Back | Next
Contents

Mother

Robert E. Hampson

“Mecha One reports ‘Ready.’”

“Mecha Two, Ready.”

“Armor Platoon, Ready.”

“Intel, Ready.”

“Command, Ready.”

“Acknowledged. Base, QRF Charlie Company is up and ready for deployment.”

“Hoo-ah, Charlie. Go kick some ELF ass!”

Joshua Ling pulled the hatch down on his command tank and instructed the assault pod to seal up and interface with the continent-spanning hyperloop. Unit deployments no longer depended on ocean or air transport, not when the hyperloops could deliver a fully loaded cargo pod to nearly anywhere on the continent in just two hours.

Of course, the Eden Liberation Front had sabotaged all hyperloop termini within fifty klicks of their base. That wouldn’t matter to Ling’s Quick Reaction Force. Their pods were equipped with breaching charges and foldout winglets. Once they reached the ELF perimeter, they’d launch missiles ahead of their pods, blast through the openings, and glide the remaining distance on the velocity they’d built up in the tubes.

“Mother, ready to deploy?”

“Yes, Joshua. Mother is here. Mother will take care of you.”

“Thank you, Mother.” Ling patted the comm panel next to his command chair and strapped himself in. The ritual was repeated throughout the company as the command tank’s artificial intelligence assured each of the troops that she was indeed looking out for their safety.

Mother was unique to Ling’s company of the Paradise City QRF. True artificial intelligence had long eluded the efforts of cyberneticists, but advances in brain-to-computer interfacing had enabled “capsulation,” where a failing human body could be placed in a life-support pod, and the still-functioning brain interfaced with computers and equipment. The organic components often didn’t survive for long, but after discovering that both personality and sentience would persist in the cybernetic components, such “capsulated intelligences” or CIs began to emerge as an alternative to true artificial intelligence.

“Mother” had been a mecha pilot, badly injured in combat. Immediately after capsulation, she’d served in QRF headquarters’ tactical analysis section. As a CI, she no longer required extensive life support, and elected to be installed in the QRF commander’s tank in a role she called “combat nanny”—to assist the commander and look after the welfare of the QRF troopers. Mother served as both the “brains” of Ling’s command tank, as well as the guardian angel of the company.

“Acceleration, two-point-two-seven Gs,” Mother announced, as a countdown timer appeared in the periphery of his vision. “Twenty-seven seconds to cutoff.”

True to her prediction, the acceleration eased, and then ended after a half minute of acceleration. Military hyperloop assault pods operated much differently from their civilian counterparts. A typical commuter pod accelerated and decelerated slowly for the comfort of the passengers. They also utilized a magnetic levitation system inside evacuated tubes with all air removed to reduce drag and resistance. A military pod accelerated rapidly, often with a rocket assist, and punctured the tubes periodically to dispel the vacuum. That way, when a military pod blasted through the walls of a hypertube, there was no sudden inrush of air to disrupt the flight of the now airborne assault pod.

Inside his pod, Ling watched the timer count down as the pod’s velocity mounted. Acceleration eased off, and a new counter began—sixty-five minutes to emergence. It was almost twenty-five hundred kilometers, the distance from Phoenix, Arizona, to Atlanta, Georgia, on the planet of Joshua’s birth. It seemed like several lifetimes ago; it was certainly several military careers ago. Experience taught him that the long transit time couldn’t be helped; the only way to be certain the ELF couldn’t have an intel source in the assault force was to use a QRF from so far away. It didn’t mean he wouldn’t fret the entire hour, but there was no way the ELF knew his force was on its way.


“Mother! QRF status?” Ling shouted over the sound of alarms and high-pressure air venting into the operations center of the command tank.

“Mecha One platoon is down to three effectives. Alpha and Charlie squads are gone, Bravo Two is hard orange, but still effective. Delta One is yellow, but with limited mobility. Delta Four is totally green. That kid Filip leads a charmed life. Of course, he has me to look out for him.” There was a noticeable pause—unusual for Mother, even under heavy information load. “Mecha Two is completely gone, as is Intel. Armor has one tank remaining.”

Again, the CI paused. The comm crackled, and there was something that sounded like a sob.

“Mother?”

“I failed you, Joshua. I didn’t take care of you. They knew we were coming.”

