Zombie Road by Simpson, A. (best ereader manga .TXT) 📗

She went blank for a moment as she tried to determine why the ships weren’t space debris. He’d gotten used to her zoning out if she was puzzling out a problem she should have known instantly or having internal conflicts. She’d explained it was the erratic human desires trying to overwrite the logic of her artificial intelligence. Sometimes it won and she did things that were previously unconceivable. Like letting him waste precious resources. Sometimes it didn’t and she was stoically unbending.

He fiddled with the controls, played with the joysticks and tried to reach the foot pedals. If he scooted all the way up to the edge he could get his toes on them. It was surprisingly simple for a space ship. He supposed flight was pretty basic once you had it figured out. You had to go up and down, forward and backward, left and right. He was glad the other humans didn’t have four arms. With some modifications, he was pretty sure he could pilot it. She came back from her daze and frowned at him for messing with the controls.

“Figure it out?” he asked.

“Yes.” she replied. “It didn’t make sense why they weren’t targeted during the attack, they have a heat signature, but these were offline. The generators are isolated when the ships are stored, there is no need for them to power the systems. The Anunnaki didn’t see them.”

“You mean you could have escaped all along if you hadn’t forgotten about these?” Jessie asked. “You didn’t have to be stranded here?”

“I must have known about them before I was corrupted.” She stated. “But there is no place for me to go. My place is here. I am the ship and the ship is me. It is good that we found them, with their working generators and the life support systems, I will be able to sustain your life indefinitely.”

“I don’t think so.” He said. “I think I just found my way out of here. If your space marines can fly it, I can figure it out. You going to come with me when I do?”

“That is ill advised.” She said. “These craft are old and untested. It would be dangerous to try to fly.”

“I’m leaving.” Jessie said. “I’m not going to grow old on this wreck. The only question is, are you coming?”

She froze again and he waited for her to snap out of her internal conflict. He could guess what it was about. Her programming was telling her she had to stay with the dead ship, her new human code was telling her she could get off this giant hunk of metal. He sat and watched her. It he corrected himself. It was a bunch of smart cells that only looked like a human. Like Scarlet.

It was an it.

He’d wondered why the machine didn’t look like him. You would think the first, foremost and most important thing in his mind would have been himself but it hadn’t been. It had been Scarlet. She was what he was thinking about when he was deconstructed, what his slow thoughts were for the years he was shooting through space. He was glad, he wouldn’t want to look at himself every day. Sometimes if she didn’t talk or act like a weird android, he could almost envision it as her. She often displayed emotions when she wasn’t glitching out. Over the past month, she’d come a long way from being a cold, no-nonsense machine. The human side was winning more of the internal fights.

He hoped she would come; he wasn’t sure he could do it on his own. He depended on her to guide him through all kinds of mundane things like the space suits and maneuvering in zero G and even how to operate a fission powered stove. He’d be lost without her. She could speak a hundred languages and knew how things worked. She’d said some of the races would want to eat him. It would be good to know who they were. She knew much about the rebuilt galaxy; she’d been monitoring their communications for hundreds of years. She could pass for being alive if he worked with her, gave her some pointers like not shutting down whenever she was faced with a conflicting decision. She needed to pretend to breathe, too. And blink. It was kind of creepy watching her stay perfectly still and stare into nothing.

Jessie stood and looked closely at her as she remained motionless, still as a statue. The emerald green of her eyes stood out in the pale face, the three scars were on her cheek and her hair was two tone like it had been when they first kissed in the swimming pool of an abandoned house. Her lips were slightly parted and he had a strong desire to taste them, to see if they were the same as the real girl.

The one who had turned undead. The one who had burnt up. He shuddered, felt the cold of her thick blood oozing over his hands and nearly screamed when the machine Scarlet turned her head to look at him.

“Yes.” she said. “I will accompany you. There is a ninety-nine-point seven percent greater probability of your survival if I do.”

“I find your lack of faith disturbing.” Jessie said as he breathed in and out noisily but he was grinning. “Show me around this thing. How do I operate the gun turrets?”

14

Train to California

“Last look at civilization for a while.” Griz said as they passed through Ocotillo, over highway 8 and headed for the long stretch of railroad that cut through the mountains. It was late afternoon and he was in the galley chopping onions for their dinner. The trip down from Lakota had been mostly uneventful. They tore through a herd of a few hundred thousand shambling husks south of Albuquerque and left a trail of bodies for miles but it had been smooth sailing besides that. The Lakota