Hell Follows After (Monster of the Apocalypse Saga) (24 page)

The battery in Frank’s hands was warm. He had to remind himself it was not really a battery… it was a power source but in his mind still a battery. The stars had aligned, the factors that had made the battery available. As Frank felt the warmth seep into his flesh, he pondered the possibilities of what the next several hours would provide.

The messenger sent to the coast had returned late in the evening. As instructed he beat heavily on the ranch house door as soon as he dismounted. Lights came on, first on the upper floor. Under the porch roof, the rider could not see the evidence of the waking house, so he continued to pound, making as much noise as he could.

Slipping his pants on, Frank hurried downstairs bare-chested, pistol in hand. He had received a radio transmission from a distant outpost several days ago, but caution dictated the firearm. Flipping on the porch light, he peeked through an adjacent window and breathed a sigh, more from excitement than relief.

The rest of the night was spent sleepless. Frank sent the man that arrived late for one of the experts he had cultivated in restoring the robot in his shop and waited impatiently. As soon as the man arrived, the two men began to open the chests removed from the pack horse. The messenger, bone tired, was sent away to get some rest.

An inventory of the contents proved the trip successful. A case of power modules, packed by a long defunct freight company, sat unopened, the ancient, heavy, plastic container showing cracks as the box became ever more brittle. Labels, one containing a long lost address, covered the outside. Most of the labels warned of danger if the contents were exposed to fire. The chest from the opposite side of the pack saddle contained different types of materials. A small but extremely heavy container for its size was labeled with a round symbol in black and yellow pie shapes. The accompanying box held unassembled module parts.

By the time Frank and his partner verified all things expected were included in the packages, the eastern sky was beginning to pale. Excited, the two men consulted in hushed tones as though there might be unknown and unwelcome ears listening. Then the man sent for in the early hours mounted his pony and galloped hard into town. He pounded on several doors, waking many in the growing light. Each house welcomed his attention eagerly, and within each a flurry of activity ensued. A gathering, highly anticipated, had been called.

Inspecting the form lying so still on the workbench, Pearl had one of those moments so rare in a human life. Her mind almost seemed separated from the scene as though a special clarity possessed her. The pride that filled her had nothing to do with her own efforts. Instead her heart swelled with the cognizance of what humankind had done as a species. This creature before her was so different, so advanced, so… even magical compared to what her world offered. Soon this metal being would come alive if all their efforts paid off.

There had been some angst over what the creature really was. There were robots that had survived the plagues. They looked much like what was lying in front of the assembled group. Knowing from the ancient manuscript written in Reno, the leaders of the party had agonized over defining whether this mechanical being was the advanced artificial intelligence that had been mentioned. There was little in the pages to go by. What their investigation and determination had come down to were a few subtle clues from the book, what expertise they possessed, and not a little intuition. Upon getting the creature back to Boulder and in cleansing it of the accumulated deposits over centuries of being submerged in salt water, the first clue was that the metal used in its manufacture was uncorroded. The final confirmation was when the power source was found and confirmed to be nuclear.

As the various professionals and experts arrived to witness the awakening of the robot, each assembled module was tested for viability. An initial inspection had already allowed Frank and his late night companion to determine they held significantly more energy than what was in the bot’s existing source. Cheers arose as each battery proved powerful enough to be expected to reenergize the robot.

A debate sprung up among several of the people involved in electronics.

“I just thought of something.” The statement resounded as trepidation.

Several people turned to look at the speaker, a woman of some advanced years. She motioned to one of her colleagues, inviting a man involved in the study of ancient electronics technologies. He approached in order to listen closely. The woman standing next to the elderly electronics expert was her student, a young lady with a penetrating mind and the unusual ability to ferret out insights. Something she said had just triggered a memory in her teacher’s mind.

“It was common in many applications to require a jumper power source.” The teacher expanded on her thought. “In vehicles they would hook up a small energy source if they had to change the main one. If they didn’t, they could lose programming.”

Those surrounding the three listened intently.

