Scorched Earth: Volume II

Many dangers fill the Texas wasteland. Mutated creatures, bandits, rampant bots, digital ghost collectives with god complexes, and cybernetic dragons make up a decent portion of the list.

Scorched Earth: Volume II is a fast-paced sequel that follows Gerti, Joe, Clements, and their allies, familiar and new, as they face these threats... and pray they live to tell the tale.

Another gutter ball.
David Leibowitz shrugged and walked back to the horse-shoe shaped couches where his roommate waited - bowling never had been his forte. His roommate’s girlfriend had utterly shattered his heart the day before and for some reason, Collin thought he’d find the pieces in a bowling alley. So here they were.
It was 5:16pm on a Saturday and they were some of the only people in the business. City admin was still being strict on public restrictions due to the mysterious disease running roughshod through the former rebel states. David was surprised this place was open at all.
According to the CDC, the disease was allegedly a “shadow-borne illness” and caused hallucinations akin to night terrors while awake. As such, businesses were required to only operate during daylight hours and keep their premises as well-lit as possible.
A lot of people online were claiming the disease was released by the US government as retaliation for the rebel’s actions in DC. Maybe it was a side effect of the nuclear exchange - David didn’t know. He thought it was made up entirely but he couldn’t conjure a reason as to why they’d do that.
Houston, Dallas, Austin, and Oklahoma City were still uninhabitable after ten years. DC had been hit by a chemical attack five years after the other cities were destroyed by nuclear bombs.
There was a company called Red Dunes trying to clean up the fallout using some new wonder technology they developed to terraform mars. He’d heard on the news that Red Dunes was planning on testing the terraforming tech this month in the affected cities. David had been a young kid when the war happened - he tried not to think about it often.
Collin was about as good at bowling as David, so they moved down to the arcade for a bit before getting an overpriced pizza to split. Collin talked about his girlfriend and David tried to listen, he really did, but he had a lot on his mind with school and the state of the world.
He was a student at A&M, working on a senior project he hoped could land him an internship with the Treighl Industries AI Applications branch. They were the designers of the guard robots that enforced the curfew laws on campus and around town. His duties mainly included overseeing maintenance of the units and making sure their diagnostic codes were reading appropriately.
He had, against protocol, kept a trashed trooper canine model that was going to get thrown out, and had been trying to repair it instead. He had also gotten into the crazy advanced programming itself and had begun trying to decode it - he found very little success but that was still a lot more than he had been expecting.
Last week Treighl Industries sent out an update to their “centaur” security bots to fix issues with communication distances and problem solving cognitives but it was causing more serious bugs in their behavior.
Treighl’s lead designer must’ve been a nerd or something - all the model series’ had fantasy names. Centaur, Dragon, Dullahan, Orc, Goblin, Kobalt, etc. The only exception he could think of was the Trooper line.
The head of the school’s project, Dr. Harper, had alerted the company to the flaws they found but she wasn’t ever able to get a response from the company. So she and David had taken it upon themselves to dig into it.
David realized the only thing he could hear was the cacophony of all the game’s idle attraction noises - Collin had stopped talking and was staring at him.
“I’m sorry, man.” David said, “I have a lot on my mind.”
“I get it.” Collin said, dejected and with a shrug.
An employee in a navy polo approached to tell them that the business would be closing in fifteen minutes due to curfew. They finished eating and headed back to their dorm.
Later that week, David strolled along, proud of what he’d done. The trooper model robot trotted alongside him - her segmented metal tail wagging happily with each step.
Dr. Harper had called him into the robotics lab - she thought she had figured out where the problem with the centaur bots was coming from and wanted them to start working on a fix. Two of the bots strode by them on the sidewalk. They had black and white plastic and gray silicone humanoid upper bodies suspended by a four-legged chassis that carried them - each had an energy rifle in their arms.
Their heads tracked David as they crossed paths - undoubtedly reading his ID badge he wore around his neck. He wondered how close the ones and zeros in those heads came to true thought.
One of his childhood friends was taking part in a project at a different university to transfer human brains into synthetic bodies. His friend had told him, in confidence, that they were having issues with synthetic brains they had made coping with the load of a human mind and that they were yet to successfully transplant anything.
David wondered what even happened to a person’s soul in that situation - does it persist with the mind or does it reside somewhere else? If it resides with the mind, does making a copy of that also copy the soul? He shook the thoughts from his head before he got too far down that existential rabbit hole.
He walked into the well-lit and cold workspace that he shared with two other students and their lead professor.
Dr. Harper was sitting at a computer with her head in her hands. Amara+ coding blocks were etched across the monitor. She looked up when David got closer.
“Version two-fifteen did fix the comm errors - and the cognitive problems,” she said, pointing to the blocks. “But I want you to look at this and tell me what you see.”
David spent a few minutes looking at the code on the screen. A section labeled ‘engagement permissions’ was highlighted. It took him a while but he noticed the difference between 2.15 and 2.11. There was no check for oversight authorization to use lethal force against any individual. The term ‘any individual’ was also new. It used to utilize the phrase ‘threat.’
