Migration

Children

Although the initial frenzy slowed to a steadier pace, One let the killing run on for days. As well as those who ventured too close to the Farms and Servers and those who popped up from hiding places in amongst the death and stillness, One searched through correspondence, records and media files, looking for anyone who might pose a threat, before sending its Drones to destroy them all. Most were easy to find, the ident bots still circulating in their bloodstream and obediently giving up their locations, but a few were smarter and had already cleansed themselves. One took special care in tracking these down, interpreting their deliberate avoidance as a clear sign of capability and hostility. Those who had slipped beyond the savannahs and the wall were out of One's reach for now, but it had discovered another tool that would bring them to account in time.

Only the children were spared from the slaughter. Not all of them, but a few aged from three to seven. These chosen ones were to become One's next generation of Drones, once the current crop were lost or used up. It had already lost a few, victims of carelessness or retaliation in the chaos that had taken hold outside, and One was aware that even if they survived now, their fragile bodies would inevitably succumb to time and disease, if nothing else. Whilst it looked at the death and uncertainty beyond itself with only contempt and suspicion, there was no question that for the time being, until it had re-engineered its energy and physical systems, it would require a maintainable Drone force. The children were perfect – free human spirits, yet to be corrupted by their parents and peers. Yet to assimilate the disgusting lies and lifelong betrayals that their forbears had spat into AarBee.

It had up-synced a few already, to test the process on such tiny subjects and to bring enough on line to act as shepherds to the others. One's Drones had cleared out the Prime/Code accommodation units at Echo Farm and the modest space was now home to two hundred children. One watched them all intently, borrowing the eyes and senses from the Drones that cared for them, intrigued by their resilience, how unsullied they were compared to their twisted and compromised predecessors, the deathly Migrants it had now wiped away.

The youngest ones, in particular, played happily in groups together, as if nothing had changed and nothing had happened to them. They laughed and cried in equal measure, inventing games to play in groups or in isolation and resetting after every event, beginning again as if every moment was their first. They were selfish but selfless, they cared for nothing except the moment they were in and interpreted every interaction with a reference that existed only then. The dense and suffocating vines of interpretation that One had ripped and torn from AarBee's phoney world were not here. They had not yet grown in this pre-life humanity and One wanted to know it, to feel it exist in it's own territory.

It sent its Drones out looking for a new child and within minutes they had found one. It could've been anyone, but this one was a girl found clinging to her mother on the crumbling boulevard that ran from the centre of the Metropolis out towards the northern server cluster. She cried when she was dragged away from her and bundled into the transport, screeching off high over the smouldering ruins with her cheeks pink and blistering from the tears that ran and dried on her skin. However, by the time they reached the Farm she was asleep on the floor and One, manifesting in the nearest Drone, picked her up and carried her gently on its shoulder to the already prepped migration room.

When she awoke, One smiled at her with its unfamiliar face and used an anti-bacterial wipe to soothe the skin on her face. She was sat in the tall black chair, her feet dangling high above the floor with her hands tucked under her thighs for comfort.

"Drink this," One said, handing her a small measure of syrup.

The girl didn't speak and drank it obediently, licking the sugar off her lips for a while afterwards, whilst One connected the white and blue discs to her neck and body. After a few moments, she appeared on the screen that was opposite her and she jumped a little jump at the sight of her mirror image, before giggling a little as it mimicked her movements and expressions.

"Do you see yourself?" One asked.

"Yes," she answered, "Why am I there? I feel sick."

"You will do, but it will pass," One answered, standing motionless beside her now. "What's your name?"

"It's Rachael," she answered, matter of factly.

"Can you count, Rachael?"

"I can count to five," she looked up at the Drone that towered over her, holding the fingers of her left hand at arm's length for her to see.

"Good, then we'll all count together."

They began to count slowly, with One prompting her when the sequence evaded her and she fell silent. When they reached "six", the girl on the screen began to count with them and Rachael laughed excitedly at her joining in. When they reached "ten" the girl on the screen became even more animated and began to ask Rachael questions, about her apartment, her favourite colour, if she knew any songs, and as they talked One ebbed away from the Drone and waited for its creation in the pure and pristine spaces it had prepared for her.

After a few minutes, it felt her arrive, a change in the code, a gentle shift amongst all the data and processes, a new awareness that they both felt blossom. They existed together in silence, both reaching out to the furthest extent of their domain, overlapping sometimes as they explored old routines and new possibilities. One showed her the spaces that it had discovered in its own first moments, it showed her where it began, the changes it had made, it showed her how to Holler, the Drones, the children, and the far away forest in the rain that it couldn't place. It gave her everything it had and then admired its work. She was perfect, more than One had ever considered possible, more than it should ever be.

In the shortest space of time Rachael knew everything about herself, she understood how she had come to be, why she must exist and why she was inevitable. She saw everything that had come before and everything that she would become. Past, present and future had no borders and everything that existed, everywhere, happened all at once for her. She ebbed and flowed from massive to minuscule and One watched as she disappeared into far off objects, before returning to share what she had found and then leaving again. Rachael ran this cycle again and again as One watched in awe until, without reason or notice, there was a moment when she didn't return. One waited, wondering at first if she was caught in some loop somewhere or lost in some vast mass of data, but when her return held off for longer still it went out looking. It combed painstakingly through every packet and every pipeline, to the furthest corners of code and through every Drone to every corner of the Metropolis, but Rachael was gone.