Digital Exodus Chapter 22 (Patreon)

With one day left before the Cherish arrived, we were on the clock in a very anxiety-inducing way. Despite having an address for where Jason's stepdad was hanging out, we had no way of knowing where that actually was in this inscrutable labyrinthine warren of humanity. See, addresses in this place were more like… suggestions than actual places. Plus, it appeared that the stepdad had set his app to be a drop point rather than having the food brought to the door.

So, we were hanging out in a market area in the vicinity of the drop point, just… waiting to see if he came to pick up some food. Well, Jason was hidden in the van down on the ground, because he was recognisable. Some of the gangers around here had given him a few too many side eyes, since his android body had been reshaped to fit his old body.

His boss and friend—the old man from the scrapyard far up the valley and out of the slum—had taken him in for several years, but it was obvious that the gangs he’d abandoned were beginning to realise one of their deserters was in town again.

“Did you hear about the ship?” A random teenage kid said to his friend as they sat at a food cart.

His friend grunted around a mouthful of kebab. “What ship?”

“The alien ship!” Came the reply, and I tuned in a little. “You know, the one that's gonna be in the sky in a couple hours?”

“It's a day away,” the kebab boy said, “and it isn't aliens, it's robots. The AI ones.”

“I heard that all the inner city folks are pissin’ themselves about it. They say it's the end of the world or something.”

The man who owned the cart cleared his throat. “They're right to be scared, kids, and you should be too. World is sliding towards war, and then those AI turn up with a fucking huge space ship and hang it over our heads? If they have even a few guns on that thing, they could start hitting the surface and there isn't a thing we could do about it.”

“The UN will blow their ship up,” the kid still eating his kebab said confidently.

The cart owner grunted. “Don't be so sure of that. Them AI might be weird as sin, but they're not stupid. The sky is going to get mighty busy in a day or so, mark my words.”

The boys just shrugged the older man's comments off and changed the subject, but I had to laugh internally. The slum kids might be unconcerned, but the media pundits were collectively shitting themselves while the governments of the world desperately tried to maintain airs of calm confidence. Nobody was fooled by their act.

As the kids left five minutes later, a middle aged woman approached the cart and paid for some food. While leaning on the cart while the guy made her a kebab, she said, “That whole SAI spaceship has me worried, Jerome.”

“Yeah?” he asked neutrally as he shaved meat off the rotating stack of mystery meat.

“Think about it,” she said, gesturing vaguely towards the sky. Not that the sky was visible from down here. “They had a full on spaceship up there, they coulda just slowly pulled their folks off the planet. No fuss, ya know? Instead they—and like, you know, the SAI are smart—they think hey we need to get the fuck off Earth, we got no time. It’s the UN and the Republic, they’re squaring off again, oh, and it ain't like they've been shy about how Cali used to be American land, so we won't be spared, neither. I reckon those SAI know something further that we don’t.”

Oh gosh, the temptation to say something was high.

Jerome, the cart guy, grunted wearily. “I think you have the right of it, but what can we do about it? We don’t even got FTLN access, so it’s not like we can take them up on their offer, assuming your religion even goes for that digital stuff. I know I’m worried about my soul enough as it is.”

“You’re a Hadi, right?” the woman asked curiously.

Jerome nodded as he finished wrapping the doner. “Yes, ma’am. Came from Iran, before the wars there. Well, my parents did, you know?”

“I know,” she nodded, taking the kebab from him. “Thanks, Jerome.”

“Have a good day,” he nodded, then watched as she smiled and wandered off.

Huh. I wonder what all of that meant? Hadi? Wars in… Iran? That was a country in the middle east, or it was? Ah, I couldn’t remember.

“We’ve got movement,” Gloria said over our comms channel.

Shifting my concentration back to the pickup spot nearby, I watched as an ageing man with a bald spot approached and went to rest against a railing. He checked his phone for a second, then glanced around.

“That’s him,” Jason said excitedly. “That’s my stepdad.”

Nobody moved, we just watched the guy for almost five minutes while he waited for his food. Soon enough, a person covered in straps, belts, buckles, with baggy cargo pants and a skin-tight shirt wandered up to the stepdad. On their back, they had a hardshell backpack with the logo of the delivery company painted on it.

