The Last Place to Stand (19 page)

“But let’s hurry,” said Sydney.

“This is where it gets fuzzy,” said Prometheus. “I can get us inside. After that, however, I don't know.” He walked up to one part of the underside of the ship and touched a panel on the leg. From the bottom opened a sort of ramp. “Who wants to check it out?” he said. Samuel ran up the ramp, followed by Odysseus and Hamlet.

In a minute, external lights came up on the ship, dimmed and then turned back off. That was to be the only progress for an hour. When nothing else happened for a long time, Zosimus decided to go inside and see what was happening. It was dark, but a couple of people had the forethought to bring hand lights. Finally, Zosimus entered the ship. “Do you speak any other languages?” asked Prometheus the moment he entered.

“No, not me,” said Zosimus.

“Well,” said Prometheus, “we have a panel here next to the controls that I hope tells us what these things do, but they are not in any language I know.”

“I have an idea who could help us,” said Zosimus.

A little later, “It looks like it’s related to ancient Greek!,” said Hamlet. Odysseus stood behind him. “I’ve been studying it lately.” He looked over the controls carefully.

“Only one problem now,” said Prometheus, “how to get it started.”

“This should be the start switch,” said Hamlet. He flipped a switch. “But it doesn't seem to do anything.”

That was when they heard a sound outside. The last two people ran up the ramp. “This is bad. We have robots entering this floor. This time they have some kind of a silver guy with them.”

Samuel took a quick glance outside and saw a group of robots approaching. They had electron-guns. When they saw him, one of them fired at him and missed, hitting the ship. Suddenly the external and the internal lights came on and stayed on. “That was weird” said Prometheus. “But hey, at least we can see.” He turned off his handlight.

Another blast hit the side of the ship. Prometheus flipped the switch to start the ship, and it groaned as if it were a dying animal.

“I've got it,” said Samuel. “We have no power, but the ship seems to absorb it from external sources. You notice how, when they shot at the ship, the lights came on? We need them to shoot at us more.”

“Are you nuts?” X213 said. She could feel the soreness from the fall in her legs now.

“Completely,” said Samuel with a smile. “Who's with me?”

“We are, Captain,” said a few men.

“So am I,” said Zosimus.

“Let’s draw straws to see who goes outside,” said Chavez, one of Samuel’s men. But before they could even get started, Samuel said, “My daughter’s out there,” and ran down the ramp.

A moment later, the men heard two shots and soon the lights brightened even more. But Samuel didn’t come back. Some more shots and he still didn’t return. A few seconds later there was a loud bolt that slammed into the ship, shaking it, and at the same moment Samuel dove up the ramp. One of his boots was smoking.

“What happened to you, captain,” said one of his men.

“The big silver ones,” he said, “pack quite a punch. Oh, yeah, and they’re quicker at hitting a target than the others.” Suddenly there was a rumbling sound.

Odysseus ran down the walkway, “Ignition,” he yelled. “Better hold onto something!”

“Close the ramp,” said some men in the back. Shots were still coming into the ship. Samuel's men tried to figure out the controls to close it as they saw the ground getting further away.

“You realize, of course,” said Samuel, “that there is no opening above us.”

“Yet,” said Prometheus.

After lifting off a hundred or so feet, one of Samuel's men figured out how to close the ramp. At that moment, Hamlet yelled back, “Hold on tight!”

The ship went straight up like a battering ram and, slamming into the roof, just kept on going. “Hey, how do we navigate this ship?” asked Odysseus.

“Working on it,” yelled Hamlet who was looking worried and sweating as he studied the controls.

A screen lit up in front of them with a diagram of the ship next to a diagram of the land below and their relationship to it. There were letters or numbers in some unknown script, but the diagram was easy to follow. “At least no one needs to know the language to be able to interpret graphics,” said Prometheus.

A few other members of the ship sat around the control room, afraid to venture further into the ship at first. As they lifted higher off the planet, Hamlet found a way to change the display to a real-time image of the earth below. They could see an image of the thing they were escaping and it had been very busy. The city looked totally transformed. The buildings that people lived in before had been all torn down and the land covered in a gray metallic looking substance. New buildings had been erected for unknown purposes.

