The Harvest Cycle (12 page)

    “Didn’t you say you saw him set them free?” Cinnamon asked.

    “Yes, but I’m sure it was only to meet his own ends,” Bruce replied. “It’s his way. Let’s make sure we’re done here, then move out.”

***

    At twilight, West pulled the van over to the shoulder. He and the others sat quietly and awaited DaVinci’s approach.

    The cab settled behind them like a cop pulling someone over. West remembered seeing old videotapes of cops at work, a long time ago, and wondered if DaVinci tried to emulate them.

    The cop came up alongside the van, revolver in hand. “West, is it?”

    “Yes?”

    “Why don’t you tell me what your mission is?”

    “We’re out to kill the Harvesters, DaVinci. We know a way. We can cripple them. But it’s crucial that we get to the coast as soon as possible.”

    “How’re you going to do it?”

    “Missiles, torpedoes. When they’re cloistered. The shock to the hive mind will kill the lot of them, I swear it.”

    “Hmm.” DaVinci tapped the Colt against his chest and thought it over. “You really believe in this.”

    “I’ve seen it work on a smaller scale. I know this is possible.”

    “And then, what becomes of all of us? Dreamers and undreamers, do we just join hands and return to the world as it once was?”

    “Well, we’ll have the bots to deal with - but I think they’ll stand down once we’ve accomplished this.”

    DaVinci leaned against the van and massaged his temples. “By God. By God.”

    “There’s that God again.”

    “It’s an expression.”

    “This will work, DaVinci. If you’ll let us try. We can remain in your custody, fine, but please let us try.”

    “I’m going to radio Gotham and let them know about this,” DaVinci said. “Then we’ll move forward. But you are in my custody. Understood?”

    “Yes.”

    DaVinci walked back to the cab, winked at Head, grabbed the radio mic. “Gotham? You read me? This is DaVinci.”

    Static.

    “To hell with this,” he muttered. “Haven’t been able to raise Gotham since we crossed the state line. Hear that, Mister Cannibal? Just you and me.”

    He walked back to the van. “All right, Gotham knows we’re out here and that I’ve got you. Are you wanting to set up camp for the night?”

    “That’d be best,” West replied through the driver’s side window.

    “Let’s do that,” DaVinci said.

    “Wait,” West leaned out the window and looked past DaVinci. “Is that - is that another car?”

    DaVinci turned and narrowed his eyes. “Shit. Whoever it is, they’re not with me.”

    “Cannibals!”

    “Let’s go. I’m gonna drive alongside you. You got any weapons?”

    “They cleaned us out.”“All right then, leave it to me.”

11.

Road Work

    Delmar was at the wheel. Bruce and Macendale prepped their weapons.

    “I’ll provide cover fire,” Cinnamon said from the back. Bruce nodded. He tucked his dog into a kennel bolted to the wall and shut it. “You rest, boy.”

    “Cab and van are running in tandem,” Delmar said. “DaVinci’s in the cab.”

    “We can use the van to stop the taxi,” Bruce said. “It’ll take precision - leave it to me.”

    A bullet glanced off the windshield. “DaVinci’s firing on us!”

    “I’m going to disable the van and make a blockade of it,” Bruce said, opening a panel in the strike vehicle’s ceiling. “I’ll push DaVinci off the road. Don’t respond to his firing - if the dreamers fire, you can counterattack.”

    He pulled himself onto the roof of the vehicle.

    They were right up against the taxicab and van, both going about 80 MPH in their adjacent lanes. He could see DaVinci’s arm extending out the cab’s window, revolver in hand.

    “Here we go,” Bruce said, and threw himself onto the roof of the van.

    Inside, chaos erupted. “What are they doing?!” Amanda shrieked.

    “Look at that truck!” West shouted. “Jesus, they aren’t cannibals. They’re-”

    Bruce tore a sheaf of metal away from the roof and said, “Agents of mercy.”

    “FUCK YOU!” Cutter shouted, leaping up and grabbing Bruce’s ankle. The bot fell onto the roof, nearly going over the edge but catching himself. He pulled out his Gyro. “I will use excessive force!”

    Cutter grabbed at the spear that had come through the windshield and knocked Amanda out. He tore it free of the wall and-

    Gunfire ripped open the roof. Amanda shoved a screaming Lucy under the nearest cot. Hitch flattened himself against the wall. West was crying out Mandy’s name as he tried to keep their hurtling torture train on course.

    Cutter pulled himself up and drove the spear into Bruce’s thigh. “No good!” They both shouted, and Cutter dropped back into the van.

    Then Bruce was smacked with a hail of gunshots, big ol’ Colt rounds pounding his skull and sending him reeling. “Robots!” DaVinci cried. “Fucking robots!”

    Bruce leapt back onto the strike truck. “Macendale, backup!”

    The other bot climbed onto the roof with a Gyro in each hand. “Which target?”

    “Take the van out!” Bruce yelled. Macendale broke into a run.

    “Son
NO-
”

    Macendale landed on the van’s ragged rooftop and blasted away with both guns.

    West jerked the wheel to the left, colliding with the taxi. Macendale flew off into the night, came down between them, grasped at any handhold and found none.

    The strike truck ran over him.

    
Macendale down,
Bruce shouted in his head. He climbed down onto the hood of the truck and took aim at the van’s driver. DaVinci popped him in the skull again. “Stop!” Bruce shouted.

    “Fuck you!” DaVinci replied, and unloaded the rest of his rounds into Bruce’s chest.

    He smashed through the windshield, into Delmar, and they all felt the sickening lurch as the strike truck went over on its side, off the freeway, down into a ditch where it impacted with a sound like Armageddon.

    Bruce hit the ceiling, slid through glass and settled somewhere dark and cold.
Who’s with me?

