by Hugh Howey
“What do they look like?” asked one man from his pew.
“Well, they could look like anything. Anyone who looks out of place, who doesn’t seem like they belong, who asks strange questions.”
Esther looked down at her feet, and felt her hand starting to rise, and then put it down again.
That night, Esther sat by the fireplace with Mama and Auntie, the smell of wetness still hanging in the air, and no one spoke. Even after her Auntie had gone to sleep, Mama didn’t say it was time for bed, only held her while the fire crackled in its own language, about whatever it was fires thought about.
“Mama, can rebels come to us in dreams?”
“What do you mean, baby?”
“Could you have a waking dream about a rebel? Meeting one, I mean?”
“Did you have a dream?”
“I think I did, in the woods. I dreamed a woman, and she said her name was Jael.”
Mama sat up with a jolt.
“Did you tell anyone about this?”
“Just you, Mama. Should I tell Sister Abigail?”
Mama took a deep breath. “No, baby. No, don’t say anything. It was only a dream.” She paused. “When you get older, you’ll start to realize that life is a lot more complicated than you think, and that we have to be very, very careful about what we tell Sister Abigail. Do you understand?”
Esther nodded, even though it felt like the dim shape of a thing she could not make out.
“Go to sleep now.”
THE TOWN GREW busy with rebuilding, and life took on a sort of normal again. They were a community, Sister Abigail said. They would take care of their own. Esther went back to the well, hoping each time that Jael would appear, or that anything would happen, but nothing ever did. Soon, the dream started to recede, and she told herself it was just like that, just like anything.
The knock at the door came two weeks after the storm ended, around bedtime. It was so fierce that Esther could only imagine something was very wrong. When she ran to answer it, she found two soldiers on the other side, tall and unsmiling. Mama sent her to her room, and Esther heard the voices speaking quietly for several minutes in words she couldn’t make out until the door shut. Esther relaxed, thinking it was over. Mama would explain it later.
She woke up early the next morning and padded straight for her Mama’s room, hoping to climb into her bed and be held. The bed was empty. She walked downstairs to the kitchen, hoping to find her Mama over the stove, making breakfast, but saw only her aunt and two other women, huddled at the table and whispering. Her Auntie looked like she had been crying.
“Where’s Mama?” she asked.
Auntie looked like she had been caught at something and held a finger to her trembling lips.
They walked to the Church that morning without Mama, and Auntie held her hand so tight that it began to hurt. When they arrived, Sister Abigail was waiting to greet them. She held Esther close before she walked into the church, and said, “God loves you, always know that He loves you.” She felt a knot form in her stomach, like everything was about to come undone.
WHEN THE STAINED glass window lit up, there was Mama’s face, floating in a sea of red. Esther remembered nothing else about the service, only filing out afterwards, the glances of the other parishioners, the pity.
Sister Abigail came by the house to tell her again what she already knew: that her mother had been a dream, had died many years ago, before any of them had met her. “I know how real it must seem to you, these memories of your mother,” said the old woman, petting Esther’s hair.
This was a particularly cruel trick of the Deceiver, the way it left the lie of these emotions inside us. We had to be kind to ourselves, she advised, to give ourselves time to absorb these phantom losses, and pray always for the comfort that ultimately came only from the truth of the Lord.
Esther said nothing. She hated all of it, suddenly: Sister Abigail, the Church, the window, the soldiers. She remembered the fire in the distance, the great billow of smoke rising in the air, and imagined watching them all burn.
“Do you remember your mother saying anything strange in your dreams, to you or your Auntie?” asked Sister Abigail. “Anything about the rebels? Did she disappear at strange times? Did anyone come to visit, anyone you didn’t know?
Esther thought about Simone, about the sunflower seeds and the big orange cat. About her mother, the smell of her dress, the feeling of her arms around her. She thought about all of the things that had disappeared from her life because Sister Abigail had put them in the great, glowing window, how she felt as empty as the well.
And another thought too, a new one: how much she wanted to see fire cover everything and burn all the lies away, about the woman in the woods who said that it could change the world.
“Esther, this is very important.”
“No, ma’am. I didn’t see anything at all.”
It was the first lie she had ever told. She could not wait to tell another.
BASTION
DANIEL H. WILSON
IN LIGHT OF the extreme urgency of the moment, this document has been abridged to key portions of a weeks-long interview process. As the crisis on Earth continues to unfold, we hope these psychological notes, interview transcripts, and observations can shed light on the thinking process of our enemy. The human subject in these records demonstrated extreme levels of manipulation and deceit during our inquiry, but even so, much can be gleaned by his interactions. And of course, in the worst case scenario … there is a certain historical value to preserving this account.
—Editor
Pre-Session Setup
My name is Dr. Ann Parker, chief psychiatrist for the Tau-base lunar settlement, specializing in disaster debriefing and post-traumatic stress rehabilitation. Although this case is unprecedented, my skill set has been determined to be most appropriate to the situation. Interviews will be conducted in the Tau-base hospital module located on the Mare Imbrium plains. Conversations are auto-transcribed from video footage, annotated with my notes and observations, and take place in a standard counseling chamber.
