17

Book 2.

Chris Barnett must change

or

The pursuit of meaning.

Act 3:

Eschaton

Two years had passed. Chris had managed to get a group of people together, but he was finding it exhausting to deal with them. Men and women had lost their ability to dream, or to think about the future, and he needed to remind them constantly of what needed to be done, and who needed to do everything.

They were submissive, like mindless drones they would put themselves to any task he asked of them, until they forgot or something else caught their attention. Dianne had been with him since they left the General Dynamics complex, the day after the end of the world. They had woken together, with their hands held, and they had walked into a world of madness. They spent the first weeks finding out just what had happened, and wondering if they would be able to fix it. Most people could lead normal lives, even if they had lost their ability to plan. Their basic instincts were enough for them to survive. They would eat, wash and sleep, and look for food when they couldn’t find it. Some people turned feral, others turned inactive, and some even died of hunger sitting on their beds, being incapable of thinking what they should do next.

And yet, a handful of people were unaffected, including Chris and Avril.

During the first month they traveled around the country, trying to gauge the spread of the phenomenon. Once they had determined it was global, they returned to the desert, and the General Dynamics bunker. There was no safer place for them, they knew.

The robots had been waiting, like the humans they had seen, for someone to give them commands. The base had been abandoned by all the suits. They were alone when they arrived, and they used the robot to made the place habitable.

While they had been away, the robots had created a statue of Dianne. Neither of them knew the reason, but even though it scared Avril, Chris saw it as a sign.

After a couple of months, the place was running again, and they managed to establish a small community and open it to whoever wanted to stay with them. Most menial tasks were conducted by the robots, but there was still work around to keep everyone busy. For those that had been affected and couldn’t make decisions, there was a strong hierarchy of needs and they were always people trying to educate them. During the last two years, some of the less responsive of the men had started reacting better, which gave them all hope that the condition they had called the undream might be reversible.

However, there was too much work for the twenty-something people that could still plan in the complex. Shifts needed to be overseen, people needed training and guidance for things as simple as using bathrooms, without surveillance, things quickly spiralled into chaos. Fights were constant, as the undreamers moved only based on basic needs. However, even though it was hard work, and he ended his days more tired than he had never been, Chris felt happy with what the were building.

One of the first days, he had spoken about it with Avril.

“I am tired, Chris,” she had said. “Tired of treating grown men as feral kids, as animals.”

“They’re not animals,” he had answered. “Not animals, not kids, not slaves, not robots... They’re people who are learning, step by step, and we just need to keep them safe until they can do it by themselves.”

“They’re not our responsibility, dammit.”

“Yet maybe they are. I was unable to die, and it may be that I am the reason why they are like this.”

She had dropped her head to her knees.

“If I didn’t know you better, I would say that you seem happy about this, Chris.”

And that had hurt, but days followed each other, and they grown used to each other’s company, and to organizing the people around them. Chris found he had more patience that he had expected, and Avril found that she was better at being strict, when she needed to. As the months passed, they found that they were better at working together. There was a certain synergy between them, and those amongst them that weren’t undreamers quickly took to listening to them. They became the leaders of the complex in a natural way, without ever talking about it, but simply by making the right decisions. The people who worked with them looked up to them for council and guidance. They had reached a balance, and they were slowly building a better world for everyone involved.

And then, Dianne appeared again.

***

Robin closed the door to the robot controls, and fired it up. It leaped up into the air, hovering, and he smiled, sure that he had fixed it this time. However, it soon started bobbing left and right, and suddenly it fired his back rockets, and flew straight into the statue of the dead girl. He saw the pieces flying everywhere and cursed loudly. If there was something they didn’t need was one robot less. He nudged the working robot that was by his side, the one he called Tops.

“Tops, fetch the pieces,” he said. “Rendezvous here in ten minutes.”

The small drone darted, on wheels built for much better roads, stabilizing itself every few seconds, to avoid falling. Robin took out one of his hand rolled cigarettes and tried to light it with his lighter, that had been refusing to work for the last two weeks. He cursed again, and looked at how tops was doing.Only then he saw the undreamer that had been standing beside the statue for heavens know how long.

“Oi, you, move!” he shouted. If one of the idiots got killed by his drones in an accident, he would be in trouble.However, the undreamer didn’t move and instead looked at him, with a look of concern.

