Someone to Remember Me: The Anniversary Edition

by Brendan Mancilla

“They’re stasis tubes where dormant clones are kept,” replied Nine, aware that something had built The Mortal Coil and put thousands of stasis machines inside the prodigious cargo hold. In one beat of The Mortal Coil’s heart, Nine solved the mystery of the ship.

  “We aren’t here as this ship’s prisoners. We’re here to be its crew.”

  Chapter Thirteen:

  Grand Cross

  To see the monster sweep through the streets of Haven, even five centuries after the population’s demise, was like witnessing the jubilant advance of death itself. While Seven and Eight were safely buckled into their seats aboard the helicopter, the monster rabidly pursued them on their journey towards Grand Cross. Bounding into the air, ripping through buildings of glass and steel, the allergen cloud giddily matched their pace. It roared as it spun, the mass of dust rotating and coalescing, smooth as water but as powerful as a flood. Seven believed, without a doubt, that this was the day the allergen cloud had waited for. This was the day that it would add at least two of the Rose Twelve to its list of victims.

  Seven turned to Eight for strength because he couldn’t suffer through monster’s relentless pursuit, as it flowed across the empty streets and through the vacant cityscape. Was there any escape from the allergen cloud? From a weapon that could not be fought, only breathed and inhaled? Seven reconsidered his encounter with the monster at Pala Park where, in his most desperate moment, he had willed the monster to be gone.

  Horrifyingly enough, it had obeyed.

  “We’re very popular these days,” Seven declared, wrenching himself into the present.

  “We? You were the one who beat it away singlehandedly.” Eight laughed nervously and the monster roared its disapproval from far underneath them. Could it hear their conversation from the city’s surface? Had it been engineered that way?

  “It heard you,” Seven accused her.

  Changing the subject Eight asked, “If I had told you three days ago what we’d be doing right this instant—going to Grand Cross to rescue Twenty—what would you have said?”

  Seven’s speech failed him as he searched for an adequate answer. Gratitude. That was what he felt; that was the sensation that gathered around his heart as he hurtled towards Grand Cross with Eight at his side. He was grateful to be alive, grateful to be with Eight, and grateful for the risk that Twenty took to make it possible. Seven’s journey with his friends might have awoken old memories and old wounds but pain and fear were reassurances that he could still feel; that his emotions were still working.

  But his gratitude outweighed the fear or the pain. To know, as Seven did, that his friends would do anything to bring him back, even if that meant surrendering a quick and easy escape for the chance to revive him, was precious knowledge.

  “I would’ve said that it would take something heroic to get me to do this,” he finally answered, giving a partial voice to his thoughts. “Which isn’t that far from the truth when you think about it.”

  “Agreed,” a pensive Eight replied.

  As the minutes passed and the distance between the travelers and Grand Cross disappeared, anxiety silenced Seven. Contemplating what waited for him at the nightmare’s origin almost convinced him to quietly bid farewell to his hopes of escaping Haven with his friends.

  The AdvISOR, the perpetrator of the purge, resided within Grand Cross. Woken from its slumber, the AdvISOR had ensnared Seven by using Twenty as bait and now, he realized unhappily, it would also capture Eight. The people he was closest to, in this life and the last, would be at the mercy of Haven’s artificial overlord. Seven clenched his fists, his jaw set tight, and vowed that this plan would succeed.

  He refused to regret sending the others away; he would not allow himself to think that they should have run. Not that such thoughts mattered; Null and Ninety-Nine would never have abandoned them, he was certain of it. Even if they were barely friends, even if they hardly knew each other, they were each too precious to one another to leave behind.

  “What is that?” Eight asked, her voice shaking him back into himself. Haven’s skyline vanished and their helicopter flew through empty skies. Seven leaned out ever the edge of the open door, staring down, and saw empty foundations burrowed deep into the ground. “Where are the buildings? Where are the towers?”

  Seven didn’t know how to answer her. In the central and northern sectors of Haven, the majority of the buildings were decayed but standing. In the southern reaches of the island, the only remnants of the city were darkened streets. Seven could see the ocean, immobile and blackened, in the east and west.

