Love, Death, Robots, and Zombies Read online

Love, Death, Robots, and Zombies

  By Tom O’Donnell

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, vivid hallucinations, or delusions suffered by the reader; the reader is free to choose whatever answer doesn’t result in a lawsuit.

  Conan is the creation of Robert E. Howard and is mentioned only on account of REH’s influence on the fictional character, with no rights implied by the author.

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright 2015 by Tom O’Donnell

  This book may not be reproduced in whole or part without the permission of the author, unless remade with Legos by someone in a superhero cape–because, why not? Pictures of yourself in an apocalyptic costume holding the book (on an e-reader or in physical form) should be emailed to: [email protected] with the understanding that they might also be posted to:

  https://www.thescifiguy.com.

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  Coming Soon: The Last Plutarch

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Chapter 1.

  If I could zoom out–see the paths converging, watch Fate’s clock ticking down toward disaster–I’d know everything was about to go to hell. But such luxuries come only in hindsight, and the morning begins like any other. Better than most, in fact: I wake to the squeal of a dying rat. My home is filled with rats–if I’m lucky–and judging by the squeal, one just volunteered for breakfast. My stomach responds with an eager rumble. The bars of light spilling between the boards on my window paint wide yellow stripes across the crumbling plaster on the far wall. Lectric is still huddled asleep in his makeshift bed, meaning dawn can’t be far gone. He tends to rise soon after the sun, eager to absorb the day’s first rays.

  Rising, I grab my flashlight and crossbow, climb the ladder down to the hallway that leads to the back room, find the place where the floor caved in, and navigate the familiar debris into the narrow sewers below. I don’t click the flashlight until my boots touch the floor. Then I stab the beam into the gloom and stare wide-eyed down the corridor.

  I’ve never seen anything but rats in this sewer, yet I have a lingering fear something will come charging out of the darkness; some freakish monstrosity long forgotten by the world. Or a ghost, perhaps. I don’t believe in ghosts, but I watch for them anyway. The darkness makes all things possible–and if ghosts do exist, there’d be no shortage here. This city numbered in the millions before the Fall.

  But the sewers, as always, are empty, and my trap sits at the intersection ahead with a rat the size of a small dog dead in its entrance. The sound of my own laughter shocks me. The rats have been getting smaller lately, but this one’s a beast. I should’ve known from the squeal. Once the gate snaps shut, the capacitor has a three second discharge, yet the rats are strangely silent during their electrocution. This one must’ve squealed from the gate snapping shut on its tail, and that only happens when one is too big to fit entirely inside.

  I made my first rat trap in my grandfather’s store when I was seven. Our neighbor used to make red crayons from wax and ochre, and I used one to sign the underside like a work of art, name in jagged scarlet capitals: TRISTAN. I got the voltage wrong and the rat was barely dazed, but I was proud of that first effort. By now I could make them in my sleep. I almost never need the crossbow. Still, it doesn’t hurt to be prepared. There are always the monsters, after all. Always the dark.

  Lugging my breakfast by the tail, I head back up to the Library. A shard of broken glass throws back my reflection, and the joy on the face within seems downright absurd. Only madmen wear such faces. Then again, the whole world’s gone mad; maybe I’m starting to fit in. Anyway, it’s a day for rejoicing. The rat-dog’s got enough meat on him for any three of his friends. A good omen. Maybe Toyota will come today.

  I’ll have to reset the trap later–open the gate, set some bait, reset the pressure plate, and crank-charge the capacitor. There’s no hurry. I’m still smiling when I toss the cleaned carcass on the grill out back. The grill was made from that old-world steel, black as soot, the kind that that doesn’t rust even after a century of exposure. I scored it from some rubble near New Sea. I’ve had to range further into the ruins for wood lately, but it’s worth the effort. Raw rat isn’t much fun to chew.

  I click my electric sparker; soon the meat is sizzling. Every time, the smell makes me nervous. The biggest predator in ten miles is probably a coyote just shy of scrawny, but if any passing travelers are ranging in from the desert, the smell will draw them too, and I don’t like strangers.

  “Strangers!” I say, and someone laughs. The joke is that there are only strangers. Even Toyota doesn’t know where I live. I’ve only met with him along Big Road, two miles east of the Library. His seasonal passage amounts to a kind of holiday. There aren’t many traders that come through these parts, and none I like better than Toyota…

  Lectric whines at the top of the ladder. He can drop the twelve feet without damaging his hull, but he always sits there whining instead. Stupid dog. He nuzzles my cheek with his metametal nose as I carry him down, then scampers out back and spreads himself flat to soak up the sun. It’s a hilarious sight. He closes his glassy black eyes, puts his chin to the ground, and looks about as relaxed as any robot can. He’s scared of rats–and pretty much any organic animal, since one tried to bite his synthetic hide a while back–but he’s gotten used to the smell. I helped put Lectric’s body together myself in the back of my grandfather’s store when I was twelve. That was three years ago, the same year they burned the village. I try not to think about that.