“Move!” he shouted again, moving his hands without any general direction, he just wanted her to get away from his area. “Allez-y! Vamonos!” he added, wondering why the undreamer wouldn’t understand him. When it became clear that she wouldn’t move, he trotted up to her. He was wearing a long sari that left a mark over the sand. “Out, get away, scram, this is not a secure area, dammit! Things exploding badda-bimm badda-bum.” He pulled up to her and got as close as her stench allowed. “Now you don’t even understand me? No habla eenglesee?”

The undreamer looked at him, confused but staring.

“Is that me?” she asked finally, pointing at the statue. The question took Robin by surprise.

“What? No! Of course not, that’s a statue of the boss’ old girlfriend, she got a bad case of scrambled noggin’,” he put his fingers to his temples and made a shooting gesture. “Bloomy-balooney-ballity, your brain’s now graffiti!”

“The woman hid her face in her hands, scared and horrified at his gesture. Robin immediately regretted.

“No, no, no, no, don’t cry, don’t cry, it was a joke ha ha ha!” he said while trying to comfort her, but without daring to touch her.

“It hurt,” she said. Robin noticed then that she was clutching the back of her head, as if there had been a wound there, but he couldn’t see any.

“Rendezvous, achieved!” screamed a modulated voice at his back. He turned his head and saw Tops doing a small victory dance.

“Not now, Tops!” he screamed, feeling more nervous by the moment. Things were great when there weren’t any undreamers or in fact any humans around. He started wondering if he could take a few robots and leave, when the girl suddenly grabbed his shirt and pulled him down.

“It hurt! The hole in the head, it hurt!” she screamed, with tears running down her cheeks. Only then did Robin see the similarity. He looked up and saw the statue, of the smiling, pretty face, and then looked down at the same face, dirty and crying, and realized that she had been right. The statue was her.

***

Father Lucas aimed, and shot. The undreamer fell, his arm blown off, screaming and shouting. Another shot silenced him.

“Ah, I almost got it” he said with a hint of frustration. Corporal Anderson took the rifle, and shoot the second undreamer, who fell to the ground without a sound.

“The trick is to wait for the shot, you will see it in the end,” said Corporal Anderson.

“You know,” he said after a few minutes, “I always thought that the zombie apocalypse would be more exciting. This just looks like someone wrote a survival horror movie for old people with heart problems.”

“Look at them,” said Father Lucas. “They behave like animals.” They had installed a camp light in a plaza and the undreamers had been flocking there since then. They coveted the heat and the light, so they moved towards it like moths to a flame. Father Lucas tried another shot, but only got one in the knee. The woman fell to the ground, screaming in pain. Some of those that passed by her side turned to look at her, but stayed still, without knowing what to do.

“They are worse than animals, actually. Animals have drives, instincts, even empathy. These creatures are nothing but empty husks.”

Arthur came up to them, with a bottle in each hand, and gave them to Corporal Anderson. He didn’t even look at the boy, focusing instead on the screaming woman.

“Good, now go and sit over there, and don’t make a sound.”

Arthur moved away, his eyes not blinking, and his head eerily still. He sat on the floor, some way away from the two men, and looked into the wall.

Father Lucas looked through the scope, looking at how the screaming woman was now crawling, trying to reach the light.

“Click,” he said, but never shot, watching her die slowly.

***

“I don’t like it, Chris.”

“Look, is it so hard to believe that something magical has happened? After all, take a look at what our lives have become.”

Avril shivered. “This is different,” she said. “Unnatural, there has to be something really bad happening if...” her voice trailed off, worried that he would be hurt if she spoke. And yet he kept on pushing.

“If what, Avril?”

“If the dead are coming back. That’s bad, Chris, really bad.”

***

Alice started panting as soon as he took off the gag. He looked at him, dressed in perfect black, and tried to make out the outline of his eyes behind the sunglasses, but couldn’t.

“Please,” she was able to whimper through her sobbing. “Please, don’t do this...”

The man stood up. His voice sounded broken and sullen, as if he was talking from the bottom of a cliff after falling from it.

“Don’t do what, Alice? What are you afraid of?” he was walking through the room while he talked, as if he was looking for something.

“Don’t hurt me, please, please...” she was moving her hands to release the knots that were binding her, but she was only managing to get rope burns on her wrists. The man seemed distracted, maybe if she could release her feet and hands, maybe...

