Machine God: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller (2 page)

“Let’s motor up,” Hecto said.

My eyes detected a silhouette inside a blown-apart house front. The contours of an armored vehicle with giant tires and a heavy machine gun mounted on its trunk.

So this was their LRV.

“Blink and you'll miss it.”

“Thanks to the beautiful camo,” the blonde said, “finely crafted by yours truly. The goal’s to make our baby blend into the streets."

Or whatever was left of them. She took position of the passenger seat. Hecto helmed the steering wheel while I and Glitch sat right behind them in the four seater. To be honest, there wasn’t much space inside, even without the roof. Probably the fault of the heavy stationary firearm that throned right behind me. The armor, the gun and the fortified tires had military written all over it. But still, these folks talked like friends and not soldiers.

Maybe a paramilitary troop?

Rebels?

I had to ask my questions carefully from now on.

“Can I have my rucksack back?” Glitch said to me.

“Sure.”

I handed him over the treasure chest on my back. He opened it and played with the content, mostly dusty mechanical parts from the ruin they had found me in. Meanwhile, Hecto activated the mighty machine and made the seats vibrate. My butt received the massage of a lifetime.

Seriously, this baby had power. 

Hecto rolled out the secret parking space and rode toward the empty street. 

“Glitch, you can toy around later. Man the gun.”

“Now?”

Hecto threw him a glance that could melt steel. Glitch moaned one more time and took control over the heavy machine gun. Looked like the ride was going to be filled with tension. For some reason, I looked forward to it. Feeling excited trumped snoring under dust rubble anytime. But now the blonde turned around her front seat and sent me the sweetest smile.

“By the way, we have never introduced each other.”

She reached out her hand. 

Delicate fingers, but scratched and bruised.

Probably from all the rummaging. 

“My name is Ceedee. The skeleton to your left is Glitch, a hacker and part-time scavenger, and the gentleman to my right is Hecto, my sex slave.”

The big guy chuckled.

“Are you sure it’s not the other way around?”

“You wish,” Ceedee said.

Hecto grinned while concentrating on his driving.

“I actually do.”

When the banter settled in, Ceedee’s eyes returned to me. I knew what was coming up.

“So, what’s your name?”

Silence crept in, only interrupted by the groaning of the LRV’s engines. My eyelids fell down while I was surveying the dark database in my brain.

“I wish I’d know.”

She puckered her lips.

“You’re kidding.”

“I really have no idea. The first thing I remember was hearing your lovely voice.”

Glitch chuckled from the gun mount. His attention had returned to his war toy which seemed far more interesting than the mysterious man they had found in the ruins.

Ceedee didn’t seem convinced yet.

“You don’t have the slightest clue? No name? No idea where you came from?”

A blank slate with blackness, that’s what my brain was. No matter how hard I tried searching for the memories, they eluded me. There was nothing but the void.

That damn void.

Ceedee must have detected my hopelessness, because her eyes went puppy, the voice softened.

“Hey, don’t worry. We bring you back to our place and take care of you. Your memory will probably return soon."

“About that—where do you guys actually live?”

Sounded like an innocuous question to me, but somehow, it broke the conversation. Ceedee searched Hecto's face for an answer. Even Glitch perked his ears as he pretended to aim his machine gun at the distance.

Maybe talking about their home was a no-go.

The awkwardness continued, and I grew tired of it.

“Did I say something wrong?”

Ceedee finally answered.

“We live in a society with unique rules. Once you’re there, you will understand. But now, I want you to close your eyes.”

I wanted to ask her why, but I trusted her and dropped my eyelids. I heard her crawling around the seat, wrapping some kind of cloth around my face. The vision went dark again, and I shivered. Ceedee tried to reassure me.

“This is a security measure. We don’t know if we can trust you yet, so we have to hide the location of our community.”

Her voice was soaked in worry. It seemed out of place, especially after our harmonious get-together.

“Well, not to sound offensive, but you’re the ones with the armored jeep and the assault rifles.”

