The Human Son

by Adrian J. Walker

  ‘You were somewhat of an experiment, Ima. You were to fix the sky, to be one of our finest scientists, and for that you needed absolute clarity. So I pushed your envelope a little further than the others. I was never sure if you would work, and when you emerged my doubts grew worse. All that panic, all those questions. They had to be quelled, and it worked—for five centuries, at least.’

  She neatened her cuffs, as if recalibrating.

  ‘That’s why I chose you to look after the human. Not your sister—’ she rolled her eyes ‘—good gracious, all those fictitious emotions of hers, how she would like to believe they were real. No, not your sister or any of your other siblings, and certainly not Benedikt, of course. You. I thought if anyone could care for that thing without being… infected by its charms, it would be you.’ She cocked her head. ‘But apparently you have disappointed me.’

  ‘You had no intention of resurrecting humanity.’

  ‘Of course not. Caige and I had decided long before.’

  ‘Then why let me proceed at all?’

  She shrugged and brushed dust from her dress.

  ‘It provided you with a distraction.’

  ‘From what?’

  ‘I told you, I know how much your purpose means to you. It keeps that busy little head of yours from asking difficult questions. But it wasn’t just about you, Ima. After Greye’s display in the council, we had to ensure you all believed the dispute was being dealt with rationally.’

  A terrible thought struck me, and I sat up slowly.

  ‘What happened to Greye?’ I said.

  My mother’s eyes narrowed as she saw where my thoughts were leading me.

  ‘You think I would kill my own brother? Well, child, now I know you really have lost your way. I told you, we are not monsters.’

  I turned back to the window’s dim square of light, seeking escape from my mother’s frigid gaze.

  ‘You lied to me. You lied to us all.’

  ‘It wasn’t a lie, it was a fiction in which you could serve your purpose to the best of your ability. All children are born into them. My own was that humanity was something to be saved.’

  I turned.

  ‘Oonagh?’

  ‘How she loved them, with all their silly songs and pictures. She reminded us every day that they alone had created us. They were the reason we were here, and we had a duty to help them. I believed her at first, as every child does her mother. But then we went out into the world, and we saw the havoc they had wrought. All that chaos, all that lack of control. All the art in the world would be lost in one of their dreadful landfills, or drowned in the putrid sewage with which they flooded the seas.’

  Her eyes turned to me.

  ‘They were chaotic, unpredictable and pointless. Their equation simply could not be balanced, so they had to go—peacefully, of course.’

  ‘Not all of them went peacefully. You killed the protesters at the viral laboratory. All of them, murdered.’

  Her lips thinned.

  ‘Such incidents were regrettable.’

  ‘You mean there were more?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, through gritted her teeth. ‘Oonagh would not have known; we banished her long before. Ima, listen to me, I am your mother—’

  ‘You are not my mother,’ I said, throwing back the covers and getting shakily to my feet. ‘You never raised me. I was fully grown when I was born. You never had to clean me or feed me or pace the floor all night trying to comfort me from a bad dream, or teach me how to walk or talk or how to stop soiling myself.’

  ‘Really? You make it sound as if you simply sprang into being, child. Did you ever go to the gestation halls? Did you spend any time there when the fourth generation were growing? Or the fifth?’

  ‘No, I was too busy.’

  ‘In your balloon, yes. Far too busy up in the sky.’ My mother stood and faced me from the end of the bed. ‘Well, let me tell you, they were far from peaceful places.’ She walked the length of the bed until we were face-to-face. ‘You were worse than the rest. You found it more difficult to assimilate the cerebral growth, and the information with which you were being fed. You screamed, wriggled, writhed, choked, excreted, urinated, vomited, bawled and wailed into the night. Some of the others wanted to put an end to you, you know. They thought you had failed, that the parameters of my design had been too wild. But I never gave up. I believed in my design—I believed in you, Ima—so I stayed with you, night after night, doing everything I could to keep all those terrors at bay as you grew into the magnificent thing I knew you would be.’

  She took a breath.

  ‘So no, I may not have changed your nappies, or given you cuddles, or taken you for walks through the forests or bounced you on my knee, but I did bring you safely into the world and all the comfortable fictions with which I had furnished it, and I gave you a purpose, and guided you on your way. That, my dear—’ she folded her hands ‘—makes me your mother.’

  ‘That is not what being a mother is about.’

  ‘Quite frankly I don’t care what you think.’

  ‘You don’t care for anything.’

  Her face shook with sudden rage.

  ‘That is not true! I care for the well-being of my species, and for you, Ima, and yes, even for your misguided forest-dwelling friends. And I care for transcendence. We are all erta. That is why we must all depart together. One or nothing. All is light.’

  I backed away, shaking.

  ‘If you cared for me, then you would let me and Reed be. Let us live alone, somewhere I can continue to raise him, away from all this, away from all the lies.’

  She looked me dead in the eye.

  ‘I’m afraid it is a little late for that.’

  A flush of dread filled my chest.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You have the answers to your questions, and now Reed has the answers to his. He knows, Ima. He knows everything.’

