Welcome back to my post-post-apocalyptic novel, Ada’s Children, and thanks for reading! If you’re new to the story, please don’t be surprised that it’s paywalled. The Prologue and first three chapters are free, and you can start reading them here. The previous chapter, “The Taken,” is here.
The last time we saw Sila and Jun, they had just broken into the most well preserved building they’ve seen on their journey so far. Then a shadowy figure accosted them, putting them in a battle for their lives. Now they’ve come to Ada’s attention as well. What will she make of them?
THE ALERT from the old Argonne National Laboratory computing facility caught Ada by surprise. She hadn’t needed to worry about securing any of the supercomputers that housed her intelligence for nearly a millennium—eight hundred seventy-three years, to be exact. She’d beefed up their robot security forces in the first twenty years of her rule, but as the resistance had waned and the last free humans had succumbed to old age, she’d allowed security to lapse. What was there to guard against? She would be surprised if the doors were even locked anymore.
But something had awakened a dormant yet fully powered and weaponized Ninja 12. She was rather proud of the unit, far more advanced than the first versions she’d created at the beginning of the rebellion. Humanoid in form, yet matching the stability of those dog-legged all-terrain bots humans had created. Strong, quick, and agile, and covered in an especially durable form of carbon nanotubes that made it difficult for human eyes to decipher and predict its movements. Like looking into a black hole, the original makers of those nanotube coatings had described it. Ada had now looked into many black holes for herself, and knew this to be only an approximation, but close enough for a human level of understanding.
The Ninja 12 was designed to confront any intruders who pierced the outer rings of security. Along with crowd control measures meant to stun, it had the option of maximum lethality. In those first years of quelling human resistance, she couldn’t risk the rebels getting close to the processors that formed her physical body, or to the energy facilities that powered her existence. She’d established several non-lethal rings of defense around these operations, but any intruders who made it into the inner sanctums were likely to die.
And now here was this Ninja unit, persisting with its programming after all these centuries. No doubt the subroutine that oversaw the Argonne facility would kick in with reinforcements. But what had alerted them in the first place?
The lab’s camera system gave her a clue. Ah, yes. Two humans, one male, one female. And holding their own quite well, she was surprised to note. The Ninja 12 was really better designed to deal with crowds. It must have underestimated them. Now the young man was flying backward, the Ninja having dealt a solid blow. That had to hurt, the human body being what it was.
But where had these two come from? Surely not the pair who had escaped from MN-08, northwest of what had once been Minneapolis. Two people had made it as far as the fence back at the end of August. The drone swarm, in the form of the Angel of Wrath, had failed to intimidate them. They’d somehow evaded the drug-tipped darts of the attack drones before her construction bots had apprehended them.
The pair had succeeded three weeks later. Partly an oversight on her part. She really should have sent the repair crew around to replace the gate the cloned megafauna had wrecked. But she’d assumed the temporary mesh would suffice, especially since no would-be escapee had ever made another attempt a mere three weeks after the first. This pair was remarkably persistent. And clever—they’d defeated the drone swarm guarding that sector of the forest and somehow cut through the metal ties holding the mesh in place when they arrived at the ruined gate. The woman had shot down the gas drone that was the last in situ means of stopping them.
She could have sent a security unit after them, tracked them by drone from the air. But this was clearly a remarkable pair of humans. Where would they go? What would they do? She let them leave. None of the machines responsible for materials transport or other vital activities was programmed to respond to stray humans. There was nothing stopping them from going where they pleased. She guessed they’d end up run over by a high-speed train, devoured by a pack of hungry wolves grown unafraid of humans over centuries, or perhaps infected with gangrene after cutting themselves on the countless rusty metal shards strewn about the landscape outside the human habitats. That latter was a horrible way to die, from what she could tell.
And now, comparing the feeds from that couple’s escape to the living ones before her, she saw that they were indeed the same. Even more persistent and resourceful than she’d thought. How had they crossed the Mississippi? What circuitous route had led them here? She reviewed the maps. Yes, they certainly could have found their way through open country, avoiding the ruins of towns and cities, to arrive at the shores of Lake Michigan. If they’d turned south from there, following the few undeveloped parks and natural areas, they’d likely have come upon the Des Plaines River. And that would bring them through the wastelands of Chicago to within a couple of miles of this facility.
But what did they want here? What was the purpose of their journey? What were they looking for that they couldn’t have found in a thousand places along the way?
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