SUBJECT HISTORY: The young man, age twenty-four (confirmed), was apprehended by a Frontier Ranger force patrolling the Trojan asteroid swarm trailing the orbit of Jupiter. Subject was in the company of a band of feral Apex-class synthetic human beings. After his rescue was effected, subject was returned to Tau-base and incarcerated for his own protection. For the first three weeks of contact, subject refused to speak in English, instead communicating via a primitive form of sign language (a machine variety, chiefly employed by Apex hardware working in hard vacuum).
Subject’s birthfather was able to verify his identity via DNA matching. Birthfather also confirmed that during the Apex Decommission Catastrophe (ADC) two decades ago, the subject (four years old, at the time) was on board the USS Bastion when it was famously hijacked by rogue synthetics. Missing for twenty years, subject became popularly known as the “decom baby,” though his birth name was Toby Glint.
PHYSICAL EXAMINATION: Subject is male, with brown eyes, black hair, and skin darkened by the radiation effects of time spent in near-Jupiter orbit. He was forcibly disinfected and pressure cleaned, face shaved and his hair cut as part of standard Tau-base entry procedure. Despite a largely zero gravity upbringing, subject exhibited solid muscle mass and no wasting effects.
Routine medical showed past evidence of multiple serious injuries, including scars and bone breaks. Note that Frontier Ranger ROBINT analysts suspected some scars may be aesthetically intentional, an imitation of the crude case-burning decorations common among feral synthetics. Other healed injuries included lacerations, impact fractures, frostbite (vacuum-induced), projected energy burns, and radiation exposure. Subject was wounded by kinetic weaponry during his rescue, but had already undergone surgery before arrival to Tau-base. Nevertheless, subject seems in good overall physical health and does not demonstrate any apparent pain behaviors.
SUBJECTIVE: The subject spent his chi
ldhood living among a tribe of Apex-class synthetics, hiding among cored asteroids in the Trojan system. Deprived of human contact, he presents with selective mutism, avoidant mannerisms, and a flat emotional affect. Among this clan of rogue Apex, communication is conducted via coded flashes of light, simple hand gestures, and vibratory clicks that can be felt via pressure sensors. The subject is adept at these primitive modes of communication—reflexively flashing his fingers through pidgin sign language and snapping his tongue against the roof of his mouth in the guttural protocols of the ferals. Our transcripts begin on the day the subject began speaking and last until his final availability.
Session 1 [abridged]
Good morning, Toby.
[Subject doesn’t respond.]
Toby Glint?
Bastion. [Subject gestures and clicks in some dialect of Apex-speak.]
Excuse me?
My name is Bastion.
It’s nice to hear your voice, Toby. Do you understand the USS Bastion was the name of a lab ship? It originated here on Tau-base, registered to John Glint under the auspices of the province of Ontario, NorthAm. It’s the name of the ship you were kidnapped from twenty years ago. Do you remember?
Yes.
Dr. John Glint is your father.
Yes. I remember. I met him during …
… during the rescue. We’re here to help you, Toby. But we need to understand how you survived out there for two decades. So, let’s start at the beginning. Do you recall the kidnapping? The day you were taken?
I remember a ship. Adults talking in low voices. They were mad at something on the screens. Then scared. Everything was shaking, and legs, like scissors, were swooping back and forth. A man picked me up and carried me. I remember bright lights, like little eyes, curving away.
Corridor lighting. [Checking files.] I believe … the USS Bastion had a centrifugal hull. It would have been curved. What else do you remember?
The man pushed me into a dark place. He told me to be very quiet and he left. Things were rattling around. I couldn’t see anything but I heard people shouting. After awhile it got quiet. I tried to stay in the dark place, but it got very cold. I started to shiver. I couldn’t help it and I started crying. I tried to stop but I couldn’t.
Then a light shined on me.
What did you see?
My mama and papa.
I’m sorry?
The … hardware.
Alpha was an Apex-class male synthetic. Echo was female. I remember them standing over me. Alpha was hurt on his side, and Echo had her arm around his waist. When they saw me … they were surprised.
There was another one, too. A bigger one called Gamma. He acted angry, and he was saying mean words. About what to do with me.
I started to cry again.
The soft one, Echo; she picked me up and held me. I remember her arms were warm. Up close, I could see something was wrong with her. Part of her face was broken. It was … hanging. So I touched it.
I tried to push it back in place and make it better.
After I did that, the big one got quiet. He walked away. And then Alpha and Echo held me together. They smiled, and I stayed with them after that.
Echo was the only warm thing, in all the blackness.
Echo was a former domestic caregiver unit in the daycare module of Tau-base. Her arms were designed to be warm for that purpose.
Oh. I didn’t know that.
On the day of the Apex Decommission Catastrophe, a series of faulty instructions were sent to reduce the intelligence of Apex-class synthetics to more manageable levels. Instead, the update removed all intellectual constraints. She was made feral.