  THE ROOM WAS small and lit by a single window, beneath which was a shelf of plants. You sat on a chair with arms crossed, looking at the skewed square of December light that had been thrown upon the floor. Hair fell over your face in curtains.

  You did not look up when the door opened.

  ‘When did you tell him?’ I said, trembling.

  ‘This morning,’ replied my mother. ‘I might have waited for you to explain, but he would not stop asking about what happened. You lifted a horse from a precipice, after all—we found it by the way—not to mention outrunning two lanterns with him on your back. I had to tell him in the end.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘He has not spoken since.’

  I tried to find my voice.

  ‘Reed?’ I said. ‘Shall we go home?’

  You remained as you were, unmoved by the sound of my voice, closed like a shell. Then with a sudden shuffle of feet, you stood and walked briskly to the door, pushing past me and outside.

  We watched you disappear towards the gardens, head still down.

  My mother rested a hand on my shoulder.

  ‘Please,’ she said, some gentleness returning. ‘You must let it go. Try to find a focus, look to transcendence, forget about—’

  ‘No,’ I said, shaking off her hand. ‘I cannot forget. He is my son and I must look after him.’

  ‘You must do what you must do,’ called my mother as I ran off through the corridors. ‘But remember, Ima, the day is fast approaching when you will have to make a choice. One or nothing. An eternity of peace with your own kind, or a very short life with an animal.’

  I CAUGHT UP with you in the square and stopped, keeping my distance. The vigil was still going on, and the twin circles of the Devoted and their guards had now been joined by a candlelit throng following the same murmured chant. Caige was with them. His great, hooded head looked up at your approach.

  All is light, all is light.

  You stood before them in slow flakes of snow, suspended, your breath disrupting the frost-heavy air.

 
I approached. My boots cracked thin puddle ice.

  ‘Reed…’

  You started at my voice and continued to walk, your eyes trained upon the circle. Some of the guards and candleholders looked up as you passed, and Caige tracked every step of your slow prowl.

  ‘Come,’ I whispered, ‘let us go home where we can talk.’

  I held out a hand, but you ignored me. Your jaw clenched and unclenched, and your eyes burned a fierce orange in the glow of the guards’ torch light.

  ‘Reed—’

  Then you laughed. It was a raw, untethered sound, a single deep exhalation that contained nothing of the boy you had been. The chant ceased, heads turned, and hoods shuffled. Caige pulled back his hood and walked from the line, stopping before you like a bull before a rabbit.

  ‘Witness this,’ he said. ‘While we prepare ourselves for our ascent to a higher realm, this human—this animal—cackles on the ground.’ He turned to the silent throng. ‘How could it have ended any other way?’

  You stared up at him, trembling streams of steam escaping your nose.

  ‘Well?’ said Caige, turning back to you. ‘What do you think?’

  Suddenly your face creased, and with a raucous hack you spat at his feet, and ran for the trees.

  ‘Reed, come back!’ I cried.

  Caige snorted with disgust. ‘That’s right, back to woods with you. Back with the beasts, where you belong. But you won’t find safety there—your time is short, ape, your time is short!’

  At the tree line I leaped ahead to block your path, but you continued, forcing me to walk backwards.

  ‘We’ll ride home together, all right? You, me and Boron, just like in the mountains. We can talk, and I can help you understand. All right?’

  You stopped and glared.

  ‘Am I free?’ you said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Am I free? I’m not a prisoner?’

  ‘No, of course you’re not a prisoner.’

  ‘Then let me go.’

  With that you pushed past me and fled into the forest, alone.

  Behind me the vigil resumed its chant, corrupting the still air like oil in meltwater.

  FIFTEEN YEARS

  — FIFTY-THREE —

  I HAD NO idea where you would go when I let you run into the trees that day. Perhaps you would go to Fane, the cradle of your childhood. Or perhaps you would take root in some cave, or flee the coast altogether. Or perhaps you would swim out to sea, or jump from some great height.

  I tracked you through the forest, keeping my distance as I watched your aimless circles. Occasionally you would pause and look about, as if you had suddenly woken to an unfamiliar place, or sit down, or lean against a tree, or hold your head in your hands.

  But eventually your expedition waned and you drifted toward the Sundra, as a child does toward sleep. I followed you into Jorne’s dwelling.

  He stood abruptly from the table. ‘Reed—’

  You stormed past him into the Room of Things and slammed the door shut.

  ‘What happened?’ he said. ‘Where did you go? They wouldn’t let me see you. I couldn’t even get close. That vigil, it goes on day and night, nobody can get near—’

  ‘He knows,’ I said. And that was all.

  I FELT A bitter relief at your wordless decision to stay with the Sundra, and chose not to question it. I was just glad to be as far away as possible from the events below.

  They maintained the vigil for two years. Twice a day, fresh from sleep, a procession of candle-bearers would emerge from the halls and take the places of those in the square. It became a holy place, like those great citadels into which pilgrims had once swarmed. This is, in fact, what happened. Fane, Tokyo, Littleton, Sprük—all were abandoned and left to the wind, and one by one their inhabitants flocked to their capital, expanding the circle until the forest glowed with torchlight. They prepared food to feed the candle-bearers, and brought them water, and mumbled endlessly into the night.

