Machine God: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller (6 page)

“Save your questions for later.”

“Right.”

My left hand pulled the mag from my AK-BL8 and pushed it into the sand near the open wall. While my eyes looked for the next attacker, the mag was busy transforming sand into rounds. Terrible service aside, this cluster folks knew how to build effective weapons. When the counter reached 50 again, I fed the mag back to my AK-BL8 and took care of the remaining target puppets. Needless to say, I was on a roll. Poor puppets never saw what hit ‘em. One dummy after another crumbled under my selective fire. When the last one fell, I returned to the RV point and heard Konforma jumping into the air for joy. The only thing stranger than a sand-shooting AK with an attached sword was a holo-projected girl in army uniform.

“Yay, you’ve made it.”

“Sure thing. This feels like I was born for it.”

“Let’s see if the evaluation agrees with you.”

She manifested a high score menu into the air space around her.

The numbers added up.

“New record,” the display said.

Felt good to see, not going to lie.

Konforma closed the window.

“Now return your firearm to the locker. You’ll go back to your cell where I got a little surprise for you.”

The hologram girl was the queen of teasing.

19

Back in my cell, the dreaded place that was my new home. No matter how many times I returned to it, I never got used to the confined space and its ugly walls. Apparently, the Bulwarks could develop an assault rifle that ran on sand but failed to make an interior design prettier than a ghetto shed. At least Konforma's pseudo-innocent voice channeled through the speakers.

“Congratulations, citizen. Your training was successful.”

Her 2D motion picture avatar screened on the wall to my left. 

“You’ve served your community well today and thus deserve a goodie, as promised.”

“Are you giving me a five star suite with an ocean view?”

“You know I can’t do that. And even if I could, your performance wasn’t that impressive.”

She put up the Permission Protocol for my viewing pleasure.

“You can claim a tier one perm of your choice.”

My heart wanted to sing a little. Although it was absurd to earn basic rights I should have had anyways, it gave me something to look forward to in this miserable cell. I scanned the tier one permission list and found hundreds of different privileges.

None of them involved talking to another citizen, which I longed for more than anything else. One perm allowed me to sleep up to eight hours, the other brought back my right to eat two rations a day. The remaining rights involved the amount of exercise and general movements granted to me, which I couldn’t use anyways. This cell had barely enough space for four steps back and forth.

“Is that all? When will I be able to talk to the other citizens?”

“Those rights are in tier two. Keep performing, and we’ll grant you privileges others only dream of having.”

I doubted that. But with no other choices left, I chose the most sound.

Konforma bowed her head with closed eyes.

“Wise choice. Please touch the menu to sign it with your finger print.”

I pressed the display with my index finger. A confirmation menu popped up.

“Your claim to permission No.27, the right to receive two rations within a twenty-four hour timeframe, has been granted by the committee of the glorious Bulwark.”

Bureaucracy was like a cockroach. They both survived, even after the world had been blown apart.

“When’s the food arriving?”

“In two hours, twenty-five minutes and eleven seconds. Please don’t be idle in the meantime. You still have 98.8% of the instruction manual left to read. Failing your reading duty will result in the loss of your permissions.”

“I’m glad you reminded me. I was beginning to believe I had the free choice to educate myself at will. Stupid me.”

The beep squealed from my commcuff.

“Warning: your permission to two rations per day has been revoked due to improper speech.”

I sank into my bed and sighed.

Konforma gave me that Told You So look.

“That mouth of yours is problematic. All those words stumbling over your lips, they hurt your standing more than you know.”

“Maybe. But humor helps me cope with my calamity.”

“Then next time, you should pick the right to be ironic and sarcastic. It’s a tier two permission, so you have to work a little more.”

This place was unbelievable.

Slaving through the obstacle course and shooting down targets with weird weaponry was a deaf child’s play compared to this permission disaster.

Whoever created this system had some issues.

And probably the hole of a nugget in their brain.

