by Lee Murray
All the activity had tired him and he stumbled back up the stairs to his bedroom. Almost by reflex, he reached up and found the catheter and connected it to the valve in his neck. The rush of the medicine into his veins made him gasp, but it eased something too. All shall be well. But his mind was now fuzzy. There was something … something he needed to do before … before what? He gave himself an extra shot and noticed that the reservoir was empty.
The Architect turned and slowly made his way down the stairs and into the control room. Everything seemed normal. Peaceful. He crossed to one of the walls and dragged back a heavy curtain. Revealed was a window. It was located high on one side of the vast dome and gave him an eagle’s eye view of the entire city. The slim, beautifully shaped tower standing at its centre was almost complete: all that was needed was the final block. Every available construction monitor was in attendance, clustered round the base of the tower. They were like guests at a garden party or mourners at a funeral – he could not decide which. They were still now, their big mechanical mitts resting on the ground, their work almost done. But one was waiting, its rubber claws open. Very soon the tower would receive its final … What? Crown…? Block…? And it would contain a light which could be seen from any part of the city. A symbol of some sort … of triumph perhaps.
Behind him, the Architect heard a shuffling sound.
He turned in surprise. At his design desk a progress report was unfolding from the printer. It had been doing this for some time and the folded pages had spilled out onto the floor. The report gave a detailed mathematical description of every aspect of the tower’s construction. The fact that the report was printing now signified that the ultimate stress values of the whole building had been finally calculated and verified. The printer would chatter one last time when the final piece of the construction was in place and its light switched on.
The Architect gathered up the pages carefully, placed them in a binder and carried them to his records room where he slid the binder into place beside the thousands of other files which documented the building of the city. The room was almost full. He was aware how suddenly everything seemed ceremonial. Every action was significant … like eating the last breakfast at dawn before…
Interrupting such thoughts, a bell began to ring cheerfully in the design room. It was informing him that the cistern in which the final block would be frozen was now full and awaiting his attention. The small vanes, each no bigger than a fish scale, would already be gathering and locking into place, forming a perfect cube. Ha! Amazing. It was all coming together. The Architect rubbed his hands, suddenly boisterous, as though he had awoken from a bad dream to find the sun shining.
He crossed to the window again. This time he was amazed to see there were lights on in his city. That stopped him in his tracks. There were people too, and a fairground with music and dancing. He could hear singing. Only the tower was not lit and that was his job. That was something important he still had to do. He was glad to be reminded.
At that moment, he heard a noise from beyond his doors – the scream of metal on metal. Aaron Shelley and his evacuation team had finally arrived at the disabled elevator.
That noise. It set his teeth on edge. He could not think clearly. Who were they? Why were they here at this important moment? Did they want to destroy his city or claim it as their own? That must not happen. Hands over his ears, he hurried to the design desk and checked the Construction Programme was still active. It was. Everything was ready to go.
*
Inside the elevator, Commander Shelley smiled. ‘Well you’ve got to give the old bastard credit. He’s stuffed up the door. I thought he wouldn’t go without a fight. Okay. Block your ears, everyone, and look away. There’s gonna be a lot of sparks.’ He hoisted the cutter and attacked the door lock of the elevator. He cut round it, through the door guides, and when he stopped the door sagged and fell outwards.
Moments later, Shelley and his team arrived at the inner door. Locked, of course. They discussed briefly whether it could be booby-trapped. But to settle matters, Shelley gave it one booted kick and it flew off its hinges. They surged into the control room. The Architect was nowhere to be seen.
*
No sooner had the shrieking of the saw stopped, than the Architect heard their voices at his door. He ran to the narrow, twisted passage floored with raffia which led to the freezing pits. As he ran, he sometimes bumped into the rugged stone wall, but he did not tumble.
He came to the red door. It was standing open. Now that was strange. How had that happened? Then he remembered … Yes, he’d cut some wires. Perhaps he’d cut the wrong ones and … Well, it didn’t matter now.
