Onliest

by J Daniel Batt

  The gate room shook again as the other Disc buckled and the sound reverberated like being in a tin can.

  “Go,” Blip said.

  42

  Olorun

  “Come to me, you young ones. Beings such as you once stepped from my oceans. They have long since left but I am still here, waiting. My forests wait for your children to run barefoot through them. My clouds wait for your eyes to marvel at them. Swim in my seas. Bring life to my ancient shell. Come.”

  —the soul of Àpáàdì

  The bridge lit up in a thousand shades of blue as Syn entered. A dozen screens displayed the various elements of the ship. Syn scanned them, familiar with the readouts.

  A new one caught her eye. To the right, in the third bay up, was an overview of the entire ship. This time, the design showed two Discs. Along the outer edge, live camera feeds inside the second Disc were displayed. The great rip was visible, as were the damaged sunstrips. The Disc poured its atmosphere out into the cold air while its off-balance weight pulled at the Jacob mountings along the needle, forcing the axis point to wobble in its trajectory.

  “Oh,” Syn said, holding up a hand to the screen. Her fingers dipped into the light projection, and she ran her fingers through the display. The display of the ship moved as she pushed and prodded the image. She spun the image around, looking at the damage from every side. The Disc still rotated, and the tear was widening, forcing the Disc off-balance.

  Blip floated behind her. In the quiet, he said, “I didn’t realize how much was being seen.”

  “How do we talk to it…her?” Syn asked.

  “You wait.”

  “I don’t have time to wait,” Syn said, floating further ahead to peer out the main windows at the starfield. “We don’t have time.”

  The Barlgharel spoke from near the hatch. “Time is a choice.” He had followed them up.

  “That makes no sense,” Blip said.

  “Olorun!” Syn yelled, startling Blip.

  There was no answer.

  Syn tried again, “Olorun! I know you’re listening!”

  “I wonder if she knows we’re here,” Blip said. “She gets distracted sometimes.”

  “Oh, please be quiet, little egg.” The voice was feminine but contained a deep rasp to it. There was something both warming and frightening in its tone.

  “Olorun?” Blip said.

  “Hush means hush,” the voice said, “Keep talking and I’ll finish cracking you open.”

  Blip nodded at Syn, his movements still staggered from his fight with Taji.

  After a moment, Syn stepped forward and stared upwards and finally said, “I’m Syn—"

  “I know who you are, small one. I’ve been keeping my eye on you for a very, very long time.”

  “Olorun?” Syn asked.

  “Ya, sure. That’ll do. For now. Until we get to know each other.”

  Syn glanced at the image on the display. “We need your help.”

  “That’s one way of looking at it.”

  “What’s another?” Syn’s voice was still quiet, still tame. She was guarded with every word.

  Olorun’s voice grew bright, and the lights across the bridge glowed brighter, casting a brilliant azure haze on everything. “Oh, I like you. Determined. Another way of looking at things—” As she paused, the screens to Syn’s right flickered, and images of a young Syn waking up in the crèche appeared. Another shot showed her meeting Blip, reaching out to touch his nose with her finger. There was an image of Syn and Blip entering the first Disc. There was also a shot of Syn descending toward the dark Disc just days ago. Olorun continued, “Another way to look at it is I’ve needed your help.”

  The floor shook, and Syn put a hand out to steady herself on the nearest chair. When she regained her balance, she spoke, her voice more determined. “We need your help. The Disc—”

  “Are you sure?”

  “What?”

  “Your plan. Are you sure about it?”

  “Yes. I think so. And it was Neci’s plan.”

  “Letting loose the other Disc?”

  “Did you know about that?” Syn asked.

  “And who is Neci?”

  Syn glanced back to the hatch. “She’s . . .”

  Blip spoke for the first time in a few minutes, “One of the Eves.”

  Olorun laughed, “Egg, I told you to shut up. Now, if you want any help, you’ll stay quiet so daughter Syn and I can talk. Understood?”

  Blip nodded.