Konforma's green-glowing eyes on the wall-screen still followed my movements.

“Whatever,” I said, “I’m going offline. Wake me up when the apocalypse knocks.”

And with that, I slumbered into the comfort of the darkness, not knowing what would happen next.

My mind dove into the gloom, but it didn’t stay long.

Soon, weird effects flashed me.

20

Red.

Green.

Blue.

Shining in a million combinations. 

My hand reached toward the colorful sky but it was so far away. The firmament smiled back at me, every star flickered a muzzle flash.

My legs marched forward. The ground below me was neither solid nor liquid, but something in-between.

Where was I?

Definitely not in my cell.

“Hello?”

The words echoed into the vastness of the landscape. Strange hills, or maybe mountains, protruded from the rugged ground and seemed to scratch the sky. 

The sight took my breath.

It was both menacing and spellbinding.

Where the hell was I?

Down on the ground, particles floated into the air. Little sparks that I tried to catch, but the effects eluded me. A faint hum sounded from the distance, but I couldn’t catch the direction. The visuals and audio of this place were off the hook. 

“Hello?”

Of course no one answered, but the strange sound intensified. It seemed to call me, which was impossible, because I didn’t have a name.

Didn’t have an identity.

I was a stranger in a strange land.

21

The dream soon vanished from my mind, as I concentrated on my current state.

For the next days, or weeks, I resumed my training. The soldiers arrived at my cell every day and escorted me to the training hall where Konforma aided my practice.

“You’re a good shooter. Don’t let it get into your empty head, but you may be one of the best shooters in the entire cluster. But shooting isn’t everything for a sand soldier. You need to move between the ruins. Swiftly, like a creature of the sky.”

“Are you going to give me wings?”

“They would be wasted on you. I have something better. Follow me.”

The door to the next hall opened.

I approached a building replica and gazed at the fake structures around me. This hall seemed to increase in size every time I revisited it.

“Do you see that box?” Konforma said and pointed toward a steel-coated crate.

“Open it. You will find the equipment for today’s session.”

My curiosity ran wild.

What wacky invention would I get to see this time?

Apparently something that helped me travel between the ruins.

A jetpack?

Mechanical wings?

A mini-copter?

Oh, the excitement.

I flipped open the switches of the crate and was ready to drool, but the excitement stalled. Whatever was stored inside, it wasn’t what I had imagined.

“What is that?”

Konforma was the only passionate one around, and she wasn’t even made out of flesh.

“It’s a grapple gun of course.”

“Of course.”

“Go pick it up. It’s not going to hurt you.”

I did as she said. 

“It contains a magazine with explosively-propelled darts attached to a jumpline reel. Use it with your less dominant hand so you can keep your main one free for the rifle.”

I aimed the grapple gun at the three-story wall front next to me and pulled the trigger. The reel unwound with some kind of cable and stopped when the dart penetrated the ledge. Little pieces of rubble rained down on me. I brushed them off my shoulders.

“Good job,” Konforma said, “now release the switch on the gun’s rear. The reel will rewind and lift you up.”

Before she finished the sentence, I shot up the air like a rocket man.

Wow.

All I missed was a cape and some symbol on my chest.

In a single breath, I flashed over three stories and reached the roof where the dart reconnected with my gun. With one swing, I pushed myself over the ledge and looked down at the ground. Konforma waved back at me and almost looked like a real girl.

“You learn fast.”

“I’m a natural, I told you.”

I picked the next target—the bordering building with the extra floors.

My hand aimed the grapple gun, squeezed the trigger and commenced the spiel anew. The dart entered the opposite side and propelled forward via the cable connection. I swung to the other side but the grapnel dart loosened itself from the ledge in mid-flight.

My body broke through the wall-sized windows.

Pieces of glass shattered in all directions.

The moment I hit the floor ground, I rolled sideways to mitigate the impact.

Still hurt like hell.

