Archon of the Covenant (19 page)

As it got back up, there was a flash from behind the revin, beneath the ridgeline. A piece of the revin’s shoulder blew off – it looked down at its mangled clavicle, confused. And then there was a rapid series of flashes - a silent supernova pulsating from the depths. Its abdomen, then hip, arm, chest and, finally, its head – all erupted in succession, a spray of blood and marrow exploding into the night air. Its disembodied torso toppled over in the dirt. The girl, sweatshirt covered in claret, froze in shock. The prismatic face of the aroton emerged from the edge of the ridge. It climbed up effortlessly, standing over the mangled revin, then looked down upon the wolf solemnly. It held the smoking pulse rifle at its waist, strap around its shoulder, and gripped the longrifle with the other hand. Its rubberized shell was pocked with scrapes, bite marks, and deep gouges. The soft, pulsating lights beneath its dirty hull went dark. It didn’t acknowledge the girl. It stood there, peering down at the body of the wolf, its soft fur blowing in the starlight, and quietly mulled aloud:

“It appears as though I’m free. I am
free.
”

The girl got back up and ran over to sentinel, which called out to Becca in its failing, cracked vocoder:

“Becca, what’s happening?”

“The other one is here. What do we do?”

“I need you to push me back into the tunnel.”

The girl didn’t understand. She howled in protest but the sentinel was insistent:

“Please, Becca. We don’t have much time.”

Reluctantly, she pressed her hands against the front of its trident frame and leaned in, pushing the sentinel backwards. It turned its rear wheels into the opening of the fissure, its front wheel scraping a shrill squeal on the gravel underneath. The aroton, repeating its epiphany of freedom, faded in the backdrop as they submerged into the darkness of the mineshaft. Finally, they came to the end of the cave and the girl stopped, the sentinel’s rear wheels flush against the end of the tunnel. She plopped down on her knees in resignation, exhausted. The cracked LED light on the sentinel’s frame glowed dimly in the narrow passage, casting a soft radiance on the girl’s face. She was without hope. Her shoulders slouched into her chest. She stared into the sandstone cave wall, streaks of copper running alongside. A rusted pickaxe was propped up against the wall. Dust swirled in the illumination.

“Becca, you have to go on alone.”

“I don’t want to be alone anymore.”

“They’ll be back soon. You have to go.”

“I don’t see the point of running. Let them get me. I don’t want to leave you.”

“Becca, there is a place I was supposed to take you. But I can’t go on. There is some purpose for you out there. It’s a spot not far from here. We got so close. If you keep going, you can get there. It’s out there, just southeast of here.”

“I can’t do it. It’s too dark.”

“You’ll follow the stars. There is a bright star – the brightest one in the sky. It’s called the Dog Star. When you get out of the mine and look up, to your right, you’ll see it twinkling. Climb up the slope, then keep running. It will take you till midnight. Don’t stop. When you get close to where you need to go, you’ll see a green flash. It’s a small device that I launched into the air right before I found you. I didn’t think I’d find you, Becca. But I did, and we made it so far. It’s not over yet. You can make it.”

“This place you’re sending me to – what is it?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know.”

“Is it bad?”

The sentinel paused. A small panel clicked open from the rear of its base, just before the bent rumble seat.

“I don’t think I’m bad – and it was my mission. So it has to be good.”

Becca got up, wiping a tear from her cheek. She dusted off her knees, a plume rising off her grimy pants and sweatshirt amidst the electroluminescence. The sentinel’s shadow hand unfurled, beckoning her closer. She inched forward and the sentinel’s LED light started to flicker.

“Drink.”

She cupped her hands behind the small nozzle that popped out of the trident frame. The water flowed into her hands and she drank. She wiped her hands against the front of her sweatshirt.

“I have something for you, Becca?”