He entered the space between the red and blue doors, but found that he couldn’t shut the door. The green button which activated the hydraulic arm was dull and lifeless. He heaved and tugged but the hydraulic arm was stiff. Then he kicked it and finally he stepped onto the hydraulic arm and jumped up and down. The arm came away from the wall. Over forty years of alternating hot and cold, hot and cold had weakened the connection. The arm now dangled, loose. He pushed and the door closed.
Immediately the second door opened smoothly and silently and he entered the Freezing Chamber. Behind him he heard another sound; it was the smashing of the door into his room. Then he heard voices calling … calling him by name.
Quickly, the Architect closed the switch which would activate the freezing. It would happen now in five minutes.
Inside the Freezing Chamber, the Architect stepped away from the door, intending to hurry over to the small pit where the final block would be waiting, its vanes all locked and the surplus water drained away. From where he was he could see the still surface and the reflection of the roof lights.
In his haste, The Architect neglected to step into the magnetic overshoes. Inevitably, as soon as he tried to hurry, he slipped on the thick oily jelly which coated all the metal structures. He fell and went slithering and sprawling across the floor. His head hit one of the uprights for the safety fence, and for a moment he passed out. But his body skidded on and only stopped when it was at the very lip of the cistern.
He began to struggle to his feet. He was aware of a trickle of blood.
Behind him, in the wall of the cavern, the blue door opened slowly and Commander Aaron Shelley stepped through, accompanied by one of his team, a man who had visited the vast cavern years earlier as part of an honour guard.
The Architect was now struggling to stand. He was holding the safety rail and staggering like a drunk.
Commander Shelley was about to set out towards him when he was stopped by his companion. ‘Wear these, sir,’ he said, pointing at the magnetic clogs. ‘Or you’ll slip like he did. That jelly stuff is lethal, and it burns.’
Other members of Shelley’s team arrived at the door, ogling in amazement. But one of them, an electronics specialist, touched Shelley on the arm. ‘I think we only have a few minutes before this place blows,’ she said. ‘He’s tampered with the electrics and the safety override may have collapsed. Just to let you know.’ Aaron Shelley nodded. Then he set out, clunking awkwardly towards where the Architect had now sunk to his knees beside the shimmering pool.
Arriving at the safety rail, Shelley reached down and seized the Architect by the hand. ‘Come on, old man. I’ll pull you back.’
But the Architect shook his head and Shelley could see he was crying. ‘No,’ he said, his voice breaking. ‘For pity’s sake. Let me be. This is where I belong.’
For a moment Commander Shelley hesitated. Then he released the Architect’s hand and gave him a gentle push.
The Architect fell back, almost in slow motion, his arms spreading wide as he fell into the water which billowed round him. The Architect gave Shelley a crooked, child-like smile before he sank.
*
‘Sir. Sir. Hurry. She’s about to blow.’
Commander Shelley
turned and clunked his way back to the door. He kicked off the clogs, entered the small chamber and closed the blue door. The team hurried out of the temperature lock, and pushed the red door until it closed. The electric bolts slammed home.
Seeing Commander Shelley’s surprise, the electronics specialist shrugged. ‘I repaired the connection,’ she said. ‘Or we’d all be dead by now.’
Any further explanation was cut short by an explosion and a massive shock-wave which blasted the blue door off its hinges and shook the red door to its very foundations. The last block was on its way.
*
Some time later Commander Shelley held a meeting in what had once been the Architect’s design room. His team were quiet and thoughtful, gathered in a circle. He regarded them, uncertain how to begin. ‘I tried to save him,’ he said. ‘But…’
‘You did everything you could, sir.’
‘We all saw that, sir.’
‘You have no reason to feel reproach, with all due respect sir.’
‘It was what he wanted, sir. It was why he was there.’
‘Okay,’ said Commander Shelley. ‘If we are all agreed.’