“Damn.”

Shreds fell from my back as I pushed myself up from the ground. Konforma giggled right next to me.

“Worst natural ever.”

“Look who’s talking. You beam yourself in and out of existence without any risk. Swap your pixel projection for a meat body and then we talk.”

She sulked. 

“Insults won’t get you anywhere, sand soldier. Instead of blaming others for your misfortune, work on your skill set. Or lack thereof.”

Konforma changed from the curious girl to the rigid teacher in the blink of an eye while my hands brushed off the glass shreds.

“You’re right, for once. Let’s do this again.”

“Are you sure? You look pretty bruised.”

“It’s not even a flesh wound. Besides, my adrenaline is still surging.“

So we grapple gunned again.

Again and again, until sliding up ruined buildings felt as natural as cranking out one-liners. 

In-between the fake fighting, I partook in the obstacle course, this time with new challenges. Some obstacles moved, others carried spikes and rubbish protruding from their surface. The Bulwarks even embedded the electro-shock technology into their torture toys.

Slowly but surely, Konforma revved up the difficulty.

Once in a while,  I looked up and observed the many cameras following my progress from the hall’s ceiling. So far, I had yet to enter a room with no cameras.

The curiosity grew with every day. Who was watching me?

Someone in the cluster's committee.

But who exactly?

If I had asked Konforma, she would have punished me with another permission loss. I just regained the right to my bi-daily rations and the seven hour, shock-free, sleep. Which was a blessing in this ugly fortress, and I wasn’t going to ruin it.

In-between the obstacle course, Konforma gauged my physical stats. 

“You’re pushing yourself to the limit.”

“Isn’t that the point?”

“The goal is to train your skillset, not to kill yourself. A dead citizen is a bad citizen.”

“I’m glad you care.”

My intention wasn’t to kill myself—although that almost happened once. One grapple shot had me rolling sideways on a rooftop, which caused me to fall from the house replica. Good thing my reflexes were top-notch—I grabbed the window ledge and swung myself into the empty room below. That one day, I was ready to finish my twelfth run when Konforma beeped. Since a change in her reaction always resulted in negative news, I braced myself for the worst. 

Was my performance suffering? Was I facing the degradation to the digger rank?

Truth was, I pushed myself till exhaustion. The rulers of the Bulwark Cluster should have seen how much effort I've put into becoming a bonafide sand soldier.

Truth was, I still had no clue why I was going through this paramilitary training. I had no clue who my enemy was, and what this society was based on. But the shooting and obstacle training brought me out of my cell, and allowed me to stay alive, if only for another day. Not to mention all the surprises, like Konforma's alert glance.

“What is it?” I said.

She moved her hands up and down in an awkward matter. Looked like she was suffering from an epileptic seizure, but holo-projections were rarely affected by these flesh-bound weaknesses. 

“Let me tell you—the Bulwark committee is very satisfied with your progress. And because you’re serving the greater good, it wants to give back.”

Finally my suite with an ocean view.

“As of now, you gain access to second tier permissions.”

I guess that was their version of a compliment.

“What exactly does that entail?”

“Well, you can claim better permissions. You’re able to participate in live missions. And—“

She slipped in a pause.

“—you’re allowed to mingle with some of your fellow citizens.”

“Are you serious?”

“I’m the definition of seriousness.”

That was true. In my short life so far, I had never met a being as stiff as her, but maybe that was part of her charm. The look of a girl paired with the jadedness of an adult. Still, the prospect of seeing other folks excited me. I wanted to get to know the other survivors of this world. 

Wanted to know about everything.

I checked the timer on my commcuff and waited for my ‘escort’ service. The soldiers always were on time. Except for today.

“Where are the guards?”

Konforma tilted her oversized head. 

“As of now, you’ve got minimum movement allowance within the Bulwark Cluster. Please use that permission responsibly and don’t waste any energies waddling aimlessly around.”