She shrugged and the sentinel reached back into the open panel at its base and retrieved the dusty book it had found in the High Jinks Ranch, handing it to the girl. She reached out, clutching at the cheerful cover – a faint smile cracking amidst her sadness as she read the title, “Oh The Places You’ll Go,” aloud to herself. The sentinel’s voice cracked in the dark:

“Today is your day. You’re off to great places. You’re off and away. Now, you have to go. Run Becca.”

She turned, about to sprint out of the cave, before looking back at the sentinel. Its LED lamp went dark, and the mineshaft was awash in pitch black. She heard one final entreaty from the sentinel’s fractured, fading vocoder:

“You’re a survivor.”

Becca paused for a moment in the cave, listening, but there was no more to be heard. She felt her way along the mine walls, her right leg limping awkwardly, until finally she saw the starlit sky and felt the wind from the approaching storm. She emerged from the mineshaft amidst the massacre on the ridge. She reached down and rubbed her thigh, already sore in the brief escape. The wind was blowing the jojoba flat into the ground, dust carrying off the crown and into bench road where the aroton knelt beside the body of the wolf. Petals of globemallow carried off the desert floor and fell down the main scarp, swirling orange helices coming to rest on the dead. The aroton spoke to the girl – a pattern of pulsating blue lights lit beneath its skin like lightning breaking free of the approaching thunderhead:

“So this is freedom. I’ve been liberated. Strange - I expected something different.”

It looked back down at the body of the wolf and shrugged its shoulders, softly murmuring “free” to itself again, and again. A Pyrrhic victory realized. The girl was shaking. Her loneliness sailed into the evening, anathema to the arotons confused emancipation. She waved her hand outwards, signaling to the android before her:

“Can you help me? My friend is in trouble, in the cave back there, and I need help. I have to get to some place out there…”

She trailed off, pointing out into the wilderness, then remembered – she looked up, into the night sky, and saw the Dog Star burning bright. The anvil of the supercell was bearing north into the stars. It wouldn’t be long until the storm seized the sky. The aroton looked back at her then off into the distance. It pondered aloud:

“I’m free, aren’t I? What does one do once they’re free?”

“You can help. Help me, and help my friend.”

The aroton got up, dropping the pulse rifle against its back, the strap pulled tight. It lifted the longrifle aloft, resting it perpendicular against its shoulder. It looked at the girl a moment then began to walk away.

“No, Becca. I’m afraid not. Helping seems the opposite of freedom.”

Becca was crestfallen. She looked around, panicked, and then sprinted over to the landslide. She crawled up the ruined pit wall where the 797F had flown off. She started to fall backwards – the abyss of revin carcasses festering beneath her. She looked over her shoulder, catching the stench momentarily, and then dug her feet into the ramp, furiously clambering upwards. As she did, a faint clamor rose on the air. She stopped near the crown, catching her breath, then held her lungs to listen to the faraway noise. She looked across the silt mound, to the northwest. The tide of revins had washed back into the complex. They were here. Thousands. She scraped her way to the top and peered into the wasteland of Asarco. She saw a flat road stretching east in the moonlight and ran towards it, already out of breath as she began her sprint. Her leg pulsated as she strained to keep her gait steady.

Becca cast off into the dark, into the squall line bearing down. The cold front winds rushed past her, flattening the dry weeds along the road. She exited the Asarco complex and into the dusty desert floor. The Dog Star began to fade into high passing clouds. The dust whipped off the ground and flew past her, lashing at her face and hands as she pushed into the air. The first few raindrops fell around her.  A lighting strike crashed into the desert floor to the left, deafening the winds and briefly irradiating the braided ground. Becca fell over in fright, tumbling onto her unsteady leg, covering her ears and shrieking into the thunderclap, her voice split by the roar. Her thigh burned.

