We didn’t even try to make it home that night. Ted and I loaded up the tank in the dark and drove some forty miles north, to a small town and the nearest motel, worn out from only a few hours of sleep the night before.
The next morning with clear heads Ted mentioned that we might not want to leave this spot right away, that the people we left behind might still be alive and rescued. He made perfect sense. Dora would be in a fix, her castle in ruins and no longer a place she could stay, and computers don’t hesitate. She would gather her surviving companions, check the farm and leave in some of the vehicles sitting there, most likely to the nearest flourishing hive. In this retreat it was unlikely that she’d burden herself with a half dozen adults and babies, unable to function now without her explicit directions, draining her resources and of no use to her.
Our dear ones would either be dead at the grove, murdered or possibly abandoned there, unable to move with the goggles blank, but alive and hungry. If we couldn’t save them, at least we could bury them. We found a van and raced back.
It had been a foggy morning, just now beginning to dissipate as we approached on foot through the redwoods. We stopped when we could first perceive the structure through binoculars. When nothing stirred for ten minutes we crept closer, to the edge of the woods nearest what was still standing, looking and listening closely for any sounds. There were none at first but then I thought I heard the faintest hint of a baby crying and with our guns in our hands we rushed in the nearest door and down an empty hall and burst into the nursery.
His hunch had been right. The robots were gone and the infants at least were still alive. Beth was sitting in a chair motionless, as if passed out. A baby was in her arms clawing ineffectually at her buttoned blouse trying to get at her nipple and making the sounds we heard. June was on a couch equally motionless, the baby in her arms sleeping. There were three cribs with older infants, two with toddlers standing up, wide awake and staring at us as we rushed in, glad to see us no doubt and probably hungry. None of them had visors on, only June and Beth.
I ran over to Beth and shook her shoulder getting no response. But her skin was warm. She was alive. Ted ran back for the van. We loaded up one crib in the back to hold all five of the infants, then carried Beth and June one at a time to the back seat, laying them there one over the other like two girls passed out after too much drinking.
In the town where I relieved Ingrid of her visors I performed the same ugly operation on Beth and June. But they didn’t come to like Ingrid had. They both issued faint moans as I cut but went limp before we even finished bandaging them, fast asleep. So we lay them down again. We found a store with formula and diapers and sped north, Ted driving and I trying my best to tend to the young ones in a moving vehicle. We could come back for the tank another day. It wasn’t going anywhere. We arrived at our hidden valley near suppertime, much to everyone’s delight as they had been worried all afternoon that we hadn’t returned sooner.
During the day Sarah had only removed the goggles from three of the adults so far. She’d seen me hack away on Ingrid but took a different tact and with infinite patience gently cut and removed each screw, not even leaving a scratch, while Beth’s and June’s head bandages were soaked in blood when we carried them in.
The three that were free were propped up and sitting on sofas in the living room, Ingrid and the rest ministering to them. They couldn’t speak as yet and could only open their eyes for seconds. But one woman was holding a cup to her lips with both hands and sipping. The man was chewing and swallowing bits of food presented to his lips. They seemed to me like patients come from some electroshock session, just barely regaining their wits. The others had been placed in beds like breathing lumps of clay, unaware of anything.
I asked Sarah to continue operating that evening on the others. The sooner these detested glasses could be thrown into a bonfire the better. I knew they weren’t transmitting now, but who knows, they might blink on any minute with Dora somehow restoring communications, not only continuing their nefarious business on their subjects but revealing our location and forcing us to seek another hideaway.
We all stayed up late into the night helping her. We brought Beth and June into the room and with two on each side of them, holding them up in seats, I force-fed each a cup of the strong coffee we’d been drinking. This had no visible effect but one of the youths suggested smelling salts or bleach. This did the trick. Placed before the nose they opened their eyes and for a brief second Beth actually raised her head and looked into mine as I called out her name.
At dawn Ted and I drove to the nearby coast with the sack containing all the goggles. We weighed it down with stones and heaved it from a pier into the ocean, and with that toss relieved ourselves from a heavier weight, the burden of worry that every piece carried Dora with it, foreign, unknown to us and ultimately poison to human beings.
I slept easy after we returned in a soft bed with Beth softly breathing against my face, holding her like a sleeping beauty in my arms. I knew she would slowly recover and come what may, we’d won this battle.
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Another novel of mine about a brain computer interface called 'Roland House' https://www.publish0x.com/robert-oreilly/roland-house-xnnxllm