    
Cinnamon. Not a hundred percent, but I’m all right.

    
Delmar here. Crushed against the wheel, but this old armor actually absorbed most of it.

    
Macendale?

    
Macendale?

    
No.

    “Dog,” Bruce said, and clawed his way through hanging debris and sparking wires to the kennel on the wall.

    Initial appraisal was grim. He was alive, eyes open, looking into Bruce’s, but there was blood and bloating and he wouldn’t sit up.

    “Boy, good boy,” Bruce said, opening the kennel door and running his fingers along the dog’s jaw, up behind its ear, calming it.

    He wrenched his Gyro out of its holster. No, too explosive, especially in this leaking wreck. It had to be by hand.

    “Boy, you’re suffering. You’ve done good, all your life, but you can do no more.”

    The dog laid his head down on Bruce’s hand, as if it understood. Licked him.

    “This is out of mercy.

    “I wish I didn’t have to...”

    Bruce shook his head. That wasn’t right. He had to handle this. And now, for the dog’s own good as well as his.

    “You’re a good boy,” he said, taking the animal’s head in his hands, nuzzling it.

    “I love you.”

    When it was done, something went wrong in Bruce’s system. He felt a hollow, empty place, a loss...he hadn’t deleted the dog’s records from memory, why would he...

    He touched the dog’s face, closed its eyes. “This would be where I would cry,” Bruce said.

    “Are you all right?” Cinnamon asked. Bruce started, turned with a confused look. “I did what was necessary. We are programmed to appreciate life in all its forms, yes?”

    “Certainly,” Cinnamon replied. “Did you experience a particular bond with the animal?”

    “I don’t know.” Bruce gathered himself, meaning the bits that had been cleaved away by the bullets and the crash, and went outside to sit alone.

    
Targeting matrix at 85%.

    
All other systems fully functional.

    He looked at the stars, and started to consider things.

***

    Macendale lay in a twisted ruin on the shoulder of the freeway, arms and legs akimbo, head turned halfway around its axis.

    His lips parted, and his teeth clicked.

    He smiled.

    He grinned.

    He started to laugh.

    During a sweep early in his life, he’d come across an illustrated storybook called a “comic” in which there was a character with a painted face and wicked grin, who viewed all of existence as a rather pointless joke.

    “The Joker”, he was called. A clown, a clown and a killer. An odd juxtaposition. Then again, if life was a joke, if it was all pointless, if God didn’t really care about humanity and Nightmare was free to have his way with ‘em - well, that’d be pretty goddamn funny.

    Macendale rolled over and started snapping joints back into place as best he could. He hadn’t sustained any major damage that couldn’t be dealt with in the near future, except maybe the emotive matrix being smashed to shit - but what good was it anyway.

    “I want to have
fun,
” Macendale whispered, and the night took his secret wish and wrapped him up in dark, welcoming arms.

12.

About Dogs

    They pulled off of the freeway and set up camp in a wooded area away from the road, away from the eyes of the robots, should they recover.

    “Why were they after us? How did they know?” Amanda asked West. Helping Cutter pile firewood in a bed of stones, the doctor shrugged. “I have no idea. Maybe DaVinci has some insight into this. I just don’t know.”

    Jack DaVinci circled the camp, watching the dreamers, his hand on his holster. Cutter glared up at him from the fire pit. “So what’re you gonna do with us?”

    “I’m going to let you try this thing with torpedoing the Harvesters,” DaVinci answered. “Whether it works or not, we’re headed back to Gotham afterwards. We’re gotta figure out what to do with all you dreamers living underneath us.”

    “Just leave us be, how about that?” Hitch said, entering the clearing. Lucy was behind him, tugging the puppy along. “If this works, there’s no need for any more nanoplastomies or any more undreamers. Maybe we can all live together in peace.”

    “Hmm.” DaVinci patted his gun. “So, then, I was cut for nothing?”

    “You did what you had to do, or what you thought you had to do. But there’s no reason why we can’t all co-exist.”

    “Do you have any idea what it’s like, not to dream? Not to imagine?” DaVinci put his hand to his head and stuttered, “I-I can’t even pretend to be like you. I can’t see what you see in colors and shapes, the potential for creation. It’s all stale and gray and...” He sighed, sat down on a log, massaged his temples. “I lost a part of myself to keep those goddamn Harvesters away. I can’t ever get it back.”

    He got up and walked away from the burgeoning fire. “I’ll let you sleep. I’ll be by now and then to check on you. Don’t run. You don’t know what’s out there.”

    DaVinci returned to his cab, just a little ways inside the trees, and to the captive Head. He got his tools out of the trunk and laid them out on the ground. Opened the back door and grabbed Head’s kicking feet.

    “First thing I’m gonna do is put your muscles to sleep,” DaVinci said, bringing Head out and laying him down on the grass. “Quick prick.

    “Now, I’m going to put you under. You’re going to sleep. This is better than you deserve, you understand? Just close your eyes and take it.”

    Head writhed as much as he could, which wasn’t much, then began to drift away. DaVinci shot him up with a lethal dose of sedative before pulling out the cutting tools.

    He couldn’t wait to get at that nugget. He’d swallow it straight out of the skull, just like Head himself had done with his victims. And the dreams he’d have...

***

    “I’m so high right now,” DaVinci whispered, lying on the roof of the cab. Head’s cadaver was trussed up beside the car, most of the mess having been thrown into the trees.

    “You know, when the First Harvest came, there were people up in space. International Space Station. They had to sit and listen while the rest of humanity was torn apart.

    “God, what it must have been like. The terror. And there was no joy in knowing that they were spared. They’d have to come back down eventually, wouldn’t they? And their wives and husbands and kids were all dead and they knew every last horrible detail and had watched the seas turn crimson from orbit. Holy shit.