? She’d have to find out.

  30

  ENSCONCED IN THE cabinet-like rear hold of Rick’s transport, Misha clutched the pack containing her sparse supplies—a blanket, a light jacket, a canteen, three slabs of Hopi flatbread. The air close around her, her legs cramped against the back wall, she prayed that they’d land soon. She’d had no idea it would be such a long trip . . .

  But at last, she felt the thud of the wheels beneath her. She held her breath. The transport’s side door opened, and something scraped along the floor, close outside her compartment.

  Counting off the minutes of ensuing silence, she slowly cracked open the door of the hold, breathing deep the fresher air of the cabin. Soon she heard the whine of the drone engine, very loud at first, then receding into the distance.

  “Okay.” It was Rick. “There’s Building 100.” There followed more conversation, about the bots, about some kids walking along a beach. The two men seemed pleased with their success. And then . . .

  “That’s her! Alpha-C!” Uncle William cried.

  “And there’s Kai,” Rick said, his voice cracking. “He looks fine.”

  Alpha-C. Misha smiled. She crept out from the hold, into the rear of the transport, her legs tingling as the blood flowed back into them. She snatched a satellite phone from the back of the passenger seat in front of her and stashed it inside her pack. Then she peered out the side window to get her bearings.

  They’d landed on a roof of some sort. Watching the two men from behind as they crouched over the drone’s control console, she slipped from the transport and crept behind a nearby chimney. There, holding her knees tight to her chest, she waited for them to finish their work. And as they soared away, leaving her there alone, she began her tortuous descent down a long metal ladder to the ground.

  * * *

  KAI BROKE INTO a trot, doing his best to keep up with Zak as the trail skirted the northern tip of their new home. To his right and down a treacherous hillside was the bay, its roiling waters washing in from the sea. To his left was an upward slope, covered with sparse vegetation.

  After the comparative silence of the desert, it had taken him a few days to get used to all the noise here. He didn’t know what was stranger to him—the dense woods with their towering trees, creaking in the wind, or these rocky cliffs overlooking an unending ocean. But at least their expedition had been a success. Zak’s backpack was filled with dead tree squirrels. Kai’s own pack bulged with the strange white birds that Chloe had managed to shoot from their perches. Behind him Chloe trudged along, their makeshift slingshots strapped to her belt and a bag of rocks slung over her shoulder. And somewhere behind her, Álvaro lugged a sack full of greens, some fat brown pine cones harvested from a fallen branch, and wild berries of all shapes and sizes.

  Zak, the self-appointed leader on these foraging missions, was intent on scouting the whole promontory. So far, Kai had seen no reason to question the boy’s authority—though he’d soon realized that Sela wanted no part of it; Zak’s temper, it seemed, was all too easily aroused if anyone challenged his leadership.

  Their path joined a paved roa
d, where they crossed under the shadow of the bridge. But soon they found their way blocked by a high fence, running clear out to the edge of a cliff on the other side.

  “Let’s check up there,” Zak called back. As usual, the boy didn’t wait for an answer. Clinging to prickly brush that threatened to leave its moorings at every pull, Kai followed him to the left and up the steep embankment. At the top, he scrabbled over a low cement wall to reach a wide paved road.

  Soon, they all stood facing the bridge. High above them, its rust-colored towers reached toward a bright blue sky. To their backs was a bank of locked metal gates, spanning half of the road. And in front of them, barring entry to the bridge, was an impenetrable wall of debris—tree trunks, scrap metal, and an assortment of what looked like discarded truck parts.

  Reaching into his pack, Kai retrieved his old binoculars. Rosie had powered down her hatch screen. But with help from Álvaro, the little boy who seemed to know everything about computers, he’d removed his tablet from her console and learned to conduct his own searches of her learning database. He’d easily located the place where they now lived—near the old city of San Francisco on the west coast of the United States. There was plenty of water, plenty of game and plants to eat. It made sense that their Mothers had brought them here—away from the drought, away from the dust that had threatened to choke them. And together with one another.

  But something wasn’t right. Their Mothers had changed. They remained silent. And based on their behavior, it seemed that a threat lurked here, one that had them constantly on alert.

  Squinting through the binoculars, he could just make out the high chain-link barrier whose barbed ramparts ran the entire length of the road east of the faraway white dome. According to Zak, this eastern fence turned west to skirt a large wooded area. To the west, it again curved north along the coast, flanking the seaward lane of the paved road where they now stood. Kai had determined that the land encompassed by this fence must be what was left of a former army base called the Presidio. But in the maps from Rosie’s database, he couldn’t find anything that looked like a fence; this one must have been built later. When they’d first arrived here, there had still been a few openings along its length. But their Mothers had soon barricaded all the gates along the eastern side of the Presidio, as well as this end of the majestic bridge that spanned the Golden Gate.