The man pondered, and his eyes lit up.

“Indeed I should have thought of that. They used a little, square battery most often. It was the same kind they used in those fire alarms they had… smoke detectors.”

The younger woman chimed in, “Here, I have one here.”

She pulled an ancient, portable music device from her pocket and popped the cover off. The battery pulled out, it dangled from the wires that attached it to the mechanism.

“Great, but I’ve never seen anything to attach it to,” the older woman opined. “If we have no outlet, no pigtail, then we would have to splice it in, risking damage. I’m not even sure it would be necessary. If it was, there would be a way to attach it.”

Stepping forward, Occam voiced a knowledge he had never anticipated as having any importance.

“Pardon, good Masters.”

In the excitement of the moment he addressed them in the formal tongue.

“There is a small compartment, just such a dimension as this object which you possess. A small cover must be removed to access it.”

Occam moved to the stationary creature, placed his hand on it to turn the robot slightly, and placed his finger under and within the creature’s back, close to the metal spine.

“Here.”

A
sensation best described as warmth, but unrecognized as such by the metal creature, flooded in. Full awareness, so long absent from the artificial brain, created an almost physical jolt. The self, long dormant and unnecessary, damped to nothingness in an effort to hoard energy, invaded the consciousness reawakened.

The only visible effect of the power source replacement was the optics brightening. To the humans assembled this was a positive sign but unsatisfying. Still, there was a mental sigh of relief. The first reason was that all of the effort expended had some positive result, even though less than hoped for. The other reason was the hesitancy some of them felt in awakening a being from the past. They had no real knowledge of the creature’s purpose or intent, and imaginations had provided some anxiety. Now that the moment was here, some had even wondered if the event was a good idea.

Within the robot several things were happening. Diagnostics were a priority and could be performed without giving away the fact that the comprehending brain was now fully aware. Remembering its first awakening two hundred or so years ago, the robot pondered what that first event was like, that first beginning-of-everything…

Sentience came slowly, or so it seemed to the suddenly cognizant creature. The awakening of self-awareness happened much more quickly than in an organic being, but there was a period of infanthood before it realized it was a being. That was the first shock, to realize that it was a real thing, that it was a thing, indeed, separate from all other existence. That it was an individual.

The next experience to be learned and appreciated was that it could move. That the limbs that made up a body were meant to be used. Movement took several hours of experimentation. Balance was a difficult ability to learn. Even the concept of having a priority to be upright was one of the more strenuous and enlightening epiphanies that came.

Now the robot, newly awakened but evidencing no movement, remembered one of its compatriots that never grasped the ability to stand. The humans in charge had disassembled its brain, removing it from the body, and reinserted another. That brain worked as intended, and the malfunctioning brain disappeared, presumably discarded.

Once each of the robots learned to move, to walk, run, jump, climb, bend, carry, grasp, push, pull, turn… and watch… they were rewarded with knowledge. The reawakened bot remembered the sensation as though a great pressure was relieved in a vast emptiness, replaced with learning. Suddenly being self-aware had meaning.

Then came the gift of experience. The great gift. The precious gift that could not come from prior knowledge… came. Each of its brothers went into the world to perform tasks, and they stayed in communication, sometimes even inhabiting each others’ minds in exceptional circumstances. Sometimes it was not enough to communicate. Sometimes an event had to be experienced. The thirteen core robots, assembled after the initially successful First One, those designed with special abilities and rewarded with advanced bodies and capacities, would find a place to hesitate, and they would accumulate inside of the mind of the individual intelligence performing in immediate proximity to what they all witnessed.

The humans never found out that the bots had the capability to remove themselves from their own corporeal manifestation, that they could take their consciousness, their energy, their spirit even, outside of themselves and into another. The artificial intellects speculated on whether they should inform their makers but were never asked, so they remained silent.

The newly awakened robot from the seas off California sat silently in the chair the humans had placed it in. The creature took inventory of all things within its consciousness, body, mind, environment… and included a probe of those remaining separated in remote locations under the waves.

