Ahndrian Archives

I step out of the building and give the machine a quick once over through the sun’s glare. To my surprise, the Marcher’s beaming eye lingers on the store’s interior. If the store associate is the actual target, he’ll spend half his life in prison and the other half paying fines. Sucks for him, but even more reason to be on my way.

“You know this thing is dumpster juice compared to the robots that dad makes, right?” Jeno asks.

“Yea. If the Enforcers are any sign, your father likes his robots bulkier,” I mutter, taking a handful of his sleeve. “Let’s get home, Jeno.”

“Ok,” he replies, frustration abundant.

A quick power walk through a maze of inexpensive vehicles and silver, imp-shaped robots busily sucking litter into their backs, takes us to a sidewalk on the other end of the Rowe-Mart parking lot. Further ahead is a quiet, disparate crowd of people with rough, torn clothes and weary faces. We catch up and mix in with the little horde, moving uphill with a similar purpose and adding ours to the rumbling chorus of feet pounding against the ground. We seem smaller and safe, hidden amidst a jungle of others that are, hopefully, more interesting people for the Marchers to stalk.

A gentle breeze rolls in, jostling my hair and carrying with it the pungent scent of oil. As if from nowhere, I feel Koushik flitter through my head, his golden eyes seeking my lips and his gentle smile belying his lust. I feel his caress in the cold of our dingy little garage back in Brookhaven. A machine of his months in the making, full of potential, does a clunky dance for us to the tune of some old Matt Maltese song. My arms rest on his shoulders, hands playing in the shagginess of his ice-white curls, while his own hand drifts below to rest on my four-month-wide belly. I swim in the moment of those better days. Long before his father’s ultimatum, long before Koushik found his fame in Central, and long before the additional wives were even thoughts. Back when the only things on our minds were our futures and Jeno.

Weight and warmth gather in my chest, just as my thoughts scramble with the next breeze. Even if Koushik won’t be here for us, I can be everything our son needs.

I look at Jeno and pull him into a tight hug. “I’m so proud of you. I love you so much, Jeno.”

Jeno, buried under my jacket sleeves, says in muffled words, “What did I do?”

“Who knows? Maybe I can just love my child without prerequisites, hm?” I plant a kiss on his cheek and resume our walk, but now there is an itch in the back of my mind. Something opaque that calls my attention elsewhere without certain direction but that also rings as familiar. I look back over my shoulder, and between the heads of my strange neighbors, I see the lone Marcher in the distance, standing upright and staring back at me.

I avert my eyes as sudden cold rushes throughout my body and the itch to call Koushik engulfs my arm. My mind prances around whimsical thoughts; a heroic avalanche of Koushik’s Enforcers lunging out from the woodwork to collect the odd Marcher, and Koushik finally growing a clue and stealing us away from this. But I have played these fantasies one time too many. One odd machine is less a sign of trouble, and more of poor design. There’s no reason to think that the Marcher isn’t just analyzing the crowd.

“Mom, were you thinking about Dad again?” Jeno says.

“When? Why?” I say, releasing Jeno’s sleeve for a moment to pull a small, hand-sized tablet from my purse.

Jeno steps off into the road to dodge around a slower moving woman. “Earlier, in front of the veggies.” He returns to the sidewalk and reaches out for me. “You got stuck in that angry daze for nearly ten minutes, then came out of it insulting yourself. Are you still mad at him?”

“Well, more upset with myself for exposing you to that, Jeno. I’m sorry, but don’t worry--” I stop a moment to weave through a group of three, packing themselves on the furthest portion of sidewalk from the road, but still stealing the most available space. I take his hand again and say, “--We’ll be fine here. We’ve got all the food we need at a short distance away from home. We’ve got all this lovely Georgia countryside as our backdrop and tons of colorful characters as our neighbors--”

“But you hate going outside and talking to strangers.” He trails off for a second, his eyes dropping to the pavement. “You never want us to do anything out here.”

Looking ahead, I take a breath and try to think of an exception to bring up, but find nothing. That Marcher is one thing, but I don’t quite remember when being talked to this way hurt as it does now. Jeno’s disappointment has never felt so heavy, but just as I settle for a simple apology, I notice a strange heat building at the base of my neck. “Well, uh, don’t worry about it right now. I’ll try to be better, Jeno, I promise.”