“That’s okay, Mother, I know you will still take care of us. See if you can keep Filip alive to get back to Landing City. They need to know what happened here.” There was a cry of pain, and a sound like ripping cloth.

“Joshua?”

“Damned plastic of the command chair melted into the skin of my arm. I tried to pull loose and made a mess. The painkillers aren’t enough. There’s a representative of ELF high command coming to take my ‘surrender.’ You know I can’t do that, but I can’t move, either. You’ll have to take care of me one more time.”

This time the sob was quite clear over the comm. “Yes, Joshua. Sleep well. Mother will take care of you.”

There was a faint hiss, and Ling’s head fell forward.

“Sleep well, Joshua. I’m sorry.”


The rain was already starting to turn to sleet. Dusana knew that she and Magdalena would never survive the night in the open. There was a collapsed building ahead. She would see if there was a relatively stable overhang or opening. There was no hope of building a fire to get warm, but she had dry clothing for the baby, if only she could get out of the coming snow.

Magda started to cry, and Dusa pulled herself farther into a dark opening that appeared to lead deep into the rubble. “Hush, Magda, Mama is here. Mama will take care of you.”

The opening led deep under the jumble of concrete and rebar, and ended at a solid metal wall. There was some form of hatch that was partially ajar. An adult male probably would not have fit, but Dusa was sixteen and thin from lack of food. She carefully placed her bundle inside and squeezed through the narrow opening. It was dark, but there was faint light from permaglow paint at the junction between wall and ceiling. The interior was badly damaged, with signs of a fire and an explosion. Scraps of some form of uniform were still stuck to a central chair—embedded in melted plastic. There was no sign of occupants. Either they’d survived and gotten out on their own, or the ELFs had taken them for propaganda broadcasts.

She placed the crying baby in the chair and started looking through the cabinets and lockers. There was a spare uniform and protein bars in one locker, and a synth unit that appeared to be full with protein paste.

Good. I can use that for Magda.

There didn’t appear to be power for the synth unit, but she wouldn’t need that to get into the paste hopper or the water supply. She scooped a handful of paste, placed a few drops on her fingertip, and placed the finger in Magda’s mouth. The child sucked the protein paste and then continued to suck on the finger. Dusa repeated the process several times, until Magda turned her head and started to cry.

Now she needs water.

There was a water station on the bulkhead next to the synth, complete with a fitting to fill drink bulbs. She didn’t see any clean ones, but there was a used one on the floor below the unit. She filled it halfway, then squeezed the water out over her hands, rinsing the bulb and cleaning herself in one task. The refilled bulb then went to Magda, who drank it greedily.

Shelter and food, at least for now.

When Magda finished the bulb, Dusa sat in the half-melted central chair and rocked her baby to sleep. “Hush now, baby. Sleep well. Mama is here. Mama is taking care of you.”

She never noticed the brief flicker of light on the command console.


Days passed. Dusana changed out of her wet, ragged clothes into the clean uniform from the locker. She’d explored a bit more, and found a ’fresher unit with clean towels, which she’d used to rewrap Magdalena. For now, she would use her old rags in place of diapers. Cleaning them was another matter. The only water she could access was from the water station, and it was only half full. For that matter, the protein paste was tasteless and not sufficient for her own nutrition. It would keep the baby alive, but it wasn’t enough for two, especially not given the fever and weakness she’d felt coming on.

She wasn’t too worried about ELF war gases. She’d sacrificed her own food, shelter, and warmth for Magda, so this was probably the winter flu—the same one that had claimed her own Mama last year. She needed medicine, but knew that would be impossible. The ELFs didn’t care about a lone Westlander girl and her child. She would care for her child the best she could. Her own self-care could wait.

Magda began to cry. It was time to eat.

“Hush, Magda. Mama is here. Mama will take care of you.”


“Hey Mom? Is that a baby crying?”

“Where? Where did you get to? Stanis!”

“Over here, Mom. It’s like a cave under this pile of stuff.”

“Don’t go in there, Stanis. It’s not safe.”

“It’s okay, Dad, I can see down in, and there doesn’t appear to be anything loose.”

“Pavle?”

“Yes, Mimi, I see it. Stanis, get out of there and let me take a look.”

