The Last Man on Earth Club by Hardy Paul R

Author:Hardy, Paul R. [Hardy, Paul R.]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2011-05-19T21:00:00+00:00

4. Elsbet

But before I could figure out what to say or do, Elsbet stormed in to see me. She’d told us a lot about the asteroid society she came from in her first few sessions: a horrible bolthole for a tiny fragment of humanity, surviving on algae and hatred of the machines. We hadn’t yet found a way to tell her about Katie, because it was all too clear they would have been deadly enemies in the war between humans and machines, and it was just as clear that we’d left it too late.

“Look at this!” she shouted, holding out her arm.

“It’s your arm,” I said.

“Look!”

She concentrated, then twisted it into an unnatural position. She reached round with her other hand and pulled the arm off her shoulder, ripping the skin away to reveal metallic contacts, graphene construction and a mess of cabling: exactly what we already knew to be there, but something that was news to her.

“My arm comes off!”

“Ah… yes.”

“Did you do this to me?”

“No, we didn’t. Do you want to sit down and take some tea?”

“No I fucking don’t! How the hell did this happen if you didn’t do it?”

“This is how you were when we found you, Elsbet.”

“What?” She was incredulous.

“Please, sit down and we’ll talk about it.”

She was furious, but could see I wasn’t going to discuss it any other way, so she dropped herself into a chair with her arm on her lap. I made myself some tea to calm what was left of my nerves.

“Are you sure you don’t want some?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, then.” I sat down with my own cup. “What’s the last thing you remember before you came here?”

“I told you! I was in a missile, I was supposed to destroy an installation on Earth.”

“And kill yourself.”

“I’m a soldier. The machines are an abomination. I was doing my duty.”

“And what next?”

“You said I skipped off the atmosphere and they found me at Ceres. I suppose that last part isn’t true.”

“That’s right.”

“So you must have found the missile out in space somewhere.”

“No.”

“No? What do you mean, no?”

“We have no idea what happened to you in the missile. We know nothing about that.”

“But… you found me in the missile! Right?” I shook my head. She was left very confused. “Then how…?”

“We found you floating in space. In orbit around the L1 point between the Earth and Moon.”

“In vacuum?”

“Yes.”

“But in a space suit? Right?”

“No.”

She stared at me, disbelieving. “That’s impossible.”

“It happened.”

“I’d be dead!”

“You were in a dormant state. But you weren’t dead. We were able to revive you.”

“No, no, this is algae shit. You’re lying.”

“Are you sure you don’t remember anything else?”

“I– No. Nothing! Nothing…” But she trailed off. There was something there.

“Elsbet? Are you sure?”

She was thinking hard, eyes twitching. But she snapped out of it and looked at me. “I’m sure.”

“Are you all right…?”

“I’m. Fine.” Her eyes twitched again. A tremor set into her remaining hand. She shouted at something to my left. “I said I’m fine!”

She jumped up, as though hearing something off

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