  “Gonna be a good salad today, Lex,” I say. He ignores me completely. While the meat cooks, I go to my sunken garden. It’s hidden in the ruined half of the Library–which used to be a grand place, by the look of things. Sometimes I wonder what was lost in the rubble. You wouldn’t believe how much work it was to clear the place out, churn up the ground, and get it to actually grow things–not to mention keeping out the rats.

  Going all out, I throw some tomatoes in with the lettuce and carrots. It takes two to three months to grow good-sized vegetables from seed, and the garden isn’t big enough for me to utilize every day, but something’s different about today. I can feel it.

  After a nice rat salad, I wrap the leftover meat, grab my pack, and head east toward Big Road. No point wasting time. I reach the Headless King in under an hour. Lectric trots at my heels, but there’s nobody else in sight. The statue on its bronze horse sits askew amid the rubble of a fallen building, pointing vaguely skyward. The loss of his head has done nothing to daunt the unknown hero’s spirits. He looks ready to march into the sky. This is the sixth day in a row I’ve been here. I can’t be sure about Toyota’s timing–or if he’s even still alive for that matter, but unless his trip has gone horribly wrong, he should arrive one day soon.

  To pass the time, I hunt the ruins. Almost everything is rubble. Still, you turn over
the right stone and there’s no telling what you’ll find. Lectric is equipped with a built-in metal detector. When he feels something’s worth digging for, he yaps excitedly. His instincts are good. He does have instincts, despite what you may have heard. Lectric’s not made of meat, but he’s as alive as any other dog and no less loyal. Today he doesn’t yap for squat, but that’s not surprising. This area is pretty well-picked from previous trips.

  We range another mile east until New Sea is visible from atop a rubble-strewn hill. The bones of a fallen skyscraper cut a rusty gray-brown jetty two hundred feet into the water. Other broken monoliths of the dead city rise here and there, like idols of a fallen god. I can’t say why, but it’s a peaceful spot. Much of the dead city looks like one enormous junkyard, but watching those rusting giants sink glacially into the lapping ocean reminds me that one little life isn’t so important in the grand scheme of things–which is a comforting thought. It makes the losses easier to accept.

  Looking at the water, Lectric whines.

  “Coolant?” I ask.

  He nods, a very human motion, and wags his stubby tail. Lectric can’t sweat or salivate. He soaks up the sun for power, but if the heat gets to be too much, he has to pee coolant out of a tube between his legs. Which he already did. Now he needs a refill. He trots down to the shore, stands on a broken road beneath a sign reading “Mississippi River Recreation Area,” and bends his head to the water. It’s saltwater, and I’ll have to flush his system to clean it, but it’ll do for now.

  Back at the Headless King, Toyota still hasn’t shown himself. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe today isn’t the day. I lay with Lectric in the bed of an abandoned truck and waste another hour reading Volume Four. It’s falling apart and impossible to replace, so I turn the pages gently. My eight Conan graphic novels are definitely my favorite find from the Library. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read them. I’m missing volumes seven, nine, eleven and twelve, but what can you do? I like a lot of the novels I’ve found about the World Before–books about daily struggles in a world where kids go to school and cars are more than rotting, abandoned husks–but Conan has been my friend through very dark days. His adventures in Hyboria have sustained me in a way no food could.

  Lectric jumps up and stares intently up the road. He has good hearing–better than me. Soon there’s movement toward the horizon. I fumble for my spyglass. It’s an old one from my grandfather’s store. Through the spyglass I spot something, but for a second I’m unsure: is that Toyota? Two white oxen are trudging along Big Road, kicking up dust from the old stones beneath the broken asphalt. The oxen are pulling a large wooden wagon. A black-haired man is driving. Round black goggles are strapped to his head. He wears a dusty tan poncho over a rugged gray shirt and jeans. To his right walks an armored robot, eight feet tall and gleaming black. Attached to the robot’s right forearm is a wicked curving blade. In its left hand is a machine gun.

  It’s definitely Toyota– the same robotic guard was with him on the way north. It’s the oxen that have thrown me. Putting away the spyglass, I stand and wave as he approaches, trying to make my intentions clear. I don’t want his ‘bot to mistake me for a threat. Lifting his goggles, Toyota stands in the wagon and gives a big wave, then almost pitches forward as his wagon hits a bump. I can’t control the smile on my face when he finally rumbles to a halt. Maybe I shouldn’t be this happy to see someone I’ve only met a few times, but he’ll be the first person I’ve talked to in, I don’t know, six months? Come to think of it, the last person I talked to before Toyota–was Toyota.

