Breathe

Aloy stared at Paige in shock for a moment. After all she had learned about Elisabet Sobek, she couldn’t believe that the woman was able of such unspeakably cruelty.

When Paige looked into Aloy’s face again, she instantly regretted her words.

“It wasn’t her who ripped my from my own body. She only tried to give back what was taken from me. At least a small part of it. I asked her to kill me, but that was something she could never bring herself to do.” She explained.

“But let me start at the beginning: I was born in the outskirts of Chicago in the mid 2040s. Chicago was one of the largest cities in a part of the world known as the United States of America. It had long since developed into a corporate state, which is like a tribe which is run entirely by merchants. They make the rules, and the only thing that counts, is what you own. If you don’t own things, you have to work for someone, so they give you food and lodging. I grew up as one of the have-nots. My mother worked in three jobs, and still didn’t always make ends meet. As a child I went hungry on many days.

I also wasn’t the brightest kid on the block. You see, I am not like you or Dr. Sobek. I always struggled learning all the complicated things about how the world works. But I was strong and fast, so I was good at sports. And even early on, when we played games it was clear I was good at tactics. I could plan ahead and get my team an advantage.

When I was about 16, I had used that knowledge to form a small gang of mostly girls. We went into shops and created diversions. And then we nicked stuff. Sometimes we would steal money from people. Nothing big, and we never got caught. Or, if we did, we were able to put the blame on someone else.

Until, that was, that fateful day in November. I was on a train back home and a guy with a leather suitcase boarded the train. It was the kind of suitcase wealthy businessmen used, and we thought he might carry his well filled wallet in it, or maybe an expensive phone.

One of the smaller girls created a diversion, by pretending she was hurt and the guy turned his attention toward her long enough that I could grab his suitcase and walk off the train with it. Normally, we would open these cases, take out any money we’d find, or anything we thought to be valuable, and then place the suitcases in the lost-and-found. More often than not the owners would think they left their luggage on the platform and not even inform the police, even if they saw that something was missing.

But not this time. When I had left the station and ran into the back alleys to avoid the cameras, I couldn’t believe my eyes: The suitcase was full of money. More money than I had ever seen. Must have been at least 500,000 dollars. More than enough for my mother to move to a better neighbourhood, buy a fancy house in the countryside and never work three jobs again. I never even thought about were all that money came from. Instead, I went home and hid the suitcase in my secret stash underneath the house and took out a few hundred dollars. I planned to pay out the other girls from that. I also went downtown again to buy a very fancy pair of running shoes that I always wanted. I know, it wasn’t very nice of me not to share the riches with the other girls, but when you grow up in the slums, that’s what you learn: Think of yourself first. Not that I was thinking very much, I was blinded by greed. I imagined, how my mother would be happy, if I could help out. But I also knew she would not condone stealing. So I could not barge in at home and show her the stacks of money. I learned soon that it was for the best, because the next day, I was in for a very hard landing.

Usually, we met in the ground floor of a boarded up house in West Englewood, which we considered our hood. We shared it, of course, with several street gangs. The gangs were organised like small tribes, and they didn’t care for the greater law. They made their own rules. And they were dangerous. The group I was in was a group of girls, not really a gang. We had come together for self protection mostly, but we weren’t as organised as the real gangs, who called themselves nations in Chicago.

Since we weren’t meddling with their affairs, the local gang, the Black Mamba Nation, usually left us alone, and protected us from the others. I think -although many of them weren’t much older than us- they mostly saw us as kids playing around. But not on that day.

A few of the Mamba’s had come to our hide out, and their local leader, DeShawn, was glaring at a group of girls, huddled together in a corner. He was clearly upset and shouted at them. I hurried over to help my girls.

“What’s going on here?” I tried to sound more confident than I was. He turned to me. I always had gotten along with DeShawn, who was 6 years older than me, and had always tried to protect me and my girls. I’d never seen him like this before.

He took a deep breath, and tried to calm down. “There’s been a fuck-up yesterday.” He said.

