Destiny: Quantic Dreams Book 3 by Elizabeth McLaughlin (books for 20 year olds .txt) 📗

the middle of nowhere like lambs to the slaughter. Hell, I'm wouldn’t put it past the machines to have staged this entire thing. Who understands the way they think.”

Eliza said nothing and looked at me. I glanced down to notice my fingers drumming against my leg and shot her a look. She smiled gently. “Shut up.” I grinned.

“Sorry, dear.”

“Uh huh.” My dear wife knew that my mind was already on the case. The voice on the broadcast sounded human, but that didn’t mean anything. The vague wording wasn’t evidence of a human being either. The machines had access to the full repository of human knowledge. It wouldn’t be hard to concoct up an imperfect script. But something about the way the voice spoke nagged at some small corner of my mind. I held up a finger and shut my eyes. The image of the aircraft that flew so close to the machine city appeared. I hadn’t seen the fuselage too closely. There were no obvious markings or symbols that I could remember, but what I saw was old. Everything in the machine city was brand new, made of sleek metal and glass intended to imitate nature in every way. The unmanned aircraft was certainly advanced, but its metal and plastic plating had shown clear signs of wear. Unless there was another rogue A.I. out there looking to throw a teenage rebellion...

Breathing.

The answer struck me mid-thought. That’s what had sounded strange about the voice. The speaker hadn’t said much, but there were distinct pauses in their words. We must have mistaken the sound of inhalation for more distortion through the radio waves. Androids were more than capable of imitating a human voice, but they wouldn’t think to fake breathing.

“It’s real. Holy shit, it’s actually real.”

“What?” Marcus screwed up his face in disbelief. “How could you possibly know that? Come on, Mom. I know you were hoping for other humans out there but you heard what the machines said, we're it. The last of the species.”

“Breathing. The speaker on the radio paused in between some of their words. What the three of us assumed was radio distortion was actually the sound of a person taking a breath.” Eliza’s brows furrowed. She wanted to believe me but this was a little too good to be true in her mind. “Remember the plane that buzzed the machine city?” Both of them nodded. “Does anything stick out about it in your mind?”

“Not really. There weren’t any symbols on it or anything.” I could see the wheels turning behind Marcus’s eyes. He’d figure it out in a second, but I couldn’t wait that long.

“It was old.” My quick-witted wife to the rescue. “Everything in that machine city was brand new and sparkling, like it had just come off the assembly line. The aircraft that freaked them out didn’t look like anything the machines would make. It was old and kind of worn.”

“That’s my girl.” I reached out and took her hand. “Old hardware means that it’s not something the machines were operating. From everything they told us I seriously doubt there’s a rival group of androids out there. I don’t think we’re the last of humanity. Go back to sleep. It’s a couple of hours yet before I need to wake Marcus for the watch.”

Five minutes later, they were snoring again.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Marcus’s internal alarm clock had woken him half an hour before it was time to change shifts. I draped myself over Eliza’s body and held her as closely as I could without hurting her. The next thing I knew I was blinking in sunlight. “Good morning, beautiful.” Eliza turned her face to mine and stroked my cheek with her good hand. “Ready to get our asses back home so we can stop the impending android apocalypse?”

“Did someone give you the other dose of painkiller?” I rolled my eyes at Marcus, who shrugged innocently.

“Painkiller is the bessssssst.” Eliza drew out the last word, giggling to herself as she did so.

“Christ Marcus, did you give her the whole packet?”

“Uh...it’s more that she grabbed it and downed it before I could stop her. Sorry Mom.” I sighed and pushed myself to my feet. Ever the helpful son, Marcus had already taken the liberty of extinguishing the fire. He handed me a protein bar and marked off that days’ ration of water on the skein. I usually found the protein bars repulsive but the growling of my stomach overrode my tastebuds and I wolfed it down. I took Eliza’s protein bar and opened it for her. She winced as she pushed herself to her elbows but ate the whole thing, seemingly just as hungry as I was. Hungry was good. After each of us had the chance to perform our morning absolutions behind a nearby bush, it was time to set off again. With a full night’s rest, Eliza was practically bounding with energy. I had to keep an eye on that; with the bump in strength would come a crash. We couldn’t risk her overexerting herself. Her immune system needed conservation of energy to keep fighting the catalog of bacteria that wended their way through the gauze pads at that very moment.

We made good time, covering more ground every hour than expected. Marcus and I kept our weapons at the ready. I gave Eliza’s gun to our son. He was the better shot and faster too. If something happened, he could defend us far better than I could. As we walked, the three of us traded stories about Dad. Compared to the grief of the night before, swapping tales of my father’s heroics had us all in stitches before long. Reminiscing breathed life into his memory. It took the pain away like a balm on a wound. The damage was still there, but it started to feel like everything was going to be all right.

“What are we going to tell the others?” Marcus brought up a very good question. It wouldn’t be enough to say that Dad