The downpour washed over Becca in waves. As she ran, she went headlong into thickets of trixis, saltbush, and palo verde – branches flailing at her skin. Submerged, wandering into a low bed of reeds. The lightning intensified around her, forking into the ground from the black heaven above. The ground flashed behind and to the side.  The booming clap split the air. Becca winced the first few times, shielding her eyes, but then ignored them – squinting into the flashes as she ran, looking around at the lit patches of desert. As she sprinted forward, ahead of one massive strike, she looked behind her and saw the brush line of the desert, rattling – the naked flesh of a thousand revins emerging into the momentary flash of light and then vanishing into darkness just as quickly.

She strained with everything left within her. She felt her leg might break. She kept on into the squall. Soon, the Dog Star was gone. In the din of the storm, she thought she heard the cries and grunts of the revins just behind her. She pushed her hands through the low branches of a willow and a twisted, menacing face would appear before her – an apparition, illusion. She closed her eyes and fought past the leaves. She ran for miles, not knowing how far she had gone, where she was going, or what she was doing.  She thought of her mother, of Terrence, and Gilberto. She thought about the sentinel. She sobbed as she ran, rain washing her tears, unsympathetic and intolerant. Another lightning column struck just before her, blinding her, sending her tumbling forward into a low creek bed, falling over. She sunk into the wet sand of the creek bed, which was filling with water. She looked at her bleeding hands and Becca sobbed, resigned to fate. Her leg felt split in two. The lightning subsided and the night went black – a swirl of wind, rain, and broken branches flying past her.

*              *              *              *              *

From the dark mineshaft, the sentinel opened a faint channel and connected with the aroton, which was ascending a high point outside of the complex, walking into the west:

Please. Help her.

I will not kill any more. I have a new path now. I don’t know where it will go, but the wolf is gone, and so am I.

That’s not true. There is another. I saw a Mexican Wolf in the north foothills, in the wild. It was alive.

A lie. No. That can’t be true.

You have access to my history. Read my files. You emulate mankind and thus you have faults. You choose what to see and what to ignore. If you look, you’ll understand. Your freedom is a mirage. Help the girl and I’ll unlock my file on the Mexican Wolf. Please.

*              *              *              *              *

Becca stood up in the creek bed, the water rising around her, rushing past. She looked around blindly in the darkness, not knowing where she was, or even which side of the creek she had just come from. She gazed up into the rain.

“I’m sorry. I can’t do it. I’m sorry.”

She swung her gaze over to the water rushing at her, up to her knees now. She wondered where it would take her. She wanted to simply fall into it and wash away into the blank space of nothingness that occupied the world unknown to her. She closed her eyes and reached her hands out. Her eyelids closed. She believed, for a moment, that she was dying, entering heaven. She opened her eyes fitfully in time to see a blinding light flash over her. Not a lighting strike, but a cannonade of illumination arcing across the maelstrom. She looked forward and saw a patch of ground ahead, past the creek bed, illuminate and softly flare upwards into the night. Becca climbed out of the water and wandered over to the light. The ground was awash in chemiluminescence. The circle of light cast a soft, blue glow on the rustling trees and brush around her. She heard a dull boom to the west, different than the thunder, and saw another shot race across the sky – like a comet crashing into the mud, it crashed into the distance straight ahead. Becca ran towards it – the only light left in the world around her. When she reached the next patch of light, another would streak across the void and she would run to it too. As she ran, she heard shrieks behind her. She would race into the barrens and look behind – the faces of the revins emerged in the same patch of light she had just fled. They were closing in. Becca constricted, pushing her legs into the sodden ground. Her legs began to numb, like the ground was air. She was slowing down, physically unable to go further. She reached the last light marker and stopped. She looked around frantically, waiting for another volley to split the sky, but none came. She looked behind her and could see the branches of the acacias bend and whip behind her. She heard cackling. She lifted her left arm straight towards the prior, fading marker, and angled her right hand outwards, parallel, holding the wet book aloft towards the void. She judged the abyss directly ahead and kept running. As she ran, she continued to look backwards. She could seem them now. She could see their dark outlines sprinting towards her, their silhouettes lit by the last marker. She could hear their panting and the slog of thousands of unshorn feet dredging the steeped caliche.