The Roke Discovery by JP Waters

Author:JP Waters [Waters, JP]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hidden Key Publishing
Published: 2019-03-17T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Four

The sun shone brightly on Olie’s bare shoulders as the wind tossed any stray hairs that weren’t neatly tucked beneath her hat. They were back at the beach where Olie had found Gerry, parked on a pull-off that overlooked the Pacific Ocean. The waves rolled in as Olie shut the trunk and placed the handgun in the back of her pants.

Olie was immediately glad she’d brought Mona along. Wedging her hands between two fence panels, the Seba was able to pull open a gap large enough for the pair to squeeze through. Mona made it look easy, but Olie could see the dents in the sheet metal where the AI’s grip had found purchase.

Surprisingly, no agents were on the beach yet. Maybe erecting a fence was all they could do before shifting manpower from elsewhere. Just how bad was the roke infestation, Olie wondered, and how many more of these quarantines disguised as construction projects were there?

It wasn’t long before they encountered their first sign of roke activity. Divots in the sand peppered the beach in neat lines, crisscrossing one another before heading back into the surf.

“See those tracks?”

“I see them,” said Mona.

“It’s from their rolling—that’s what we’ll be looking for.”

“Affirmative.”

They’d found their lead quickly, but it took much longer for that lead to bear any fruit. The tracks never went too far without returning to the sea, wiping the slate clean. The best the duo could do was keep following the tracks, hoping to somehow catch Gerry. They walked in silence, doing their best not to be diverted by any of the crossing paths.

“Thank you, by the way,” Mona said out of the blue.

“For what?”

“For pulling Gerry off of me following its attack. If you hadn’t acted so quickly, I might have incurred a significant wound.”

“Oh, yeah, sorry about that. I hope he didn’t scare you.”

“I don’t experience fear,” said Mona.

“You don’t?”

“Do you think I should?”

Again, Olie was surprised by the depth of Mona’s conversational interests. “It aids in survival, doesn’t it?” She pointed to a cliff overlooking the beach in the distance. “Fear keeps you a safe distance from the edge of a great height, for example. If you were to fall, something might break. You could die – or I guess, in your case, become inoperable.”

“Probabilities can do something similar, and perhaps more efficiently,” Mona replied, “I can calculate the probability of the ground falling out from beneath my feet near the edge of a cliff, and I can know how far away to stand.”

“But how do you know to make that calculation without fear?”

“We are programmed with awareness.”

“I see,” Olie lied as she made her way onto the sand. There were large pieces of driftwood washed up on shore, smoothed and hollowed out. Olie noted that they would be good hiding places for rokes, but she didn’t see any tracks.

As she continued toward an outcropping of rocks, Olie continued, “So, you weren’t afraid when Gerry attacked you?”

“I wasn’t afraid, but—”

“You could act afraid if it would make me feel more comfortable?”

“That’s correct,” said Mona.

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