  Also, browsing his wares makes me feel like a king. I’ve had dreams about things showing up on Toyota’s wagon. In one dream, my grandfather and my old friends were hiding under the wagon’s tarp, and they climbed out because it turned out they weren’t burned and murdered corpses decaying beneath the ash of our village–oh no, they were fine–and they came to live with me in the Library. Dreams like that making waking hard.

  Toyota hops down from his wagon and clasps my forearm, laughing. He calls me something like, “Yow Show Tchi!” though that’s not quite right. It means “Little Luck” in some god-forsaken language from a city-state far to the southwest. Toyota means it as a compliment. His own name has auspicious origins, being some kind of travel symbol from the World Before.

  I first met Toyota a few months after settling in the Library. I was thirteen and he was heading north with little more than the pack on his back. He got lucky, came back riding a horse. Next trip, the horse was pulling a wagon. The way north is dangerous, full of roamers, radiated wastes, and god-knows what else, so when you get a bit of luck, you don’t take any chances by letting it go unappreciated. Hence, the nickname.

  And apparently, his lucky streak continues.

  “Toyota, look at these beasts! You trade in your horse? A bigger wagon too? Crom, what’d you find up there? A mountain of gold?”

  “Toyota has his tricks, eh Yow Show Tchi? What in north not in south. What in south not in north. Nobody cross z-line. Nasty business. Drive up price. Oh, but be careful who you bargain with, that real trick, eh? But wait, wait, you see what I find!”

  I’ve heard the z-line is no joke, though I’ve never been that far north myself. I don’t range more than a day or two into the desert, always staying close enough to return to a sure source of water.

  When Toyota jumps down and pulls back the dusty tarp covering his goods, I forget everything else. It’s like a widow into heaven. Everything he brought north has been replaced by foreign treasures. Immediately I spot a dozen electrical components I could use; resistors, a small motor, batteries, servos for smaller robots (Lectric’s won’t last forever). But all that is nothing compared to what Toyota pulls out of a locked chest…

  A brand-new, dormant-state Tritium-Three Neural Embryo.

  I breathe a curse. Toyota laughs. It’s a rarity, that’s for sure. The most advanced small-scale robotic brain in existence. Wire a Tritium-Three to any sufficiently advanced body and you’ve basically just given life to a baby robot. Give it an eight-armed body and it will learn to use eight arms–but that takes more neural space, lowering its end-state intelligence. Give it something more manageable and it will develop a complex personality with enough intelligence to rival or even surpass most humans.

  Lectric uses a Spark 2100 Neural Embryo, yielding limited awareness. He can understand a few commands but not complex language. Nothing compared to a Tritium-Three, but still qualitatively superior to non-sentient robots … like Toyota’s bodyguard, which is highly lethal, capable of recognizing friend from foe, yet totally controlled by pre-programmed software. Lectric might be scared of rats, but at least he makes his own choices. To prove it, he peed on me one morning while I slept. I mean, it was only warm water, sure, but there was just no reason to do that.

  Developing a robot through the brain-embryo method is the only known way to achieve sentience. You can’t just turn one on and load it up with data. They have to wire themselves through experience, as an organic brain does. That’s the real secret to the life inside them.

  Of course, there’s no way in hell I can afford a Tritium-Three. Well, maybe if I trade everything I have, because I do have some valuables. But an advanced robotic brain needs an advanced robotic body, with pain receptors and tactile support, and even if I had one available, what then? I’d have an advanced robot with the mind of an infant, in need of constant monitoring. What would I say when it grew smart enough to ask why I’d created it? I was lonely? I built you for fun? Answers like that can get people killed.

  So no, I will not be trading for it. Still, it’s hard to pull my eyes away.

  “Amazing, Toyota. Amazing. But I can’t afford it. I’ll take these resistors, these two circuit boards … I like these servos but this one’s beat-up. Have you tested it?”

  “Yow Show Tchi, you wound my heart. Toyota test everything! He no c
heat you.”

  “Not saying you would, but look at it…”

  We haggle. I tell him why everything is junk. He tells me why everything is gold. I put some things in my pile and throw some things back. I’m good on food, but I do pick up seeds for new vegetables–a valuable find.

  Then it’s my turn for show-and-tell. I open my pack and pull out wonders. Gold coins from the rubble of a fallen house. Fresh tomatoes from my garden. An extra canteen. Detailed toy soldiers from the World Before. An antique watch. A hand-cranked generator, rat traps, and electric fire-starters (all made by yours truly).

