The Isekai App

"We don't have satellites, exactly," said Mabruk. "We do have drones that stay in what amounts to low-earth orbit, even though the atmospheric density is the same as at sea level."

Mabruk brought up a map of the continental United States. I wondered briefly about what was going on in other parts of the earth post-Sliceday; did people still fight over the holy land? Was Antarctica a big sweaty jungle now? Were the penguins okay?

"Drones?" I said. "Where'd you get drones?"

"The City of Trees government has them, weather prediction is their whole thing at all times. I didn't tell them where we are, but they're all-in on letting us use their stuff for this."

Lir's ears changed configuration, of course. "Gonna get any Gardener girls?"

"I don't know. Gardener society confuses me less than Human stuff, but it's still complex. And mind your own business, I'm not Rebound who enjoys your bullshit."

Lir's ears drooped. "Sorry, dude."

"It's cool, setting boundaries is part of a healthy social environment, or whatever. Anyway the satellites are seeing conspicuous absences from our opponents. Roads and airfields that contain nothing. Fuel depots surrounded by tracks, but nothing that leaves the tracks. Our foes hide their war machines but not the support systems they need to operate."

"Buncha mo-rons," Lir said.

"I'd agree with you, because we're contemptuous of these people. But I think it's just a big job, too much for their stealth departments. There's just too much that we're going up against."

I looked at the map. There were red circles in DC, and all up and down the East coast. The circles contained question marks. "What do we think they've got doing the actual defense?"

"This kind of thing," Mabruk did something to change the screen. It was a sleek hovering machine that looked sharkish, bristling with missiles and weapons. "It looks pretty dangerous, but HusbandMandy actually had a group of kids on a field trip kill one."

"What's it do?" I tried to make sense of the thing. "I'm way out of my depth here, are you guys on top of this?"

Mabruk brought up a list of similar machines. "Self-operating weapons platform. This one is anti-infantry, and there are armor variants and…crowd control. American oligarchs put down a lot of water riots with these things."

A video, it seemed decades old. Human crowds surging through a battered city. Fleeing three of the huge hovering machines.

The people were burning and screaming.

"The good old days," I said.

Lir looked at me, startled. "Its been over for a while, Rebound. No point in getting murderous over it."

"That's the world they want," I said. "A conscious choice was made by the government to kill its own people."

"Its own taxpayers," Mabruk said. "I read up on it. They wanted a hierarchical caste system, pretended they didn't understand why it was a problem for people."

We watched. The machines killed and killed. The video had a bed of stirring action music. Patriotic. This is a noble crusade, the music was saying.

Stolen story; please report.

"Know what? This is not allowed," I said. "And the President …Michelle, Todd…this is their whole thing they fight for."

"Only the richest did at the time. But nostalgia worked its magic. A lot of Humans see this and say: desperate times, desperate measures. I think it's to be expected; so much change in five years is a shock they're still dealing with."

"Badly."

"I try to be understanding," Lir said. "And I fail."

"We're weird," I said. "I think we're the bad guys to a lot of Humans."

"In the short term, maybe." Mabruk's synthetic voice was cold. "But it was Sliceday or die. Humanity would be extinct by now if it wasn't living here. I don't have a ton of sympathy for those who won't adapt."

I didn't either. "We need to arm her up. Molly's going to fight a lot of … things. Robot shark weapon platforms."

"You think he has a big huge nuke?" Lir asked. "President Michelle seemed into that."

A radial shrug from Mabruk. "It's certainly possible. But would it even work? I'm amazed they can even get incendiary charges to go off. A nuclear warhead is a different matter, and not just because of scale."

Lir was still fretting over another matter entirely: "I'm sorry, Mabruk, I don't want to make light of your social situation. It's just a thing I seem to do; Mateo here is drowning in women and–"

My phone rang. It was Adaobi. "Gotta take this call," I said.

"Oooooooo…" they both crooned in a rising note.

Fleeing their scrutiny, I headed for the little cottage on the back of my giant Winnie. "Adaobi!"

"Mateo!" A smile in her voice. "Anything happen last night?"

"This and that. How's Piscator?"

"All alone. The whole town picked up and temporarily relocated to the City of Trees. The Gardeners are so grateful. They never thought we'd help them, you know? They think Humans are monolith of jerks. How's Molly?"

We chit-chatted. It felt good. It felt great.

"I want to come over," she said.

"I don't think that's a good idea; we're in hiding."

But we stayed up late, late, talking into the night. Talking for hours. I learned about her childhood, her sister. What Sliceday had been like for her. Her favorite food: fish tacos Cazador style. Her first boyfriend, a guy who sounded terrifyingly cool compared to me.

She recounted seeing the water riots when she was little. She and her family crossed a desert on foot. She'd watched as two families shed blood over expired rations.

In turn, I told her about how I'd hated community college and how little selection there was in the vending machine. She made sympathetic noises and told me I was a very brave boy.

Adaobi was impressed with what Molly and the guys had done. The newscasts loved Molly, some of which even recognized the idea of the Red Bull from The Last Unicorn. They showed the animated Bull from the movie version, comparing him to Molly in exacting detail.

There was video of Molly burning as a baby. And there was video of gigantic Molly saving a city from flames. That was pretty good.

Caravan was extraordinarily pleased with itself. The Gardeners were talking about putting one of their city-trees on the back of a Winnie as a kind of goodwill ambassador that travelled the world. They wanted to start their own Winnie herd crewed by Humans from Caravan.

I told her about the discussion on the Chancla board. With the miserable, lonely President Michelle.

"Are you going to get killed?" she finally asked.

"It's possible."

"Scared?"

"Yeah. I haven't been killed before."

"Remember what I told you; your soul will know what to do. Come back to us. To me."

I swallowed nervously. "Oh my goodness."

"Oh your goodness."