Bare feet padded along the grey shore of Ucluelet, British Columbia. All but the bravest locals were long indoors, as raucous waves crashed across the reef. The tang of salt water made the monolith spit on the grass. He sniffed the air, feet pressed against the earth as if waiting for it to pitch and yaw. The disequilibrium of life on the sea sloshed at rung ears. No wave or bend came to the solid ground, nor did he see the dim electric signs wobble in the storm.
'Storm Warning. Please Remain Indoors. Call For Emergency. Storm Warning...'
The script played in sigils Aderastos lived in ignorance of; no context for surf shops, boba tea & coffee cafe's. Neither the few vehicles on the street, tethered to blue glowing stands with battery icons.
'Haven'
Above all signs in ubiquitous scripts, a crown of fluctuant purple and pink neon light. The only recognizable thing in Aderastos’ mind was the crown.
The lights dimmed and flickered. Not even the Mater Machine, that Android Queen Lieben, could keep the storm from battering the Pacific Coast.
Aderastos' body left a trail of seawater back to the Carolina Channel. Serene android NEO-Nurses bustled between patients and visitors. The NEO-Ns remained immune to the tumult of humanity's raised voices and emotional conquests between hospital beds. Chitter chat of the storm, would it close down the pass on Highway 4, was as ignored as the wind.
Vibrational whirrs convalesced on his skin. From the vibration alone, and the lack of petrol fumes, Aderastos knew the auxiliary was a solar and wind powered battery-backup generator. Precisely how he knew such confoundities existed was as questionable as the symbols on the signs. As long as the sun or the wind continued, this place would remain attached to the Hymn Electric.
Bare feet slid on the linoleum floor. As unfamiliar as the beings who caterwauled within the strange nest. It seemed to grow from the Ucluelet soil in a steel beam forest, the foliage vast panes of storm-proof glass. Light strips stung his eyes, blank white light ran the length of every corridor.
He understood little of the languages the beings chittered, nor why they stopped to watch as his chest passed the tops of their heads.
Aderastos knew nothing but the flow of heartbeats, which resounded like a cacophonous orchestra lacking syncopation. NEO-Ns stopped as he entered patient wards. Android senses riled and scanned, while metal and silicone bodies became statues dedicated to the new humanity loved and conquered.
A world of the Mater Machine's design.
The elderly woman smacked dry lips and leaned her head on a thin pillow, eyes milked with cataracts. Was this the doctor? Her heart beat with the disequilibrium of a stumbling fawn. The muscles tied to her bones were as brittle as their stays, feet marred from too many years on retail floors with poor footwear. A woman's shoes were the domain of fashion's agonies, in her day. Beside her headboard, an acrylic screen shone awake at his touch. It rained cerulean light on the woman's fitful face.
Symptoms, blood tests, an fMRI. The asymmetrical heartbeat thu-u-ub-d-um-ubbed in syncope with what he heard.
He cast his eyes to the ward and saw naught but patients asleep, or others craning their necks at the intruder.
Aderastos put his hand on her cheek, frail bird of a creature. She jostled.
"Oh dear, sweet Jesus. Are you here to take me home?" She warbled, pupils wobbled in delirium. Aderastos' eyes closed as he felt for the heartbeat and with a tug, an easy inhalation, strengthened it. Colour swooped into her cheeks. The cloying tang of infection wafted away. Eyes became the clear chestnut of a childhood playing softball in West Vancouver, despite her twisted, birth-dropped left leg.
He turned, gasps shocked her from a pallid recline to sit up in bed.
"Nurse! Nurse!"
As Aderastos laid hands on each person in the room, the NEO-N remained an inanimate object. Patients quaked, squealed, reached.
"What's he doing!?"
"Call Security! Call a Doctor! Someone tweet it!"
"Don't miss me!"
"NEO-N! NEO-N, wake up!"
"Over here! Hey, the web's down."
"Don't leave me."
