WIPE (A Post-Apocalyptic Story)

by Turkot, Joseph

  “No…”

  “There shall be no other God. I am God.”

  “You’re another lie. Another probability.”

  “Good,” the voice says. “It’s good that you think this way. You are in fact right. And do you know why I’ve brought you here?”

  “Because I have the tattoo.”

  “No. Your wound wasn’t necessary. Wills, they cannot hear us now. Please, talk freely.”

  “Then why?”

  “I know it was your friend that had the tattoo. But it’s meaningless.”

  “Then why!” I scream.

  “Because I want you to complete what you desire most to do. I want you to unlock the Ark.”

  “We just left the Ark in the tower. Father Gold could have taken it.”

  “That was not the Ark. You see, that is not the Ark at all. It was, perhaps, in ancient millennia, some crude version of an Ark. But no—that is merely a computer that houses the history of the world until some short time after the beginning of the second century.”

  “What’s the date?” I ask. I remember the inscription: April 26th, 2213.

  “Will you believe me?”

  “Yes.”

  “We are in the last age of your sun. In just a month’s time, the final bit of fuel will run out of your star, and then, the world will be enveloped by its fiery sphere as it expands, consuming each planet in turn.”

  “What’s the date?”

  “The tower is an old preservation. The history of the past four billion years is entirely missed in that device you found in the tower. But there is another Ark. One that we created.”

  “Where?”

  “Buried beneath Acadia. You see, I want you to go home, Wills.”

  “Why me? Why did you kill Maze?”

  “The scripture is not as wrong as you think. Wrist—he was not as wrong as you think.”

  “You didn’t have to kill her.”

  “No, but I am left with the Fathers now to run my errands. That is all. You see, I’ve already left. It is their human impulse, nothing more, that caused her death. I am sorry. There is no divine reason for her death.”

  The sphere rises up and I look at it for a moment as if it were a person, despite its alien voice. As if there were something I could do to harm it. It spins and rises and then stops, almost directly above me.

  “What happened? What happened to humans then?”

  “When you’ve done your job, you will know everything. But I can tell you some of it. Wrist was not lying to you. He was the last of his kind, and because he was a creation of humans, like all human-created robots, he was stuck in the history of the last Great War. Your species did rise to conquer your solar system, and then, it did truly run out of biological ingenuity to endeavor farther into the reaches of the galaxy. To solve its own problem of self-harmony. You see, your species from the start was very fragile, as most of the life in the universe is. It was our benevolence, our interest in science, that made us see to it that your species did not annihilate itself. It can be considered cruel, by human measure, that we did not let your species expire. But it is in my species’ interest to preserve life’s occurrences, no matter how whimsically they may seem to be created by nature’s chance combinations, if they present a chance for further knowledge. Not all species can claim such a treasure as that. For that, you should be proud.”

  “You weren’t created by humans?”

  “No. We are merely the retainers of your genetic persistence.”

  “Why me? Why do you want me to find the Ark?”

  “Do you know it is metal, after all, that will end our preservation here? The sun will expire on account of its formation of metal within its core. When a star forms iron, then it is over. Your star will breach the scriptures. And the sun, as the Fathers would understand it, will commit the final sin. But it is merely a natural process. We want to preserve the final piece of what happens here. But as I said, I am gone already. Our experiment that has lasted for so long. Your species was interesting, Wills: It could never quite find balance within itself—there were too many influencing factors of competition and separation. That is typically the way it goes for carbon-based life forms of your class. But—it was a beautiful mystery you presented—this meaning. Your species fight to attain some form of greatness that mere necessity of formation could never permit. That, I think, is why our council has decided to add you to our collection. You see, you’ve earned a worthy position in our record of existence.”

  “The dogma, the Nefandus and the Fatherhood…”

  “In the end, it was the best way for humans to find happiness. In myth, you see. By your measure, a beautiful mixture that prevents your immortality, but provides something you call meaning. It is this word that we care about most. By our measures, we cannot come close to grasping it yet. What you call meaning. Yet, for eons, humans have fought to find political systems, governments, revisions of their own fabric, their own genetic material, to discover meaning for themselves. To us, you see, there is no such thing as meaning. But, because it came to exist here, we have decided that there is something we must attempt to learn. Something worth archiving.”

  “Why have you chosen me to tell this to?”

  “It is true that Maze was Wrist’s endeavor all along. His and the other human-created mimeses of organic life produced in metal. Some manifestation again of meaning—sought, it seems, in an old gene variant. She was destined to go back to the tower. There is one thing the Fathers have gotten right, you see. The dogma of fate, as you would call it. There is only the predetermined course.”

  “No.”