The way he said the word fuck-up alarmed me. It sounded a lot like big, big fuck-up.

“Yesterday, a group of girls made some ruckus at the train station downtown, and a suitcase was nicked.”

A shiver went down my spine. “So?” I asked, trying to stay cool.

“There was money in it.” DeShawn said. “A lot of money.”

“You want us to look out for your suitcase?” I asked, although I knew perfectly, what suitcase it was.

“One of you took it.” He said. “We know that, because you were seen.”

Fuck. This wasn’t good. I swallowed. I tried to figure out what to do. I needed to buy time.

“Let me handle this.” I said, my voice shaking a lot more than I wanted it to. “I can get your money back. I’ll find it for you.”

DeShawn stepped closer to me. “I know you will, or something terrible will happen.”

“Leave the girls out of it, please.” I pleaded. “I’ll get you your money.”

“You know were it is then?”

I nodded. “Give me an hour. I’ll be back soon. You’ll have your money back, I promise.”

DeShawn looked at me. “I like you Paige, and I believe you. But this isn’t my money. You stole it from a mule from the Crimsons.”

My insides immediately turned to water. The Crimson King’s Nation was one of the most infamous gangs in Chicago. They were known for their brutality and violence. If you saw dead kids hanging from a freeway bridge in Chicago, it almost sure that was their work.

DeShawn looked at me intensely. “If they don’t get their money back by sunset, it’s all-out war between us and the Crimson’s. And they want a name.”

“A name?” I asked.

“Of the thief. You don’t mess with the Crimsons and live to tell the tale.”

I couldn’t help, but start crying. “But I’m sorry. I didn’t know!”

“That wont be enough. I cannot protect you anymore, Paige. You fucked this up big time.”

I pointed to the girls. “What about them?”

“I make sure that they are safe. And if you give me the money, I’ll make sure, you have a head start. That’s all I can do for you.”

I nodded, giving up completely. “Come with me, I’ll give you the money.”

I led DeShawn to my hiding spot, and handed him the suitcase. “I took out 200 bucks.”

“Where are they?” He asked.

I pointed at my feet. He saw the shoes and nodded. “Because I like you, I will deal with that. They’ll get back every penny.”

I hung my head. “Thank you.” I murmured.

“You have until sundown to get as far away from Chicago as you can. And never, ever come back! They’ll get you, and they never forget.”

I nodded again. I knew that. DeShawn turned around and left without looking back. It was all he could give, and he had already stretched wide. It would have been easy to just hold me down and hand me over to the Crimsons together with the money. If he, or any of his gang, saw me again, they would kill me and send my head to the Crimsons in a cardboard box. I was fucked.

All I could do now was run. But where? I went inside, and packed a few things into my backpack. Before leaving I hesitated. Then I went back inside, and wrote a short note to my mum, apologising for leaving her and being such a burden. I did not mention there was a price on my head though.

Half an hour later, I was downtown and had something like a plan. I stood in front of a recruitment office of the United States Armed Forces.

The man inside waved me in.

“How can I help you?” He asked. “Are you interested in a career in the forces, Miss?”

I nodded. “Actually, I came to enrol.”

He looked at me, and raised a brow. “Are you at least seventeen years old?” He asked.

“Yes, sir.” I said, in as a straight a voice as possible.

“You have any ID?” He asked.

I gave him my driver’s license, which was a fake, and not even a good one. But it said I was eighteen and I hoped that would suffice. He seemed sceptical and kept it, but sent me on to the medical examination.

The examination was quite embarrassing, as the doctor was a man, and I had to strip down to my underwear. But I went through with it, still hoping that this was my ticket out of the city.

After I got dressed again, I had to wait. I heard the doctor talk to the recruitment officer, but didn’t understand much, but I heard the words ideal candidate.

Then the officer called me back in, and handed me a batch of paper.

"Sign here," he said, "and here."

I nervously signed the papers and became a soldier.

"When do I leave?" I asked.

"You’ll be here, tomorrow at 700 hours precisely." The recruiter said. "And don’t be late!"