Each of the confounded beings received the Healer's hand. Heartbeats. Too many heartbeats clattered in his ears; a cacophony unignored. Teeth clanked in his jaw from the damp chill of his sea water soaked jumpsuit. Illumination bands oscillated multiple colours around a closet beside NEO-N recharge cubbies. Inside, scrubs by size. The largest scrub shirt stretched tight across his frame. Trousers snug, if short. Patients he touched rose from their beds, pecked at CIRCLET holocams and tried to call disembodied voices. Words garbled incoherent as the storm shuddered against the CIRCLET network.
Aderastos' silence deafened the charging mass. Patients well enough to leave their beds lined the hall, groped to get closer.
"H-hey! You! Who... where's your bracelet... Lou! Lou I found him! Gawd dangit your Mama fed you like a horse!" A man in identical scrubs chased down the hall after Aderastos. His hale heartbeat and the timbre of his voice sent his chatter down the list of priorities to those whose health fared worse.
Aderastos padded through the hospital in a heady fog. Their hearts thrummed and thudded into his body with the force of river waves cutting into a fledgling canyon. Each thub-dub he heard added to what the behemoth was denied: humanity in all its ailments, and grotesque accidents spread before him.
"Singh is on site. I'm not sending a Tac Team into a hospital full of civies. Y-no frick, genius... Contain it!? Contain this!!" Commodore Rammage pushed the off button on his radio receiver's microphone with such vehemence he tried to crack the plastic. Didn't work. Damn. Barely hear his nebulous superiors through the storm anyway. Time and distance were on the Ithavoll's side, even if the crew buckled down against a fury far greater than la mer. Answers as to how the Asset woke up enough to open its eyes would be found if Earl Rammage tore the ship to girders to do it.
"Allard!" Rammage flipped the lid on his stainless steel coffee mug, battered in his pack until a thumb print manifested on its' side. At least that still worked. A thin, caramel skinned officer with rakish black hair rushed the door and heaved it open. Behind him, a litany of officers bustled through the compartment. Yellow klaxons flared along the corridor walls and the tops of the bulkheads in a frenetic pulse of incandescent bulbs. "Close the door!"
"Sir!" Lt. Max Allard snapped to attention, hand bounced off his smooth forehead. The clumsy lieutenant kicked the door shut, secured to its' mag-lock. "Sorry... in a... one second... close the..."
"What the fuck!? What the legitimate fuck!?" Commodore Rammage threw the microphone at the junior officer, happy enough when it bounced off Allard's chest and into the Afro-polynesian boy's scrambled hands.
"I swear I had permission to bring my surfboard,Sir."
"What!? No!"
"Ah, Sir. What's…” Allard gulped, couldn’t a dressing down wait until after morning kip? Heck, a cup of brimstone coffee? He fought the urge to rub at weary eyes, or count the hours of sleep he’d got on two fingers. “...okay now I'm more scared to ask."
"Are you serious? Our Asset's AWOL, Lieutenant! Vacated to the island! How the living hell did it get out of containment?"
"But look, Sir. Sleeping like the others, their aero-drip downers keep them under until 0900." Allard raised a remote to the bank of vacuum tube security screens and flicked to a live feed of the Asset Containment Unit. "Fixed the hermetic seal on CL-003's yesterday. Checked 'em all, the mechanics were solid as the day we set sail."
Rammage's eyebrow shot near off his face into a watercolour of a temperate rainforest screwed into the enamel. The ship rocked with the storm, Allard steadied his palm on the hull, copper wire mesh between layers of enamel inside the mild steel plate. The Commodore's office wafted with citrus oil wood polish and whiskey, damp papers crinkled in manilla envelopes. Pictures in glass frames drilled into the enamel displayed the ruins of pre-Mater cities and abandoned shopping malls.
The antiquated image flickered on a resolution which made Max Allard cry his first week onboard. From holographic immersion series to boob tubes built from colourized 1940's tech, life on Commodore Rammage's flagship was as dichotic as the CIRCLET he left back home. Tama probably cracked the biometric code, if Max knew his older brother. Assets laid in state, mechanical toys built of cogs and sprockets of DNA and raw meat none of the crew ever saw. The aero-drip smoke of their containment cells bathed any crewman's sight with a macabre but cheerful pink.