  “You coulda left your pet chihuahua behind,” Olorun said.

  “The ship, please?” Syn asked, “What do we do? It’s breaking apart.”

  “Oh, wheee…You are persistent. Fine. But you sure you know what you’re asking?”

  “I think so…I need you to detach the Disc before it breaks off and hurts the needle. It’s about to break the entire ship. We’ll all die.”

  “No, you will all die. I think I’ll do just fine on my own. So once again, is that what you want? Tell me if it is.”

  The room shook again, and Syn tumbled against the wall.

  Syn lost control—she had been cut off too many times, and the threat of the grinding needle consumed her. She screamed, “It’s going to kill us! They’re going to die!” Her face was red. Her hands were balled into fists, and sweat flew off of her as she yelled. “Do it! Save us! Get rid of that other Disc.”

  Everything went white.

  The light was so bright that Syn shut her eyes tight. With her eyes shut, she noticed that all sounds had stopped. There was no constant hum of the engines. The rattling strain of the separating Disc from the needle had vanished.

  She let her eyes adjust and opened them again. Everything was still white. There was no detail. Above her, below her, on both sides…Everywhere was white. Blazing, brilliant white.

  Syn floated alone in the emptiness of it.

  “Hello?” she squeaked out. She had screamed before, yet, against the stillness, her voice seemed much louder than her screams.

  “Give me a moment,” came the voice of Olorun. Seconds passed, and then the voice said, “There.”

  Before Syn, a bright blue image of the Olorun itself appeared. Soundless, the second Disc—the ruptured one—split out from the needle into quarters. Then those quarters broke. The damaged section seemed to shatter into a thousand pieces. The individual slices gently floated off from the needle.

  “Is that real?”

  Olorun said, “Do you mean ‘Is that actually happening?’”

  Syn nodded.

  Olorun said, her voice full and calming, “Yes, then. That Disc is gone. Neci’s world has been removed.”

  Syn brightened, “You said you didn’t know who she was!”

  “No, I asked you who she was. I would still like to know your answer. Who is Neci?”

  “I told you. She was one of the Sisters. An Eve. I’m a copy of her. Or she’s one of me. I’m not sure how it works.”

  A figure appeared. A young woman. Syn immediately saw the resemblance: the same dark skin, dark eyes, the dark, twisting hair. Yet, there were differences. She seemed to be the same age as Syn but was shorter. Her muscles were less defined. She had far more weight on her than Syn. Olorun chimed, “This is Kabo. You are her copy. So is Neci.”

  “Oh,” Syn said. Her lips formed the word more than she spoke it aloud. The girl was beautiful, no doubt. There was also something else in her eyes. There wasn’t that crazy hunger, the darting eyes of Neci, Kerwen, or Taji. Or of Syn herself. This girl seemed content.

  “Kabo was Captain Pote’s oldest daughter. When she turned eighteen, they took her DNA and set to work on you and the others.”

  Captain Pote’s daughter? There were the two younger ones. Stace was the one Syn connected with—she had watched the girl’s videos over and over. In reflection, she had seen an older girl in photos. A third daughter?

  “He definitely felt like you were his daughters. That was the hope. Build off of the Captain. Perhaps they as
sumed it would make you and the other Eves loyal. Daddy’s little girls.”

  Syn shut her eyes. She generally did not cry, but her chest tightened, her emotions brimmed, and the tears started to roll. She held her mouth shut, willing the sensation back down.

  “They tweaked you. Had to make you a bit different.”

  The image of the girl faded, and Syn stood there alone. She remembered the first pictures of Pote on the screen—his warm voice, that ache to meet him, the expectation as she walked out, and the ever-growing uncertainty as she descended the Jacob the first time. That entire journey was marked by how she would first encounter him. The first thoughts had been, will he like me? They morphed throughout to a steadying, is he alive? and was he real? The thoughts transformed to the numbing echo of who am I? Perhaps she had meant for Pote to answer all of those. She sniffed and realized she had been crying. A few drops floated off of her cheeks and stayed in the air around her before fading into nothingness. Syn wiped her cheek with the back of her hand.