“Let’s get the kids,” said Samuel.

They headed toward their village, and up toward the mountain. There were robots scurrying up the side, leaving a metallic looking path beneath them. Up at the top was a group of people who waved their arms in the air.

“There they are,” said Hamlet. “Now how do I land this thing?”

“Here,” said Odysseus. “What about this?” He pointed to a red button that had a picture of extended legs from the bottom of the ship.

“Sure,” said Hamlet. “Of course.” He pushed the button and heard a clunking noise. Then Hamlet said, “I can’t seem to control the ship anymore. It must be some kind of autopilot.”

“Then let’s see what happens,” said Odysseus. They saw the ground getting nearer and as they did, Odysseus saw Jane and their two kids just out in front of them. “I see them. Right there!” He ran toward the entrance.

When he got to the closed door, several people were already there, each of them looking anxious. One man with red hair pushed the button and the door, also serving as a ramp, opened. Before it had even touched the ground they felt a slight tremor, and the lights grew brighter for a second. “They’re shooting at us,” said Samuel, the first one in the open door.

Even before the ramp touched the earth, people were trying to climb aboard. D1298 handed up Samuel’s daughter. Samuel pulled her in and helped up D1298 and his ex-wife. Three more people who he didn’t know entered at the same time. “Thanks,” they said.

Then a whole group of people rushed onto the ship with such force that they shoved back those already in the ship. The men were swamped with a herd of bodies and the noise of grunts, shouts, and murmuring grew loud. As the door began to close, they heard more shots fired at the ship.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” said a woman with panic on her face. “The robots are here!”

At that moment they could feel the ship lift off. “T-5529!” yelled Samuel. “Where’s my daughter!”

“We are here,” said D1298. He saw a hand raised just beyond the first line of bodies. He pushed through. Suddenly he felt arms around his waist and as he looked down, and recognized his daughter, he felt more arms around him. He looked up to see his ex-wife and D1298. At first he was comforted, but then felt awkward. This was his ex-wife’s husband and his ex. He tried to pull away.

“We thought we were dead,” said his ex-wife, U1472. She was crying. It broke his heart and stirred new pain within. “Thank you.”

“Sure,” said Samuel. He pulled away and headed toward the front of the ship. Others followed.

Within a few minutes many were gathered at the command center where they flew the ship. Through something that looked like a window, thought they knew it couldn’t be that, they could see outside. They saw only the heartache of destruction and a scattering of bodies. Sydney and Poke kept a lookout for their house, eventually finding it. Nothing but mud and sticks and rock.

Leaving this depressing sight, they took the ship on a tour of the continent. There were some injured from electro-gun fire and they were taken into another room and cared for.

As they flew on, Hamlet and Odysseus saw more robotic assembly stations similar to those Samuel and D1298 had seen before. They had been built in each major city they encountered. Robots had killed many. They did not in any place see anyone alive. Blackened ruins, blackened bodies. Smoke, fire, death.

X213 was at first silent through all this, but after seeing one family who had died together near their home, she began to sob. She did not cry like most adults, Samuel noticed, but more like a child. Seemingly unable to control her emotions, she was almost hysterical with her cries.

Samuel approached her and put an arm around her and she cried into his shoulder. He felt helpless, realizing she must have had a lot of emotion locked up that was just now coming out. After a few minutes, she looked up at him for the first time, and realizing the awkwardness of the situation, said, “Thanks,” and then “Excuse me,” as she walked off toward some of the ladies who talked quietly among themselves and joined in. Samuel felt a slight lift of his spirits.

When they had reached the end of the continent, they headed off across the ocean, picking up speed as they went. They covered parts of each land mass with the results being the same. All populated areas were destroyed or taken over by the man/machine. There was no place where the monster had not been. “I can't believe a civilization that was around for so long could be destroyed in just a few days,” said Zach.