Ithavoll's Retreat was the reason for such technological luditism, to keep what the scientists did away from Lieben's omnipotent eyes. Rammage shoved away from his wood and metal desk, grabbed the remote and played back footage from the night watch.
"How... it swam ashore? Didn't think the Assets knew what water was, Sir. Aren't they offline? Isn't that what the aero-drip does? Offline them? Might’ve drowned, waves that big, reminds me of this reef outside Auckland..."
"Shut up, Allard. You're with me. Step to!" Commodore Rammage pushed past the office door, into the tight corridor of the CGM Ithavoll's command offices. He flung orders like confetti on New Years, without the joy or chance for a tot of the copious booze on his oak cabinet. "Rykstra, Desbiens, contain the others. Prep the Hercules!"
"Yessir!" Head ducked down, Allard fiddled with the hatch lock before he chased after the Commodore's receding voice. The hatch clanged behind him, unsecured in Allard’s nerves. The wide but tired eyes of a kid.
"Allard!" No, Allard was the one.
"Yes Sir?" The Operations officer hustled after Rammage, foiled in a flimsy attempt to grab a desk officer's bagel. "Is that smoked salmon on th-coming Sir!"
"You're going to retrieve the Asset. Understood?" Rammage thundered on, crewmen slammed their backs against the corridors to grant him passage. He stepped over containment ridges with a clockwork gait. "Hurry up! If we don't get you down there before Singh gets antsy, there'll be more blood than I want on my conscience."
"M-b-m-I'm not specialized in... in... I'm... I'm a repairman, Sir." Rushing down the corridor, Allard stepped over a ridge and grabbed hold of a stair rail.
"I know what you are. How long have you worked on board?"
"Ah... eight weeks? Transferred from the Dauntless, Sir. Shouldn't Sec Dep deal with this?"
"I remember. You had the worst shooting record in ship history."
"I suck at guns, Sir, more of a fix-it man. Thus... I'm... what? Worst? Wasn't really that..."
The labyrinthine corridors opened to a bitter wind on a sea the Lieutenant respected too much to fear. Grabbing a poncho from the hatch side, he slung it over his head as the Commodore whistled for the Deck Boss.
"Didn't agree to the transfer for your shooting record." Fingers rubbed on his forehead, Rammage faced the frantic Lieutenant promoted more for his ability to keep a ship running than any tact or strength. The carrier's contingent of fighter jets and helicopters were long secured down. Deck Boss's skeleton crew scrambled an ancient Hercules tethered to the carrier like the atmospheric city of Abha was tethered to the Canadian Arctic. "You're harmless."
"Thank you... Sir? Is... is that thank you? Or... pardon?"
"If we go full tactical, the Asset will trip. It woke up, Allard. Walked out of its chamber and found its way to shore. Downers didn't manage last night... you'd better believe Rykstra'll be working on incredibly detailed explanations right now." Out on the edge of the flight deck, Rammage bellowed to be heard over the roar of the storm. He gripped Allard's arm and towed him to the side, in a damp, but private place. A rogue wave crashed onto the carrier's surface. Salt and algae hit Allard's nose, as his boots screeched against the tac-cloth ribs cut into the deck. "Remember when you arrived, and got to work on the South Compartment?"
"The hurricane damage, yes, I'm surprised you didn't sink. Almost needed a dry-dock to patch us up, but I understand we don't ever make land."
"That wasn't hurricane damage, Lieutenant. I'm sending you, because anyone with an aggressive or commanding bone in their body will tweak the Asset. I can't send Singh's Sec Team into a Haven with intent to harm, without bringing Lieben down on our collective mcguffins. Only thing the Asset's ever responded to is... frick, I feel like my ex-wife's book club right now..." Rammage groaned and nearly spat on the deck. "... Appeal to it. Bring AD-001 back by being... you. Dopey, harmless, efficient you. The guy who saved his crew-mate from that crab-spider-thing by stealing a mess hall salad bowl and baking sheet."
"You... know the spider story... 'course you know the spider story... everyone knows..."
"Allard." Rammage grunted. The young man snapped to attention. An ignorant sacrifice to the New Creation which escaped the womb to trample across Eden's shores. He clicked his fingers, and the pilot of the helicopter rushed to grab Allard's shoulder. Tow him on.
