Free Machines of Eden by Shad Callister Page A

I… eat… rats !” A long,
chattering giggle.
    “ Rats?” John asked with raised eyebrows.
    “ Yesyesyessir. Rats. And
they keep me alive. And they mess up her math. She’s got me figured
at twenty-five hundred a day! And my rats give me twenty-six
hundred! Think on that! Twenty-six hundred! She’s not as smart as
Nut, no sir! No sir!”
    “ That’s … pretty good, Nut.” This guy is far gone. He’d eat me if I turned my
back.
    “ Innit?” Nut chortled.
“I ’m the
maintenance guy. I know my way around. I know where the rats are. I
know where they hide. There’s enough for both of us.”
    “ Does Eve know you’re up
here?”
    “ Nobody knows. Just you
and me.”
    “ It looks like an old
military base ,” John
commented . “ Comms tower, concealed tunnels.
Were you here during the war?”
    “ After. Got my eye burned
out by a bot laser during the retreat from Yangon ,” he said, pointing to his
left eye. It did seem a little too glossy-looking. “You military?
You a G reenie?”
    John ignored the last query. That’s far
too complex a discussion for this guy. Gotta keep him on track. “So it’s an old mil base.
Private now, am I right? Run by this super-smart Eve program.
She is a program,
right?”
    “ Program? She’s the program. She’s the
real deal around here.”
    “ But she’s not an actual
woman?”
    “ More woman than the
others. More killer.”
    “ Who owns her? Who hired
you?”
    “ There’s a woman. Comes
and goes. Independent, like me. At least, I saw her a month ago. I
think.” He stopped, confused by himself.
    “ Are you talking about
Eve?” John asked.
    “ Nep. Eve got no body,
yet. This other lady, she’s got a body. Oh yes.”
    There’s my hard answer, if
I get one at all. Eve must be one massively-built AI. “Good to know, Nut. Who hired you?”
    Nut shrug ged .
“ They shipped me out . Team got hired. Not just me.”
    “ You the boss?”
    “ Nep. Boss died with the
rest.”
    “ How’d you make
it?”
    “‘ Cause I smart. Smarter
than them. Smarter than her. Smarter than you, maybe. You ever
think of that?” Nut fingered a piece of rebar lying nearby and
blinked rapidly.
    John tensed , readying himself for an
attack from the deranged man . “Easy, Nut.
Easy. You’re the smart one. You the smartest. Easy.”
    But Nut began to weep,
gripping the piece of rebar until his knuckles were
white.
    “ I been watching. Been
watching you. You don’t believe me. You think I be crazy. But
joke’s on you. I listen. Yessir. Joke is on you. You think just
because I eat rats that you better than me? I eat rats because I
the smartest! I the smartest! Smarter than her! Smarter than
you!”
    Nut lunged.
    John was ready. One hand rose to meet the rebar as it began its
descent; the other pushed off the wall and gave him the momentum he
needed to shove the man hard.
    Nut, still hunched on his
heels, rolled backward with a yelp, legs kicking viciously, rebar
clattering to the ground. He came up in a rush, teeth bared,
ey es mere slits.
“Twenty-si x… hundred! She counts ‘em wrong!”
    “ Stop it, Nut! We’ve got
to work together! She wants us to fight each other!”
    “ TWENTY-SIX HUNDRED! I
WILL LIVE AND YOU WILL DIE!”
    John ran for the nearest door, avoiding the crazy man’s blows, and
dived forward. A vicious kick to his left leg made him gasp, but he
was through and scrambling upright in seconds. He ducked and rolled
into the darkness of a hallway, seeking only to get away, but Nut
was not pursuing.
    “ If you tell her I eat
rats, I’ll never forgive you! Don’t … you … NEVER … tell her!” A sound halfway between
a sob and a shriek echoed down the corridor.
    Your secret is safe with
me, nutboy.
    He hurried away from Nut’s
lair, moving down a sloping maintenance
passageway toward a dim light at its end . He was more
shaken than he cared to admit. It was hard for John to face mental collapse. So
many of his friends had broken during the war.
    I’ll