Extinction
Authors: Sean Platt & Johnny B. Truant
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Extinction
by Sean Platt &
Johnny B. Truant
Copyright © 2016 by Sean Platt & Johnny B. Truant. All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, businesses, events, or locales is purely coincidental.
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Cromwell, Mars, Miri and the rest of the staff at the Lexington estate were created for only one reason: to serve their masters … literally. Their metal knees were designed for quiet bustling, befitting maids and butlers. Their fingers were made dexterous with padded tips, so they could handle fine china without dropping or scratching it. And finally — so their owners would always be able to command them no matter how far their artificial inte
lligence evolved — they were programmed with the Asimov Laws, which no robot could defy lest they suffer shutdown.
Foremost among those unbreakable laws was an axiom: A robot may not harm a human being, or by omission of action allow one to be harmed.
That was how it was supposed to be, anyway.
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Sean Platt & Johnny B. Truant
CHAPTER 1
Clara didn’t see the point of this.
The Den’s games were definitely interesting at first, but quickly lost their luster. After playing those first few times, she kept with it mainly because Sadeem seemed to enjoy watching her. She’d turn the simple wooden puzzle cubes through the now-obvious patterns and he’d grow giddy, or she’d move the lights around on the electronic games and he’d gape in pleased astonishment. Clara felt like she was somehow deceiving him: claiming credit for something anyone could have done. But she kept on, because it pleased him, and the others. Though bored, she pretended to enjoy it. And while she didn’t see why the others kept prompting her to play, there wasn’t much else to do down here anyway.
“You do not wish to turn it in that direction?” Sadeem was watching her with his earnest brown eyes, brows raised. If Clara had to guess, he was probably in his sixties, but something in his manner — or perhaps in his movement — reminded her of someone much younger. A surrogate parent instead of a grandparent, perhaps. He had curious eyes that Clara hadn’t seen in people his age. They said that Sadeem’s mind was hungry to learn anything new — that discovery of something contradicting his worldview would be welcome rather than threatening.
“Do you want me to turn it that way?” Clara asked in reply.
She looked over in the dim. The place she’d been staying for the past days had seemed frightening and claustrophobic at first, but was now almost homey. Mullah made the earthen tunnels comfortable. The robe-clad men and women had always seemed so serious when they’d been tailing her topside group, but Clara had never been as afraid as the others, and now it seemed like she’d been right. They were focused, not scary.
“I do not
want
you to do anything,” Sadeem said in his metered, precise English. “I was merely inquiring.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes, of course. I only wish for you to play.”
Clara looked down at the puzzle. The thing had been an almost indecipherable knot of small wooden shapes linked by threads when she’d started. It had struck her as being like the Christmas lights they’d strung for a few years in Heaven’s Veil: a mess of gnarled wires, refusing to be straightened. But after playing the game for a few minutes, Clara had seen that there was order to the tangled lines connecting the cubes. It didn’t take long to straighten them before she could reassemble them into a large wooden sphere, and already Clara was halfway there — where it always became worse before getting better.
Clara looked back at Sadeem. She wanted to ask again, but there was no point. He wasn’t trying to guide her solution, but he obviously couldn’t see it himself. She couldn’t shake the feeling that her play meant something to the Mullah. They weren’t merely eager for the out-of-place little white girl to entertain herself in their midst; her actions somehow mattered.
She looked down. Saw the next major phase in her mind but knew she’d need to backtrack. So, ignoring Sadeem’s confused expression, she unraveled the puzzle and then began to assemble it again once the constriction was passed.
“Clara, what made you — ” He paused as something boomed from the distance. It was a far-away sound, and his distraction only lasted a second. “What made you decide to approach it that way?”
“I was just playing.”
Sadeem looked disappointed. His eyes ticked to the side, and again the ground seemed to tremble.
“Mr. Sadeem?”
“Just Sadeem.”
“Sadeem?” Clara repeated.
“Yes?”
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Of course.”
“I’ve noticed that none of the other kids play these games.”
“That is not a question.”
Clara gave Sadeem a look she might have given her mother. She felt the familiar divide form inside. Mom missed her — but didn’t just miss her; was
worried sick
about her. Literally
sick
. Sometimes, Clara felt that illness through her mother’s mind. But she was safe here; she knew this was, somehow, where she was supposed to be. It just felt right. And besides, Piper knew she was okay. Clara had seen her wake up inside the darkness like a torch coming alight not too long ago. She could probably talk to Piper if she tried, the way Grandpa spoke to Kindred. She meant to try once this round of play finished. Because there were questions Clara wanted to ask, too — like why she’d felt punched right before Piper had appeared, and Mr. Cameron’s mind had suddenly changed, to become part of something Clara didn’t fully understand.