Draft 1.25
Golem Project In Progress
“There was four of ‘em,” Jakob said. Wessel and Ethany walked behind him, their golems following along. Jakob didn’t seem to be talking to anyone in particular, but he was speaking loud enough for them to hear. “They came in earlier, when we was tired and workin’ hard to help anyone at any time. Good for business, Dad said. We shoulda just gone home.”
“You were up all night?” Wessel broke in to ask.
“I was takin’ a nap when they got there, been helping all day. Fair, right? And these people come in and start makin’ demands. Woke me up. At first I thought we’d defend ourselves with golems, but them kids was smart. They was sayin’ they’d break stuff, and there weren’t nothing we could do about it. Dad sent me to get help, sayin’ his golem would protect him from the kids. They couldn’t attack him with their golems, right?”
“But they could,” Ethany said.
“I din’t know that when I left, neh? Don’t know what’s going on. I thought I had time, either they leave and we report ‘em, or they stay and we get backup. Slipped out the back door, went to find a cop. Took longer ‘n I thought.”
The three fell into silence. The power outage had changed things. Threats like this were unheard of. Every man and woman in the city had a golem, they were all trained to restrain people without harming them, and the golems were hard-coded never to act with the intent of harm.
On top of that, when the network was up, any threats or lawless activity would be broadcasted to every golem in town. The entire city was a neighborhood militia, built to look out for each other. That was the whole point of the Golem Project.
A power outage, alone, wouldn’t be enough to break down the fabric of society. No. If Lillian and her friends’ golems weren’t able to act with the intent of harming a human, then Mr. Pinyan would have been fine.
It is my fault, Wessel thought, not for the first time.
“Will telling yourself that help you to overcome the problem?” Aizi asked. “I do not know. You understand the situation, Wessel. I want to help you adapt.”
But how? The unspoken question was heavy on Wessel’s mind. How could he adapt? How could he fix this? How could he stop Lillian?
How was he going to stop this from happening again, if he got that far?
“It’s that place there, if Dad’s map is any good.”
Jakob’s outstretched finger pointed to an old brick building. It was situated just by the railing hub, where all of the elevated golem travelers would whisk by if the city had power. The place would be noisy on any normal day. Today, the building was quiet. The few people in the street moved along, carrying buckets and boxes of debris from yesterday’s storm. About half of them had golems assisting them, houseplants buzzing with an angry power on their shells.
The building itself was unassuming, but it had iron bars stretched across each window. The roof was sloped at a shallow angle, and water dripped from rusted gutters. The bottom floor of the building was large, a garage of sorts. One of the large sliding doors was open, and powerless pod cars sat inside.
Jakob cracked his knuckles, and Wessel heard each one pop into place. The sound made him wince.
“Alright,” the larger boy said. “Goin’ in. You can follow if you can handle it.” He had already reached the open doorway before Wessel spoke.
“Wait. What’s the plan?”
Jakob shrugged. “Depends on what they doin’ in there, or if they’s even here.”
“But—”
Jakob vanished around the corner, ‘power’ golem following.
“He ain’t wrong,” Ethany said. “We can’t plan if we don’t know what’s up.”
“We could plan for multiple situations,” Aizi remarked. “That is one form of adapting, to be familiar with many situations and have a plan for each one. I do not believe we have the time for that.”
“We know what the situation is now, though,” Wessel said. “We need to help Jakob.”
“That is an excellent way to put it. I’m proud,” Aizi said.
Wessel frowned. Aizi couldn’t be proud. But now was not the time to deal with that. He entered the dim garage, the others not far behind.
As his eyes adjusted…
“Oh, it’s you. I didn’t think I’d see you ‘till school started back.”
Lillian hopped down off a pod-car, in the center of the garage. On the far side of the large garage, a few other kids who looked like Lillian stood by a group of parked utility vehicles. They had power cores set on the ground beside them, wired to a large computer setup that hummed and hissed with static. Lines of familiar code were projected up against the wall of the garage, scrolling down and sending feedback to another open window of text.
The program. There it was.
Four golems stood nearby, including Lillian’s. Thin cables ran from the setup to each of their cores. Even if they were recharging or rewiring, each looked ready to protect… or to fight, if Lillian had used the code to change them.
Jakob stood behind his golem, standing off against the four golems in front of him. Facing Lillian’s ‘friends.’ But Lillian herself was ignoring him.
“What are you doing here, anyway?” Lillian asked Wessel. “And who’s your friend, there?”
“I’m… you know why I’m here,” Wessel said.
“I guess. And your friend?”
Wessel snuck a glance at Jakob. The boy had started arguing with the three teens on the other side of the room, which was better than fighting three against one.
“Not him, you dingus. The girl.”
“I got a name, ya know.” Ethany nudged Wessel. “Focus,” she whispered. “We’ve found your thief.”
