Orphaned

Inside a child's wardrobe, covered in pink shirts and plasma-proof vests, hidden from the light, there lay a metal heart. Despite her pleas, Hope’s adoptive guardians ignored her. The heart-shaped locket remained undetected, and so did Hope’s tearless cries. It wasn’t the first time David and Linda were too busy for her.

“It’s right there in the report from last night!” David yelled. “There was a spike!”

“It probably caught a satellite,” said Linda. “So what?”

Hope yanked on David’s pant leg.

“Not now!”

Hope was a lot to take on. A tough fit into their tenebrous world. The couple had Hope with them for over a year now, but they found it was getting harder and harder to keep her. Desert hideouts and militia bases were no place for a little girl, though neither was the city. The ruling class had no use for a new generation, seeing how theirs was meant to live on forever. Anyone over eighteen was sterilized, and anyone under was by now the product of “bioterrorism.” Hope was an anomaly. She had to be protected.

“I’m telling you, it pinged! It’s not supposed to do that!”

“Please!” Hope begged. “My locket!”

David brushed her off and sat down at his desktop. He had enough computer rigs piled up around him to power a small town.

“Come on, sweetheart,” Linda said, ushering Hope away from her husband. “We’ll find it later. Promise.”

In truth, David would have abandoned Hope long ago, but Linda never let him. She would die for that child.

◔

David would only die for one thing.

“The great reset,” he said that night while tucking Hope in.

“What’s that?” she replied.

“It’s what your mother died for.”

“You knew her?”

“No, but if she had you, then she believed the same thing I do. She believed things can’t go on like this, and that the path is too far along to be altered. Society needs to fall so a new one can rise.”

“Is that what your missions are about? Is that what you fight them for?”

“It’s what we all fight them for. Me, your mother, and even you.”

“When’s your next mission?”

“Very soon.”

“Then we need to find Mommy’s lucky locket. You can’t go on missions without it.”

“This next mission will be the last. Then we won’t need luck.”

David awkwardly patted her on the head before turning out the lights and heading for the door.

“Am I an orphan?” Hope asked.

“When Man thinks he can turn his mother against God, he makes orphans of us all.”

Cool, sand-swept air blew through the secluded house. Another night without the cracking of gunfire. Another battle with insomnia.

◑

“They’re here!” Linda screamed. “They found us!”

Drones, like specks in the morning mist, could be seen from the master bedroom window. There looked to be four—fast approaching.

David looked up from his computer with bloodshot eyes.

“No-no-no… Not yet!”

Hope leaped out of bed as if she had never been asleep.

David ran to the kitchen, pulled a lever. “Not yet!”

Clicks and clacks rang throughout the house as metal barriers fell over the windows and doors.

Linda grabbed David by the shoulders. “Take the escape pod!” she said. “I’ll get Hope and hide in the panic room with her!”

David was frozen, flushed of all color. “It’s not ready. Not yet.”

“Baby, just take what you have and go! Come back for us when it’s safe!”

David remained still save for his eyes which darted around in their sockets.

“We have to surrender,” said Hope, suddenly behind the couple. “They’re too strong.”

David squinted at her.

“Sweetheart,” said Linda, “you know what happens to you if—”

“Mommy fought, and that’s why they killed her!” said Hope. “If they didn’t hurt me before, they won’t hurt us now!”

“We don’t know that!” Linda pleaded, grabbing Hope by the arm and taking her away.

“Wait,” said Hope. “Where are we going?”

David ran for his computer and checked the security cameras. There were three small, armed drones mere yards away. Below them was a larger ship descending toward the house. On another monitor, a complex code blanketed the screen; it was moving so fast that you could read nothing except for a progress bar…

“She’s safe,” said Linda, returning.

98%.

“I need more time!”

“Well you don’t have it!”

David grabbed Linda’s hand. “Hey. She told us she escaped them. She never mentioned being captured.”

“Little girls aren’t the best at explaining traumatic events. So what?”

There was pounding on one of the doors. They checked the cameras—the large ship was only touching down.

“Let me out!” could be faintly heard.

It was just Hope. Panicking in the panic room.

“What if they chipped her?” David said. “Could’ve done it in her sleep without her even knowing.” Linda went pale. “What if that’s how they keep finding us?”

“Then we’re not safe in there,” said Linda. “They’ll know we didn’t go with you, and they’ll break down the door to get us.”

David turned back the cameras. “Cannonheads.”

Five gangling robots, moving like upright dogs, ventilators for mouths and plasma cannons for eyes. They jogged uniformly out of the large ship while the small drones hovered overhead.

“We’re coming with you.”

“Five minutes,” said David.

“Now!”

David looked at her solemnly and squeezed her hand. He had never let go.

“The entire resistance is marching on the capitol in two days. If I can’t disable them, our friends, our family… they won’t stand a chance.”

99%.

“The barricades will hold them for a while,” David continued, grabbing two energy pistols from under his computer desk. He handed one to Linda. “Then it’s up to us.”

“Don’t make us wait for you,” she said and hurried off.

There was a knock on the front door. No voices.

