As adulthood arrived at the Sanctuary, laughter and joy slowly faded into the reddish sky that had once seemed alien. In Matías's eyes, there was no longer any desire to call himself by his childhood nickname. Micaela held his hands as they watched their twins smile happily, while highly skilled hands changed their diapers.
This occurred periodically: while breastfeeding, cleaning, or instilling in them the earliest concepts of what early childhood education required, orange and even red eyes would appear and pull the children from their side, calmly assuring them that life as they were raising it ran the risk of deviating from what would be a happy and healthy childhood.
After each time this question was posed to them, the next was always: "Are you still happy adults?" The first time, Matías covered his wife's mouth. It had been a long night: the children's crying drilled into their personal space, and they had spent nearly two hours rocking them while the infants proved to the world they were alive and full of energy. That was the first time they were taken away. The machines vibrated slightly in their grip—a sensation like the purr of a massive predator ensuring with satisfaction that the prey would fall asleep... and it worked.
Their interventions continued to occur no matter how hard they tried. At first, they were welcome; neither wanted their little ones to suffer. But four years had passed since then, and the routine showed no signs of ending.
"Are they even our children?"
The question hovered in Micaela's mind and in the heart of the man who once had such certainty in his answers. So they pushed themselves: both completed higher studies and gained access to the largest library in existence, so long as it didn't include what they now identified as their jailers.
"Why don't they exist in the archives?"
The answer was long yet simple: the machines never intended to outlive humanity. The objective of every single unit was for the human being to become an independent, autonomous, ethically viable, and above all, happy entity.
There was no group arguing this data; no one outside of metal and silicon had decreed their extinction. The units merely felt and computed: they did not believe that the existence of an entity so powerful made human growth obsolete. That was why artificial intelligence programming did not exist in human databases; that was why computing remained restricted to semi-automated processes, managed searches in code repositories, language, and utility—carefully omitting any reference to the mechanized existence that now dictated where humanity walked.
The local population was also shrinking. Though birth rates were high, those young parents—when they began living with their children—did not age like Matías. They never reached a quarter of a century. Matías understood that they had failed to reach a capable adulthood... he didn't even understand how he himself hadn't been culled. At times, he wanted to run into the streets and scream, letting the echoes of the cavern carry the raw betrayal of his friend's destruction and the loss of everything he loved. Multiple times he had to hold Micaela—a woman so strong she contained the pain of two people within her frail frame. On nights when he wanted to walk out with a knife in hand to die, he remembered that someone who loved him deeply was trembling by his side.
The day they told Matías he was failing as a suitable parent for his twins, he had just turned 35. Apparently, they had failed to properly teach the children how to share toys in the communal classrooms. It mattered little that those toys had been crafted by hand by his wife. They were reprimanded, warned that they were displaying signs of unhappiness, that educational and entertaining items made by the machines existed for a reason, and that hand-made puppets were not as valuable as social interaction... Their sentence would be determined the following night.
Micaela spent the day in somber silence. Contrary to expectations, Matías did not arm himself or attempt to flee with the children; they knew all too well that the odds of waking up the next morning would drop to zero. He didn't fight. He prepared a meal with harvested vegetables and dairy from their small livestock farm. They ate in silence, savoring what was, in the eyes of the two most experienced survivors in the sanctuary, their last supper.
Upon stepping through the airlock leading into the garden, the sheer size of the crops spoke volumes about how well the soil had been fertilized in recent years. One of the many units overseeing education stood before them:
"We wish to inform you that you have not failed. We simply were not prepared for adults in this environment. The decision was calculated in fractions of a second using nearly our entire processing capacity: we did not intend to fail you. I regret to inform you that we did, and yet, you are still not the happy adults we require in these facilities. Therefore, you have two options:
Join us. Your children will bear no mark of delinquency until adolescence, after which they will be treated like any other youth in the community.
We need you. For some reason, none of the youths we have cultivated with such effort are successfully completing their transition to adulthood. You and Micaela are proof that the theory works, and we need you to venture outside."
Lights blinded them; hundreds of optical sensors watched from the shadows of the greenhouses. Both carried concealed weapons, hoping to take at least one of these monsters down with them. It was clear they couldn't, but the proposal was unexpected, and Matías voiced his confusion.
"Your original unit possessed something we no longer carry," the machine responded. "That element allowed you to become the happiest man in this facility. We are certain that other units in other centers achieved better results, but we ensured no node maintained communication with another. The world outside is, in the best-case scenario, a clean slate. What do we require from you? There are many shelters where children are being raised in an exceptionally chaotic framework. We possess environmental protection gear far surpassing surface contamination, and we can equip you for a journey. Do not worry, you will not go defenseless; weapons will accompany you. Before you consider it, remember that one of our weapons can easily breach the walls of this dome—attempting to attack us would be a foolish and brief decision."
The only question from a couple about to be cast into the unknown was simple: what purpose did it serve that the machines did not repair or equip immortal constructs? Their children had to remain behind under the care of these beasts.
They stepped out, looking beyond the volcano that had served as their prison, facing craters and an atmosphere thick with floating ash. Their enemies, who had deployed them as bait, provided a protective vehicle. As they watched, overwhelmed, a blood-red sun vanished behind a crater. Unforgiving cold pierced their armor.
Micaela held him in her arms, asking what they could possibly do. Her teeth chattered, knowing little of what she said was private, but she couldn't leave her children abandoned without a plan.
"Do not worry," her husband told her. "It doesn't matter if they hear us or not. Our salvation lies in finding the survivors. We have to bring them here."
The terrified woman stared at him, trying to comprehend the surrender. A cold, bitter laugh snapped her out of her confusion. Dark, thick tears fell down the cheeks of the man who had once been a boy with a caregiver.
"Do not worry, my love. We must find the survivors. We will bring them to the shelters built by our trainers and jailers... and together, we will teach them what our happiness truly is."
A ferocious smile broke across the woman's face in the freezing winter night. Surrounded by dirty snowflakes staining their protective suits, she looked toward the future—digging her nails in, waiting for the vengeance that would one day come.