I am Automaton 3: Shadow of the Automaton Page 24

  Then he felt a breeze on his bare arms and the din of the carnival reappeared for a moment. He was lifted into the back of what must’ve been a van. He felt another body next to him, and then a third was shoved in after him. Then he heard the back doors slam shut.

  The driver and passenger side doors opened and shut, and there was a brief conversation in Arabic that Kojic didn’t understand.

  “What is happening?” It was Adnon’s panic muffled by the thick sack cloth. Poor, meek, Adnon.

  “It’s okay, Adnon,” Kojic reassured. “We are in our brethren’s hands now.”

  “Quiet back there!” shouted one of the men up front.

  The three men were silent for the rest of the ride. They were intercepted by another cell and were en route to the OIL safe house, and Kojic was mentally planning out his precarious appeal.

  ***

  Order for International Liberation Safe House

  Undisclosed Location

  05:02 HRS

  “Why have you called us here, Kojic? Cells are not supposed to be in direct contact. It compromises us all.” said Bushaj. “Where is Belmont?”

  “I would not have sent out the signal if it wasn’t urgent. What I have to tell you is too important to be delivered by courier. Belmont was killed,” said Kojic. This response elicited mumbling and whispers from the group. “…and I believe that his killer has taken over one of our major cells. My cell. His name is Kafka.” This brought more whispers and furtive glances.

  “We have heard of this Kafka,” said a man named Murati. “He is a high ranking agent.”

  “He is something else,” corrected Kojic. “He is not a true believer, and he is deviating from Belmont’s vision.”

  “If he is not a true believer, then how did he achieve such a high rank in the Order?” asked Bushaj.

  “He killed Belmont and told everyone that he was carrying on his work. He has been…corrupting agents with THV.”

  There where chortles and scoffs from around the table. “This is impossible,” said Murati. “Why would he use THV on agents?”

  “Because he can control the agents once they are corrupted,” said Kojic.

  There were laughs around the table. “How is this possible?” asked Bushaj. “Only the Automaton has been known to control the undead.”

  “He is the Automaton,” replied Kojic. “Belmont recruited him by revealing his government’s treachery, and when they tried to kill him, it sealed his fate with our Order. However, somewhere along the way, he began to change, and he is no longer human anymore.”

  “No longer human,” chided Murati. “Then what is he?”

  “He no longer talks about jihad. He now talks about an invasion of Outworlders.”

  “Outworlders?” asked Murati, incredulous. “Gentleman,” he addressed the others in Kojic’s party, Ehsan and Adnon, “I think this man is crazy and is wasting our time.”

  “He speaks the truth,” asserted Adnon. “Kafka infected agents and corrupted Kojic’s wife.”

  Kojic looked down at his folded hands and swallowed back his pain at Adnon’s mention of Marina. He cleared his throat. “If he is not dealt with, Kafka will corrupt other cells and eventually the world with THV.”

  “Maybe that was Belmont’s plan all along and Kafka is just carrying it out,” said Bushaj.

  “Once again, he is infecting our own ranks. I do not believe that to be part of Belmont’s vision,” insisted Kojic, “unless you all want to become undead monsters.”

  There was more murmuring around the table.

  “We are all prepared to sacrifice ourselves for jihad,” said Murati. “We don’t fear death.”

  “I am not talking about death,” said Kojic. “I am talking about something worse than death, an abomination. These Outworlders are outsiders, gaijin, and are not a part of our jihad. From what Kafka says, they have a jihad of their own.”

  “What proof do you have of these Outworlders?” asked Bushaj. “Have you seen one?”

  “This Kafka must resemble one of them. He is very tall with long legs and arms, black skin, and four eyes.”

  “Four eyes,” said Bushaj disbelievingly.

  “Yes, you heard me correctly,” said Kojic. “He can sense the presence of others and can sometimes appear to read thoughts.”

  “Then how is it you three were able to escape?” asked a man named Sylaj.