My tablet comes to life with bright blue lights. I rapidly thumb over through a few pages of applications before finally pulling up the diagnostics of the Loki Mask. Every parameter of the thing is far beyond what I need for its optimal use. Soon enough, the heat on the hardware will increase by nearly 120 degrees before it overloads.

“Are you going to call Dad?”

“Not now, honey.” I take a sweep of everyone around us in as inconspicuous a manner as possible, pulling Jeno in close by my hip and trying to ignore the thumping in my ears. “We can talk about it more at home. Mommy just needs to think a moment.”

Each person I turn to inspect returns a glance of their own. Some with faces of cold indifference to my sense of dread, but whose mechanical eyes volley dense beams of judgement at us as we pass by. Even those in front of me seem to notice my presence and turn only seconds after my eyeline hits their backs.

I decide to stare straight, trying to shape my surroundings into a long void containing only Jeno, myself, and our path home. Like this, I can almost see the pointlessly tall, platinum gates of Myrna Heights awaiting us at the path’s end.

A few hours of using our Loki Masks wouldn’t cause this sort of problem. Meaning the strain on it is coming from an excessive number of scans plowing into it for my data. If the device blue screens on me now, our only real saving grace is that Koushik can’t possibly ignore us. Regardless of how he feels, his image is at stake if he doesn’t act in some capacity. As far as I’m aware, however, this also means our assailant could have no other choice but to harm us before Koushik arrives. There are as many surveilling Marcher droids here as we have in Central, but I don’t know what these people have planned. I certainly wouldn’t attack someone with so many eyes about, but if we get home behind the gates safely, we can leave early in the morning when curfew isn’t an issue.

Shattering my imaginary tunnel, a large man ahead of us stops and turns around. He raises a sleek, but primitive bit of metal posing as his arm and shouts, “Crunch Time now, boys! Get those knees up now, eh? Don’t want to be the one to tell your mums it was an Enforcer that shorted you!”

I continue past the man, and my pace slows to a crawl as his words come to life. Ahead, by a nearby lamppost, is another Marcher, staring at the coming crowd with its beaming, red eye. It’s the spitting image of the machine at the supermarket, but leans awkwardly against the lamppost, frozen in place. Even across the street, I can see more of the Marcher’s mobilizing for optimal coverage of Glascal Rowe.

A blaring, synthetic voice, full of static and unsettling optimism, cries out through the gathering machines, “Attention: Citizens of Glascal Rowe, curfew will be in effect in five minutes. Anyone discovered outside of their homes and continuing to roam the city will be subject to arrest with a 4,000 dollar fine. Enforcers may use force, regardless of offense, if they deem it necessary.”

Jeno sucks his teeth loud enough for the sound to echo. “Curfew’s dumb.”

“You’re goddamn right, little man,” a husky voice adds in.

I turn as piercing a gaze as possible to a tall, heavy-set man to my right, dressed in a red and black tracksuit. To my surprise, there isn’t a speck of machinery on him. In a tracksuit, who could really know for certain, but there’s usually a tell in the way the body moves after including cybernetics. I also don’t care enough to install them without medical necessity and must get by with my legs locking in place at one point or another.

If this stranger has any mechanical enhancements, he lacks any sort of tell. A rarity even in Central City. It’s almost like seeing a unicorn, but the longer I look, the more I realize he may be something close.

As he steps off and begins across the road, I notice a collection faintly glowing, blue markings just under his eyes. The exact designs are blurry, perhaps even evading my focus altogether given that he’s a Mancer, but sharp, thin lines connect each one. For a moment, I believe I’m seeing the boldest Mancer to exist, casually revealing his arcane nature to the world, but the stranger just as quickly stuffs all evidence of it beyond human sight.

“It’s a weird night, y’all. Don’t let the walking toasters hold you up.” He says. His words somehow echo in my ears, but not once does his mouth open. I glance around at my fellow strangers, looking for any others being spooked by the odd mage, only to see him sauntering away with an archaic peace sign in the air. The name on his back reads, ‘Big Karno,’ in bold, white text. “Get home safe, everybody!”

“You too!” Jeno sees the strange Mancer off with a wave and a brighter smile than he’s had all day. He mutters excitedly in the man’s speech patterns, “goddamn right, little man.”

“Jeno!” I say, slapping his shoulder.

“Sorry.”

I pull Jeno in close to my side and watch the Mancer walk away. He doesn’t seem bad but, admittedly, the man’s concern is nice to hear.