  Then it’s a question of what should be given for what. I put together bundled proposals. We end up with a deal neither of us are quite happy with, but one we can both accept. To seal the deal, Toyota offers to cook up a desert fox killed by his bodyguard. He breaks out a small grill. When the meat is done, he offers me a leg, and we sit on the edge of his wagon. Toyota shows me some honey-wine made by monks in an enclave east of New Sea.

  “This all they make! Very good wine. Trade to everyone who come. Oh, my wife gonna be happy to see this.”

  He talks about bringing the oldest of his three children on his next trip north, but its god-awful dangerous, and his wife doesn’t want the boy to go. When the meal is done and the goods exchanged, I’m struck by a fluttering anxiety. I’ve always been a loner, even back in the village. I don’t need anyone. Ever. For anything. Still, sometimes it’s nice to talk to someone who isn’t a robotic dog. Yet I can’t think of any reason Toyota should stay–I have nothing left to trade.

  He climbs into his wagon and signals his robotic bodyguard, which begins moving up the road. In moments, I’ll be alone again. I want to say something. There’s nothing to say. Toyota pulls his black goggles down over his eyes and stands smiling for a moment with his fists on his hips.

  “Yow Show Tchi, I tell you last time: if luck keep up, I find something just for you. Toyota keep his promise.”

  And he tosses me something straight out of a dream. I catch it by instinct. Impossible. I cannot believe what I’m looking at: Conan’s grim face above a bloodied sword and piled corpses.

  Volume Seven.

  Is this a trick? A delusion?

  Words fail me. I would’ve traded everything in my pack just for this, and Toyota knows it. I’ve buried something of myself in these graphic novels. Finding a new one is like having a piece of my soul returned to me. Toyota sits down laughing and urges the two white oxen forward. As the wagon rumbles away, I’m frozen. I need to speak. What does he want for this? I can’t give him Lectric. The wagon continues forward.

  “Toyota!”

  He looks back, craning his head to one side.

  “Find something good. I see you next time!” he shouts.

  Suddenly it’s hard to breathe. There’s a pressure behind my eyes. Find something? What could possibly pay for this? Yet it was almost an afterthought. He’s giving it me, this treasure, this irreplaceable rarity. When was the last time anyone gave anything to me? Crispin, perhaps, before the soldiers came. Or my grandfather? No. It was Annabel. Annabel Lee. I drown the memory. I stuff it under layers of mental strata. Best not to look there.

  Volume Seven.

  The walk home is something wonderful. The ruins hold an intricate beauty, bathed in the red glow of the sinking sun. Every shadow is artfully arranged. A smile sticks to my face. I stop twice to make sure I didn’t lose my prize. I think about the ritual I’ll go through while reading it. I’ll hand-crank enough power for a dim bulb. But the book must be read slowly. Very slowly–one page a night, perhaps–so it will last. It may be the last new volume I’ll ever find. How many more even still exist? Or maybe up north there’s a whole factory full. Maybe there were others Toyota didn’t bother grabbing. Who knows?

  The Library’s sturdy white façade rises ahead, the best shelter for miles, despite the fact that it’s only half-standing. Trotting ahead, Lectric stops short, his head coming up.

  “What is it, boy?”

  Belatedly, I realize he’s growling. Something’s wrong. Panic floods my senses. I’ve let my guard down. What was I thinking? Blind fool! I’ve been in a Conan-induced delirium. Are there raiders near? A roamer? Not this far south. What then?

  The light.

  A light flicks on the wall through one of the Library’s broken windows. Oh God, is it burning? Not again! No. It’s a controlled fire. And is that laughter? Dear Crom, someone’s inside. Calm down, Tristan. Calm down. They haven’t seen me yet. Probably just some traders or travelers passing through. Or bandits.

  But they’ll find my grill, my traps, my barrels of water. They’ll know someone lives there. Will they burn my supplies? At least I brought my crossbow. It’s a good thing Lectric was paying attention or I might’ve strolled right inside. Hey Guys. Nice to meet you. Oh, my life? Sure, take it!

  The safest thing, I decide, is to hide under some rubble within sight of the Library. There’s plenty of big pieces to offer concealment, and from there I can keep an eye on things. Hopefully they’ll move on in the morning. If not, things could get complicated. But perhaps first I should creep a little closer and try to get a look at them, see how many there are. How well-armed. I could–

  “Drop the crossbow or you’ll be breathing through the back of your head.”

  The voice is soft, unlike the barrel pressed to my skull.