“Wait, so what authorizes lethal force?”
“They do,” she said, “each unit.”
The thought of robots being the downfall of humanity, ala classic movies, had always been a topic that was joked about among the team when the robots first arrived. It didn’t seem that funny anymore. The software editor program kicked David’s login credentials. The professor tried and it kicked hers back too.
They spent the rest of the day trying to revert the software back to 2.11 or contact Treighl to let them know about the potentially deadly programming. Neither provided any results. Version 2.11 of the software had been deleted when the 2.15 update went through and Treighl was notorious for not responding to support calls. David could’ve sworn he’d made a backup of all the previous versions but the flash drives weren’t in the labs.
Frustrated and tired, David called it a night and said goodbye to Dr. Harper - they’d have to keep working on this later. The trooper bot skipped along the sidewalk in front of him - turning around every once in a while to look back at him.
On their way back to his dorm, they were blocked on the sidewalk by a slender man in a black suit.
His swept back hair was so blond it looked almost white. His facial features were alarmingly gaunt and his cheekbones were the highest David had ever seen. His skin was milky white but David didn’t think he looked pallid or off-putting - rather ethereal actually. David tried to sidestep him on the pathway but the man held out a well-manicured hand to stop him.
“David Leibowitz?” he asked.
“Uh, yeah?” David replied, caught off guard.
“My name is Araless, I represent Treighl Industries.” His voice carried a light lilting accent that David couldn’t place. In fact, David was sure he had never heard an accent like it before.
“Good.” David began, “I’ve been trying to get ahold of someone all day.”
“We know.” Araless said with a wry smile.
“Are your phones broken?” David was surprised to hear his brashness but he hadn’t eaten since that morning and his work had grated on him. Araless would be the recipient of his just ire.
“No but there are things too sensitive to speak of on the phone.” Araless squatted down to examine the trooper bot. He pulled out a small handheld device and held it up to the canine model. “It says here this unit was slated for decommission due to a complete failure on its axiom board. Why wasn’t it turned in and destroyed?”
“I didn’t feel right about throwing her in the dumpster. Soo, I took a crack at fixing her.” David said, realizing now that he had probably broken all sorts of laws by cracking the robot’s case.
“That is exceedingly impressive.”
David was relieved to hear him say that.
“Thanks. Can I ask what you want, Mr. Araless?”
“Yes, you can.” Araless said, nodding his head thoughtfully and standing back up. “I want - Treighl wants - to offer you a position. I’m even more sure of that decision now that I have seen this and I know they will agree,” he said, motioning to the trooper bot.
David’s mind raced at the possibility of working for Treighl Industries. It wasn’t his goal when he applied for college but it had morphed into that during the last year of working on the robots. He’d be a fool to turn down this opportunity. Treighl had a finger in almost every industry on and off the planet - this could be a doorway into any job he could ever want. A gaggle of students passed them on the sidewalk. A patrol of centaur bots strolled by as well.
“Do your duty, stay inside,” one of them said.
“Please have government ID’s, as well as Vector ID’s, available at all times,” the other chimed in.
“Perhaps we can discuss this somewhere in private.” Araless said, eying the students and ignoring the patrolling bots.
“Of course.” David said, almost giggling at the thought of working for Treighl.
He led Araless back to his dorm room. Collin was out of town visiting his family in Kurten and wouldn’t be back until the following day for classes. Out of town was a generous way to describe Kurten, but regardless, Collin wouldn’t be there.
“I want to warn you, my dorm is a mess.”
“I remember how scholam is.” Araless said reassuringly.
David didn’t question the odd terminology, his mind was still on his blindingly bright future.
They entered room 205 to a pile of Collin’s dirty clothes that spanned the space between their twin beds. David made a general motion towards the clothes and shrugged at Araless. He sat down on the edge of his bed, facing the middle of the room, the trooper bot jumped onto the bed behind him.
“May I?” Araless asked, gesturing to David’s desk chair.
David nodded and Araless stepped on the pile of clothes to get to the desk.
Had David been fully present, he may have noticed the clothes not depress fully under the weight of the full-grown man.
“About your employment,” Araless began when he sat down. “It would have some strings attached. A vow of silence of course - excuse me - an NDA regarding anything you work on, see, hear, or experience by any other sense. We would also require you to keep secret anything you may have already seen while examining our products.”
Something started to make sense in David’s mind. Was he getting paid off to stay quiet about the issues they had found?
“We - I found something in the centaur’s code that concerns me.”
“I am aware.” Araless said with the same wry smile. “Listen Mr. Leibowitz, the world is a dangerous place. There may come a time soon you will be thankful the Trustees are able to act in a way they see fitting.”
“Have you ever read an Asimov book? You know, the three laws of robotics or anything like that? Has anyone at Treighl watched a movie?” David asked, again thinking about robots ushering in the end of humanity.
“This is the real world, David. You need to remember the real world has real dangers, real opportunities, and real consequences. Take the evening to think about it and call me in the morning with your answer.” Araless stood and offered a metal business card with a phone number lightly embossed on the surface.