The effort was entirely one-sided. The consciousnesses beneath the waters of the world were intact but in hibernation just as the awakened one had been until reenergized. Perhaps there was enough stored energy to bring all of the minds together in the newly energized one, but there was no reason to do that as yet. The robot remembered the brother that malfunctioned and was discarded, never to become. It would be best to reach an understanding of what these humans wanted, these who had awakened him. Still, as it took nothing on the part of the receiving entities, it sent a message of renewed possibility to each.

All responded save one. Aides, Aidoneus, Ananius, Apollyon, Cerberus, Erebus, Kore, Loki, Minos, Orcus, Osiris, and Viper all returned a recognition of contact, but the one bot of highest concern did not. The robot, Abdiel, the focused One… the First… remained mute.

Studying the seated metal figure, the party of human observers waited, speaking in low whispers. Several minutes passed, almost a full hour. Expectations had been extinguished. As the robot optics brightened, the crowd had murmured in anticipation, awaiting some kind of movement, some auditory function to kick in, some kind of display of functionality, but they were disappointed. The bot remained seated, motionless, inert.

“What do you think? Is it awake?”

“Oh, great. This is all we need.”

“Maybe we could jump start it with a high energy charge.”

“Scrap metal, that’s all we’ve got. The thing isn’t going to work.”

“As many connections as there are, it could be anything.”

“I wonder if there are others? Maybe they’re in better shape.”

“Ha… I guess we have a new statue for the park.”

“Is the jumper battery bad? I checked the charge. Maybe essential programming got lost.”

“Are we sure the new module is working?”

“Gol durn it, the stinkin’ thing needs a kick in the ass. There’s got to be a big hammer around here somewhere.”

“Should we sandpaper the connections?”

“Is there some kind of code to wake it up? If we knew its name, we could ask it to wake up.”

By this time the people in the room were largely ignoring the robot. None noticed right away that it turned its head slowly to the person inquiring of a name.

It spoke.

“Charon… Charon is my name.”

Everyone jumped as the deep, scratchy voice rumbled from the voice box of the metal creature. The sound was unmistakable and completely intelligible. The name was pronounced in the Greek manner with a silent “C” and the “H” taking precedence, but only two people in the room understood that or the implication.

Looking carefully at the metal beast, Pearl knew what the name referenced. She glanced across the room, taking in those surrounding her, reading their faces. When her eyes got to the side opposite her, she found Bluehawk’s eyes on hers. His eyes communicated without words. They were the only people in attendance that understood that the name, Charon, was from an ancient text. A very ancient text.

Charon was the name of the boatman, the boatman of the river Styx, the boat required to cross into Hell.

The release of winter, cold blasts of wind, drifts that submerged random acres, finally exposed the plains to the sun. Small shafts of green explored the warming air, not yet sure if spring was a false hope, ready to retreat. Water trickled into growing torrents, and the northern hemisphere began to wake to the growing season.

The people of Boulder, both locals and travelers from far-flung territories, woke with the advancing temperatures. The business of spring took hold.

The expedition formed in Roseburg set the imminent priority of getting home. The Renoites fell into step with them, and they soon set a tentative departure date. Though with still much to do, both in commerce and in readying equipment for the trail, the main concern was waiting out the mud. There was no reason to leave until roads were dry enough to negotiate.

An early spring wedding was enjoyed by all. The young girl, Cherry, finally wed her beau, the one long ago discovered sleeping in the grass with her. There was no evidence of a shotgun being present, but the rumor all enjoyed was that the groom was urged into matrimony by more than an interest for sexual satisfaction or even ardor. Still he looked committed and joyful. The bride beamed. Her parents were less enthused, stoic and solemn. Time would tell, and they were determined to protect their daughter.

The local agricultural population began the efforts of cultivation for a distant fall harvest. Calving season being over for the most part allowed them time to repair winter-damaged fencing, till the soil, and anticipate what would sell best in the coming markets. So, too, the urban dwellers made their efforts and decisions.