The End Is Now

The man is grinning, teeth glinting red in the dawn.

I find the helmet as I pass his hide. One urgent, broken lurch at a time, I plant the metal bowl of it into the dirt and drag myself forward. The armored hat is made of steel, fur-lined underneath and peaked in the middle.

“What?” he hisses at Elena, recoiling on his knees as he finds nothing but cold metal beneath her cloak. “What are you?”

His curly black hair is rusty in the dawn light as he turns and sees me—eyes widening at the sight of my ruin, cheeks twitching in fright. I am already rearing back on the remains of my left biceps, helmet lifted high in my good hand. The dragoon is choking on a shout as I bring the helmet down.

The metal bowl glances over the bridge of his nose. His jaw snaps shut and he falls, horror and blood mingling on his face. Elena kicks with both legs, sending the rider flailing onto his back with a grunt, the air knocked from his lungs.

I bring the helmet down again.

This time it lands with a wet crunch in the middle of the rider’s face. Again. A half dozen more times until I feel the skull crack and the ground is littered with teeth and blood and saliva.

I hear a gurgling scream from across the camp and see that Elena is on her feet. She has tugged a blade from the fallen rider’s belt and has slit the throats of the other two riders. In moments, there are no men living.

The smoldering fire now warms only metal, wood, and leather.

“Oh Peter,” says Elena. “Oh my poor Peter.”

I feel Elena’s arms encircle my head, cradling me on her lap. With her other hand she is patting down my body, feeling for the extent of the damage. Somewhere, a bird sings to the dawn. Faintly, I hear the trickle of blood flowing into the grass and the whinny of a nervous horse.

“You are very damaged,” Elena says.

“As long as my relic is intact,” I respond. “I can be repaired.”

“The Empress will hunt us.”

“She will,” I say to Elena, my eternal daughter. “But we are not running blindly. We leave now in search of something special.”

“What do we seek, Peter?”

I lock my eyes on the curve of her porcelain cheek. Elena was once a mindless doll, but now we are more than things . . . we are avtomat.

“We will find our own kind, Elena . . . even if it takes a thousand years.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Daniel H. Wilson is a New York Times bestselling author. He earned a Ph.D. in robotics from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, where he also received master’s degrees in robotics and in machine learning. He has published over a dozen scientific papers, holds four patents, and has written eight books. Wilson has written for Popular Science, Wired, and Discover, as well as online venues such as MSNBC.com, Gizmodo, Lightspeed, and Tor.com. In 2008, Wilson hosted The Works, a television series on The History Channel that uncovered the science behind everyday stuff. His books include How to Survive a Robot Uprising, A Boy and His Bot, Amped, Robopocalypse (the film adaptation of which is slated to be directed by Steven Spielberg), and Robogenesis. He is also co-editor, with John Joseph Adams, of the anthologies Robot Uprisings and Press Start to Play (forthcoming). He lives and writes in Portland, Oregon. Find him on Twitter @danielwilsonPDX and at danielhwilson.com.

DANCING WITH BATGIRL IN THE LAND OF NOD Will McIntosh

Words were coming out of Eileen’s mouth, but they didn’t make sense. The voice in Ray’s head, the one screaming that they had to fill the bathtub, had to stockpile more food, was making it impossible for him to understand.

He grasped Eileen’s shoulders. “I don’t think grocery stores are safe. Too much risk of exposure. What if I—”

“Did you hear what I just said?” Eileen asked.

She’d always reminded Ray of a cartoon ladybug, and now more than ever, with her eyes big and round, her face framed by red curls. Ray realized it was an odd thought, given the situation.