  All is light… all is light…

  The trials grew more frequent until every month a procession lead from Ertanea to the Drift to watch the skyward streams of light, before returning like a line of ants to their nest, aflame.

  This brought a nervousness to the Sundra, and they built three wooden towers from which to watch the vigil. As they had their shifts, so did we, and I took my turn like everyone else. The western tower granted the best view, and during the day you could see their faces clearly.

  During one such shift I spotted two guards circling each other and realised that they were talking in the old fashion; without speech. We saw this more and more, until soon every conversation was thus—the erta had converged once again, and the silence was terrifying.

  But not nearly as terrifying as yours.

  You became a tripwire around which I crept.

  Gone were the hunting trips, the fishing and the hiking—even your surfboard stood outside, unused. Instead you barricaded yourself in the Room of Things. It became a fetid place, and at night I would sneak in and attempt to freshen it while you slept, almost always finding the quantum telescope recordings whirring away on the wall.

  One such night, as you snored fitfully from your nest of blankets in the corner—you had grown plump, I noticed, and pimples had appeared on your face—I decided to find out what you had been watching. I scrolled through the logs, replaying each place and time you had visited.

  At first you had favoured war, hovering over the Somme, Stalingrad, Gettysburg, Teruel and Marston Moor, like some flesh-hungry raven. Then skirmishes drew your interest. You lurked in the abandoned French villages of World War II, the windswept Falkland hillsides forty years later, and the ancient turrets of Moorish castles against which enemy ladders shook.

  Once you had grown tired of armed conflict, you moved into the cities. You liked them in the summer, it seemed, especially London, New York, and Bangkok, where the heat sent their inhabitants mad. You were searching for conflict—people getting in each other’s way, arguing, and fighting with their fists. Eventually you watched only incidents in which two people were shouting in each other’s faces, zooming in close to read their lips. You were trying to see what they were saying.

  You returned to certain individuals, like a doctor who took the same seat on the bus every day and spent the journey standing if it was taken, even if there were other seats free. Or the young woman who screamed at her reflection every night before bed, but smiled throughout the day, and bought people coffee, and made them laugh with jokes. Or the farmer in Minnesota sharpening his machete with long, straight strokes, and a broad smile on his ruddy face.

  THE NEXT DAY I found Jorne outside with your surfboard. He was applying wax made from a dead animal.

  ‘Why do you maintain that thing?’ I said. ‘He no longer uses it.’

  ‘He may do again one day. Besides, it is a welcome distraction.’

  ‘From what?’

  He stood up.

  ‘We are expecting something.’

  ‘From Ertanea?’

  He nodded, inspecting the block of wax.

  ‘There are trials every week now, more and more movement towards the Drift. They must be close to completion, and after that how long will it be? There are over 11,000 of them. How long will that take—a year? A year and a half? Everyone has gathered there but us, and they will want to change that, one way or the other. They will come for us.’

  ‘What will you do?’

  ‘You know what we will do. The question is, Ima, what will you do?’

  I dropped my head.

  ‘I can’t see past the end of the day right now, let alone a month, or a year, or an eternity.’

  ‘He still won’t speak to you?’

  ‘He won’t even look at me.’

  ‘Let me try,’ said Jorne.

  He did, and failed, and I took some selfish comfort in this. At least I wasn’t the only one you hated.

  MANY MONTHS WENT by. It was a flat, dead time, full of unce
rtainty. Ertanea kept its vigil, the Sundra kept their watch, and you kept your silence.

  One night I went into the room to find you gone. Thinking you had fled, I ran out into the square and was about to shout your name when I saw shadows in a window. It was Payha’s place, and you were there next to her on the bed, talking by candlelight. I began to approach, but stopped, calculating that my intrusion would not end well.

  I spent the night awake, and you returned just before dawn, whereupon you barricaded yourself in the room once again.

  The next day I met Payha at the well.

  ‘What did he say?’

  She pulled the pump, giving me a guarded look.

  ‘That is between Reed and I.’

  ‘But I am his mother!’

  She glanced up, as if I should reconsider those words, then continued to pump.

  ‘I just want him to say something,’ I said. ‘Anything. He can shout at me for all I care, scream at me, hit me, tell me he hates me, I don’t care, I just want to hear him talk again.’

  Payha set down her pale.

  ‘He is broken,’ she said. ‘Nothing makes sense to him. His entire existence, the whole universe and his place within it, all of it has been a lie. You have been a lie. He has no reason to talk to you.’

  The words settled upon me like frost. I looked her over—her dark, cropped hair, the full lips and lashes, the eyes that were bigger than most, and darker, and further apart. Her fragrance was fresh and young, and I swore I could detect a hint of your own within it.

  ‘Last night,’ I said. ‘What were you doing in there?’

  Payha folded her arms and looked about. I grabbed her.

  ‘Tell me,’ I yelled.

  She threw me off with a disgusted sneer.

  ‘I was listening to him.’

  I staggered away, breathless and adrift.

  ‘I’m sorry, I just thought—’

  ‘You thought wrong.’

  She hoisted her pale and turned, but I grabbed her again.

  ‘Tell me what he said to you. Please, Payha.’