“Lillian,” Wessel said. “This is Ethany. We came to take my stuff back.”
“Your computer?”
“My stuff. All of it.”
Lillian pursed her lips. “I’m using it right now.”
“That’s kinda the point,” Ethany said. Lillian shot her a glare back, as if to say ‘stay out of this’.
“Why?” Wessel asked. He glanced over at Jakob again. The larger boy had become more tense, cords standing out in his neck. The teens and their golems had stepped between him and the computer, and they were speaking quietly and calmly. Go help him, Wessel urged Aizi. He needs it.
“Be careful,” Aizi said, then went to do just that.
“Why? Why am I using your program?”
“Why did you steal it?” Wessel asked. He was speaking slowly again, grinding each word out to make sure he didn’t stutter. It wasn’t easy. His voice was taught, and he felt like something might snap. “I thought you were my friend.”
“Am I not?” Lillian crooned, continuing to glare at Ethany. “Replaced, after just a week?”
“You stole from me!” Wessel shouted. The other side of the room fell silent for a moment as his voice echoed.
Would Lillian acknowledge that? Any remorse, any apology, anything? Wessel tried to meet her eyes, and finding that unbearably hard, focused on the tip of her chin.
The girl only shrugged her shoulders, dipping her head. “I was going to give it back,” she said. “I’m just borrowing it.”
Wessel’s mouth fell open. What kind of— what response was that? How was he supposed to address that?
“No,” Ethany said. “That’s not okay. That doesn’t make it—” She nudged Wessel again. “You know that doesn’t make it alright, right?”
“Yes, I know,” Wessel snapped. Ethany stepped back at the outburst, and Wessel had to clench his fist, reel himself in, hold back… “I g-got it.”
“Is it really such a problem?” Lillian asked.
“I don’t care… what you call it or what you think you did,” Wessel said. “You stole from me. Why?”
Lillian rubbed her chin. “Has it ever occurred to you that you are a very interesting person?”
“No?” Wessel said.
“To me. Very interesting to me, you goof. I even picked my golem because of you. You’re smart and dumb at the same time. You have these visions for the future, you aren’t satisfied with the same old stuff. Everyone else is talking about boys and crushes and podcasts and music and… it’s so frustrating! But when you talk, you show me things that are new and that matter.”
“So?” Wessel didn’t feel like he could follow any of that. He was pretty sure she was saying good things about him, but why? What did that have to do with anything? Was she trying to make him feel good, trying to trick him into being her friend?
“So then there’s only one thing you kept a secret from me. How cool would Wessel’s secrets be, if he’s always doing interesting things? So I figured I’d take a look and see. And when I saw you were making something to change golems and society and stuff, make things different, I thought I’d help you.”
“Help me?” Wessel thought back. He had talked to Lillian about changing the way golems worked, way back when he was first getting Aizi. Only… “This isn’t helping me make everything better!”
“You said you wanted to change everything,” Lillian said. “I’m changing things. Breaking the rules, right?”
“That’s not— I wanted to make everything safer and better!”
“That’s all you have?” Lillian clucked her tongue at him. “Wessel, you don’t know what you even want. And I do. So I borrowed your little program just to see what would happen. Because you, and your program, is a lot more interesting than just heading off to school again.”
“I don’t care about this,” Wessel said. “I just want the program back, and I don’t want people getting hurt. That’s all.”
“Huh. Well, I don’t care what you want. If you’re going to be boring just like everyone else, and just pretend to want change, then I don’t want to talk to you.” Lillian hopped back up on the inert pod car. “Go do whatever, leave us alone.”
Wessel frowned, stepping forward. “You still have my program.”
“’Nuff talking.” Ethany stepped back onto the neck of her waiting panther golem, and it lifted her into the air. “She’s loopier than an in-bred cat in a closet full of catnip. And she’s just saying whatever she wants. You only matter to her just like that program matters, Wessel. Like a tool.”
Lillian shrugged again, sitting and crossing one leg over the other. “And we have our upgraded golems waiting just over there,” she said, “thanks to your code. What are you going to do, fight us?”
Wessel stammered out a response. “I-I don’t want anyone g-getting hurt!”
“Someone already did,” Ethany said. With a single bound, her golem leapt to the other side of the room, shaking the very ground. “We aren’t getting anywhere with words!”
“But—”
“And I wanted to try the golems’ new combat code anyway, Wessel.” Lillian stuck two fingers in her mouth and whistled loudly, the way Wessel had never been able to do.
Wessel turned toward the golems, just in time to see the first metal fist collide with Jakob’s silver ‘power’ golem.
“Take ‘em down!” Lillian screamed.
Through the conversation, Wessel had been trying to understand. Trying to figure out why this was happening. And as Lillian called on her friend to attack, he came to a conclusion. There was no reason for this at all.
Kyle Adams 