  “Is it supposed to look like that?” Seven gestured at the vacant swaths of land.

  “Look!”

  Grand Cross, its lustrous coal-colored spires blending into the night sky, came into view. The dominance of Grand Cross went uncontested by the empty foundations and flattened lands that surrounded it. Floodlights shone a harsh, bitter illumination upon the cathedral’s blackened walls, reminding the approaching visitors that Haven was nothing without the supremacy of Grand Cross.

  As they drew nearer, Seven’s eyes identified a massive object in the harbor behind Grand Cross. He and Eight leaned out of the helicopter, almost too far, straining their eyes in a vain effort to identify the object. As if in response, a thousand lights blinked on in unison along the vessel’s hull and allowed Seven to see its unrivaled glory.

  “A ship,” Eight whispered. “The Mortal Coil.”

  The helicopter swung wide in its descent towards Grand Cross, giving Seven an uninterrupted view of The Mortal Coil. Hundreds of golden machines, crafted in the likeness of slim humanoids, busied themselves with work on the ship. Whereas Haven’s buildings might have been constructed to house giants, the ship at port could have been their vessel. Seven and Eight studied it in awed silence. Whoever was piloting the aircraft wanted the occupants to see the ship, to marvel at its grandeur, before reminding them that their main objective was Grand Cross.

  Seven returned his attention to Grand Cross, whose original outline he could identify, even if the cross layout had long since been expanded upon. He guessed that the scientific center, eventually boxed in on every side, was forced to build upwards like the rest of Haven.

  A frightening energy animated Grand Cross, whose dark stillness rose to embrace an even darker night sky. Attracted to the place’s festering anger, the helicopter angled itself for landing upon an elevated platform. Red lights strobed at each corner of the landing pad, a steady but silent warning to Seven and Eight of the impending danger.

  Lining the walkway from the helipad to the doors of Grand Cross were more of the tall, humanoid machines that kept a patient vigil. Seven guessed that the golden drones, which were about twice his size, must be the MoNITOR machines that the AdvISOR created to meet its own purposes.

  Seven made a point of stepping out of the helicopter first so that he could help Eight down. Above them, the blades circled in their slowing march towards paralysis. Eight offered him a brief, anxious smile as she regained her balance. She detected, just as he did, that something was amiss. If the AdvISOR wanted them dead then it could have shot the helicopter out of the sky. Their continued survival meant that the AdvISOR’s purpose was not as simple as murder.

  Seven was knocked onto his back when the monster burst skywards, tearing the helipad apart. It grabbed ahold of the helicopter, wrapped its girth around the aircraft, and smashed it into the platform like a bladed hammer. Seven stumbled, rolled into Eight, and together they fell off the crippled platform. With another shriek, the monster threw the helicopter into the distance where the wreckage blossomed into flames.

  Left to the monster’s whim, Seven dared to stand. Eight rose, their hands joined, as the monster swirled around them. It would have been beautiful, Seven thought to himself, if the monster wasn’t so perverse. Within the depths of the allergen cloud’s gleaming dust flashed the beast’s memories: the many murders it had committed, the terror of its victims, but the images were nothing compar
ed to the sounds.

  They were the screams of ten million dead, as recorded by the beast during its methodical execution and purge of a civilization.

  Seven could hear them. Seven could hear every single person calling out to him, screaming through the centuries, begging for a swift end. Anger came first, instinctively and without hesitation. For a third time, Seven realized, the monster was trying and failing to kill him. To kill Eight. It had become a nuisance and Seven objected to dying outside Grand Cross when he had a right to know the secrets within.

  “It’s over! The Descendants of the Founders are dead and their civilization has died with them!” he shouted at the monster. The beast resisted, it bellowed another outraged scream at him, until Seven called out in reply, “I command you to shutdown!”

  The monster rippled and waved in unison with the rise and fall of Seven’s voice, as if it was listening to Seven. As if it was scanning his voice. The allergen cloud’s determination wavered, its conviction was shaken and Seven decided, almost inaudibly, “…you can go now.”