Needless to say, the conversation went down the dunes from that on. Suddenly, I wasn’t thrilled about going to their mysterious place, wherever the hell it was.

4

The sandy wind brushed against my face. 

My back leaned into the uncomfortable seats of the jeep.

I kept my eyes shut because the cloth was wrapped tight around my lids.

The three barely talked.

Glitch fumbled around his equipment, Ceedee whispered something to Hecto.

She made sure I couldn’t hear it, and I was beginning to think the three were not the friendly folks I envisioned them to be. I should have seen the signs when I first observed their military-grade armor in the ruins, but hey, they treated me nicely, so who was to blame?

Either way, the tension increased my heartbeat, or maybe it was the violent vibration of the jeep’s engines that shook up my body. I took deep breaths and pondered my predicament. 

Wondered where I was.

And more importantly, who.

5

“We’re here,” Ceedee said.

Wherever ‘here’ was.

The drive took forever, made me feel as if we had circumvented the planet. During the ride, I had heard the sound of a hydraulic mechanism and the opening of gates. So there was a community with other humans, which replenished my hope. 

“Let me help you,” Ceedee said.

Her breath touched my ears as she unwrapped the cloth. I juggled with my eyelids, saw fluorescent light glowing from the ceiling. So ugly compared to the sun’s natural rays. The trio leaped from their LRV and adjusted their gear. I climbed over the door and connected my boots to the metallic ground. 

Clonk.

We stood in some kind of hangar, together with dozens of other vehicles. I saw closed garages lined up next to each other, similar to the ones of an army base.

The three walked away from the LRV and whistled me over. The gate behind me shut down. Glitch waved the armored vehicle goodbye.

“Thanks for bringing us home, sweety.”

“Actually, that would be me,” Hecto said.

The mood finally eased up, and I was looking forward to restore our new friendship when a giant gate on the other side of the hanger opened up. A tall woman in tight uniform, followed by heavy-armored soldiers, darted toward us in line formation. The lady’s movements were calculated and effective. She pranced toward me, shifted weight to her left boot and stroked her long finger along her chiseled face.

“I see you brought us a new survivor. Mostly excellent.”

The trio lined up and bowed.

Military hierarchy, here we go. 

I copied their gesture. First impressions still counted in this world, or so I hoped.

For a second, the woman looked pleased but then she narrowed her eyes and looked past my shoulder.

“Glitch, your equipment is confiscated for further assessment. We’ll let you know once we’ve calculated the value, and then your share.”

“Thank you.”

He sounded miserable pushing out the words. Couldn’t blame the guy, he was all over his rusty tech toys. Glitch averted his disappointed eyes as the woman’s armored assistants grabbed the rucksack, opened the garage gate and inspected the LRV, probably for additional goods. My head turned back to the woman in charge. She wore slender glasses and a brunette braid. A colorful contradiction to her gray uniform, and that stern face she pushed at me.

“What’s your name?”

“I can’t remember.”

“This is hardly the time for jokes.”

“I’m serious. I have no idea who I am.”

She inspected me boot to head. Probably putting on her BS detector, gauging my response. But I spoke nothing but the truth.

I hope she realized that, too.

“Interesting. Maybe we can help you with your…amnesia.”

She snapped her fingers and the soldiers knew what to do. They put handcuffs around my wrist and pushed me forward with attitude. It happened so fast my head couldn’t keep up with it.

“What’s going on?”

“You’re inside the Bulwark Cluster and abide by our rules from now on. It’s that simple.”

She delivered the lines like an iron queen.

I looked back and saw the trio staring back at me. They looked sorrowful, especially Ceedee.

“Don’t worry, everything’s going to be alright.”

Yeah, well, I wasn’t so sure about that.

6

The soldiers thrusted me to the gate, which turned out to be a sliding steel door to an industrial lift. The woman in charge touched a display embedded into the iron wall. Two soldiers positioned themselves to each of my sides, probably ready to blast a bullet through my body in case of resistance.

