Chapter 29: The Wasteful Plain – Part 3

The consciousness stood where it was, holding Sky aloft, as she pulled uselessly at its fingers. For some reason, it could not quite make itself tighten them any more.

In between gasping for breath, Sky managed to produce words. ‘You don’t have to―’ she spluttered.

‘Do I not?’ the consciousness asked, quite calmly. ‘I am a war machine. I am meant to kill. I was forged to destroy the enemy. Where is the enemy?’

‘There is… no enemy.’ Sky met the consciousness’s gaze, far and vague as it was, and held it. ‘There’s… no need to fight here… no war...’

‘But I am a war machine,’ the consciousness repeated. ‘It is what I am for.’

‘You’re in… a world of…’

‘Discarded things,’ it finished. ‘I am discarded.’

‘Why…’

‘I must have malfunctioned.’

‘No!’

Sky was still struggling, but her movements were growing sluggish. The consciousness suspected she was running out of air, and yet still she argued.

‘Not just… discarded… free.’

With effort, and the last of her breath, she managed to produce one final sentence.

‘You must have… made a choice… not to kill.’

For a moment, the words did not settle in the consciousness’s mind. They did not make sense. It had been fashioned to kill, so why would it do anything other than that? If it scorned the purpose of its makers, what would it have left in the world to guide its path?

But as it thought, its fingers relaxed and Sky slipped free, stumbling away from it as she gasped for breath, and then it finally looked properly into her face and saw the fear there.

It had seen a face like that before, it realised, filled with that same emotion. The clenched jaw, the tightening of the lips, those slightly widened eyes… Was that why it had been discarded? Was it that face that had stayed its hand and halted its purpose? But the memories were still foggy. All it could do was step back and lower its hand.

‘I did…’ it said, so softly.

Massaging her throat, Sky straightened up and regarded it with a wary look. ‘Seems you have some strong programming in there. Doesn’t want to let you go.’

She was right. It could still feel the wiring in its brain fighting against its choice; an underlying, subtle yet furious urge to do as it was made to do and destroy, to wage war even where the was none and bring fire and blood to these calm, desolate wastes.

It looked at Sky. ‘It would appear I am still dangerous. I cannot say if that programming will again take hold. I think it would be wise to leave me.’

She stood where she was and gazed at it for a few silent moments, and it supposed in those moments that that would be exactly her decision ― but then her face softened and she took a cautious step in its direction, and another, slowly approaching. When she grew near, she reached a hand up to touch its shoulder, very gently, feeling the cracks and grazes in a metal surface that must once have been smooth and polished.

‘No, I don’t think that’s how this has to go.’ She looked into its eyes. ‘That’s twice you’ve chosen not to kill. You’re stronger than your programming. Besides, what kind of medic abandons her patient?’

That may depend on the patient, the consciousness mused, but left the thought unsaid. Even so, as they set off again around the edge of the lake, it made sure to keep a slight distance from Sky so that if its programming were to kick in again, she would have a chance to run.

For a long while thereafter, they travelled in silence. The consciousness liked that. Silence, it had found, was the perfect nutrient to the seed of contemplation, and it had much thinking to do.

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It spent most of the next two days trying to remember more about itself. That was perhaps a dangerous endeavour, for memory had so far only driven it to the edge of murder, but it felt that to truly overcome its purpose, it would need to remember why it had made the choice the first time. Whom had the face and the fear it had seen then belonged to? Other than a field of war, what had its home world been like?

Sky had said that memories could not be forced, but the consciousness tried anyway. It could feel that they were still inside its head somewhere, locked away and hidden, and when it strained with all its will, blurry suggestions of visions or words came to it like shadows flitting across its peripheral, visible yet indiscernible, only just out of reach. If only it could find focus on them, see where it had come from and what it had done, and why… but Sky proved to be right. The memories refused to be forced, and instead receded back into the mists of its mechanical mind.

As they travelled, the silence between them was broken only rarely, and for brief moments, most often as Sky pointed out where they were going next, or mentioned that she had to stop for rest or rations. Rations, it transpired, were the same thing it had seen her eat before, sustenance in the form of a grey food that seemed to take much chewing.