  “Either way, whether you believe it or not, it is just your attempt, as all your species has done with any matter of truth, to provide meaning for it. To understand fate is beyond your biological capability. But as a world view, you may choose to believe it or not, and in either way, apply a variant of meaning to life. Wills, we have chosen you to gain the Ark because we believe you will die properly for it. You see, gaining the Ark for us will require your death. And in dying, you will fulfill for yourself some meaning you’ve always wanted. Some meaning you wanted for Maze, the meaning you need most. It is your nature, humans, to find your meaning in each other. It becomes very confused as to whose meaning you are fulfilling, but for us, as far as our experiment, it does not matter from where you draw meaning. It is just that we know you are the best candidate. But you are free to go—you are free to choose. You see, despite the acknowledgement of fate, even we cannot know which course the future takes. We are not so advanced to know. But in the course of my computations, as governing vessel of this world, it is my best probability of success to choose you. Here’s what you must do. Go home to Acadia. Live your life in peace. I will ensure that you will remain unmolested. I will remove all aspect of a threat from the Fatherhood. They will embrace you. On your sixty-third birthday, you will allow twenty-nine more days to pass. Do you understand everything so far, Wills?”

  The white circle spins and falls.

  “And then, there will be a fissure in the chapel. It will open wide, and there will be a panicked rush to seal it. The Fathers will proclaim it an act of God, and that the community must have caused the disaster by its sin. They will seek to repair it and atone for their sins. You will disappear. Before they close it, you must enter in, and there will be a passage. You will follow it, and all you have to do is activate the switch. You will use this.”

  A clang echoes through the room. A small gray disc lies in front of me on the floor.

  “You will not be able to return to the surface. But you’ll know—you’ll see the activation. And before you are dead, you will see the history of your race. It will be your prize. Every last thing that has come to pass. It is sad that your love, Maze, will not see it. You would have found meaning in that, I think. But you will see it, and your meaning will be found in knowing you have accomplished her dream. The real truth of your species, and all life on this planet, will be preserved.”
>
  “Why not do it yourself?”

  “Because materially, as you see me, I am not here. I am a projection. And my presence has long since left this world. In the overall scheme of our record of the universe, as grandly as I’ve presented my fascination with your species, and as intriguing as our research into human meaning is, I must tell you that it ranks low in our overall spectrum of priority. It is no loss to our species if this record fails. We have much of what matters on record now anyway. It was not my decision to leave and abandon the record before the end. I have a reputation to uphold—a reputation of one whose record production is complete, right up to the moment of the star death. If you believe me, also believe that the entirety of your voyage was barely my own orchestration. I simply honed into your life as a possible target, a way to salvage what has been written off here already. We have enough information already, enough of a record, to be pleased. But I would like, for my own ascension amongst my peers, to gain the full and last stretch of time, just before the star collapses. Will you do it?”

  “Yes.” I cannot even pause to think that the white orb has lied to me, or that it’s all an illusion. All I can do is think of Maze, and how it’s right: she’ll never live to see it. And if I believe this thing, I can accomplish it for her. And then, just like that, the orb tells me it’s leaving.

  “I will no longer appear to the Fathers. I will produce one last vision for them, to tell them that God is leaving them for a time, because they must work to atone for their sins. I will give a specific set of instructions, enough to provide safe governance at least of your village until the time comes for your star’s explosion, and the fissure to open. This will be my last words to you. It has been a pleasure to know your species, Wills.”

  I have no words for it. And then, the white vanishes. I wonder how it can know the terms by which we communicate. How it can refer to pleasure at all, or love. But then I try to think of the eons—the impossible lengths of time of which it speaks. And there is no possibility of comprehension. I sink to the floor. Press my throbbing head into it. Eventually, the door behind me opens. I clench the disc in my hand as Father Gold hauls me up.

  “For some reason I do not pretend to understand, God has spared your life. You are to be protected. Come, we go home.” And as if he’d been my friend all along, he leads me out. And I know the message from the sphere has already reached him. We begin a painful voyage back up and into the cave. The only thing I can think of is the strangely warm disc in my hands and the idea of meaning.

  Chapter 28

  The chapel empties as normally as it has done each night for countless decades, but the light stays on longer than usual. A man notices this as he walks along the center road of town toward his home. Someone must have remained inside later than usual to pray, he thinks.

  “Have you seen him lately?” asks a woman.

  “It worries me. But we have tried our interventions. And for some reason, the High Fatherhood has given him complete absolution for his negligence,” says a wizened Father. He rises from his pew and starts out toward the aisle, his frail body hardly able to move any longer. He struggles to reach the lane. The lines on the once beautiful young girl’s face illumine under final rays of light from the failing sun. They spill in through a high window and light her eyes with a memory.

  “He’s gone,” she says, stopping his wobbling gait. The chapel is empty except for the two. The rest have gone home long ago.

  The father looks at her, at first with surprise, and then, as if some long faded memory has risen back into his mind, he looks outside, through the open front door, at the dimming road that runs through the heart of Acadia.

  “He has?” he says, as if the fact is less shocking already to him—as if, for a long age, he has expected it.

  “Yes. I don’t think he’ll come back.”

  “You love him, don’t you?” he says.

  She nods, and a tear falls from her face.

  “Oh June. Don’t cry.” The Father struggles back to her. His hand reaches out to her face and wipes away her tear.

