timers

timers

Shell knows when to shrink back into her cave to avoid the sentinels.

She’s been doing it for years; and if there’s anything to be said about machines, it’s that they’re on an incredible timer. She thinks about timers, and the concept of something so finite—an egg timer, bing, your boiled eggs are done. Kitchen timer, beep, your casserole is ready. A set amount of time. A beginning and an end. Thirty minutes for brownies, and then the timer is turned off until it’s needed again.

The machines certainly had a beginning; I mean, is a guillotine not a machine? A catapult? Hundreds of years ago, machines were made of wood, iron, stone.

And now, hundreds of years later, they’re silicone, microchips, rare metals found deep in the earth.

These machines, Shell thinks, do not have an end.

Or if they do, they’re on an incredibly long timer.

The advantage of being on the beach is that the machines are smart enough to know that salt water in their cogs is a bad idea; and Shell has learned, after many painstaking years, just how far their sensors will reach. (Half a mile, give or take. The machines have had just as many painstaking years as anyone else.)

So when she hears the ominous whir of the drone, Shell scrambles to her feet and bolts.

A mile inside of the cave, there’s an underground pool of water, leading to God knows where. It’s blue and green, and Shell only goes into it when she has to. The first few times the sentinels made it into the cave this far, she slipped into the pool and treaded water, breathing water through a straw that breached the surface by half an inch. Her saving grace was the school of small fish swirling around in the pool like a tornado. The machines know that fish live in water; scan the water, and find life.

The machines haven’t been back to the pool, to Shell’s deep hideout surrounded by damp rocks and dripping stalactites.

Why should they? The only life down here is fish.

Shell keeps her breathing even, and she doesn’t look back until she forks right, past the half mile mark in the cave. The headlamp that’s fastened around her hair isn’t lit, but Shell knows her way in the dark. She’s used to running; her toned calves and slender legs thrum with the familiar route. Her shoes are worn through with holes from the rocks, but the concept of “stores” is a thing long past.

The shoes she’s wearing aren’t hers.

Humans are on a timer; and so, apparently, are shoes.

Shell skids to a stop a few feet in front of the impossibly deep pool of water. The fish are swirling, like always. She tilts her head and closes her eyes and listens for the whir of the sentinel drone. She breathes a sigh of relief, and places her hand on her chest.

Shell pauses.

The heart-shaped locket is not there.

The heart-shaped locket that contains the only picture of her mother that she has left. The heart-shaped locket that reminds her that she’s human, that she’s a survivor--

Shell hears the whir of the drone. Shell digs the metal straw out of her pocket—she can still remember what it was originally created for. To save the sea turtles, because sea turtles used to choke on plastic straws; and when she was fifteen, they were banned in her city outright.

There are no more sea turtles. Now, the metal straw just saves Shell.

There’s no time to undress. Shell slips into the water with the straw in her mouth, treading water. The fish brush past her, almost playful. They’re ignorant of the machine overhead.

Plop

Shell opens her eyes, and the golden heart-shaped locket floats suspended in the thick salt water for half a second before sinking.

Shell realizes that the machines have been baiting her, and makes a choice.

She closes her eyes, and she lets the metal straw slip from her lips. Her legs go still, and there’s a red beam of light drifting across the surface.

The sentinel drone’s scanner grows more and more distant. And in the end, she’s not afraid. By the time she catches up with the locket, the water is murky black. The machines can’t reach her here. Nothing can.

“I’m sorry,” Shell whispers to her mother in the locket. She closes her eyes and gasps for air; and then the world falls quiet.

The sentinel drone’s internal sensor beeps; its out of its patrol pattern. It turns back, drifting out of the cave. A mile back out, and over the cliff, and away from the ocean. The machine that’s controlling it resets its perimeter boundaries, and its timer. It will not deviate again.

Humans are on a timer, too.