David laid awake in his dark dorm room as a thunderstorm raged in from the south. His heart raced and a knot had formed solidly in the pit of his stomach. He tried to pray for an answer but he couldn’t summon the words. He slipped his phone off the nightstand and looked at the time after. 1 AM. He thumbed through his contacts until he came to Lance Conway. Lance was David’s friend from childhood who was studying brain to computer interfacing. Lance’s family had practically raised David. He opened the contact and started typing.
“Hey Lance, I need to talk to you about something. I know it’s late but can we meet halfway. It’s really important.”
They had been friends since elementary school during the short secession war and made a point to hangout when they could now that they were both in college - Lance went to school about an hour and a half north. They’d occasionally meet at a 24-hour fast-food place on the highway in Calvert. The restaurant would be closed right now due to the curfew restrictions but they could still meet in the parking lot. His phone buzzed with Lance’s reply.
“I’ll bring a shovel.”

The world was so peaceful at this hour - the Trustee Bots made sure of it. As it was, he had to sneak out of his dorm and evade their patrols to get here.
David looked around the dimly lit parking lot outside of a closed diner. The only sounds came from his engine idling and the trooper bot in the back seat adjusting her position every few minutes. He hadn’t seen a single car on the way up here. If he had to make a call right now, he’d say he was the only human in the county.
Gravel crunched outside as a car parked in the spot next to him. The passenger door of David’s car shut as Lance settled into the seat. David laughed when he saw the shovel in Lance’s car.
“I woke my dad up getting that from their garage. He was pissed - worth it. What’s up, man?” Lance asked through a yawn.
“Treighl offered me a job.”
“That’s great! But why didn’t you just put that in a text?”
“I found some lethal bugs in their software and I’m pretty sure they’re hiring me to keep my mouth shut about it. Well, I thought they were bugs but apparently, they’re intentional.”
“Like, ‘it’s not a bug, it’s a feature?’ kinda thing?” Lance asked.
“No. I think it’s more like a ‘Bond villain, secret kill switch for society type thing.’ ‘Press the big red button and all the robot’s eyes go from blue to red’ kind of thing.” David said, leaning back into his seat.
“That’s, uh, that’s big.”
“Yeah. And the guy that approached me - he was this weird cross between a man in black and the slenderman.”
“G-man.”
“Yeah, similar vibe but less monotone, I guess? I don’t know what to do. I could join them and try to change things from inside. Or, I could refuse and he’ll probably kill me.”
“Aw buddy, and you’ve brought me into this? And it’s deadly? Who needs enemies…”
David had already emailed Lance about the update issues but that was before Treighl had gotten directly involved. He probably shouldn’t have done that on their school accounts. It was too late now.
The storm caught up to them in Calvert. Rain started beating on the roof of his car.
“I don’t think I’ll be able to work for them.” David said, watching the trails of rain on his windshield.
“Well, David, I want you to know that you’ve always been my best friend and knowing you has meant the world to me.”
David laughed with his friend but he didn’t argue with the implication.
The trooper yipped from the back seat. Its back vents were raised like hackles - its attention was on the building’s lobby.
There was someone inside. At least it looked like there had been for a second but the figure vanished into a wisp of black smoke that blew away in the dining room of the dingy restaurant. Lance swore bitterly under his breath.
“I wish we were burying a body instead,” he said.
“Did you see that too?” David asked.
“I thought maybe I was sick.”

