Chapter One

Practical Darwinism

Adam Smith had a life once, but he didn't like it very much. It wasn't that it was an unpleasant life. He was one of the wealthiest and most powerful men in the world. He held a job with grave responsibilities and was respected in his field and out of it. He was so important that he was not asked to join the war effort; his work was considered vital for the economy. Yet he was never entirely satisfied.

He didn't know what it was that he wanted. He only knew it was something that couldn't be defined very easily. And that it wasn't God, and it certainly wasn't that trite concept, love.

But Adam Smith didn't think about existential angst the day the windows of his office shattered and the room shook above the street four floors below.

Smith was typing out an email to that nuisance Jack Johnson when it happened. He was about to press the send button when a bone-trembling rumble began. The lights began to shake and the floor swayed dangerously. Then the window in front of Smith's desk exploded. He put his hands over his head and ducked behind the computer monitor as fragments of glass bounced off his back. At first he thought that it was an earthquake. Then he looked out the window.

The sky was dark and swarming with clouds, but it had been that way for years. An immense entity moved across the horizon. Metal tentacles poured from its glittering jaws and yellow lights flickered where its eyes would have been, if it had been alive.

They had come here. Smith couldn't believe it. They had said the machines would never be able to penetrate this stronghold. He leaned towards the now glass-free window, gripping the wall to steady himself against the trembling floor. He could see at least two more of them picking through the streets, crushing buildings in their path. Each machine was at least twice as tall as the largest office block. The air was full of panicked screams and howling alarms. Smith looked down. The pavement below was a seething math of people. Cars were tearing along the road, blasting their horns at the crowds.

The floor was gradually ceasing to rock under his feet. Then the lights burnt out as one and the computer screen began to fade. Only a thin greyish light filtered in from the shattered window, brightened by the occasional flash of vivid red.

This was bad. He had to get out of here alive. He needed to get out the building, then out the city altogether, preferably towards higher ground. There was a splintering crash from somewhere downstairs. Soon, Smith thought distantly, fires would start to spread throughout the streets. He looked at his office door and wondered if he could risk going down the stairs. There was a smaller crash from below, followed by the sound of running feet and a searing noise that sounded like a laser. Smith turned to the window.

There was a drop of at least ten metres to the ground. Smith scanned for a fire escape, scaffolding, anything that would get him to the street without breaking his spine in the process. There was a fire escape several metres to the right of the window. He could get to it by running along the corridor and out the emergency exit. Surely he would be able to get to the exit in time. He turned to the door.

Smith heard footsteps coming along the corridor. They didn't sound like human footsteps. Without thinking, Smith hauled himself out of the window, avoiding the glass shards, and stepped onto the narrow ledge below. It was barely eight inches wide, but if he hung onto the wall with his hands he could keep his balance. Fixing his gaze straight ahead, Smith edged along sideways. He was distantly aware of the sound of his office door being kicked in as he neared the fire escape.

A small part of his mind was still contemplating the finer details of his surroundings, such as the plume of black smoke from the fire that had broken out several streets away and was spreading with unnatural rapidity, and the young woman who tripped over onto the road and was immediately run over by a fire engine, but the rest of him was mechanically forcing his hands and feet to grip the iron bars of the fire escape as he climbed down.

The moment Smith's polished shoes touched the ground, an enormous chunk of rock broke off the building and crashed to the ground right next to him, making the pavement shake. He took the hint and got away from the building as fast as possible. He pushed ruthlessly past the terrified, confused workers who fled first in one direction and then the other. He ran past the wounded, the bleeding and the dying. He barely looked at them. He had to escape the city.

Smith had walked through these streets before, many times. The other employees had let themselves be driven around in limousines, but he had enjoyed walking. Now he was glad of it. He knew the quickest route into the suburbs, and from there into the nearby hills. He tore through the streets, turning back whenever he saw fire or collapsing stone and metal. His mind was no longer processing the sound of screams.

Before he could stop himself, Smith ran right into the path of one of the metal beasts. Without hesitating, he paced on forwards and away. Something huge and burning whizzed past his shoulder, but he didn't look back. He ran so fast he tripped on the kerb and fell into the road, collapsing to his knees and scraping his palms as a passing car nearly ploughed into him. He got up and kept running.

After what seemed like several hours, and perhaps was, an exhausted Smith had reached the outer streets of the city. Finding high ground at last, Smith allowed himself to briefly pause. He realised his heart rate had almost fused, his shirt was glued to his body with sweat and he was sucking in air like he had a punctured lung. Gasping for breath, he took off his jacket and flung it down on the road.

He looked back across the city. The whole skyline was in flames now, and smoke was rising in towering flourishes to the sky. Blue flashes of laser fire zapped intermittently in the caverns of the dark streets. There were at least twenty of the tall, metal-tentacled machines crunching through the city now.

Smith realised he had become very cold. The sweat that stuck his shirt to his body had turned icy. He picked his jacket up off the street, dusted it off, put it back on and continued up the hillside. He had to get to the trees. Then he would be relatively safe. Then he could allow himself rest.

The houses around him seemed to have been recently evacuated. The garages were empty, and some of the front doors had been left open. The residents of the suburb must have run away as soon as they saw the smoke over the city.

Smith's throat felt very dry. He reflected he could simply walk into one of the houses with an open door and help himself to a glass of water. If the water supply was still working, that was. It would only take a few minutes, and he might die of dehydration if he didn't. The house he was passing looked deserted- the door and was wide open, and several belongings seemed to have been dropped in the garden in the family's haste to leave. Still, he felt uncomfortable as he stepped over the wall and crossed the lawn towards the door.

Smith walked through the open door and found himself in a deserted room. There were toys scattered over the floor and the television was still on. It on the news channel and a hysterical reporter was gabbling over footage of burning streets. An image of Adam Smith's own face flashed across the screen. The words 'Presumed Dead' scrolled under in white letters. Disturbed and vaguely annoyed, Smith switched off the set. He'd have to put the reporter right. He hoped he'd live long enough.

Smith wandered around the house until he found himself in the kitchen. There was a half-decorated cake lying on the kitchen bench, a bowl of chocolate buttons next to it. Someone had been interrupted in the act of making a circle of buttons around the cake's circumference. Smith stood and looked at the cake for a while. There was something tragic about the pathetic sight. He moved on to the sink.

Feeling somewhat uneasy about drinking from someone else's glassware, Smith nevertheless poured a glass of water and drank the whole thing in one go. Then he poured another. His breathing had gone back to normal. He looked out the window. The sky was blacker than ever. He had to get moving. He had to make it to the tree line.

But surely he could sit down for just a minute. He walked back into the living room and sat heavily on a leather couch, sipping at a third glass of water.

Smith laid his head in his hands. Soon, he would have to get up out of the couch and move on. Soon, he would make his way out of the reach of the advancing machines.

But before he could enact his plans, the exhausted Smith drifted asleep.