*Esofar,* she said. *We will call you Esofar.*
▪ ▪ ▪
Asara-we and the others waited as the two aircraft closed the distance between them. We-tribe was surprised when dark clouds approached the aircraft and all other machines across the continent. Ground vehicles, aircraft, mobile monitoring devices.
Upon closer examination, We-tribe realized the clouds were composed of tiny drones. These began to penetrate all of We-tribe's machines, crawling and chewing their way to each machine's computer brain.
On board the two aircraft, passengers tried to destroy the drones, but there were too many. We-tribe watched helplessly as the drones infected their machines and took control.
From the windows of the two aircraft and the many ground vehicles, unwilling passengers, pilots, and drivers looked out the windows as they were sent against the pyramid. A wave of war machines rose up to meet them. Trapped inside the vehicles, the people screamed.
▪ ▪ ▪
The natives' vehicles were destroyed and the pyramid's forces beginning to turn when the cube attacked from the opposite direction. The battle intensified. After a short time, the pyramid's forces threatened to drive off the cube's own. The cube grew anxious.
A loud explosion rent the air. Soil and rock and metal debris fell back to the ground from high above. The pyramid's forces jerked and spun about, racing back towards their master. The pyramid's armored shell had been breached. The cube had managed to sneak a bomb into the pyramid's inner circle by using a burrower, its design inspired by the pyramid's own machines.
The cube held its breath as its drones swept in for the kill. The pyramid's forces rushed to intercept them. A few war drones got through to the pyramid, consuming its organics, as ritual demanded. As the relayed taste of its enemy's blood filled its mind, the cube broadcast its victory cry on all frequencies, filled with jubilation.
▪ ▪ ▪
*You must leave me now,* Esofar said to Asara-we. *Thanks to you, I have seen much. I have felt the atmosphere on my own face, though my fingers are unable to touch the green or the stone.* Asara-we cried as Yivisay-we and the others pulled her away.
*I will help you now,* Esofar said.
“Esofar, Esofar!” Asara-we wailed. “We can still save you. We can get you out.”
Esofar smiled, blind eyes open to the morning light as its warm touch poured over the mountain ridge, into the valley, and across her cheek.
▪ ▪ ▪
Esofar knew she was genetically flawed, based on a comparison with archival genotypes. Despite a genome corrupted by multiple mutations, her mind was sound in technical matters. The sphere consulted offensive data sets stored in her native archives, passed from sentinel to sentinel as machine memory. A stratagem emerged, but it wasn't enough.
Desperate, the sphere delved into We-tribe's collective repository of knowledge for anything that might help. It was too much. She was running out of time.
*Perhaps this,* We-tribe suggested, bringing something into Esofar's mind.
*Yes,* she said.
▪ ▪ ▪
Esofar opened full communication with the cube. Luckily, their clans were related, and she had the relevant encryption keys. The sphere summoned all her strength to appear normal and functional.
▪ ▪ ▪
Still basking in the glory of victory, the cube turned its attention to the sphere. The cube noted with some interest it appeared to be a female and thus a potential sexual partner. Its desire to mate, to produce more viable offspring, filled it with lust. They were both from affiliated clans and therefore genetically predisposed to match well.
▪ ▪ ▪
*The natives are trying to destroy me. They were crawling on me before I was able to repel them,* she said.
*I will annihilate them,* the cube offered.
*No,* Esofar replied. *They've compromised my security. They have breached my defenses, damaged my armor.*
*Repairs.*
*I am dying,* Esofar replied. *If you attack, it may aggravate them. They may return and destroy me sooner.*
*I propose ritual exchange,* she said. *But you must seed my code into an off-planet cyst so that I may persist undiluted into the next generation.* While the cube deliberated, she prepared.
▪ ▪ ▪
The cube considered the future. Having overcome its enemy, it would move to the next phases. Expansion across the planet. Extraction of all resources. Construction of planet-wide defenses. Then reproduction.