‘We are, sir.’
‘Well, I guess we’d better start clearing this place up.’
And this they did, gathering the notes and sketches and the vast pages of data documenting every building in the city. One member of the team stood at the window marvelling at the complexity of the city below him, and he noticed something moving.
‘Commander. I think there’s something you ought to see here.’
Shelley, who had just finished speaking to Samuelson, explaining what had happened and why they were delayed, crossed to the window.
‘There. Do you see, sir? The rail path down the main street leading to the tower. There’s a block being moved along. A cube. If you look closely you can see something of interest. Use my binoculars.’
Shelley focused on the block which was almost perfectly translucent. At its centre he could see the sprawled figure of a man, spread-eagled as though caught at a moment of falling. A red stain, like frozen silk, surrounded his head.
‘Good God. It’s him.’
The others came to join, and one by one they shared the binoculars and expressed their astonishment. They watched as the block was manoeuvred inside the tower and then hoisted up. They could follow its passage through the clear ice walls. At the top, they saw the sparkle of lasers as the block was annealed into its place and deep frozen again. It filled the top of the tower perfectly, completing the structure.
There was a moment of stillness and then a light at the apex flashed on and began a steady blinking – on off, on off.
On off, on off…
Splintr
AJ Fitzwater
One Body.
It’s the last sunset on Earth. Again.
Yes. I chose to stay and look death dead in the eye. I prepared for a swift end. What I didn’t know, when I stumbled home dirty and bloody from the Hagley Park evac zone that yesterday of six months ago, is that I would die over and over. Six months of facing the shell, the convex nothing, that swallows me every night from the South Pole around.
My deaths are nothing so soothing as sleep. They slip the knife of stars in under my defences, readying to flick away another piece of me in the morning. Everything stops: the baleful red eye peeking between the eyelids of the shell; the stars; the tracery of my thoughts; my heart.
And in that last knowing wink from the universe, as the Earth is cut off from the rest of it, there is hope. Hope that the last sliver of silver light gives out for good, that the Collective’s ships are beyond reckoning. Hope that tomorrow I’ll wake up dead and this will all stop ending.
Stop. Stop these new memories. Of a world I didn’t know, didn’t ask for. Stop reliving. Stop dying on these southern cliffs.
That, or at least put the puzzle pieces of myself that break off every morning back together. To make some sense of why it keeps ending.
Aeron, m’girl, people would say, making sense has never been your strongest quality.
Well now, there’s sense in giving death its due.
Now they don’t say anything. Now they don’t even people. What did the Collective promise those eight billion to save their souls? Everything. And nothing. A future, but not one here. All because these greatest minds in the universe, who we didn’t even know existed until a few short weeks ago, couldn’t quite say what the future looked like inside the planet-eater, though they’d been saving civilisations from it for millennia. There’s no adequate name for it, in their languages or ours. The Dark suffices, along with the promise of letting humans become more than human.
Promise, or threat?
I might not be the brightest biscuit in the tin, but I know liars when I see them. None of the Collective could truly show us their faces. They couldn’t survive in our atmosphere outside special suits, so they said. Yeah, some of us cried wolf. The Collective were perfectly, infuriatingly, reasonable to that. Those who didn’t want to Ascend were given the choice of asteroid ships that housed other Questioner factions.
So, gods don’t all think alike.
So, how do I die today?
Picking a spot takes careful consideration. It’s the only thing I have any control over on this day on rewind. Waking at 8am in my old cold Christchurch flat, filling the banged-up station wagon at the Mobil where the pie warmer is always turned on and full. I resist, but this all happens as it should.
No need to shower. Who’s gonna smell my stink? Theoretically, I had a shower late last night to remove the triumphant emptiness smeared on my hands and face. Shower today, and pieces of me may be sent out to sea too early. Lost count of how many pieces of me have broken off. Takes only a few moments for another piece of myself to flake away each morning, like shaking off the hangover from a bad dream. This shed reptile skin acts as if I’m not even there, fragile derma that could crumble to dust in the merest breath. It goes wherever it pleases on walkabout to the edges of the South Island. Just hope they don’t fall off.