They parted ways shortly after they saw the figure. David didn’t get back to his dorm room until after four in the morning. There was a folded note slipped under his door.
“David, I came by to discuss the update roll back but you weren’t answering the door. I don’t trust email or phone right now. Meet me at Evans 324 first thing in the morning. 7:30 AM.
I remembered what happened to the backup drives. You took them to work on the dog.
-Evelyn”

He collapsed on his bed, blinked, and was wrenched from sleep by his 7:00 AM alarm. He grabbed the backup drive from his desk and dropped it into his pocket. Then he grabbed his satchel, stumbled into the hall, locked the door, and made his way to the library to meet Dr. Harper.
He had been in these study rooms before. They were small with a conference table and usually a window that looked out into the hall. Probably more so the window looked into the room to make sure students weren’t doing anything untoward.
He passed a Treighl Industries Trustee Bot, as the centaur bots had been marketed to the school system. They were supposed to be the safer alternative to human police - less volatile, less prone to bad judgement calls. He opened the door into the study room. His heart fell out of his chest.
Dr. Harper was sitting slack in a chair opposite the door - blood darkened the maroon sweatshirt she was wearing and her face was devoid of expression. The wall behind her had several scorched bullet holes - the central ones were surrounded in her blood.
Araless sat in a chair across from her, he was turned to face David. He casually held a strange looking pistol aimed at him. He stood. David’s heart was pounding. He lunged at the strange man and rammed into his body. It gave way much easier than David had expected.
Shots were fired from the pistol and it was knocked to the ground. David grabbed it and shakily aimed it at Araless. The man was nowhere to be seen - just a wisp of black smoke hung in the air.
The centaur bot he had seen earlier rounded the corner into view of the doorway. David slammed the door shut but the robot started trying to beat it down. He hoisted the table in the way to block the entry.
“Everyone remain calm, there appears to be an active shooter on campus,” the bot said.
It seemed clear to David that he was well and truly screwed. Even if he made it out of here without getting killed by Araless, he’d get buried for murdering his professor.
“In for a penny I guess,” he muttered to himself. At least he could disable the centaur bots and have done some good maybe.
He aimed Araless’ pistol at the door and squeezed off a handful of blasts. The gun let out a high-pitched squeal indicative of an energy weapon. The robot outside stopped talking as it fell heavily to the ground. David tried to open the door but he wasn’t able to. He grabbed a chair and broke the large window.
David heard screaming coming from other parts of the library. He climbed through the broken window and grimaced as the glass cut his arm. His satchel fell as he climbed through. He landed on the other side harder than he should have. Pain coursed through his body from his midsection. He reached down and found blood seeping from his stomach.
Welp - none of this was going to be his problem for very much longer.
He pulled himself up and stumbled down the hallway. He got his phone to call Lance and tell him what was happening - just so someone would know the truth.
The phone went to voicemail. He chuckled ruefully and put the phone back in his pocket. Almost his entire family had been killed in the nuclear blasts that leveled Houston ten years ago. The ones who had survived died later from the radiation. Lance was the only person he had to call.
Outside, students were running for buildings - nobody was concerned with him. He made his way to the control room on top of the academic center.
He was in the middle of the courtyard when he felt something sharp bite across his throat. Blood began pouring out. He spun around to see Araless standing with an ornate knife in his hand. That same creepy smile was on his face.
Araless opened his mouth to speak but was cut off. His head was turned into a mass of meat and bone by his own gun. Blood and brain matter sprayed on the campus sidewalk.
David dropped the weapon and clutched his throat to hold the bleeding.
Araless’ body crumpled onto the concrete now having remised its connection to life. David knew he only had a few minutes left before he met his end as well.
“Firestorm inbound. ETA fifteen minutes,” one of the Trustee Bots said.
David didn’t know what the hell that meant. He quickly made his way up the stairs to the utility room where the ladder to the roof was. He heard a yip behind him as he moved through the building.
He was alarmed to see how much blood he had left behind. The trooper bot raced up to him - an expression of concern was on her face. Together they got to the ladder. David tried to climb it but the strength had drained from his body and his hands were slick with his blood. A Trustee Bot in the hallway made another call. Five minutes until firestorms. It advised seeking shelter.
He tried a couple times to climb the ladder but eventually gave up and fell to the ground. He curled up next to the whimpering trooper bot, gurgling a few words of encouragement to his metal companion. David Liebowitz took in a ragged breath and closed his eyes for the last time.
Minutes later, rebounding waves of fire engulfed the globe. Scorched and dead, the world moved on.