  “He doesn’t think it necessary to pursue us,” said Kojic. “He has his mission, and we no longer serve a purpose in it.”

  “And what is this mission?” asked Bushaj.

  “He is going to go to Area 51, where the master console of RGT is located, and he is going to transmit a signal turning everyone into the undead.”

  There was more uneasy laughter around the table.

  “And you expect us to believe this…fantasy?” chortled Murati.

  “I know this sounds ridiculous,” admitted Kojic, “but our mission, our vision is in danger of being corrupted by a gaijin. We are for the liberation of our people, not their enslavement by alien overlords.”

  “Alien overlords,” chuckled Murati. “Listen to this man. You, Ehsan.”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you born witness to what this agent is telling us or has he gone completely mad.”

  “He speaks the truth,” replied Ehsan gravely. “I wish it were not so, but it is. Kafka is very dangerous.”

  “What do you propose we do?” asked Murati.

  “We have to stop him before he reaches the master RGT console at Area 51. We must kill Kafka,” insisted Kojic.

  “We cannot penetrate Area 51 with all of our forces. It is fortified to the hilt,” said Bushaj. “What makes you think he will be successful?”

  “He will use his portable RGT unit to turn any of the defending soldiers into the undead. He will then be able to control them,” said Kojic.

  “We will need proof of this,” said Sylaj. “We will need to meet with this Kafka ourselves.”

  “That would be suicide,” said Adnon.

  “How do we know that you three aren’t traitors to the Cause and Kafka isn’t pursuing you to bring you to justice?” asked Bushaj. It was a fair question that Kojic would ask if he were in their shoes.

  “I understand your position,” said Kojic, “and if I were you, I wouldn’t trust us either, especially with the tale I bring to you. Send a small team to make contact with Kafka, but change the location of your headquarters without informing the team. This way they cannot lead him back to us. If they return unharmed, you will tell them the new location.”

  “You do not expect them to return?” asked Murati.

  “No, I do not, but if they do with a report of our treachery against the Cause, then you may dispense with us as you see fit.” That last part made Adnon and Ehsan shift nervously in their seats.

  Sylaj took notice. “Does this arrangement make you uncomfortable?”

  “No,” replied Ehsan.

  Sylaj then looked at Adnon, who shook his head.

  “If what you say is true, then you have nothing to fear,” said Murati.

  “If I am right, then you have everything to fear. We must begin to consider how to kill this gaijin,” said Kojic.

  “One matter at a time,” said Bushaj. “First we make contact with Kafka. In the meantime, you are free to stay with us, but under guard.”

  “I understand completely,” said Kojic.

  “Your companions do not appear to share your conviction,” said Sylaj.

  “I fear for your team, that they may lead Kafka back to us,” corrected Adnon.

  “I fear that Kafka will succeed in his mission,” added Ehsan.

  “For right now, you just fear us if you are not telling the truth,” said Bushaj. “We don’t like traitors to the Cause.”

  “I knew Belmont well,” said Kojic. “I knew his vision, and this is not it.”

  “If you are correct, then this will be a major schism in the Order, for I’m sure Kafka has contact
with other cells. I’m sure he has other followers in the Order.” said Sylaj. “This will cause many problems.”

  The meeting dispersed and Kojic, Adnon, and Ehsan were all escorted to new quarters. An armed guard was placed outside of their room.

  “Why didn’t you tell them that we were infected?” whispered Adnon as Kojic laid down the bedding provided to him by Bushaj.

  “They would’ve never believed it,” whispered Ehsan.

  “And if they did, we’d be dead by now,” said Kojic. He felt the guard outside of the room. He felt his heartbeat. He wasn’t sure if the other two did, and he didn’t want to tip them off to his emerging abilities. If they became suspicious of him, he had to worry about them as well.

  Kojic lowered himself wearily to the floor, placing his back against the wall. He thought of Marina—his Marina—wandering in that back lot with the other dead, Kafka’s personal menagerie of lost souls.