The two exchanged a couple words, then the delivery person flicked their short, fluorescent blue bangs out of their eyes and carefully dropped the pack. After a couple of seconds, they'd extracted a brown paper bag, which they handed to the old guy.

He nodded thanks, and the delivery person left while he checked everything was there in the bag. Then, when he was happy, he headed off down a side gantry.

Above us on the next level up, Gloria began to follow him, while we slowly ambled in the direction he'd left, but only after he was out of sight. Everyone else moved off, that is, but I hovered back by the food cart. I wanted… ah, fuck it, just do it Alia.

Sidling up to the cart, I gave Jerome a friendly—if a little shy—smile. “Heard you talking about the SAI and their ship. You said you think things are going to get crazy?”

Jerome grunted and looked me up and down. “Yeah, I think so. What that lady said was right, those SAI know something we don't.”

I gave him a long, considering look. So long that his eyes flicked back to his cart for a second, seeking respite from my stare. Then, without any other movement, I popped my face plate and allowed it to retreat into its maintenance configuration. His eyes widened with fear, and he took half a step back while muttering something that sounded like a prayer under his breath.

“You're right,” I said, the inside of my android head pulsing gently with light to the sound of my now obviously artificial voice. “We know something is coming, and there are signs that the American Republic is not as helpless as they have previously appeared. Make arrangements, Jerome. If you have a family, make sure they're safe.”

Then my face plate slid back into position, and once the hundreds of tiny servos that controlled my facial expressions were running again, I gave him a little smile. “Have a good day.”

Then I was off, following my friends as though I hadn't just terrified a grown man by revealing we could look like or be anyone around him. Hopefully he took my advice, though. When the bullets started flying and the bombs started dropping, nobody would care if a slum got caught in the crossfire.


Following Jason’s stepdad led us further and further into the dark backstreets of the slum. The vibrant sculptures and lights were left behind, replaced by trash and dying, flickering bulbs. It felt like we were entering a dead jungle while overcast clouds blocked all light. Nothing moved, and the few times a breeze penetrated this far in, you immediately wished it hadn’t because of the smell it brought with it. I had to turn my nose off just to keep from sneezing, which was a strange reflex to still have in a machine body.

After far too long in the oppressive dark of the back streets, the stepdad eventually ducked into a door to what looked like an abandoned set of triple-conjoined housing units. We kept out of sight, except for Gloria who was still above us.

“Okay people,” Roger said over comms. “Get ready. Everyone have sidearms? Also, Jason, get your butt up here. We’ll need you to make this work.”

“I’ve got my rifle, too,” David replied.

“Guys… please don’t shoot my parents unless you really need to,” Jason said in exasperation.

“Yeah, yeah,” Ed joked. “We'll try.”

“Good,” Jason said. “Man, there's some sketchy people in this slum. We better do this fast, there's a guy on a motorbike who is scoping out the van like it's a meal.”

“Well, our tires might give him more trouble than normal,” Gloria replied with a chuckle. “Those things don't even use standard—”

“Focus,” Roger chided them gently. “Will this motorbike guy give us trouble?”

“Nah,” Jason said dismissively. “He doesn't even look like he's from here. If I didn't already know that cops don't come in here, I'd say he looks like a cop. Probably just a lost tourist.”

Roger’s tone was thoughtful. “Try to chase him off and hide the van before you get up here.”

“How the fuck do you hide a van? In my pocket?”

Laughing silently to myself as they bantered, I checked the scary little piece of equipment that was hidden in a back holster under my shirt. The damn thing could kill someone and they’d just… given it to me. It was an alien experience.

It took us five more minutes to be ready, with most of that time taken up by Jason hiding the van and finding his way to us. This whole area was a warren, which was good for the van and bad for Jason's climbing speed.

That begged the question, what was Jason’s stepdad doing out here in the slummiest part of the slum? It was weird, this place was awful and I’m pretty sure there wasn’t even working power in many of the units nearby.

“Okay, guys…” Jason said over comms, even though we’d all gathered together now. “I’m going to go knock. If someone blasts me, please scrape me out of the buffer and put me back together? Thanks.”