“He’s right, Pavle. There’s a baby crying in there.”

“I know, I hear it, too. Keep Stanis out here while I take a look.”


“Mimi, come quick. It’s safe enough. Stanis, keep watch for any ELF patrols. You can come in a few feet to keep out of sight. It’s stable enough.”

“What’s wrong, Pavs? I hear the baby a lot better.”

“This is some old installation. Could have been a panic room or a command center. There’s a metal wall. Careful with the door, it’s a tight squeeze. Some poor girl crawled in here with a baby. She’s in bad shape and the infant is crying.”

“Oh! Oh my. Oh, you poor dear, you’re burning up. Pavle, get my bag.”

“Mag . . . Magda . . . my baby.”

“Don’t you worry, dear. Hush. Mimi is here now. I’ll take care of you.”

“Her name is . . . Magdalena. Take care of her.”

“Pavle! Hurry.”

“Coming, Mims.”

“Oh. Oh no.”

“Umm. Damn.”

“Dad? Mom? I see movement.”

“Okay, Stanis, come back in here and see if you can pull that door shut. Mims? I know we can’t do anything for the girl, but we need to quiet the baby.”

“Your poor darling. It looks like your mama took good care of you at the cost of herself. Don’t cry, my sweet. Mimi is here. Mimi will take care of you.”

“Stanis, turn off your light. Be still. Be quiet.”


Mimi, Pavle, and Stanis took shelter in the command center through the night. ELF patrols came and went outside, so they dared not move until they were certain the troops were gone. Pavle took the opportunity to look around the room with a small, shielded lamp. It didn’t give off much light—that was the point, to keep from being detected—but it was enough to see that there was technology here—either government or ELF. Aside from that, they had no idea what the structure was nor did they know how it had gotten here.

Mimi had been a nurse and worked at several government hospitals before the ELF came; Pavle, an engineer at one of the big power generation facilities. Now they were refugees like so many others. Another mouth to feed was hard—but if the government and their liberators didn’t care, it was left to individuals to make a difference.

The Eden Liberation Front didn’t care about individual people, only tearing down the government in the name of “liberation.” For that matter, the government cared little for the individual, and more for perpetuating their own existence. The town had been reduced to rubble by the fighting—and neither side really cared. An outside force had come to mediate and force an end to the war, but had been ambushed by both sides. There was no hope of ending the conflict—not when both sides joined forces to take out an interloper. Each side hated the other so much, yet they would never allow outsiders to interfere in their war.

By now the entire continent was engulfed. This town had once had a name but there was nothing left worth naming anymore. Buildings had fallen into rubble; stores, homes, and hospitals lay smashed and buried under boulders of concrete and steel.

One such store, a small grocery, was accessible from just outside the command center. If poor Dusana had known, she might have survived, given the access to food and purified water. As it was, Stanis had discovered the treasure trove of supplies several days later. His small body was able to navigate the narrow crevices in the wrecked building. He found dry and canned food, formula for the baby, disposable diapers, as well as clothes that could be used when those ran out. Mimi insisted that they keep and raise the baby. Pavle knew it was a risk, but who was he to deny his wife? Stanis was mostly indifferent. He got to explore the ruins, while Pop scouted and Mama cared for the baby. He might have been more enthusiastic about having a baby sister under other circumstances, but he was still too young to really know anything else but the meager existence of scavenging.

His exploration led to more spaces under the fallen building. There was a clothing shop, and another filled with now-useless electronics. Pavle declared that this might be a good place to stay, if only they could secure it. He looked around at the command center where they spent each evening. This was off-world tech. He didn’t know exactly what it was, but he could work on it and try to discover a purpose. He knew, though, that if he got it working, it would become a target either of the ELF or the government.

They built a shelter in the tunnel—beyond the steel door that led into the command center, and in front of the crevices that led deeper under the collapsed building.


Stanis grew to the point where he could no longer fit into the small crevices and cracks and get into the stores under the collapsed building. But as he grew into manhood, so did Magdalena grow into girlhood. She was small, and thanks to malnutrition—both hers and her biological mother’s—she would likely remain that way. Once Stanis couldn’t squeeze into the small crevices, she could. She took over the role of primary scavenger for her new family. Much to her adoptive mother’s delight, one of those places was a hospital. It was under another fallen building, so they couldn’t secure it as well, but they could get as many supplies out of it as possible and stash them underneath their own hideaway.