  Wailing in misery, the monster convulsed and spasmed. The ancient screams, the old memories, they vanished from the allergen cloud’s depths. Bells rang in Seven’s ears but he could see the grains of sand angrily shuddering as they slowed to an unwilling but absolute halt. The monster exploded and spewed a torrent of brown, gold, and gray dust upon him and Eight.

  An eerie silence followed as Seven realized that he was still alive. Eight clung tightly to his arm, her fingers digging into his skin. The helipad was in ruins, the helicopter was a burning wreck far in the north, and the MoNITOR drones made no effort to assist them.

  Seven and Eight were left to listen to Grand Cross as it hummed with electricity.

  “What was that?” Eight finally asked, releasing her grip on his arm. “Why did it listen to you? That’s twice that you’ve exerted some type of control over it.”

  Seven sighed.

  “It was just a feeling. I thought since I fought it off last time I could do it again.”

  Dissatisfied with his answer but unwilling to push the argument further, Eight muttered, “Good work,” and brushed as much of the monster’s remains from herself and Seven as she could. Only when they were uncomfortably close to the drones did the nearest unit spin its head to face Seven and Eight.

  Each MoNITOR possessed a single ocular implant: a glowing blue portal into the mind of the machines. Seven wondered if the AdvISOR was watching them through the eyes of the drones, hundreds of them, simultaneously. If so, it again stayed its hand. None of the drones moved, spoke, or attempted to restrain or arrest Seven and Eight as they walked to the entrance.

  At the twin doors that marked the entrance to Grand Cross, a golden orb floated down from one of the spires above until it was at eye level with the visitors. Like the humanoid models, the flying MoNITOR possessed its own blue eye. If it had been on the floor Seven might have kicked it away but this machine had a singular purpose.

  “Follow,” the flying machine chirped. Sliding gracefully through the air, it ventured towards the narrow opening in the entryway. Disappearing beyond the doors, the aerial drone vanished into the darkness but not before it sounded another chirp.

  “Pushy,” Eight remarked.

  They followed the drone into the unlit atrium of Grand Cross. The light from the lonely blue eye on the floating MoNITOR was enough to guide their steps and reveal the wreckage therein. Cracked marble pillars held the vaulted ceiling in the air but chunks of the roof’s decorative painting had fallen away. From the scant portions that remained above, Seven tried to assemble the story.

  “It chronicles the war between the Builders and the Founders. See there? The Sphere is flying and then begins to fall out of the sky. That last area shows it crashing into the water,” Eight deduced, more quickly than Seven could. With her commentary the images and colors made sense.

  Seven had hoped, inwardly, that Grand Cross might have escaped the neglect suffered by the rest of Haven. From the floor’s cracked tiles, the exposed dirt, and the collapsed ceiling he realized that wasn’t the case.

  “That seems out of place,” Seven said to Eight when they arrived at the elevator that had been built in the middle of the atrium. Its style reminded Seven of the scaffolding erected around The Mortal Coil in the harbor behind Grand Cross.

  “It was added after the city’s fall. Long after,” Eight said, running her fingers through the upturned soil around the elevator. The flying MoNITOR whistled its impatience at them from inside the elevator’s metal carriage.

  Seven and Eight cautiously followed it aboard. Taking her hand in his, Seven tried to ignore the sensation of panic spreading across his body. The AdvISOR cared little for human comforts given the condition of the atrium, so why was it expending this much effort to keep them alive? Why hadn’t it addressed them directly?

  Eight squeezed his hand.

  Seven’s knees buckled when the lift lurched downwards, dragging him and Eight into the darkness beneath Haven. His stomach churned, made uneasy by their ongoing journey into Grand Cross, but when the dirt walls around him vanished and exposed an enormous hollow cavern as far as he could see, he felt steadied.

  Monumental pillars of dirt, tended to by vast numbers of MoNITOR drones, kept the cavern’s roof from collapsing inwards. The drones had erected support structures along the pillars that enabled them to tend to beams that kept the cavern’s ceiling aloft.

  “An underground atrium,” Eight whispered.

  “But why?” Seven asked.