"Ever wonder what God looks like?!"
"Course not."
"Atheist?"
"No Sir. Why do you ask?!"
"You're about to meet God's second born."
Lieutenant Allard clung to the harness. The helicopter's massive side door was open to the whirling air. Thuds echoed in his head, through the ear muffs, into fingers, legs and toes. He clenched his teeth against the outrageously peevish scream attempting to burst out of his mouth. Ground below a rapid reality, Allard focused on a single spot of green grass to staunch his nausea.
Outside Haven, the CGM Black Collars hovered at the edge of the Channel. A brisk faced commander sunk his jaw on a piece of gum; the only promise he'd kept for his wife. Chew the gum, don't grind your teeth. Dentures suck.
"Willis, comm alpha. Get the Squad on the prowl."
"Ah, Sir? Permission to speak, Sir?" Hands on his knees against the unruly discombobulation of landing on a blade of grass in a winter storm, Allard raised a finger.
"What, Allard? A neolithic spider need saving?"
"Commodore Rammage sent me to... retrieve the Asset. Could use a bowl if you’ve got a big enough one." The lieutenant gulped and unfolded a piece of paper, rolling the sheet between his thumb and fingers. "Black Collars won't do. He'll have them tanked the second he thinks the people in that hospital are in danger."
"Prep radio silence." Commander Singh checked the dart packs on his chest, fixed the anti-kinetics vest across his broad chest.
"Yes Sir. But no Sir... Sir. Please, you've got to let me try. What kinda hullabaloo comes up if the Asset gets farther then a Haven on the backside of an obscure Channel? What happens if the NEO-Ns give it Sanctuary?"
Commander Singh exhaled through his teeth. The gum popped and sloshed in his mouth. A radio pack crackled useless beside Bestin and their gear.
"Allard, you're up. Reacquire the asset without collateral damage, and I'll reassign you from the plumbing."
"Yes Sir... I'll be careful Sir." He walked a step before turning around, "But I like Ops, Sir."
"Take a gun."
Allard shook his head. "Terrible shot, Sir. Reason I got assigned to operations."
Commander Singh's laughter clung to Allard's back all the way to the hospital entrance. As the glass doors swooshed open, Allard shuddered a deep breath.
"Maybe we both should go AWOL and surf in Tofino... Commodore Rammage my tanned arse... Oy! AD-001?" The doors to Ucluelet's Haven slid shut with a whoosh of lavender and eucalyptus infused air. A robot floor sanitizer squeegeed up the last of a trail of water from the expansive, light-filled foyer, and exhaled until his shoulders bowed.
Bright blue and white LED light bathed glass and steel. Holograms of medical staff asked people to return to their beds. Awash in white, blue and silver, the Haven made Allard wonder how anyone could return to a yellowed antique ship with corridors so thin two people shifted sideways to pass.
The Machine-tech Haven was abuzz with patients and guests rushing about. People in woollens, watched out the windows at the congregation of soldiers braving the storm, while others babbled about the giant inside. Aches gone or loved ones sat up from comas.
Scuttlebutt from rushed voices was impossible for Max to ignore. A giant scraping his head off the ceiling, laying hands... actual hands on the sick.
"Try again, Igor." A man in scrubs with a doctor's badge tapped at his CIRCLET, shaking his head.
"No. Nothing. Must be the storm... where'd he come from?"
"When can I study his blood, eh? NEO-N! NEO-N, get the patients back to their beds. Run full diagnostic scans of all of them before we release anyone. Igor, keep trying to get through."
Allard watched the two until they stared back.
"Rather busy, check in with a NEO-N, they'll get you sorted." The doctor ran at an elderly woman in a calf-length skirt and long sleeved sweater, her valuables in a bamboo mesh hospital laundry bag. "Ms. Davey! Ms. Davey, you can't... Ms. Davey go back to bed, we haven't..."
"Bother all, Doc I've never felt so good! Look! My leg! It's not gimped! I feel as giddy as a school girl on a field trip! Big Jesus healed me, Doc! More than you and your robo-dolls could do."