Before the war, Mimi thought she had worked in or near this town—but one wrecked city looked much like any other, and she had despaired of identifying any particular place in the rubble. She knew it would be rare to find medical supplies. The soldiers would have taken them—either directly from the medical center, or confiscated from refugees.

The town had become a good place to scavenge, and more refugees came. Pavle and Mimi knew that they could not yet afford to reveal the off-world electronics and machinery that they had discovered, nor the treasure trove of supplies beneath their feet, but they could share what they had gleaned so far. They closed up an additional layer of their shelter and moved almost to the opening of the tunnel, under a large, tilted slab of building wall that served as protection from the elements.

Their shelter looked like any other lean-to as the refugee camp grew in the remains of what had once been a productive city. More survivors came to the area, picked through the rubble, and found enough to sustain a basic existence. As long as they were left alone, they could survive . . . 

 . . . but Pavle and Mimi knew it wouldn’t last. The day would come when the ELF decided that this was indeed their territory, and it could not simply be left to the scum of the earth.


Magda was eight years old when the ELF soldiers came to town, driving more refugees in front of them. Troops stood around the remnants of the city center with their guns pointed inward and the frightened citizenry huddled inside the circle. This would not be a day for scavenging or crawling through the small passages in the rubble of trying to find new sources of food, medicine, or water. This was a day to hide and remain out of sight—hopefully unnoticed by ELF soldiers.

The soldiers brought heavy equipment with them. Bulldozers cleared a large area in the center of town, and Pavle was worried that it came awfully close to his family’s shelter. Still, despite clearing an area of several city blocks, it did not come all the way to the collapsed building where they had built their temporary home.

A senior officer—colonel from the looks of the insignia on his lapels—addressed the huddled refugees in the middle of town. His troops had rooted out many of the existing residents at gunpoint. Some had been shot when they resisted. Pavle and Stanis went to the assembly, but only after leaving Mimi and Magda behind in one of the secret places.

“I am Oberst Storm. I am the new authority in this town. You will address me as Master, and my soldiers as Lord. You work under our benevolent care, now. My men will have barracks outside the city to watch over your safety. We will build a fence to keep out those who would prey on you. In exchange for our protection, you will be released in workgroups under guard. You will scavenge the countryside, under our direction. We will collect what you find, and distribute it fairly among you. In return for your cooperation, we will provide for your shelter and give you food and water. We are here for you.”

The colonel had a cold face. Pavle did not for a moment believe that the soldiers were there to protect them. These ELF soldiers, as all those before them, were in this for themselves. After all, if they were here to protect the citizens . . . why did they continue to hold them at gunpoint?

Later that day, a fence went up enclosing an area approximately ten times that of the city center. They drafted men from the refugees to install the fence while the soldiers—other than those operating bulldozers and trucks—stood outside with their guns pointing inward. Most of the enclosed area was wrecked buildings, piled rubble, and a few standing walls. Trucks dumped canvas and plastic sheets, but nothing else with which to construct shelter. The refugees would have to scavenge and supply the rest.

The fence was completed that night, and the vehicles moved outside the perimeter. Over the next several days, barracks, a mess hall, and other buildings were constructed for the soldiers. A headquarters building had been brought in prefabricated. It was one large rectangular container that had to be lifted off the heavy ground effect truck by crane. The colonel disappeared, and from that day onward, the people inside the fence rarely saw him.

They mostly dealt with his soldiers.

Each day a work crew was assembled in the center of town. Of the estimated four hundred refugees, about one-quarter were children too small or too young to work. Another fifty or sixty people were too old, sick, or crippled—so the soldiers would gather about two hundred people each day, leaving only the bare minimum to care for the young and elderly. The rest had to go out into the surrounding countryside and scavenge.

At first, they worked only the immediate surrounding fields, but as that region was stripped, groups were taken as far as one hundred kilometers away from the town each day. They went to ruined farmhouses and scavenged all of the food, seed, and farm equipment. They went to battlefields where they stripped the bodies of the slain, and collected food, water, fuel, electronic, and mechanical components. The guards were always close, and any weapon or ammunition discovered was confiscated immediately. When they encountered towns and cities within the district, the soldiers directed the laborers to concentrate on searching for money, luxuries, and consumer goods. Everything was taken whether it worked or not, and it was all presented to the colonel’s men upon return to the city every night.