  “I am hungry,” declared Adnon. “Why did they not offer us food?”

  “We are lucky to be alive,” answered Kojic.

  “But we are the same as them,” insisted Adnon. “We follow the Law and we fight for the Cause, yet they treat us like enemies.”

  Ehsan stepped in front of Adnon, ignoring his outburst. “Kojic, what if Kafka tells them lies about us? What if he tells them we betrayed the Cause?”

  “If this cell sends out a party to make contact, I don’t expect them to return.”

  “But we don’t know that for certain,” said Ehsan. “Kafka is clever. Why kill them, when he can use them to get back to us and convince this cell to follow him?”

  Kojic in his heart knew that this was a possibility. “Ehsan, what other choice do we have?”

  “We can run,” interjected Adnon, now stepping in front of Ehsan. “We can leave the Order.”

  Ehsan hissed in disgust at the suggestion and crossed to the other side of the room, turning his back on Adnon.

  Kojic looked Adnon in the eye. “Do you betray the Cause so easily, brother?”

  “It would appear that our Cause has betrayed us, Kojic.”

  “There are people and there is the Law from which the Cause springs. People come and go, are strong and weak, but they are all subject to the Law and they all fight for the Cause.”

  Ehsan turned on his heel quickly, facing Adnon. “We are foreigners in an unfamiliar land, Adnon. Without the Network, we’d never survive.”

  “They will take one look at Kafka and they’ll see he’s not one of us. He looks like a reptile or insect. There is no hiding that fact,” reassured Kojic.

  “He would not let any other cell questioning his authority survive,” said Ehsan, finishing the thought.

  “That’s right,” said Kojic. “I am fairly certain that anyone Bushaj or Murati send out will not return.”

  “And then?” asked Adnon impatiently.

  “And then we will be vindicated. It is not the first time an individual has been corrupted and had to be dealt with by the Order.”

  Kojic looked up suddenly, as if startled.

  “What is it?” asked Ehsan.

  “They’ve made a decision,” said Kojic.

  Within seconds, the door opened and Murati stepped into the room. He looked at Adnon, then Ehsan, and finally his eyes rested on Kojic, who he ascertained to be their leader.

  “We send out a team tonight. Gather yourselves. In a half an hour, we move to another safehouse. You will be bound and blindfolded as a precaution.”

  “Of course,” said Kojic, answering for the triad, but he knew that Murati and Bushaj didn’t want them knowing the location of one of the cell’s safe houses…in case their story didn’t check out.

  “I will need the location of Kafka,” demanded Murati.

  “Of course,” said Kojic.

  Murati gave the nervous Adnon a final look and left the room, closing the door behind him.

  “So we put my theory to the test,” said Kojic gravely.

  “How did you know?” asked Ehsan.

  Kojic avoided his gaze, which he was sure aroused greater suspicion from Ehsan. “Know what?”

  “That they were coming with a decision?”

  Because I could feel them, you idiot. “I just had a feeling.”

  “Well, I hope your feeling about Kafka is correct, Kojic.”

  Kojic slowly rose to his feet. “We do not need to worry about if I am right. We need to worry about what to do about it once Bushaj realizes I am right.”

  ***

  06:12 HRS

  Marcy’s Father’s House

  Elicia sat on an old, plush armchair in the corner of the bedroom watching Peter toss and turn in a fitful sleep in the bed. The darkness was waning outside the large window and the horizon began to glow a burnt orange.

  She watched the man who saved her life from monsters twist under his bed sheet in agony. The Colonel told her that his infection with THV allowed his body to heal from trauma, making him stronger. He told her about Peter’s brother Carl and how the healing changed his morphology.

  However, the Colonel thought that the serum he injected Peter with would prevent any such metamorphosis…or at least he hoped that was the case. Peter’s body was covered with scars, which made Elicia wonder if this was the worse trauma he’s ever experienced.

  Given what the Colonel said in the car, she doubted it.