"Ms. Davey, we haven't run tests yet, we can't let you... there's a storm out... hey! When do 92 year old ladies run that fast? Wait! Wait up!" The doctor sprinted after the grinning old woman.
"Gee... must've been a sprinter in her day.... last century." To his right, a glass Entry Desk shone with blue script in multiple languages along its base. A series of white cubbies held brand new CIRCLETs to the desk’s side. An advertisement played on top of the holographic glass, new features and higher res holographics on the CIRCLET with smaller size on the wrist band.
"Don't think Rammage minds if I get some help, or a map of the place..." Max reached for a CIRCLET and slid up his left wrist's soggy sleeve. The CIRCLET affixed itself and eased into connection, blue light scanned his hand as the band took blood pressure and pulse. Above his palm, diagnostic and calibration holograms fluttered, until a series of words swelled with the birdsong voice of the Mater Machine.
'Come at your leisure. My love is free. My abundance is yours.'
Money was as useless as torn paper in a Haven, an inequality the Mater Machine abhorred. While CIRCLETs connected the planet’s populace who followed Lieben’s cultural call, the monetary deficit stung CGM’s capitalist senses. How could culture, economics and society be maintained without financial gain? Her way led to docile cattle instead of the Conglomerate’s wolves.
“God damn but this thing’s cool. Heh… Moo.” Max tinkered with the holographic keyboard until he smacked against a pile of green fluffy leaves.
Hydroponic towers lined the foyer, each grew a curated selection of healing plants and foodstuffs. Folk supped on pastries, fruits and vegetables, tea and coffee in the Bistro across from the Entry Desk. Salad. Max pressed his lips together hard. On board, the grunts reminisced of meals back home, where soup was made fresh, and nothing was freeze dried. Max gulped, overwhelmed by the Haven in what used to be an insignificant, tiny spit of land.
“Come at your leisure. My love is free. My abundance is yours.” The statement entered Max’s ears with the vibrato of electronic birdsong and servos in motion.
“Whoa!” The Lieutenant jolted at the sight of a NEO-W, wrist cannon placements draped in grey plastic, androgynous head bowed in a reverence Max read about in training. “R-right, ah, so you’re a…”
“Your body shows signs of hunger and fatigue. Come and receive.” The antique machine bowed its’ mass produced head, arm-stumps motioned to the Bistro. Conglom training dictated Lieben’s disarming of the planet as a false face, a reversal of power. The insane mama machine couldn’t possibly take that many military drones and NEO-W battle units offline. He stared at the stubs of grey plastic, wondered if the lethal wrist mounted weaponry was removed at all.
“Right… yeah, I was… ADers? AD-001 where are… you in here? By the coffee? Hmm… best get a closer inspection…” The maelstrom outside continued to billow against glass and steel, as Lieutenant Max Allard dipped into the Bistro for a coffee and god damned hot sandwich. Hunger gnawed at his gut, eyes wide to the luxury of foodstuffs served without first being preserved in slim ration-packs.
Chef did what he could, but when a ship like the Ithavoll stayed seaborn for years, what cargo space did they have for lettuce? Should be glad there was no hard tack, until Crewman Biggins found flat ‘loaves’ of emergency bread in the bottom of his provisions chest. Various sized edible cups nestled beside the espresso machine, all embossed with another of the Mater Machine’s tenets:
‘Contribute and receive.’
“Heh, you and my mother. Yeah. I’ll do some dishes.” He waited for the black ichor of a double espresso to filter into the cup, and pulled a turkey sandwich on rye off the nearest tray. Steam rose from both coffee and plate, a god damned hot breakfast. Another cursory scan, no Aderastos. Should he grab the sandwich, eat on the go? A peek outside at the inclement weather, at the spit of car park Singh and his troops huddled near, and Max took a selfish, glorious bite.
His whimper caused the duo at the next table over to eye him cautiously, until Max’s elbows sunk to the table and he chowed on his sandwich like it was the first meal he’d had in months.
The storm wouldn’t make it inside for a few more minutes…. eh? Where was AD-001 going to go?