“It is almost incomprehensible,” said Dr. Chin. And then he told the story of what happened and what their intention was. He seemed to be in a state of shock. As though he was there, but not there. He stared at a wall of the ship and spoke with a distant voice, not as though he had seen a ghost, but as though he had become one. When he got to the part about having to flee and seeing some people carried off to be absorbed by what he called, “The Experiment,” he had a single tear in one eye. Other than that he did not show emotion at all. Later X213 would say that it was one of the most disturbing things she had ever seen. His face, with no emotion, telling of death and screams, and an ideal that they had all worked for. And that he was one of the best, trying to achieve immortality through his achievement. The whole time staring at some place on the wall talking with a faint weakness in his voice.

Having circled most of the globe they met in conference. Everyone involved was able to fit into a fairly large room that might have been a gym, with machines no one could figure out. Each person sat in a clear spot in the middle of the floor. Those odd machines were placed around the circular room. Samuel spoke first. “Now we need to start making decisions. Thankfully, we are alive, but we might be the only ones. Now here's how things stand. Prometheus and Hamlet are doing great at navigation. They are both at the controls now, so they can't join us, but I talked with them just a few minutes ago. We are told now that this ship has capabilities beyond what we at first realized. It appears that it is space capable, so if we want to leave the planet, we can.”

“I have asked X213 and Poke to check out the ship for food, water and other supplies. They will be reporting to us soon. The ship is large, so if we do decide to make it our home for a while we could probably do that. We seem to be able to manufacture oxygen somehow on the ship, so that doesn't seem to be an issue. We will have to wait and see on the water and food though.”

As he was still speaking, X213 entered the room. “Captain, I mean Samuel, we have found supplies of seeds, bulbs, and a large garden area. It looks like the idea was that they could grow whatever they needed. Poke is already planting now. It seems she is pretty excited about it. And as for water, we found a set of enormous tanks that should set us up for months if not years. It's hard to guess at this point.”

“Great, X213,” said Samuel. “Thanks for checking that out for us. Poke always loved gardening, so she has found a home away from home. Have her train you on the basics so you can help her out, if that would be agreeable to you.”

She smiled. “It would,” she said, “And by the way…”

“Yes, X213?”

“Susan,” she said.

“What?” asked Samuel.

“My name,” she said. “It’s Susan.”

Samuel smiled at her and looked deeply into her dark brown eyes. “Thank you, Susan.”

She smiled back.

Turning toward the rest of those assembled, Samuel made an announcement. “So here is the deal. We can stay in the sky as long as we want, but then we risk an attack from the sky at some point. The progress of the “Experiment,” as Dr. Chin calls it, is tremendous. We should not assume that it will not attack with aerial technology at some point if we stay within range for it. But if we are to leave the planet, where would we go?”

“Mars,” said A116. “Then we can really see if there are canals there and little green men.” He smiled a boyish, mischievous smile.

“Or how about Jupiter,” said Sydney.

“That would crush us like bugs,” said A116. “The gravity is too much for us.”

“Why do we need to be in the Solar System at all,” said H1549. “I want to explore.”

“So do I,” said D1298. “I'd love to see what's beyond. Unimaginable things, I suppose.” He had a far off look in his eye. “Maybe we will find whole other civilizations.”

“Or maybe we will search the universe and find ourselves alone and without supplies to replenish anything we might run out of and no one that cares,” said Dr. Chin.

“That's a morbid thought,” said Sydney. “Well, even before make that decision, how about making official what we seem to have instinctively done already, by making Samuel the captain of this ship. Every ship has to have one. Raise your hand if you would like Samuel here to lead us.” They all raised their hands except for A116 who was trying to figure out the machines against the circular walls now.

“Great,” said Sydney. “Now let's figure out a destination.”

They debated possible destinations for an hour or so when they finally decided on taking a tour of the Solar System and then go beyond unless they felt like settling down somewhere first. It was a loose plan, but one they could agree on. It was amazing to Samuel how many of them adjusted quickly to the idea of living on a ship when life had been so different only hours before.