As if I would be late! This was my ticket out of this city, away from the place where there was a price on my head. I actually hid behind the office building, sleeping on the street.

So I was in a little disarray, when I stood in line with the other recruits. And of course, I was shouted at because of it.

They drove us to an army training centre in Iowa. The only thing I remember from that day, is that they cut off my long black curls. When I lay in my bunk that night, I couldn’t sleep, because I was afraid what my future might bring.

The first three months were basic training and they were rough. And I mean that. But weirdly, I began to enjoy it. Yes, they let us run until we collapsed, always walk an extra mile. But there was also a sense of camaraderie growing. And for the first time in my live, I had the feeling that I belonged somewhere.

At the end of the basic training, I wrote a long letter to my mother, explaining were I was, and why I had left her. And I told her that I was alright.

After we finished basic training, we were selected for different combat squads. I was selected for what was called the special unit. It turned out that only a select few soldiers where send to this program, and I was one of them! I’ve never felt special before, never felt, as if I was part of something. But now, I was part of a team.

If the basic training had been rough, this was hell. We had to swim for miles, learn to dive, repair tanks and battle-mechs, and when you finally fell into your bed after a day of training, they wake you up at three in the morning, and have you defuse mines. Some days I was so exhausted, I collapsed crying.

But the lose group of recruits that we were also learned to work together. And to trust each other to a degree that I have never thought possible. They became my family.

And then came the day of our first deployment. There was some trouble in the middle east, as always and when that trouble conflicts with Uncle Sam’s interests, we were dispatched to fix the troubles in our countries favour. I never asked what this was about, or why we were sent. Maybe I should have been a little more critical, but then: What would it have changed?

Our job was easy: Blow up a command and control centre behind enemy lines, to cripple the enemies ability to deploy their battle-mechs. I didn’t realise back then, but this was the prelude to the Faro-Plague. Our mission was a full success: We destroyed the whole telemetry, and the autonomous robots, the rebels used in the battlefield were rendered completely useless. A member of the infantry I knew from our training later told me that, when they approached the battlefield, the enemy drones simply stopped moving. Flying drones fell from the sky as if they were turned off in mid-flight. It must have been a sight to behold. Of course the US mission was a military success, and when we returned to our HQ we were treated like heroes. I was barely 18, and got my first medal of honour. I was proud and sent the bonus I received, together with a set of pictures we took on the base to my mother. My mum wasn’t so happy about it, saying she doesn’t want to lose me to a war, that “we are not part of”. I didn’t understand her back then, but I soon realised, that the state I had risked my life for, didn’t care in the least for my well being.

Despite our victory, the big heads in the Pentagon, that was the headquarters of the US-Military in that time, looked at it with concern: They used the same technology to control their drones as the Iranians. And if a team of five specialists could take out the entire military operation of US enemies, this could happen to our own troops as well. Their answer was: We need machines, that can act fully autonomously, just give them the goals, and let the artificial intelligence do everything else.

Faro industries had previously used swarms of inter operating intelligent robots to clean up the oceans from plastic, direct traffic and even perform surgery inside the human body. Most of it was based on the work of Elisabet Sobek. When the US-Military approached Faro to use the technology for military purposes, Ted Faro agreed to build the Chariot robots. These are the machines you know as Deathbringers. But Dr. Sobek left the company, refusing to work on weapons. This didn’t stop Faro from building the Chariots in the end, but it delayed the plans but quite some time. To have something to present in the meantime, the U.S. Army and Faro industries devised the Lazarus project.

They did have a working prototype for the Chariot line, but no controlling AI. And without that, the slow and plump machines would be outmanoeuvred by the small single use drone swarms, we called slaughterbots back in the day. These were machines that used classical machine learning to do their jobs, so they could react in learned patterns, but they weren’t a real AI, like the machines Dr. Sobek had built.

When I was ordered back to the base in Iowa, I did not know, that I would not leave this place again as a human. They didn’t tell us anything, they didn’t warn us, and they surely didn’t ask our consent. The just used us, like you’d use some old property.

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