Each citizen had to present themselves every evening in order to receive a food and water ration—even the children. The elderly, sick, and lame received nothing. In one of his rare appearances, Colonel Storm told them that even children could forage, or grow to be a scavenger. The aged and infirm were liabilities, and could not earn their own keep. The people were free to share rations, but would not receive any extra.

The food and water allocations weren’t enough to live on. It was barely enough to survive, and many died over the next few months. It was clear that the ELF did not care for the people, they only wanted a slave labor workforce.

Many of the adults gave children extra food, but in too many cases, what was left was not enough for the adults. One by one, adults became sick. It didn’t matter if someone collapsed in the fields or back inside the encampment—they were simply left where they fell. The government had not been much better. It professed a philosophy of sharing and distributing: “From each according to their ability, to each according to their need.” In reality, that meant that those with extra had it taken from them; but at least there was a possibility to earn more. To the ELF, need was weakness, and weakness should be culled. Their basic philosophy was “survival of the strongest.” Over time, additional refugees were brought in to make up the losses. The population grew to about five hundred people and then began to decrease again as the weak died off, and those too strong of will were killed by the soldiers.

The first day, Mimi and Magda had to submit themselves to a census. Every night thereafter, there was a roll call and they had to come out of their shelter to receive their food and water allocation. Soldiers entered their shelter and looked around, but they never found the false back wall, or the passages to the underground storage or the command center. It continued to be their secret.

While the adults scavenged outside the fence, Magda continued to crawl through the rubble inside the perimeter of what was now openly acknowledged to be a prisoner camp. She also helped Mimi nurse the sick as much as she was allowed. New finds of medical supplies were often confiscated—she knew, because she was often called on to treat injured soldiers, and saw the medical supplies they’d hoarded. Mimi was allowed to treat minor injuries, strains, cuts, burns, and scrapes—and Magda learned at her side. Anything that would allow a worker to participate in a work party the next day was permitted, but if she tried to treat anyone who needed extended care, that person would be missing the next morning. It broke her heart, but Mimi learned not to waste her meager supplies.

Stanis had grown big and strong. He and his father were often part of the work parties. They had a little bit of extra food left, gathered from the grocery store. There was likely more, but they dared not go down to dig out more. It was too dangerous. The presence of the store was still largely unknown. Despite the needs of their fellow refugees, it was best to stay that way.

Magda’s father told her one night, “There will come a time of greater need. We will need this for the children. Remember this, Magda. We must use it sparingly enough to keep our strength. But we must save what we can and use it for the children.”


Years passed and the ELF brought more troops and more refugees to be slaves in their camp. The pickings became too thin near the camp, and work crews needed to travel greater distances. At first, they would stay overnight and come back the next evening. Then the crews would be gone for two days. One day, a work crew went out and never came back. A week later, the soldiers who’d escorted the workers returned with plenty of salvage and were seen laughing and drinking with their fellows.

There was no sign of the prisoners.

Pavle and Mimi whispered about it one night. They tried to be quiet, but Magda overheard.

“They served their purpose. Once the people finished scavenging, the soldiers either shot them, or left them to starve.”

“Perhaps both. There were not enough trucks to carry a week’s worth of provisions for the work crew. They were worked to death.”

“You are probably right, Mims. It is hard enough to get by on the rations we do have. I know I wouldn’t last more than a couple of days without rations.”

“It is almost the end. We must prepare.”

“Not for you and me, but for Stanis and Magda.”

“For Magda and the children.”

“Yes. For the children.”


It had been years since the ELF had barricaded the town; the fence was now a fortified wall. It was even more years since Mimi and Pavle had made it a home for their son and adopted daughter. Pavle was a strong man, a proud man, but he knew to submit to the soldiers, even as he began to grow weak from overwork and thin rations. As a nurse, Mimi was still in demand, but they both knew that it was only a matter of time before Pavle stopped being picked for work crews. When that happened, his share of rations would stop.

