Hope's Ruin

5 | Flake 99

<< operating system 6.0.3 >>

<< Motorola 68000 8 Mhz CPU >>

<< 16Mb expanded memory >>

<< unregistered graphic card interface>>

"Erm, not exactly sure what all that is. Sounds really old though."

<< registered users >>

<< miss danica farren >>

<< coldharbour high school library >>

<< mr ernest underwood >>

<< coldharbour farm ashewood city >>

"Ooh," Pepper whistled. "Perhaps this Ernest Underwood made you."

<< made >>

"Built you," she said. "In the first place."

<< possible >>

Pepper wondered what Ernest Underwood looked like, where Coldharbour Farm was, and why he might have created Flake 99. What possible use could he have had for an inanimate robot. Was it some sort of sculpture? A hobby? An art project like Fisk had suggested so horribly? His original wiring was completely backwards. There was no chance of the robot ever functioning. For a kick-off, Flake 99 had inadequate power, motors, processing, navigation. Ernest Underwood could never have believed his creation would ever be sat here, in a tent in Hope's Ruin, chatting with Pepper.

<< pepper >>

She snapped back. "Yes. I'm here. Just tired. Think I'll crash for a few hours. Promise me you won't run off before I get up."

<< affirmative >>

* * *

Pepper dreamt of robots. Big and small. Kind and mean. Robots built to help. Robots built to kill. A landscape of 8-bit sandbox grids stretched throughout her mind, populated by a world of synthetic life, reanimated life, fizzing with power and ideas and desire. The horizon tipped. Pepper and robots fell to the ground. Pixels shattered. The world opened up and swallowed them whole.

Pepper woke with a start.

Several books had slipped off Fisk's bunk and slammed against the floor of the Millennium Kestrel.

The ground rumbled.

Cries and screams tore the air.

Pepper's forehead connected with the underside of her brother's bunk. A photo of their parents tumbled onto her pillow. She flipped her hair back and darted to the door. Outside, Flake 99 sat on the workbench. An 8-bit eye blinked in her direction.

"What's going on?" she asked.

<< unknown >>

"I heard an explosion."

"Explosion?" said Fisk, appearing behind his sister. "What explosion?"

<< explosion >>

Fisk stumbled down the steps and dropped to his knees in front of the robot.

"So, you finally got it working?"

<< functional >>

Fisk threw a glance at his sister. "See, Flake gets it. Functional, not living."

Pepper wanted to scream. "There's no time for this now," she said, grabbing her satchel and throwing the tent open. Pepper and Fisk emerged on the streets of Hope's Ruin. A long column of black smoke rose from the far side of the township. Barks and jeers ricocheted against the buildings. Feet rushed past, heading towards the sound of trouble.

"Come on," Pepper urged, glancing at Angaarspear 4. The mighty drilling platform loomed over Hope Ruin like an invading alien spacecraft. Pepper and Fisk jogged through the twisty streets of Hope's Ruin, past hollowed out plane fuselages, beneath canopies of patchwork fabric, through the ramshackle makeshift homes of every soul struggling to carve out a life in The Great Wastes.

The sound of angry voices and metal on metal sung through the night.

The entire congregation of Hope's Ruin swarmed around the feet of The Spear. Bonfires sat in each corner of an arena, sparking and choking with black smoke.

Humans stood between three of the bonfires, reanimates inhabited the rest.

Henning Barbour, a large man with tattooed arms and close-cropped hair, stood in the centre of the arena, beneath the enormous platform. A look of chaotic menace drowned his eyes. Across from him lurched one of the reanimates: a crash test dummy. He wore nothing but a pair steel toe-capped boots and a decorative garland of chains that ran across his chest, from shoulder to hip. The two circled like sharks. The crowd whooped and hollered, clattering broken tech and scrap metal together as their excitement built.

"What is this?" Pepper asked, but Fisk shook his head and pulled her away from the circle.

"It's too dangerous," he told her. "We should leave."

Pepper shook himself loose and climbed onto a stricken picnic table. She stared over the bobbing heads and punching fists, at the two figures at the centre. "Are they going to fight? To what end?"

"It's been building for months," Fisk said, suddenly beside her, close.

"Building? What's been building?"

He sighed. "You're here in body...but not in mind," he said. "Always thinking about the future and never what's right in front of your eyes."

Fisk words cut deep.

"Hope's Ruin is broken," he told her. "Governor Sawyer has tried everything to settle the difference between humans and reanimates."

"The differences?" she gasped. "But we're living as one, in peace."

Pepper's eyes turned to the fight. "Really?"

Henning Barbour launched himself towards the crash test dummy. Fists whirred into the reanimate's head. They clattered to the ground, rolling in the sand, grunting and snarling like territorial beasts. The crash test dummy elbowed the powerful man in the face, sending him reeling, then sprang into the air and secured Henning with his knees. Punches came thick and fast. Henning was almost helpless. The humans roared their displeasure, their annoyance, their distaste. Henning waved a hand in submission and the crash test dummy sat back, its once beige, plastic hands now painted dark red.

That should have been it. That should have been the end. But a rock flew in from the crowd. The reanimates howled in disbelief. Rusty wheel drums and iron bars and detritus of all kinds clattered against the crash test dummy. He crumpled on the ground under the barbaric onslaught. People scurried to pull Henning to safety as the rest swarmed the reanimates with weapons that glinted in the moonlight.

Debris flew in every direction. Screams and curses filled the night. A lone sliver of jagged steel ricocheted away from the fight.

Beneath an arc of moonlit blood, Fisk tumbled into the sand.