  Seconds later, their elevator passed into the ground at the bottom of the underground cavern. Cold brown walls surrounded them again, imprisoning them deep within the soil of Haven’s furthest reaches. A sudden reduction in speed alerted Seven to their arrival at their destination, wherever that might be.

  “Go,” the MoNITOR beeped at them, indicating the long hallway that wrapped into the darkness. Seven guided Eight out of the elevator and he was saddened that their floating companion would not be following them, even if only for the loss of light. For a while longer the weak blue light from its eye gently lit their path, but when they were far enough away it faded to a speck in the distance at their backs.

  “What is the AdvISOR doing?” Eight inquired.

  “Playing with us.”

  “There are other ways to toy with us.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like torturing us for information. Like torturing Twenty and making us watch. I’m not the supercomputer that the AdvISOR is, but there are options.”

  Seven didn’t answer and pressed deeper into the tunnel. Periodically, he slid his hands along the walls, feeling the bare and cold stone, to make sure they were in the middle of the tunnel.

  “What is it?” Eight asked when he stopped abruptly. Seven pushed against the wall, his hands grabbed at the handles. “Seven, what have you found?”

  “It’s a door,” he groaned, pushing with all his might to open it. “It’s locked.”

  “There’s another one here,” he heard Eight say from ahead on his left. He opened his mouth to object when she said, further ahead and on his right this time, “And there’s another one here. Locked.”

  “One of these doors will be open,” he said, finding her in the darkness and taking hold of her hand again.

  “Probably at the end of the hallway,” she guessed. “Five hundred years later and this is what the AdvISOR has been up to? Digging out tunnels with locked doors all this way beneath Grand Cross?”

  “What was it keeping down here? I don’t see any MoNITORs.”

  “Obviously they can get down here. I think this is a private show.”

  “How lucky for us.”

  They continued on through the dark. Seven wondered how much longer they would be stranded in the tunnel, in this place where the clammy air weighed him down. It reeked of age and malice, hurriedly buried but not entirely forgotten.

  Shortly after that the whispers began.

&
nbsp; Eight could hear the whispers as well. She started to shiver so he tightened his grip on her hand and pulled her close. When they entered the room at the tunnel’s end, whispers abounded and the interior was as black as the preceding tunnel. Seven could hear the whispers growing stronger, louder, the further that he and Eight proceeded, as if they had stumbled into a room of people embroiled in a hushed argument.

  Black boxes of many sizes, though none taller than their shins, were scattered across the room. Stacked in untidy rows and pillars they cast off an unnatural luminescence, as if darkness created a disturbing light, and made the outlines of other objects visible, but not brightened, in the dim abyss.

  With the discovery of the boxes the whispers became audibly defined.

  “You never cared...”

  “You’re a liar...”

  “Traitor...”

  “Abomination...” the voices hissed in Seven’s ears. Panicking, he stopped walking and Eight shook to a halt next to him. Seven struggled to listen to the mounting accusations from the whispers.

  “Deserve to die...”

  “Never remember...”

  “Crime against nature...”

  “Life is sacred...”

  Who was speaking? Each voice was different. Where were they? The room was empty. Why were they angry? The clones were not responsible.

  Eight managed to pull her mind free of the sounds, even as the whispers became angry accusations. Prompted by the renewed movement, the black boxes vibrated and shook as the visitors passed by them.

  “You are not real. You were created by man in man’s image. What you have been told is a lie. You are not real.”

  “Clones do not love. Clones do not feel. You are an imitation of life, which is sacred, and you must be destroyed.”

  “What do you hear?” Eight demanded, shaking Seven’s arm.

  He swallowed hard, sweat gathering along his forehead.

  “Terrible things...” he admitted.

  Only when Seven felt the most desperate to get away from the black boxes did he see it: a lonesome, feeble light directly ahead. The black boxes did not dare to go any further than than the faintest edge of the luminance’s aura and it was there that he saw a thin silver pole, upon which sat a fist-sized cube. Unlike the others, the blue cube radiated a healthy and welcoming glow. Mist lifted from it and vanished in the air.