vN The First Machine Dynasty(7)
Trees rushed to catch them.
Amy tried her door. It was jammed; she had to slip outside her seatbelt (it took a lot of awkward bending) and slide over to the empty passenger side. In the dark, she could only feel around in the dirt. Javier must have crawled away. "Javier?"
Nothing. Just distant road noise, and the occasional hush of air through the pines. Then the single chirp of a stopped police car. Turning, Amy saw two white vehicles parked at the place where the car had ripped through the guardrail. She didn't bother looking for humans; she scuttled away from the flickering rays of busted headlights and into the deeper darkness. She ran blindly. Rocks and raw roots tripped her twice, but she barely noticed. The important thing was to stay out of the light.
Her new long legs no longer seemed so awkward; they carried her a lot farther a lot faster than her old ones would have done. Ducking under a low-hanging bough, Amy paused to listen again – this time for machines. Right now, humans worried her less than other, lesser robots. It made sense that the officers parked on the embankment hadn't come down to look for her; two baseline humans simply could not outrun a frightened vN. But a drone could survey the entire forest with a single glance, and a botfly could zip in and out of the trees to seek her out, and both of them could give the police the information they needed to surround her. She listened again. But she heard no high-pitched cicada whine… just the quiet hiss of muttered swear words.
"Javier?"
"Not so loud!" he said.
He had hidden himself behind a tree a few yards away. She saw his foot, now, the only thing wiggling in the shadows. Amy scrambled over, her limbs twice as clumsy now, and leaned against the tree.
"Are you OK?"
He shook his head. He doubled over. "No." His lips pinched together and his eyes squeezed shut. "Jesus Christ, you'd think this'd get easier with time."
"What's wrong?"
Javier almost laughed. It came out high and a little desperate. "Where did you grow up, a fucking convent?" He slammed his head against the tree and trembled. The vibration came from inside him, like someone had twisted his tendons taut one at a time until they shivered and sang. Under his eyelids, his eyes darted back and forth. He smelled a little sweet; his systems had started burning energy at a furious pace.
"You're scared," Amy said.
"Gold star, querida, gold fucking star."
"Hey, don't snap at me just because you're the one who's frightened. Don't you think it's a bit late for that now, anyway?" Javier continued shivering. His hands came up to cover his face. He rocked back and forth against the tree. Amy swallowed, and tried to think of something nicer to say. "I mean, you've already done some pretty scary things today, and you didn't seem frightened at all."
Hesitantly, she reached over and tried to pat Javier's hand. It burned hot to the touch, and shook under her fingers. He grabbed them and squeezed them; Amy squeaked and he let go, a little.
He spoke through gritted teeth: "This is different."
Javier placed her hand over the warm skin of his enormous belly where his shirt had ridden up. Beneath it, something moved. Javier's heels ground ruts in the dirt. He whimpered and kept her hand pinned to his body. "When you feel it start to rip," he said, "you just keep it open, OK?"
Amy looked into his damp and grimacing face. "What?"
"Better this way. Didn't want to do this in a cell." Javier's eyes opened. They seemed calmer now, focused. "It's the stress. The shocks. He's early."
Beneath Amy's fingers, something warm and wet oozed up from Javier's navel. It glistened in the dark. She pulled his shirt up the rest of the way. A seam opened, bubbled, split across his skin. Javier curled his fingers under the tear and pulled the skin back slowly.
"You gotta help me," he said. "Baby's coming."
2
Lucky Number Thirteen
Javier's baby popped free of his father's body like a shiny coin from an old rubber purse. He emerged head-first, his wrinkled body wreathed in glimmering smoke, and blinked once at Amy before vomiting everywhere. Then he lifted up his arms feebly.
"Pull him out," Javier said, holding his giant wound open with trembling hands.
"What?"
"Careful. He'll be slippery."
Javier was right. Sticky threads black as obsidian covered his son, and they stretched like melting candy as Amy lifted him, leaving wisps of themselves curled around the surrounding trees and their needles. Amy had to wind the baby around a few times, like collecting noodles around a fork, before finally pulling him free. She tried to wipe him off (and succeeded only in coating her arms up to her elbows in Javier's goo), but Javier tugged the hem of her shirt.