Linda burst into the panic room to find Hope curled up in the corner.

“I don’t wanna go, I don’t wanna go,” she muttered.

“It’s not safe here, sweetheart,” said Linda, kneeling next to her.

“We can’t run forever.”

“What do you… we can’t let them—”

“Are you bad?” Hope interrupted.

“What?”

“Why are they after you? Did you do something wrong?”

Linda was taken aback, but she quickly snapped out of it. “We don’t have time for this. Let’s go!” She scooped Hope up and carried her.

“Stop! Where are we going?”

The knocking on the front door got louder. Then the Cannonheads split up. David couldn’t keep track of them all; the cameras had blindspots.

Linda brought Hope to a massive attic that housed a dusty escape pod. She put her down and told her to stay put, but Hope begged…

“Please, it’s all I have left of her!”

Linda hesitated.

“I need mommy’s locket. Please!”

Downstairs, the progress bar wouldn’t budge. David was pulling his hair out. Suddenly the knocking stopped…

...and a metal arm came through the front door before dropping a canister on the ground. Smoke started hissing, filling the foyer in seconds.

Then every door and window in the house was breached.

Animalistic robots tearing down every last defense, clawing their way inside. Linda was rifling through Hope’s room when a Cannonhead found her. A smile grew on her face but vanished as she turned around, locket in hand, held close to her heart. The last thing she smelled was smoke, and the last thing she felt was hot plasma. She made the most terrible sound.

“Linda!” David yelled.

The Cannonhead had most of its body through the front door now.

“Son of a—”

The progress bar hit 100%.

David pulled out a tiny thumb drive, pulled his shirt above his mouth, and fled into the smoke. There were canisters everywhere, and the air was clouded to the ceiling. He struggled to keep his eyes open, coughing his way to the staircase.

“Mommy!”

David tried to find Hope but found a Cannonhead instead. He was shoved hard against a wall and lost his pistol. He had no choice but to run for the attic, or so was his thought. Besides, the fate of his people rested on his survival today.

“Help me!”

He didn’t hear Hope calling his name. They had already gotten her. He made it to the escape pod alone. Finally able to see and breathe again, he threw up and wiped his eyes.

But as the roof split open to reveal the sky and David prepared to take off, Hope emerged beside the pod—right as rain, wearing her mother’s locket.

The pod bay door opened and she ran inside. David felt her arms around him as he flew them out of there. They hit max speed, feeling every rumble of wind resistance.

“Linda…” he muttered to himself. “I’m—”

A blast rocked the pod. Hope screamed in terror. Three drones in hot pursuit. The pod had no weapons or flares, only evasive maneuvers. David was a good pilot, but this bucket of bolts could only do so many tricks.

“What are we gonna do?” Hope asked.

David looked her in the eyes with a lump in his throat. He unbuckled himself and activated the autopilot.

“What are you doing?”

David opened the pod bay door. “What I have to do.”

Another blast shook them.

“The autopilot will take you to a secure base. Tell them to give you a full medical scan.”

“But—”

“Promise me you’ll tell them.”

She looked up at him with those big eyes. “Okay.”

David strapped himself into a rusty thruster pack. “They want me. What I have.”

“Wait…”

“I’m sorry.”

But before he could jump…

“Daddy!” She had never called him that before.

Hope took the locket from around her neck and put it on him.

“You need this more than me,” she said.

A tear fell from David's eye… and he fell backward, watching the drones chase and fire on the pod.

And then it blew up. Shot right out of the sky. There would be a ball of fire for a few seconds, a cloud of smoke for some minutes, and then nothing. No more Hope.

He turned and looked for a flat spot to land.

On the ground, David shed his thruster pack and walked to an oddly formed cave. Once inside, he searched for a place to dig. He tore a piece of his shirt and used it to wrap the thumb drive before dropping it in the hole.

David opened the locket. There was a picture of Hope’s mother. She was beautiful. But her eyes seemed to glow red with rage. He buried the locket along with the thumb drive.

He stood up, brushed the dirt off his hands and knees. Through the entrance of the cave, he could see structures in the distance. A somber yet stoic look washed over his face. But that look was replaced with shock when five Cannonheads met him outside.

One Cannonhead went inside the cave while the others stood around David’s body. It walked straight to the spot where David had buried the thumb drive and dug it up.

◕

Far away, synthetic birds chirp lyrically over the bustling High City. Spotless glass skyscrapers, lush green parks with ponds, and every imaginable luxury from hoverboards to the honey spas. A perfect human paradise with perfect artificial servants. Nobody is a day over or under twenty-five years old. There is one little boy, nervously clutching his teddy bear, but he’s on his way out of the immaculate metropolis.

In the industrial end, a staggering factory produces an endless quantity of hardware, software, and bioware. Flesh is carefully draped over a stainless steel frame by a myriad of automated widgets. Then, a final fitting is executed by biological hands. Once chemically acclimated, enhanced for field deployment, and sufficiently Turing tested, the fresh—and expensive—asset is outfitted with its heart.

A small red beacon is covered by the image of a gorgeous, motherly figure. The locket is closed, and a new Hope is born.

●