The consciousness did not speak at all, only watching the pale, repetitious wastes roll by as Sky performed the odd rituals that creatures of flesh and blood seemed to need to survive.

As the hours rolled together, each one barely distinguishable from the last, the consciousness considered again Sky’s comments on freedom, on this being the world of all that was different. It was true that there was great variation in the junk they passed by, and it was true that there were strange sights like the lake to be found, but the consciousness could not see in what way this world was really any different from the others and their pattern that Sky had described.

It was only in the final hours of the third day of travel that something new happened. They were walking along a narrow valley that cut through a range of hills which Sky said the camp they were heading for was on the other side of. The sky was darkening, turning pink on the small slice of horizon they could see, with a colour the consciousness somehow knew as the hue of evening. It was looking ahead to that pink portion of sky, where it somehow knew there should, by all laws, be a setting sun, when the sound came.

A shrill, piercing cry echoed down the valley from somewhere behind them. The consciousness turned to look up, as behind it Sky shouted, ‘Get down! Keep still!’

There was enough urgency in her voice that it did as it was told without question, though it kept its eyes pointed upwards, scanning for a sign of what might have made the noise. Only a few seconds passed before it got its answer.

Up above, silhouetted black against the dark evening blue, a shape sailed by with wings spread, a little like a bird, or perhaps more a bat. The consciousness could not make out much detail, but it seemed that the shape was jagged, and that the wings ended in claws. It drifted in silence for a few moments, before uttering another terrible cry, then veering off over the hills and vanishing from sight.

Slowly, Sky clambered back to her feet, the consciousness following suit. ‘Shrieker,’ she told it. ‘They hunt what moves. They’re rare enough, but deadly strong and fast if they do come for you. And hard to kill. The books say they’re made of nothing but bones.’ She glanced up at the consciousness. ‘Come on, let’s try to get to the camp before night.’

They heard the shrieker’s cry twice more after that, both times farther away, like fading echoes. Eventually it was gone, swallowed by the darkness and the silence of night as they fell once more across the Wasteful Plain.

For an hour or so they walked in quiet shadow, and the consciousness became ever more sure that it would have been better if they had stopped for the night. Sky’s movements were growing ever more uncertain as she tired, and she was clearly having trouble seeing the ground in front of her.

But then lights appeared ahead of them, twinkling like tiny stars, though the consciousness’s night vision drained them of all colour, and it knew at a glance that they were not stars. They were lamps ― over a hundred in number, by its reckoning. When it looked at Sky, it saw her pace had quickened, her confidence reasserted.

The consciousness was surprised to find that the camp was not walled. It had thought there would be wooden stakes, or corrugated iron, or wire fencing, some kind of defence, but instead one could simply walk in among the tents from any direction. There were at least guards ― two that the consciousness could see, though it didn’t doubt many were posted around the circumference of the camp.

When the two near them spotted Sky and the consciousness, one of them stood up and came hurrying over. They held a rifle, but it was tilted down as they approached.

‘Safe travels, Sky?’ they asked.

‘For the most part,’ she replied. ‘Newcomer here. No name yet.’

The guard looked up at the consciousness, peering at it with dark eyes from beneath the brim of a hat. ‘You’ll be wanting to head to the Scrap Heap, then.’

It stared back at them for a moment. ‘Why?’

They looked confused. ‘Everyone does. Camps like these are only good for folks with something to do.’ They glanced down. ‘And the Scrap Heap’ll have someone who can fix your leg proper.’

The consciousness thought about that as it followed Sky and the guard towards the camp. It wasn’t sure that it did want to go to the Scrap Heap. What if its purpose took over again while it was there? If the rifle the guard held was anything to go on, the people of this world were not well-equipped to fight something like it. Though it did not yet remember all its capabilities, it knew that at least. It knew that it was fast, clever, and strong; a machine made not just for destruction, but swift destruction.

Its mind settled back into reality as the guard said something to Sky in a hushed voice.

‘I’m sorry, but I’ve got some bad news for you. Something new’s come through, and it’s dangerous like nothing else. Denoll’s gone.’

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