Late at night, they talked about plans. Stanis wanted to escape—he wanted his mother to find a way to weaken the soldiers so that he and the other young men could make a move. When she refused, he moved out of their shelter. Still, he kept their secret—until the day he, too, disappeared when a work party did not come back.

His loss devastated Mimi, and her health deteriorated. Pavle was determined to find another way, and he began to go back into the command center. He worked on the consoles and electronics, replacing components with look-alikes from the consumer electronics they’d found in the hidden stores. Magda helped her father every evening, then tucked him into bed, and returned to study what she could of the strange instrumentation.

“This is some sort of command center. Over there behind that wall is a computer,” he told her, one night. He pointed to the wall in front of the half-melted chair. “These dark panels would display maps, and pictures of the outside world.”

“What good is a picture, if we can’t see what is around us? Pictures don’t move. They show us the past, not what is real!” Magda countered.

“These were live pictures. Cameras, like the one I showed you yesterday, took pictures of the outside and showed them on these screens.” Several nights ago, Pavle had rigged a camera in the passage leading to the underground tunnels. He told her it was an “early warning system.” He’d run a wire and set up a flat, rectangular device that showed images from the camera. It had taken many weeks to free up the metallic door and rig a lock so that Magda could hide inside the command center if strangers came. The camera would alert them, and she could hide, while her father drew the interlopers away.

“I’ve seen computers like these before. A long time ago. It was technology from Earth.”

Earth was a fiction to Magda, a fairy tale told to children to make them behave: “If you are good, the people from Earth will take you to a land of plenty.” To many, the home world of humanity was a mythological place with no wars, no shortages, no hunger, and no poverty. Pavle knew that it was really not that perfect, but compared to Eden, it was a land of freedom and plenty.

He still had no idea what this command center controlled, but he knew the technology he recognized was important. There had been a time when he had worked in the computer center of a great city to the west, and had seen something like this: a rare capsulated intelligence.

Pavle taught Magda, late in the night, growing weaker by the day. He knew this was important, and someone needed to know.

Pavle had met one, a computer intelligence, those many years ago. It called itself Hephaestus, and it had operated the power plant, energy distribution, traffic, and shipping in the city of West Shore. The intelligence had been cool and distant, lacking the warmth and much of the emotion of flesh and blood. Still, it had a sense of humor and expressed some concern for the humans around it. Its humanity was not gone, just altered.

Pavle hoped that if he could find the secret of this machine, perhaps he could wake up a synthetic intelligence that would help them. He worked in secret, with Magda at his side. He taught her all he knew of electronics, power systems, coolant, and the circuits that supported intelligence. Despite all his tinkering, the intelligence he suspected was there never woke up. He supposed that having been turned off for so long had caused the death of this rare being.

Magda was older—a teen now—but not much bigger than she’d been as a child. She was still the best at getting into small spaces in the rubble around the community. She continued to explore, and once in a while she would find a cache of food or other supplies. Most of those she hid and showed to her parents late at night. Some was turned into the soldiers—they’d be suspicious if she didn’t, but given her size, the soldiers still didn’t consider her to be much more than a child herself.

She often found herself watching children as the parents went out to scavenge. She’d gathered a troop of children around her, and mothered them almost as if they were her own. When a small boy or girl came to her because their parent hadn’t woken up, or hadn’t returned from the fields, Magda would hold them tight, stroke their hair, and whisper, “It’s okay, Magda is here. Magda will take care of you.”


Rations became short. There were fewer guards on the perimeter, and fewer soldiers in the barracks. The colonel had not been seen for many months. Daily food and water deliveries were cut every few weeks. There was less to go around and many of the adults preferred to give their share to the children. There were still adults who insisted that they needed an extra share to be able to go out and glean the battlefields. There were fights over the food distribution, and sometimes bodies would be left on the ground in the aftermath.

Those who elected to shorten their own rations entrusted them to Magda. She stashed extras in her secret caves while still making sure that the children had enough to stay active. She taught them to explore the small spaces, and showed them safe spots to avoid the soldiers and the growing collection of selfish adults who followed the children in hopes of discovering where they hid their rations.

Mimi grew weaker, and fell into a fever late one snowy night. As the only nurse, she was unable to treat herself. Magda tried, but she simply didn’t know enough. She sat holding the hand of the only mother she’d known—as that hand grew cold and stiff.