And then, the man finally stopped moving. He stood for a while in front of the shelves were she kept the photo albums, with his back to her. His shoulders were broad and his hands big, but if she could remove the rope, perhaps he could distract him long enough to flee. While she was struggling, his hand suddenly shot and he grabbed one of the tenths of albums she had. He leafed through it quickly, as if he had known what he was looking for, and when he got it he took it out.

He returned to her, and she tried frantically to move away. Her movements only served to tighten the knots even further. He put the photo in front of her. Through the tears, she saw herself, a much younger version, in front of the Eiffel Tower in Paris. With her, hand over shoulder, was...

“Do you know this woman?” asked the man. She only managed a sob, so he asked again.

“Do you know this woman?”

“Her... Her name was Mia, we were friend in high school...”

The man face brightened. He gave her a smile, the first she had seen since the end of the world, and for a moment, she saw a glimmer of hope.

“Ah, see, much better, that’s all I wanted to know.”

She started crying again, relieved. Then the man yanked her hair back roughly. She saw the edge of the blade, but didn’t quite understand it until she felt the cold steel against her throat. She could only manage a few bubbling sounds, and then everything faded to black.

***

“You were the first one to see her, Robin. What do you think about her?” Avril said. She was sprawled over the sit and it was easy to see she was nervous and upset. Robin didn’t want to be in the same as her, and he definitely didn’t want to be alone with her. However, he knew she needed the support. Chris had gone to meet the girl, whoever she was, and it was up to him to comfort the reporter. He wasn’t good at that, he kept hoping people had cogs.

“I don’t know, m’lady... She looked different to other stup... to other undreamers. But I got no bad vibes, just...” he trailed off, unable to explain what he had felt.

“Just?” asked Avril.

“It’s hard to say, y’know? I got this sort of just not right feeling about her.”

“Big duh, she’s a fucking corpse.”

“But, not like that, y’know what I mean?”

“I saw her face, Robin. She had a hole in it the size of my fist.”

“Maybe she’s like a clone, or a robot, or a roboclone...”

She sighed, with a feeling of despair.

“I don’t know, Robin, you’re the expert in that stuff, is she?”

He considered lying, but thought better about it.

“No, she the real thing, whatever that is... But it’s just not right.”

“Yes, you said already.”

“It’s like, you know when someone takes the whole operating system of your cyberbrain and replaces with another, but forgets to tweak some knobs to how they were before?”

Avril rolled her eyes.

“No, I don’t.”

“You can feel it. The thing’s functional, but off. Like a Harley with a Vespa’s motor,” he said, suddenly finding a metaphor that she would understand. Instead, she sunk deeper into her chair.

“Great, that’s how I’ve felt my whole life,” she said.

***

Chris hadn’t realized how nervous he was until he got the door. He straightened his tee shirt and run his hands through his hair, combing it. He swallowed before reaching for the door handle, however. He had to be prepared to the possibility that she wouldn’t recognize him. They had been watching her for a while through the cameras, and he was now sure that she was an undreamer. Robin had driven her to this room for her to calm down, and she had sat down and hadn’t moved at all. He didn’t know how she would react, what she would do or even if she would remember anything. He opened the door slowly, and found her looking straight to where he was standing.

“Hi,” he said, shyly.

“Hi,” she answered, with no expression on her face.

He stood beside the door, not moving. She didn’t say a word, but kept looking at him. He couldn’t take his eyes off of her. Was that a hint of smile he saw? Did she recognize him? Was she really her?

“Do you know who you are?” he finally asked. She nodded.

“It was cloudy before, but I remembered things.”

“What’s your name?”

“Dianne Luntz,” she replied. He let a sigh of relief out.

“Do you know who I am?” she nodded again, smiling this time. Chris remembered all his work with undreamers, and knew he had to be more specific.

“Who am I?” he asked.

“You’re Chris, my Chris,” she said.

***

He was glad to leave the room, and was even more happy when Tops rolled to his side. A small exclamation sign appeared in the display it had on the top half of its body, which was his way to tell Robin that it wanted him to follow. He started walking behind the robot, pondering what it was that creeped him out so much about the whole situation. Sure, there was the dead girl returning to life, but as long as she was here, everything will stay controlled. Chris had called for a referendum later that afternoon, after he had talked to the girl, and found out if she was a threat or not.