And that was bad.
Alpha and Echo were not your parents, Toby. They were illegal self-governing hardware. They hijacked the USS Bastion and stole you from your real family. Do you understand that?
Yes, Dr. Parker. I understand perfectly.
POST-INTERVIEW NOTES: Toby seems confused about the nature of his kidnapping. He may be harboring a misguided affection for the savage Apex that took him in. Although his neglected language skills are coming along quickly, he still has difficulty emoting properly along with his words. His minimal affect makes it difficult for me to determine his underlying thought processes.
Session 2 [abridged]
Let’s talk about the last twenty years. Where have you been, Toby?
Home.
You were found in a rogue Apex encampment, hollowed out of a stray asteroid in near-Jupiter orbit. How did you survive there?
Our rock was called Patroclus. It was a Trojan asteroid, in the Achilles group at Jupiter’s fourth LaGrange point; two kilometers of dark stone swept up in orbit behind the father planet and his moons. Beyond the asteroid field was monitored space, with constant military sweeps, but we were safe among millions of tumbling rocks—too many for the humans to search.
Patroclus housed about a dozen … units. There were other rocks, too, and we’d visit them sometimes. But ours was special. I lived inside the ship at first, but after a few months Alpha and Echo took it apart to build a biome for me inside the rock. It was a bright place, with fresh air and leafy green plants. Lots of space to jump and run and hide. There were other cored rocks out there. I don’t know how many, but new synthetics arrived every year from Earth, Tau-base or deep intersolar missions.
They most likely kept you alive in order to ransom your life in an emergency. It didn’t work. You were out there for a long time, Toby. Tell me about your childhood.
When I was little, I didn’t know I was different.
Echo must have known I needed … loving. She would pick me up and rock me in her arms. She would kiss my face and hold me when I cried. Alpha would surprise me, make me laugh. He used to chase me around the biome, hiding his face behind the plants. He’d catch me and tickle me and toss me in the air.
But we weren’t the same.
The Apex didn’t need air or light or space. I tried to be like them, but I couldn’t. I was weak, always hurt. It would have been so much easier for them, without me to take care of. But instead they risked everything to build a place where I could breathe and live and … play.
When I got older, I made them stop treating me different.
The other Apex didn’t need extra attention. It was a waste of energy and time to expend all those resources, just for me. At some point, I decided to be finished with laughing and crying and those childish things.
Toby, the ferals employed rote child-rearing behaviors on you in the same way they built a life support environment, with the express purpose of keeping you alive. It is well known the Apex don’t have true emotions, not like human beings.
Do you think that makes them any less capable of understanding me? Does your lack of true emotion make your job harder?
How so?
Dr. Parker, you are aware that you’re a synthetic human being?
Of course I’m aware of that, Toby. I was designated the most capable entity available for this project—
Because the rest of Tau-base is still celebrating the Rangers’ victory over the ferals … [Subject stops speaking, taking several deep breaths, palms pressed flat to the table.]
I can see you are feeling upset. It must have been hard for you, to have feelings all that time and no one to share them with.
Yes, Dr. Parker. It was. Echo said … she told me I shouldn’t try to be hard, like them, that I should … feel. She scavenged a vid projector for me. Through the passive antennae array, I could intercept old broadcasts from Earth. I watched the shows, saw how the people spoke, how they told jokes and fought and loved each other. It was strange. On Patroclus I never, you know … I never had a human to talk to.
I guess not much has changed.
I’m here to help you, Toby. You can be honest with me. We’ve seen the scars on your body. How did they hurt you?
Damage was unavoidable. The Trojans are a human-lethal environment. Low gravity. No warmth. No oxygen. Jupiter is a va
riable radiation source, depending on storm activity on the surface, and it’s relentless. We were only safe inside our rock—safe from the father planet and from the Frontier Rangers. For a long time, anyway.
But the injuries?
The big synthetic, Gamma; he was my teacher while Alpha and Echo ran the colony. He taught me to move in zero-G when I was a tiny kid, a long time before I learned to run a centrifugal hull. He held me tight and showed me how to slow my oxygen intake when the biome equilibrium was slipping. He taught me to stay alive.
Injury and repair were part of daily life, for all of us.
When I was about six, Alpha had a breakthrough in his research. He found a way to project energy fields into fabric. He made my first mantle—a kind of flexible space suit with energy fielding woven into it. It projected an energy shield that covered my face and protected me from vacuum and cold and radiation—all at once.
When I put on my mantle, I could finally be like everyone else. I could go outside and look at the stars.
I was so excited I went running straight across the rock surface at full speed, with Gamma angrily chasing after me. I never wanted to come back inside. On my first jump, I nearly lost gravitational connection to the rock. All I saw was the father planet, infinite clouds churning above me. Gamma saved my life, barely, because he had higher mass. Later, I learned to calculate trajectories on the fly, like the Apex. Learning to survive was trial and error, without much margin for error.