I’d like to say the pain is bearable. If pain is all I can offer, then let’s do pain the best way possible. Raw skin. Screaming nerves. Absorbing every last moment and micro-meteorite puncture wound. Still, not sure what is more painful: the roaming pieces of my skin, or the growing blankness when I reach out for old memories. Everything else from that first last day onwards is intact. And on that new day when they crack open the shell in a thousand, a million, a million million years, they can excavate the archaeology of my dust and discover what truly went on here.
Continuity. Yes. Be careful of distractions, losing track of time.
I always point south from Christchurch. Want to be as close as possible to the border between flesh and blood when the Dark comes. It’s the best I can do in what little time is left. Sometimes I go as far south as State Highway One will take me, right to the dead end of Bluff. Sometimes I sit out on the Fortrose Cliffs or near the Waipapa Point lighthouse, kicking my feet over the edge, not wanting to go before I have to.
Right now? That border is the cliffs just beyond the Curio Bay campground. Tattered awnings and rusting Zephyrs hunker at the arse end of anywhere. Antarctic fury has pushed trees into arthritic angles, and carnivorous summers hide cicadas ready to scream seventeen years of sexual frustration.
Now the cicadas hold their bows and the wind holds its breath. The smashing grey water has stilled, listening for the onrushing tide of star-crossed nothing.
The deathly cold puckers the edges of my raw wounds. I pull the sunset around me like a blanket, but it doesn’t suffice for the lost layers of armour. Would be nice if my skin could come back and tell me what death does to their pieces, what they think of our choice which wasn’t a choice at all. Would those skins fit any better after their sixteen hours of freedom, with their divots and hastily sewn re
nts?
I’m being punished for wanting to leave the road marker of my DNA here. I’m the spanner in the works, the bacteria in the petri-dish, the cat perhaps, or perhaps not, in the box. The Collective wouldn’t risk turning back for one mere speck. They’ve gathered the motes in the corners of their eyes, done their good deed.
Look, there it goes. Losing the fight above the horizon of the upper shell. The silver star, shrinking so quickly over the course of the day, quicker than should be possible. It’ll be back to thumbnail size come tomorrow morning, if I’m unlucky. Do they look behind while I look ahead?
Only the molten red eye watches now. Pushing down. Waiting for the crust to splinter off. A singular thought bouncing off the inside of the empty skull. I don’t do thoughts well. I lift, I hold, I tear.
How will death feel tonight? Short and sharp, a snapping of teeth? A slow peeling back of the layers; flesh, then nerves and arteries, bone, organs, ash? I can never quite disappear. We always return to stardust.
Goodnight. Die well. I’ll see you in the morning.
*
Two Minds.
Fascinating. The last sunset on Earth is happening. Again.
You’ve been searching for the perfect equation to explain this phenomenon that has you stuck in the same day over and over, but not even science fiction has the answer. Maybe there isn’t one, even the Collective expected that. Entropy happens, as simple and complex as it wants to be.
Aeron, people would say, you think too much.
Now no one is here to add their collective brainpower to the equation. They have bigger problems to attend to, like getting the hell out of the Solar System in time. And Ascending.
Sure, the Collective made promises to the human mind: faster, better, more. But there’s nothing like good old fashioned on-the-ground observation. Go West Coast, for the best worst sunsets around.
Gather data. Analyse in that superb organic computer. Archive neatly for retrieval. They EQUALS human or post-human AND/OR Collective AND/OR species unquantified AND/OR all. Death EQUALS the dark shell devouring all PLUS x. x EQUALS unquantifiable. x does not have a soul/spirit OR anything useful beyond the barrier of heat death.