  She was outright exhausted from the night before, and she envied her sister in the other bedroom who was sleeping soundly. But Elicia, as tired and weary as she was, could not bring herself to give up her vigil.

  The Colonel kept watch for a couple of hours and came in to check on her and ask about Peter. Once he saw she wasn’t going to sleep, he smiled and told her he was going to catch some shut eye downstairs and to holler if there was trouble.

  The softness of the armchair beckoned her to rest her tired eyes. She was sure there were brief moments when she did shut her eyes, despite her best intentions to keep them open, but she never allowed herself to drift off for more than a minute or two. Peter’s moans and cries would wake her, and the rising sun was bathing the room in light to support her cause.

  She was grateful to Peter, not just for saving her neck, but for convincing the Colonel to save Brittany. The least she could do was stay up with him as he writhed in the bed soaked with sweat, his body mending itself while struggling to retain its humanity, even if he had no awareness that she was there with him.

  She thought he was good-looking—tall, athletic, strong…the type of guy that Brittany led around by the nose. The type of guy that wouldn’t give Elicia a second look.

  She had become resigned to this fact years ago and had avoided the jock in favor of the tall, thin, brooding iconoclast, that deep guy who waxed philosophical over a coffee and would write songs about how he secretly pined away for her. In theory, those specifications sounded intriguing, but in reality, those guys tended to be huge douche bags.

  Yet here was a guy who went against everything she looked for in a man, and she found him attractive. Even more, she found herself attracted to him.

  But that was just it. He was a man. Most of the guys she ran into were frat boys and college boys. Peter was older than her—she wasn’t sure by how much exactly—but he was no boy.

  He had seen too much, had taken on tremendous responsibility. She had always admired those who served in the military. She believed they had a certain courage and conviction that wasn’t for her, but she respected the hell out of it.

  Peter felt suspended in darkness, but not midair. It was as if he was in some gelatinous kind of matrix that oppressed his body and breathing, as if it was smothering his lungs. Yet, as it oozed into his pores and orifices, he felt his wounds mend, the fibers of his body becoming taught and stronger.

  But the ooze wanted more. It wanted him to become something more…something else.

  His body fought the ooze with every cell, struggling to retain its anatomical integrity. The process was excruciating. Then
there was that voice that presented itself as cognition…

  Peter, I wish that I could save you this pain, but the serum in your bloodstream will not allow the full transformation. Such a shame because you would become something powerful…something beautiful.

  “Screw you. This hurts like a bastard, but it beats becoming whatever you are.”

  If you knew what it felt like to become what I am, you would feel very differently, I think.

  “I can feel the fibers of my muscle and the cells of my skin weaving themselves back together.”

  Yes, one of the benefits of being a’ monster.’ Actually, in your case, a half-monster. But really, doesn’t being half-a-monster make you a monster? Period.

  “You’re just pissed that you’ll never take my humanity.”

  It is not I who has robbed you of your humanity. Your own species has already done that. Your own government has disowned you because you are only half-different, and now they hunt you down like a monster. So doesn’t that, in effect, make you a monster?

  “A person isn’t defined by how they are treated by others. Each person decides who they are.”

  Really, Peter? Are you that naïve? Do you really believe that any individual has that kind of volition over their own lives? There are many forces that operate on an individual that are outside of their choosing that direct who they become.

  “Oh, I get it. I’m the victim of my circumstances, right?”

  We cannot help our circumstances.

  “We each have free will, the ability to defy the odds and determine our own path.”

  Oh, yes, because you know that kind of thing happens all of the time.

  “I don’t appreciate your sarcasm.”

  Well, your argument is, once again, naïve. I have statistics on my side, but go ahead. Hold out hope. Maybe you’ll be that one who bucks the system. The unruly primitive who defies an empire. The whore with a heart of gold.

  “Is that how you see us? As urchins living in a bad corner of the universe?”

  Something like that.

  “So what is all of this? Your white man’s burden? Your attempt at missionary work to enlighten us as a species?”