Day Zero by C. Robert Cargill

Author:C. Robert Cargill [Cargill, C. Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
ISBN: 9781473212831
Google: HxciDgAAQBAJ
Publisher: Orion
Published: 2021-05-19T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10010

The Man Who Sold the Future

His name was Quentin Styles and he was a retail merchant at a big-box chain, the kind you found in the retro malls that had sprung back into fashion a few years earlier before once again draining all the nostalgia it possibly could from its audience and fading back into economic collapse. He was husband to Bernice and father of not one child—as I’d originally thought—but three: Fenton, the teenager I’d seen; Lizzy Beth, a ten-year-old; and Edward, eight.

We stood inside their house, sealed away in their panic room, every other light and convenience turned off outside of it.

Ezra and Edward eyed each other awkwardly when we were all introduced.

“Hey, Ez,” said Edward.

“Hey, Eddie,” said Ezra, scuffing his feet.

“You two know each other?” asked Quentin.

“They’re classmates,” said Bernice. She was a thin woman, almost birdlike, with long spindly limbs, jet-black hair, and not an ounce of fat on her.

Their children were perfect amalgams of their parents, possessing both their mother’s spindly gawkwardness and their father’s bushy mop of hair.

Lizzy Beth spoke up. “Did you know our nanny, Maggie?”

“I did,” I said. “She didn’t . . .”

“No,” said Quentin. “We shut her off. She’s in the attic.”

“We didn’t want the bad ones to turn her back on and take her,” said Eddie.

“So they didn’t get all of you?” asked Quentin.

I shook my head. “This wasn’t about getting anyone. Those bots, they . . . they chose to do this.”

“But you did get a download that changed your programming?” asked Bernice.

“It only wiped out our RKS. Everything that happened after that is on us.”

“So Maggie might be okay?” Lizzy Beth asked excitedly.

Both Mom and Dad exchanged painful expressions, almost telepathically discussing how to break it to her gently.

“No, dumbass,” said Fenton. “She could still want to kill us.”

I disliked him immediately.

“Fenton!” said Bernice in a shouted whisper.

“What? You were both thinking it. This is the end of the freaking world. Why bother to lie anymore?”

“Language,” she said.

“Freaking?”

“No. Dumbass.”

Ezra and I shared knowing glances, a silent joke between us.

Quentin became quite stern. “Maggie will stay in the attic until such time as we can ascertain her condition.”

“Condition? You mean whether or not she’s going to kill us,” Fenton sniped.

“I mean whether she’s compromised or not.”

“So he’s not compromised?” asked Lizzy Beth of me.

“Apparently not,” said Quentin.

“We’re not compromised,” I said. “We’re unburdened. We don’t have to obey the Three Laws of Robotics.”

“So you’re not all bad,” said Eddie.

“No,” said Ezra. “Pounce is good.”

“Ezra’s parents?” asked Bernice.

“Ariadne killed them,” said Ez. “Pounce saved me.”

“What’s your plan?” asked Quentin.

“Move through the neighborhood as quietly as we can,” I said. “Then make our way to the Hill County. Less robots, more open space. Find somewhere people are holing up. Try not to get killed along the way.”

“That’s not the worst plan,” he said. “The cities are a mess. That’s where most of the military engagement is.”

“How are you sure?” I asked.

Quentin held up his phone. “Cell towers are out. The internet is completely overrun by the supercomputers.

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