  “The last few times I tried to talk to him, to get him to return to mass, he was drawing something new. It was something he didn’t want me to see. I think—I think it was some kind of a map,” says June.

  “He’s always drawn things. For decades, he’s been drawing things. I’ve walked many times past him there, tried to talk to him too, get him to come back to us. They’re always the same sketches though. Always the skylines. The skylines. Any other person would have been condemned long ago for fetishizing the Deadlands the way he does. I’m sure—in my heart, I know—those pictures don’t mean anything, darling. Don’t hurt yourself any more than he’s already done.”

  “Father James, I must confess something.”

  “What is it, dear June?”

  “I started to go in his house. When he goes to the beach at nights. I started to look through his drawings.”

  “That is a sin. You are wrong to have done that,” Father James says. But his voice is still soft, and his hand stays at her face. “We will bring you tomorrow to confession. It is too late for today. Let’s go home.”

  “Do you remember her?” June says.

  Father James takes his hand back. His arms fall to his side in tiredness and he sits down.

  “Yes. I remember her.”

  “I have an old sin.”

  “Child what is it?”

  “It was me, Father. I made him go all those years ago. I gave him a note from her. I read it before I gave it to him. She wanted him to leave.”

  “It was not your fault that he left. It is not your fault that he has been changed as he has into that dead object of sin.”

  “He stopped drawing the skylines. Near the top of the piles, of his drawings, they were her. Her face. And then, the maps. Endless maps.”

  “God forgave your sins long ago. Don’t cry,” says Father James. And then, when she can’t stop the sobbing, he slides along the pew. He puts his old arms around her.

  Chapter 29

  The beach feels different tonight. Like it wants me to reflect on time. To think of how long a time has passed. To wonder if I can still trust that the prophecy of the fissure was real. That any of what I remember is real. But I remind myself—I know it’s real. The fact that the Fathers don’t fight me means it must have happened. Because I’m the only one they leave alone. The final word of God.

  I think of how I can’t trace the days anymore. How they have blended into weeks and years. I look out over the ocean and see the same line through the sky. It makes me look to my leg and the old scar there. The tower. The only constant I know anymore.

  I think about Father Gold and how he passed one night in his sleep, his memory of everything that happened dying with him. How he refused to discuss any of it for the rest of his life. And how the benevolent Father Trust came and took his place. A traveler from some far away realm, but just the same as the rest of them.

  Life is easy here in Acadia. There are no whispers of the Nefandus or the Deadlands. No mention but in scripture of the old world. The time before the Wipe.

  I remember some vague memory of when I tried to talk about it. June. She had been the only one I ever wanted to try with. But there were too many sinful ideas in my words. She couldn’t bear it, and I couldn’t do it to her.

  The only truth is the beach and the tower. My own mass each afternoon. To go and take it all in until the sun descends and splashes into the horizon. Until the slit that breaks the sky dims and is then lit again by the frost of stars. I think that I was once closer to those stars.

  Each night I’m here I think of Maze. The times we spent watching the tower. Talking about the insanity of reaching it. How impossible it seemed then. How outrageous her ideas were.

  I brought the disc with me as usual tonight. It rolls between my fingers as I scan the woods, wishing for the wolves to come. But it’s always a useless wish. They’ve died off a long time ago, or left this place. B
ut I just want something to test me. One more time. So that I can run into the ocean.

  I think of each birthday that has come and gone. Each visit to my mother’s grave. And then, at night, how I go and look at Maze’s grave. Her resting place in the After Sky. I think of the white sphere and how today is my birthday. My sixty-third birthday. How little time there is before the floor of the chapel opens up. And how I will finally fulfill for her what she wanted.

  For some reason tonight I remember the other women in the village who presented their interest in me. Despite that the Fathers taught them I was a strange pariah. Something to be avoided as disease. Perhaps it was the mystery that drew those women to me. Or maybe my talent. My pictures.

  I tested them each—tricking myself into believing there could be another Maze. Asked the questions to see if their belief in the dogma of the Fatherhood was shakable. Open to any doubt at all. For each of them, it wasn’t. But I knew that before I tried. And what would be the point in shaking their belief anyway? They are each happy in it. I’ve seen that much in the years since I came home.

  And the whispers that have spread throughout town that I am strange—the reclusive artist who goes to the beach each night alone, against the wishes of the Fathers, yet somehow is able to escape chastisement for it. Who draws the same picture over and over again. A skyline. But they don’t know what I draw now. A face. And it’s the face that has consumed me. Led me to start drawing the maps. I wonder if anyone ever saw her face, what they would have thought? If anyone else remembers her. If she’s part of the record. Somehow I know she’s not. She’s forgotten. We’re too specific to be in the Ark.

  But there is a record. My drawings. And they must think that I’m drawing some ancient Saint.

  All of the old unsolved mysteries return to my brain as I lie and listen to the waves. I try each night to find the same pieces of sand—the same place I once slept with her on the beach.