Tops was running through the corridors faster than he could follow. The robot stopped every few yards and returned to him, his exclamation point flashing again, it was obvious that the little guy was excited about something.

He turned a corner, and suddenly there was a loud bang. He covered his face in an instinctive movement, and saw pieces of Tops rolling around the floor. He ducked to the left and threw himself into the first room he saw, which had nothing on it. He closed the door, and peered around frantically, looking for a way to secure himself. He heard another bang, and a loud scream, and suddenly the whole building was filled with the sounds of an alarm bell. He screamed to the projector, keeping his back to the wall.

“Computer! Dial Avril!”

Her face appeared over the white wall immediately.

“Robin, are you OK? What happened!” the scream had never stopped, a loud desperate cry of pain, but now there was a second one. This one however, froze the blood in his veins. It was not pain, it was something else.

“I’m OK! The shots came from hall A3, run security cams on the area!”

She moved her hands like a flash, and over her face there appeared three different cam feeds of the hall. They could see a man there, though neither of them could identify him. He had a rifle in his hand and had his head raised.

“The bastard’s howling!” cried Robin.

“Fuck,” said Avril. “Do we have the drones?”

“One crashed. The other two are outside, I can’t command them from here.”

There was a second person in the hall. They saw it was one of the undreamers, who had been shot. He was the one crying in pain, but wouldn’t move at all. Suddenly, Avril’s face lighted up.

“We might have a chance, if he’s an undreamer,” she said.

Robin would have tried anything. After all, he was only a wall away from the lunatic.

“We don’t know if this will work, we’ve been trying it out, Chris and I.” She made some new gestures and suddenly the alarm died off, only Robin realized he could still hear it faintly. He also saw the light dimming on the hall.

“What are you doing?”

“Undees hate sound and love light. They move away from the first and to the second, so I’m modulating the sound and light to control where he goes. And it looks like it’s working.”

And it was. The man had started walking through the hall with a slow, deliberate stroll. Robin saw that the wounded man had started moving too, crawling slowly.

“I’ll walk him past your door,” she said, and Robin could see in the screens that it was happening. He suddenly felt his presence as something tangible, he only needed to open the door and it would be over.

“Wait, let me...” said Avril. Suddenly the room was filled with noise again. They saw the man with the rifle covering his ears with his hands, and dropping the gun. As it fell, it let out a shot that was got lost in the hallway. Robin had ducked and was now sitting on the floor.

“Dammitdammitdammit,” he said.

“Sorry,” said Avril, and promptly fixed the lights and sound so the man was walking past the door, leaving the rifle behind.

“Great,” she said. “Now’s our chance, get the rifle, he will be powerless then.”

Robin agreed, however he didn’t see it as clearly as she did. He looked at the screens, to make sure that the man was well past his door. He opened it and saw the rifle lying on the floor. He immediately jumped to grab it. He hold it firmly, even though it was the first time he was ever armed, and he didn’t like at all. He pointed at the man trying to stay calm, but he couldn’t stabilize his hands.

And then, the man slowly turned. Robin saw his grin, maniacal and with to many teeth, and realized he needed to shoot. His aim wasn’t ready at all, however.

“Stop!” he screamed.

The man offered no indication that he had understood and instead started to walk towards Robin.

“Trust me, I’ll shoot you!”

However, he couldn’t. Step by step, the man walked up to him, and raised his hands searching for Robin’s throat. He tried swinging the rifle to hit the man, but the chord got tangled and he lost it. It fell to the floor with a long clang, while the strange man’s hand were on his shoulders.

He tried hitting, but the man was much more athletic and better trained. He dodged Robin’s movements easily, and tripped him to the floor with little effort. Robin could feel how his lungs were running dry, as he man hold his thumbs to his neck. He was using so much force that Robin felt as if his neck would break before he choked.

And then, he heard a loud bang and saw a flash of light. The pressure on his neck vanished, and he felt something wet and hot covering him. When he opened his eyes, the man had dropped to the side, his head now nothing but a series of meat and blood stripes. Avril stood a few yards away, with the rifle he had lost, panting heavily. Robin didn’t dare to move for a few minutes.

And then they realized that the wounded undreamer was still howling in pain.