Pavle was beside himself with grief. Magda tried to console him, but there was just too much broken inside him, and there was nothing she could do. He stormed out of the shelter, to the gate in the perimeter wall, and yelled obscenities. He punched the wall with his fists, and when guards came to investigate, he punched them too. He was captured and chained to the inside of the wall. A dozen soldiers lined up with their guns and shot him—each of them emptying their rifle magazine.

They left him there, chained to the pockmarked, bloodstained wall as an example.

Magda retreated to the command center, tears in her eyes. She looked around at the great machine and beat her fists against the consoles. “Where were you? You failed us! You were supposed to help us! How am I going to take care of the children now?”

A little boy—she called him Peter, although the others said his parents had called him by another name—came to her. His parents were long gone, and Pavle and Mimi had taken him in, although it was Magda who cared for him most of the time. Peter didn’t know what to do and he clutched Magda and cried. Despite her own grief she put her arms around him, stroked the back of his head, and whispered, “Don’t cry, Peter. It’s okay. I’ll be your mother. Mother is here and I’ll take care of you.”

Deep inside the great machine, a circuit closed.

The next day the soldiers did not come to gather a work party. They simply left. That night, there was no food distribution. In the morning, a few soldiers returned to gather all the adults that they could find. They marched out of camp and did not return that night.

Once again, there was no food, no water—no adults. Magda moved the few remaining children to the secret passages under the building.

This was the time Poppa meant. The emergency when the rest of the stored supplies would be needed.

She led the children deep into the tunnels and gathered all of the stored food and water. Some of the water had leaked, the packages had spoiled, but she had moved what remained into the command center.

The children cried. They were hungry and thirsty. They wanted their parents. All they had was Magda. She held them, hugged them, and whispered to them, “Don’t worry, Magda is here, Magda will take care of you.”

That phrase! It means something! the intelligence inside the vast machine thought to itself as it roused itself from its long sleep.

There was a crackling sound coming from high on one wall. Magda looked around. What was that?

Something like a voice came over the hidden speaker. It stopped after a moment, though. More odd noises sounded, then a smooth, melodious voice spoke.

“Mother is here. Mother will take care of you.”


The repairs that Pavle and Magda made had at least restored sensor data to Mother. The computers had recorded snapshots of life around her for the past fifteen years, and she reviewed those records in a few nanoseconds. She looked at the children, analyzed their ages, their health, the absence of adults. Mother then looked at Magda—dirty, clothed in rags, but still standing defiantly to defend the children.

“Magda. It’s okay. I am Mother, the intelligence within this war machine. My duty was to protect my family—the men and women of my platoon. I failed them, but I can still protect you.”

Over the next few hours, Mother instructed Magda in how to refill the nutrient paste dispenser with the spoiled food. Processing would remove the contaminants, and Mother would synthesize extra vitamins for the starving children. The water dispenser was easily patched, and could refill itself from atmospheric water vapor. Lockers were opened, to provide cloth for bedding, and as Magda helped Mother bring the rest of her systems online, the internal fabricators began to turn out clothing for the children.

Rested, fed, the children were stronger. With Mother’s guidance, Magda sent them out to clear specific areas of the rubble. Some of it was simply too big, even for Magda, but Mother said it would be okay. She would manage.

Mother used the large black rectangles—she called them “screens”—to teach Magda what she would need to know. One of the first lessons was the definition of a tank and what it was capable of. Magda was torn between taking the children to safety, and getting revenge on the soldiers of the ELF. It was Mother who convinced her the safety of the children was the more important.

The day came when Mother shook off the remnants of the fallen building. The children were huddled inside the command center, but Magda stood outside as the massive machine crawled out of the rubble.

Worn, weathered, dented, and crumpled—she’d never seen anything so beautiful!

When she reentered the command center, Mother opened a compartment and showed her a brand-new set of clothing. “This is a tank commander’s uniform, Magda. You are my commander now, so you should wear it.”

Magda just lowered her head. “Thank you, Mother. Let’s get the kids to safety. Then we’re going hunting. Don’t worry, Mother. Magda is here, now. Together you and I will do what we need to do to protect all of our families.”


Back | Next
Framed