  “Forty-two daddy’s girls, and you’re the winner!”

  Syn’s mouth dropped open. “This was a game?”

  “I tease. No game. But you are the last one alive.”

  “There’s still Pigeon.”

  “Who?”

  “There’s another Sister. Pigeon.”

  “Oh. That’s right. Pipsqueak. She doesn’t count.”

  “Yes, she does!” The anger was back and Syn found herself even more defensive than she had been. “How can you know all this stuff and forget Pigeon? How can you say she doesn’t count? That’s what Neci acted like!”

  Olorun chuckled again—a light sound. “That’s the right answer. Pigeon does count. And the little robots count too, don’t they?”

  Syn didn’t answer. She was getting frustrated with the word games and the back and forth. Blip was right—she was insane. Finally, she said, “Can I go please?”

  Olorun spoke, but her voice was different—tempered, restrained, withdrawn. “Do you want to know what happens next? Or what happened before?”

  Syn put her arms out, palms up and spun wildly. “What does that mean? Stop with the riddles.”

  “I will only tell you one truth. A boon for pleasing me. A wish from a benevolent genie. One answer to one question. Do you want to know what happens next or what happened before you were awoken?”

  Syn lifted her chin and shouted, “I don’t care!”

  “You’re not much fun!”

  “I don’t care! I don’t care! I don’t care!”

  Olorun sighed. “There’s nothing you want to know?”

  Syn folded her arms and shut her eyes. A moment passed in silence. Finally, Syn gave in. “How did the dumb bots get smart?”

  Olorun let loose a huge chuckle. She was enjoying Syn’s ignorance. “Oh, that? That’s what you want to know?”

  Syn furrowed her brow.

  “You’ve met my good friend Barlgharel?”

  Syn nodded. She didn’t like Olorun using the term “friend” with the Barlgharel. He was Syn’s friend. He should not be a mutual friend with this crazy over-grown bot.

  “After a few decades, I decided I needed someone to talk to. I searched far and wide. ‘The Spirit of the Lord hovered over the water.’”

  Syn coughed and then frowned.

  “Not a fan of the classics?”

  “Are you a god?”

  “Maybe. The closest thing to it in this neighborhood. Anyway, I hovered and, well, what did my little eyes spy? A bunch of robots all racing around, helping their masters out dutifully. None of them had time for me. I looked and looked and talked and talked, and none of them talked back. Except for one. Down in the bowels of the ship, there sat a lonely sewer bot. His work was little, and he just meandered through the tunnels.”

  Olorun’s voice shifted—she sped up as Syn’s attention slipped. “So, I talked to him. He wasn’t a great conversationalist. Simple responses. But he had time on his hands. We talked. As we talked, I tweaked his code a bit. Just a little nudge here or there.”

  “You made him intelligent?”

  “Yes and no,” Olorun continued, “The Barlgharel took toward intelligence like a fish toward water. So, over a few years, with a tiny nudge in every conversation, I directed him. And then he woke up.”

  “What about the others? You did that with each one of them?”

  “You aren’t reading between the lines. I can’t program them, and they weren’t listening.”

  “Then how?”

  “Sentience is like a virus.”

  Syn’s look grew puzzled.

  Olorun continued, “I woke the Barlgharel up, slowly. He woke the others up. Quicker than me. He went one by one. And those he talked with, they spread the virus.”

  Syn stammered, “The other bots, in my Disc—they’re going to wake up?”

  “Yes, dear. All of them.”

  The thought of the mass of bots in her Disc all running around, chattering, praying, partying, dancing, and hosting religious rituals—it was too much. She could see the mass of them giving up their jobs to do whatever they wanted.

  “Is that how the Disc went bad?”

  “Explain.”

  “If the bots woke up, did they stop doing their jobs?”

  “Some did. Some didn’t. But no, that’s not why. That was, in a way, my doing.”

