Part 2 (1/2)

He would have to travel inland at least a klick or two to climb the slope that led up to the tower.

Fine; now I know there's some vestige of civilization here, I can afford an uphill hike. I'll probably meet the access road to the antenna, and then I won't have to bushwhack. With luck I'll find a supply cache or some people, if any are still around.

Feeling substantially relieved at the thought, he started toward the distant tower, whistling a tune.

So what if the antenna is covered with camouflage netting instead of vines?

The war is over.

3.5.

Earth called to her children and begged us to stop using her. We laughed at her.

We had Science, the Great G.o.d.

Science would save us and save Earth, make it all right again. Science would feed our hunger, would glut us with everything possible, and our appet.i.tes would stretch to meet the stars. How we loved ourselves, our hunger, the limitlessness of it.

The Used outnumbered the Users more than twenty to one, but what was that to us? We ignored them and cranked our auditory implants even higher and licked the grease from our fingers. When at last they rose against us in a swarm, bitter with the years and b.l.o.o.d.y-muzzled like hyenas with eyes glowing in the night, we sent Science to fight for us.

Science failed.

Science cannot kill rage.

Science cannot outwit hunger.

Nine billion prewar humans on the planet. Too many. Earth supported the burden until she could no longer do so, and then purged herself. Only so many, and no more. We forgot that law. We forgot only so many and no more, and we paid for the forgetting.

War came, war like nothing we'd ever imagined. The used died by the thousands, by the hundreds of thousands, by the millions. Like locusts they came, locusts with a hunger swollen and never satisfied, enraged at the devastation of the Earth. At the waste.

Science could not kill them all without killing the users as well, and we were not so far gone that we had forgotten that. Not so far gone as that. There were ways to end it all, end everything, but we wanted to live. In the end, we strove for survival like any animal.

Chemicals, bleak clouds that shriveled leaves from trees, burned lungs, blinded babies, choked and killed and maimed, poisoning the already groaning Earth with miasmic vapors.

Viruses, bacteria, the superbugs of a thousand sealed jars were let loose like the plagues of Egypt, dropped from the sky in silent bombs with silent detonations. Humans dropped like flies, vomiting blood, the Red Death tearing at Prospero's throat. The worms feasted.

The factories spewed forth their guns and cartridges by the billions. Tanks, choppers, planes, hovercraft. Mines. Grenades, missiles, rockets. Smartbombs. Cl.u.s.terbombs. Burrowbombs, bunkerbusters, laser guided precision systems, gunpowder giving way to particle beams, light energy weapons. The technology jumped ahead, spurred by the men in white coats who took such meticulous notes and sipped their coffee with such dedication.

Bots. Androids and gynoids. Cyborgs. Oceans of money evaporated into war clouds which rained down the bots and bombs. Joysticks clutched in chubby fists that steered death through the sky in streaks and never saw the starving things they vaporized.

We will win, they said. We will win. It is our right. Earth is ours. We are not the Earth's.

That was when I left them.

Sick with anger, I swore I would end them. Cleanse the earth. Take off the mask and breathe clean air again.

We wore them down, and spent ourselves like water doing it. We won. The Greens won. The Grays lost.

I wish it was that simple.

We all lost. When the Earth dies, no one wins.

And Earth is dying. Too little, too late. After all the killing, all the death, all the rot and waste and ashes, we may have past the point of no return when the Earth begins her swan song and we can do nothing but watch.

So we wait.

We watch.

We hope.

We ally Science with Nature, as we should have done from the beginning, and pray that together they can heal Earth.

Pray for a new Eden.

If we are given another chance, we will change, we will be different. Humanity can change.

The serpent has left the garden. Eden is safe.

Please.

4.

John almost ran into the fence. He had been moving fast, in as straight a line as he could manage, toward the antenna on the heights. The forest floor was dank and slippery and so he focused on his feet and where he was putting them. The fence was in his face almost before he could stop.

It was an old fence made of chain links, rusted in the humid air. Taller than he was by a good meter and a half, disappearing in either direction. There were the remains of some razor wire along the top. On the far side, he could see that the jungle was cleared in a meter-wide swath parallel to the fence; a maintenance track of some sort. He threw a stick against the fence to check for current. Nothing. The fence looked long abandoned, and the track was already choked with undergrowth.

The rusted links bit into his fingers as he clambered up awkwardly, fence bending inward with his weight. A distant memory of childhood, when his sneaker toes could fit easily into the links, crossed his mind. At the top he paused a moment, picking a landing spot, and then jumped. He landed with a grunt, brushed the moist earth off his hands, and straightened up. Through a break in the trees he could see the hill. He was much closer. The ground should start rising soon. He took a step forward.

A twig snapped somewhere in the trees. He froze. There was no movement from the jungle. His eyes raked the foliage.

He smelled it before he saw it, a mix of silicone, hot electrics, and plastic. A shape moved behind some palm fronds, and then it lurched from the jungle three meters away and paused, a.n.a.lyzing. The ASKALON-9 was obsolete these days, but you still saw them in the backwaters and sinks, and it enjoyed a reputation as a dependable service bot. The 9's were androids, humanoid in shape and size and designed to interact with humans.

This one was a mess. It hadn't been cleaned or serviced in a long time; moss and mud-stains covered its carapace, and he noticed exposed wiring at the joints where the rubber seals had torn away. Its sensory apparatus, located on the bulbous head, was damaged; one optical bulb was smashed and its antennae were snapped off half their length.

He raised his hand to hail it in the standard greeting, smiling for the benefit of whoever was monitoring its cams.

The ASKALON did not respond.

John felt a frisson of unease. Standard programming was either erased, or malfunctioning. Neither option inspired confidence.

The ASKALON remained motionless, coolant vents softly whirring, staring at him. He hailed it again, more slowly, pa.s.sing his hand clearly in front of its remaining optical sensor.

No response.