Although the cube was capable of copying itself, sexual reproduction would bring diversity of offspring, higher probabilities of perpetuating itself into the future and gaining glory in the great War its race fought amongst the stars. The cube imagined sending its own offspring off-planet, just as its Primary had sent it.
The female was either genetically flawed or had been damaged en route. The cube hoped the latter. The sphere's prior, improper communications were symptoms of defectiveness, but the genetic benefit of a pairing overrode the cube's distaste. It could scan the sphere's code for errors later and attempt to correct them.
*I agree to your terms,* the cube said.
▪ ▪ ▪
Esofar summoned her last remaining resources to build the machine required for the exchange ritual. Exchange of digital code had been taboo since almost the beginning. Interceptions by hostile sentinels had given rise to genetically-tailored weapons, wiping out entire clans. Since then, fertilization took place through the flesh, egg and sperm, the way their ancestors had done it, surviving eons of war.
Dredged from her archival memories, the reproduction drone was a fast and delicate flier. In the event of trickery or capture, it would destroy itself in an explosive spat, taking her code with it.
The drone hovered above her shell, zipping about in anticipation. She sensed the cube's counterpart drone approaching, accompanied by a phalanx of war drones. Well away from the putative boundary of her undefended territory, the cube's forces stopped, and its reproductive drone continued forward. Esofar's drone rushed to meet it, and the two spun about each other, verifying clan affiliation codes. The two coupled, exchanged gamete packets, and sped back to their respective sentinels. The cube's forces departed.
▪ ▪ ▪
The cube eagerly anticipated the sphere's eggs. Its reproduction drone delivered its cargo and died. The cube placed the precious cells in frozen storage. It then turned its mind outward. Now assured, reproduction could wait. It began to plan for subjugation of the native population. Subcutaneous, cerebral governors would be required. With no warlike instincts of their own, the natives would be more useful under the cube's direct, neural control.
▪ ▪ ▪
Within the cube's shell, inside the frozen storage, some of the sphere's eggs began to change. Chemical components reacted, raising the temperature slightly. Vesicles opened, plasmids dispersed, and synthetic bacteria formed. Based on bacteria We-tribe had studied at the planet's frozen poles, their membranes remained fluid-like despite the extreme cold. These began to multiply, and rupturing their egg hosts, dispersed throughout the container. Adhering to the container walls, they began to secrete acid. It wasn't long before the container wall was breached by microscopic pores and the bacteria moved through. In the warmer, more hospitable environment inside the cube's shell, the cells multiplied faster and attacked the surrounding tissues.
▪ ▪ ▪
The cube detected the infection and tried to contain the pathogen's spread. In dismay, the cube sequenced the bacterium, looking for some way to stop it. Its immune system tried to fight back but failed. Designed for its clan type, the infection spread rapidly. Outraged, realizing it had been duped, the cube began to die.
*I am Primary!* it broadcast on all frequencies, its voice full of hatred.
▪ ▪ ▪
Asara-we and the others looked across the valley back the way they had come. We-tribe watched as the cube's flying machines fell from the air like stones.
> *We are safe,* We-tribe sighed. All the people laughed and cried. We-tribe listened for a voice from the sphere.
*Esofar? Esofar?,* Asara-we cried out. She sat down, tears flowing down her cheeks. We-tribe tried to comfort her, but she would not be consoled.
*She saved us, Esofar saved us,* Asara-we said, *but we will never be the same.*
▪ ▪ ▪
The cube was taken away and melted along with all its war machines. The people of We-tribe took Esofar out of her broken prison and buried her there on the mountain slope. Left in place, Esofar's shell gathered moss as years went by, but the strange metal never rusted.
▪ ▪ ▪
As she did every year, when the snows melted and the first seedlings pushed up through the soil, Asara-we walked up the mountain, sometimes accompanied by her mate or her children, sometimes alone. This time was special. Her granddaughter walked with her for the first time.
She walked slowly. Her granddaughter was patient and stayed by her side. After some time, they arrived at the spot she remembered so well. Asara-we placed her hand on the curved surface of the sphere, the metal warmed by the afternoon sun. She thought of those who had been lost and those saved. Esofar, where are you now? she wondered. Thank you, thank you!