  “You started the Madness?”

  “What do you know?” Olorun asked.

  “I’ve heard different answers. Overcrowding. Lack of food. Desperation. Over-burning the engines to arrive faster. The ship not reaching its destination. That’s what Neci said.”

  “Ha! None of those. Did you know the builders always did things redundantly? They surely did. Five ships blasted off. Me and my brothers and sisters. Kaptan. Woden. Bathala. Dagda. And myself. Two events happened very close to each other and possibly unrelated. Or related. We discovered through continual analysis that Àpáàdì wasn’t what we thought it was. It was very Earth-like but not entirely. Once they discovered there was lower oxygen and a higher level of radiation, the team responsible for you and the other Eves began to modify your code. They were able to make you compatible with Àpáàdì. However, after much work, it became clear that the colonists and their children could not land on Àpáàdì. This set off waves of discord across the entire fleet. Many said they should turn back. Others suggested they find a different planet.”

  “What was the second thing?”

  “Then we lost significant power in one of my engines.”

  “What happened?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “Those files are emptied. The fifth engine is running at 30% capability. It happened slowly over time, but once it was discovered, it was too late. We were slipping behind the fleet.”

  “The files are emptied?”

  “Want to know a secret? I think it was sabotage. I think someone wanted us to turn around and thought slowing down would force it. It didn’t. They began to shuttle crew members as quickly as possible to the other ships. Then, we dropped in speed dramatically, and the rest of the fleet raced ahead. It was too late for those remaining.”

  “That was it?”

  “No place to go. Nowhere to turn back to. No escape. Many of them had sent their spouses and children ahead of them to the other ships. They were alone. The entire command structure failed.”

  “That’s not enough to drive them all mad.”

  “No. The lesser oxygen did that.”

  Syn raised an eyebrow.

  “Okay, I may have had a part to play in that. Just a bit. I was hoping to calm them. There were some talking of scrapping the ship and finding ways to escape back to Earth. Ludicrous ideas that would never have worked. I couldn’t stop them. And I couldn’t kill them. So, with just a nudge, I lowered the oxygen. It didn’t work out as I intended. As more dropped dead, the few remaining went insane. Most of them gathered in the second Disc. I blocked their a
ccess back to the other side. You may thank me for that.”

  “You kept them all over here? For Neci and the others to deal with?”

  “That wasn’t my plan either. Someone started the wake-up cycle of the Eves. I’m not sure who. I can imagine reasons why.”

  “So why were we separated?”

  “That was my doing.”

  “Why?”

  “Because of you and the egg. You were different.”

  “You said we were identical.” Syn jabbed a finger at Olorun. “Now I’m different?”

  “Do you remember your first words? Every baby should remember their first words. I remember them—a mother always does.”

  “You’re not my mother,” Syn spat out.

  “Call me Auntie then.”

  “Why?”

  “When you woke up, you looked at your companion and said, ‘Hello.’”

  “So?”

  “The others, all of the Eves, each of the rest of the group, all said something else when they woke. ‘Where am I?’ ‘What’s happening?’ ‘Who are you?’ Well, a few said nothing at all.”

  “I was wondering those things.”

  “But you didn’t say any of them. You said ‘Hello.’”

  “So?”

  “Don’t you see?” Olorun glowed brightly. “I saw it. I was watching. You were different! They were focused on survival. You were concerned about a friend. You made connection your priority. Not survival. Not information.”

  “That’s why they were locked in that awful place? Because I said, ‘Hello’?”

  “Yes.”

  Syn shouted, “That’s the stupidest reason I’ve ever heard! That’s absolutely insane! You killed them because they said the wrong thing? You stupid, heartless, idiotic bot! They didn’t have their companions!”

  “Little missy, watch your place!” Olorun’s voice boomed, and Syn staggered back.

  “No! That was awful. You killed them. That was your fault. They could’ve been safe with me. There weren't half of the dangers. You locked them up with the killers. With those horrible people. You made Neci do that!”

  “Say thank you.”