“Why am I treated like a prisoner? I have done nothing wrong.”

She shot me a dismissive glance.

“Silence. You don’t have the right to speak, unless I command you to.”

Oh boy. 

Ceedee sounded much more pleasant. Too bad they couldn’t switch. My eyes followed the glowing numbers on the wall's touchpad until the heavy metal doors slid open. The soldier behind me nudged the butt of his rifle into my back.

“You could just say ‘please move ahead’”.

The woman hushed me. 

We entered a tight corridor with window-less doors lined up. Looked like the interior designers got inspired by high-security prisons, although I couldn’t remember ever being in one. That experience was soon going to change. 

“Cell No.67,” she said to me while looking at the other end of the floor. 

“It’s going to be your new home.”

The soldiers dragged me on. I swear, the tall brute was one breath away from kicking my ass with his steel-plated boots. During the walk, I paid attention to my surrounding and devoured every detail about this place. Security cams were strategically placed on the ceiling. An ugly, bleaching light glowed from the orbs and drowned the iron corridors into a metallic green. 

The woman in charge halted in front of cell number 67, wiped the armored door open via her datapad and commanded the soldiers to push me inside. The cell was exactly how I’d picture it in a nightmare; the size of a toilet, squeezed by four massive walls with no window. And a bunk bed embedded into the right block. 

“Sit down," she said.

For now, I did as she said just to see where this was going. She stepped inside, told the two soldiers to patrol the corridor while the other two stayed next to her side like overprotective bodyguards. It was hard to believe they were pulling up this military nonsense. Come on, I was handcuffed and unarmed.

“Why are you doing this to me?”

“A security measure,” she said.

“Why? I’m not going to hurt you.”

“We’ll see.”

She looked at her datapad and frowned.

“So one of our fire teams found you in Sector D11, a parcel of the abandoned city 023. They reported that you were unconscious and didn’t remember anything. Can you verify that?”

“That sounds about right.”

She searched my face.

“So you don’t know who you are?”

“No.”

“We couldn’t find any ID or other proof of your origin. Where do you come from?”

“From here, I guess.”

Her face frosted. 

She put the datapad aside without breaking eye contact.

“So you don’t know your name. You don’t know where you come from and you have no ID to verify your existence?”

“That seems correct.”

“Are you mocking me?”

“No, I really have no idea.”

“Have you been a citizen of another cluster?”

Cluster? What the heck was that? Either way, the answer to that question was simple.

“No.”

“Are you a scavenger, or a looter? Our team said they found you among tech rubble in a former factory.”

“Scav—? Listen, I already told you—I don’t know anything about myself.”

I paused and tried to find the right words. It felt as if I was talking to a wall with icy lipstick.

“I heard that woman’s voice, Ceedee, and then I opened my eyes. It’s the earliest thing I can remember, I swear.”

The woman shifted her weight to the right boot and rubbed her finger against her chin.

“Let’s start this from a different angle.”

I hoped the new angle involved better treatment in the form of politeness and food. My stomach was craving nutritions.

“Why did you sleep in a ruin?”

“Sleep?”

“What’s your mission?”

“Mission?”

This woman was unbelievable. Didn’t she listen to a single word?

“I think we’re going in circles.”

“That thought has crossed my mind, too.”

Great.

My shoulders slumped, my eyes turned toward the steel ground for a change.

“I don’t know who I am, where I come from, or where I am. That’s the truth.”

My gaze returned to the lady in the uniform. The soldiers guarded their position like armored statues.

“And my mission? I don’t have one. I only want to survive, I guess.”

“Survival is not a birthright. In this society, you have to earn your place.”

She still delivered every sentence with subzero emotion, but at least she was making an effort of meeting me halfway. 

“Then give me a chance to prove myself.”

For the first time, the woman smiled, but I didn’t like it. 

A person like her never smiled for good reasons.

“That’s not a decision I can make on my own.”

“Then please ask your higher-ups.”

“Don’t tell me what I should do.”

She paused.