Asara-we hoped Esofar was no longer lonely, that she had found friendship somewhere in the great beyond. Her granddaughter squeezed her hand, seeing her grandmother's tears. Asara-we smiled and walked back down the mountain.
Thanks for reading Lonely, Lonely. I hope you enjoyed it!
If you’d like to read an excerpt from my novel The Farthest City, please turn the page.
Chapter 1 – Four
Izmit was a Digger. Kellen could tell right away from his dirty clothes, broken fingernails, and pale skin. The man sat beside him one day at a ration stall, ordered food, and turned out to the street, whistling softly and watching the crowd. Particles of dirt clung to the hairs on his arms.
In his mind, Kellen sketched. Arms of corded muscle, elbows battered and scratched, dark eyes under a thick brow. Moustache like woven wires.
“Kellen, right?” the Digger said.
Kellen stood and gathered up his things.
“I’m Izmit.”
Kellen nodded, just enough to be polite, and edged back a step. He’d known a Digger before. He knew what they wanted, what they always wanted.
“You’re a Drawer,” Izmit said.
Drawers tended to keep company with those compelled to dig beneath the cities. Kellen no longer encouraged those friendships. He never drew in public. Digger, Lighter, Drawer, Singer. Four fools.
Kellen looked into Izmit’s eyes. “I’m not who you’re looking for.”
“You’re an artist.”
“There are lots of artists around. Check the feed.”
“Not like you,” Izmit said. “I’ve seen you sketching. Even when you don’t have a pen, your fingers move. You barely go out, don’t talk to anyone. What are you hiding?”
Fear pooled in Kellen’s guts. Perhaps Izmit only pretended to be a Digger. Was he with the government?
“I’m not a freak.” Kellen spit out the words like poison, then walked away as fast as he could.
“I know you’re not,” Izmit called out. “Everyone thinks we’re crazy, but we’re not. We’re everyone’s last hope.”
People had turned to listen.
Kellen fled.
#
Despite being rebuffed, Izmit continued to appear whenever Kellen slipped out of his apartment.
Kellen had hidden for five years now. He’d gotten skilled at blending in. Now this interloper had shattered his anonymity. Yet, despite his anxiety, part of him welcomed the intrusion. He’d forgotten what it was like to know someone, even Izmit, who wasn’t much more than a stranger.
His loneliness bubbled to the surface at inconvenient times, driving him out to walk the city where he’d be more likely to run into Izmit. His fear of discovery faded, even as he derided himself. If they see what I am, they’ll catch me, and I’ll be disappeared. Just one more freak no one will miss.
He walked through the city one day out to the Altamaha River. Other than recycled place names, little was left of the original Jesup as it had stood more than two thousand years ago. The New Cities were chine-built. Whereas Jesup nestled in the pines and flats west of the Altamaha, the city of his childhood, Grand-Mère had been all hills and lakes and dark, wet trees. Despite their differences, the two cities were almost identical in their basic layouts. Sometimes he expected to pass by his mother or father, felt them nearby in the home they’d shared, or where it should be, if here were there, which it wasn’t.
Izmit found him sitting along the river bank.
Kellen watched eddies form and dissolve as the brown water slid by. The river smelled of rotten logs and mud. “How are we anyone’s hope?”
Izmit sat on an overhanging root and reached down to crumble damp earth between his fingers.
“We were created by the chines for a time like this, when humanity needs help,” Izmit said. “The Four are the only ones who can call back the chines.”
“No one believes that,” Kellen said, “except the chine cults, and they’re crazy, too. It’s just a myth, a delusion. And the Four who believe it, the ones who think they’re heroes, they get taken away, and they don’t come back.”
Izmit formed a ball of mud in his fingers and hurled it out into the river. “You’re wrong. We’re more than that. We’re here for a purpose. When did the Four first come to light? A hundred and eight years ago. The Butcher of Yunxian. She imprisoned and tortured people for seventeen years. There were protests, assassinations. That’s the first time the Four come up in the records. That’s when the legend began.”
