Reading Online Novel

vN The First Machine Dynasty(88)





His jaw set. "Hang in there, Amy. I'll figure something out."



"Aww." Portia reached up to pat his face. He swerved away, but her fingertips grazed him. "You don't have to be brave, baby. She loves you even when you're weak." She smiled. "Oh, and thanks for the legs!"



She flew.



Portia crushed her daughter's face underfoot. Blood streamed through her toes as she bounded forward, and it leaked from her scalp when another iteration grabbed her hair and ripped it from her head. It was the garbage dump all over again. This time she broke one daughter's shoulders with a single jump, and smashed another's pelvis against the juncture of a container, crushing her from behind while she crouched in wait. As she descended back into the swelling riot of her clade, Portia reached into their chests and their mouths and their eyes and started pulling. She grabbed arms and kicked stomachs. Then she found a fire axe bolted to the ceiling of a container.

That made short work of things, but it did nothing to steady the ship or keep the containers from sliding out beneath her feet. With each jump, she glanced down to watch some of her daughters or granddaughters die, crushed between containers. Their limbs twitched against the steel and their blood dripped along the rivets. They smeared like mosquitoes. The remainder of their number cowered under the curling shadows of the dark and glistening arms that rose from the water. It made them easy targets.



Killing them was unnecessary. The ocean, or the thing inside it, would do that. But breaking them – watching their faces glimmer with recognition just before her feet flattened their throats, hearing them say "Mother–" in the moment just after their arms opened and just before their breastplates left their chests – that was special. They looked so confused. They tried to ask why.



Total selection, she almost told them. But these pale copies, their skin thin as paper, their bones airy as ice, would not understand. They deserved no explanation. After all, she would have done all this anyway, had her quest to find Charlotte's first not gone so strangely awry.



"Found him!" Javier stood atop an overturned green container wedged between half-crumbled walls of green ones. He waved his arms, and almost fell over when the ship rocked. "Over here!"



Portia joined him in one jump. She crouched atop the container. Javier yanked the axe from her hand. He hacked open the door, ditched the axe, and poked his head inside. "¡Junior! ¡Vaste conmigo, ahora!"



From all around them, the other iterations crawled slowly toward the container, undeterred by the pitch and yaw of the wet and slippery terrain.



"No te preocupes, mijo, está bien…"



Javier crawled out of the container backward. He carried his son on his back. When the boy's eyes met Portia's, he wailed. He hid against his father's neck and pointed at Portia.



She smiled. "He remembers me. How sweet."



She stood, searching for the lifeboats. Javier's eyes widened just before a pair of teeth sank into her side. Portia dodged away, but the ship shuddered and rolled, and they all stumbled across the container's roof. She watched two more iterations haul themselves up to the surrounding containers. They stared enviously at the blood dripping from their sister's mouth.



"Why isn't it working?" the iteration asked. She was wounded, but she looked more irritated than anything else. She licked Portia's fluids off the back of her hand. "Why don't I feel any different?"



"Because you aren't any different." Portia walked back slowly to the edge of the container's roof. Javier jumped up high to another wall of containers. "Eating me won't change anything. Your code won't be rewritten. You will never have what I have."



The iteration bared her teeth. She was so young. So frustrated. She charged Portia and Portia's hand went for her heart. Her fingers curled around the iteration's ribs. Still, she looked so angry. Not frightened or surprised or even sad. Just annoyed at the disruption, and eager to eliminate whatever was in her way.



Portia threw her over the side of the container.



The sun was bright and warm. It tingled on her skin. Portia would have to thank the boy for that, too. They would find the lifeboats, and he would let her on because Amy was still in there. Portia would be free. She would start again. Her second dynasty would be even stronger than the first, with powerful legs and hungry skin.



She enjoyed this pleasure for a single, shining moment. In the next, a shadow passed over her. With it came rain. Distantly, she heard Javier shouting Amy's name. She looked up, and the shape was black and smooth, but its surface bristled with loose, flopping fingers. A humaniform shape blistered up from the sharp point of the tentacle. It had no eyes or nose or mouth. But its chest opened wide, and a tunnel appeared in its stomach.