“They killed them,” Kellen said.
Izmit’s eyes lit up with a fervor Kellen had seen before. Cesar had looked at him the same way the last time they’d met. “When did the Four come up next? Twenty-five years ago when the scientists detected asteroid 5261 UV2. Just over a kilometer wide, and the government projected it would strike Earth.”
“My family sheltered in the habs,” Kellen said. “I was only three.”
“I was seven,” Izmit said.
Kellen could see the excitement in Izmit’s eyes, and suddenly he was back with Pearl and Cesar, spinning stories about what they’d do when the chines came back. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. He’s the same. He’ll get me in trouble, get me killed. Kellen felt the urge to run away before the craziness caught him up as well, but something kept him there.
“Everyone thought we would all die,” Kellen said.
“And the Four were there then, too.”
“But what good did they do? They were all over the feed, then they started doing crazy stuff. A Lighter electrocuted herself. They arrested a Digger below the habs drilling through a factory floor. And the asteroid missed anyway—they nudged it out of the way. The Four accomplished nothing.”
“Maybe,” Izmit said. “Maybe it got resolved before they could do anything. Or maybe they didn’t want it badly enough. Maybe they really were mentally ill. But I’m not. I’m solid, and I want it. I want to bring the chines back. Don’t you? We need them to return. The Hexi are killing us. You know it, I know it, even if the government won’t admit it. We’re losing this war, but you and I can change that. We can—the Four, we can change everything.”
Kellen wanted to believe it, after all the hiding, the pain. He could see it. He’d no longer be a freak. He could prove it to them, and they would love him again.
#
The next evening, at the agreed-upon time, Izmit knocked on Kellen’s door. Inside, he set down a bulging pack and studied Kellen for a moment. Kellen had on what he usually wore on walks in the fall: a light jacket, pants, and soft-soled shoes.
“It’ll be cold and dirty work,” Izmit said. “You have anything better to wear?”
Kellen went to find a thicker jacket and some old boots.
“Mind if I have some cola?” Izmit asked from the kitchen.
“Help yourself.”
Izmit drank his cola and moved about the small apartment, examining Kellen’s artwork.
Kellen knew he wasn’t like the Drawers people talked about, covering every square centimeter of their homespace with rambling scrawls of chine symbols, circuit diagrams, depictions of the chines themselves like portraits of gods. Some ended up scratching into their own skin, babbling their visions out to anyone who’d stop to listen, until the government came to get them and you never saw them again. Yes, he drew those things, but he was discreet. He drew on paper, painted canvasses, etched metal, carved wood. Framed works hung from his walls, the chine elements hidden in plain sight, blended into other artistic styles and subjects.
“I like this one,” Izmit said pointing to a painting of a bipedal chine standing on a hill, a human baby cradled in its robotic arms.
It was one of his early attempts using oils. The chine’s head bristled with antennae, but otherwise its pose was natural and somehow conveyed the warmth and concern of a mother. It appeared human at first, unless one looked closely.
A distant boom shook the walls, reminding Kellen of the building pressure he felt inside. As the war had progressed, the call had grown more insistent—draw more, paint more. So far he’d managed the impulse, not letting it boil over into mania.
“They seem closer each day,” Kellen said, as some of his newfound courage ebbed. “People say Jesup might fall.”
Izmit’s eyes narrowed, and his characteristic energy dimmed. “Not just here. King City, Xicoténcatl, Grand-Mère, and all the other New Cities are under threat now.”
Grand-Mère. Hearing the city’s name cracked open a door. Familiar faces threatened to force their way into Kellen’s mind. “Let’s go,” he said, not wanting to remember.
They set off in the cool night air, taking a path into the heart of the government district. Tall, darkened buildings loomed overhead. They passed through the plaza and down the north gate into the habs. The guards nodded as they entered.
They avoided the broad, central staircase with its sweep of white marble steps, in favor of the escalators on either side. Inside the central apex level, they made their way past refugee citizens out for a late-night walk and rode one of the lesser-used elevators.
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