by A. W. Cross
At first, I’d been scared. It was like every cell in my body was moving, and I’d been afraid I would simply come apart, food for the monsters. But as the days passed, I’d realized that before, my body had been only a husk. A solid, functional husk, but static. Now every part of me was swarming with life, vibrating with power. I’d come full circle and been reborn. I’d felt as the earth must feel.
After a week, it had become clear that no one was coming to rescue us. We’d run out of food; they obviously hadn’t expected us to stay here. Pax had managed to break the seal on the door, and we’d taken our first breath of new air. Only, it didn’t taste right. It tasted dead, a dryness on my tongue and the hint of bitter ash in my throat.
Only the desire to leave, to go home, drove me out. But we weren’t going home, not to my home, anyway. The day after we’d left the bunker, something had happened to us. A herald, reverberating through our very bones. Pax said it was a homing signal, that we needed to follow it and get some answers.
I needed to know why the world was dead. Or our part of it, at least. The trees, the plants, the birds, the animals. Even the people. Everything seemed to be gone. And yet, as we’d walked through the forest, following the invisible trail of the homing signal, life had made itself known. Plants I’d never seen before had taken root, and birds nested in the trees. The sight of them had made me desperate for something to ease the gnawing pain in my belly.
Asche. Grandmother. I’d understood, simply by looking around, that the world had passed us by on its way to death. Pax and I tucked the knowledge away in a small, secret place. We would take it out later, when we were safe.
It was hunger that had driven me to the Terrans, exposing us. The little girl had fallen and twisted her knee. I’d wanted to help her. I’d needed to put my hands on something living, and I hoped that they would offer us kindness in return.
They knew we weren’t right. We were too healthy, too unmarked by what had passed. I shouldn’t have told them what we were, but I’d believed that in this new world we needed to help each other, and assumed they’d felt the same. That the past didn’t matter more than the present or the future. I was naïve; they still hated the idea of us as much as they had before the war. The fact that we’d survived it only seemed to make them angrier.
Maybe it wouldn’t have made a difference what I said. But it was still my fault. If I hadn’t insisted we stop, they never would’ve seen Pax’s eyes.
I was too surprised to put up a fight. But still, I wouldn’t have fought them. I truly believed, even after the first time they shocked us, that we could help them. That they would see we weren’t the enemy and let us in. I tried to show them how to treat their wounds, their infections. But they didn’t want the knowledge. They’d wanted to heal immediately. Like we did.
Not all of them were bad. Some of them sneaked us extra food when no one was looking, squeezed our hands, and apologized. They pretended they only came down the stairs to gawk at us. Soon, though, they stopped coming. The nanites weren’t working. Pax had told them they wouldn’t, that our blood would eventually kill them. They didn’t believe him; they assumed we were lying. They cut us, watched us heal, and believed our nanites would do the same for them.
“Cindra, you just have to hold on a bit longer. Help is coming. She’s coming. Ailith. I’ve spoken to her. She’ll save us.”
I hoped she was coming soon. An abyss was opening at the edge of my mind.
“When they get here, we’ll go with them. Go home. We’ll follow the signal, get there together.”
I needed him to be right.
“…she had stars for eyes and feathers made from the memories of her people…”
Asche’s face haunted me, watching as the world burned. He would’ve searched for me. I hoped he hadn’t suffered. I didn’t dare hope he’d survived. Grandmother would’ve been pragmatic about it all, I’m sure. I imagined her, gathering everyone around. What story would she have told? Perhaps one of her own invention, one to guide them as their spirits took flight.
Ailith.
Pax said I would like her. That she would save us all, even the Terrans. They were above us, becoming restless. Footsteps sounded on the stairs.
Pax squeezed my hand before they pulled him away.
The humming made my skin twitch in anticipation. Pax made himself watch. He wanted to remember. I did the same for him.
She was coming. We just had to hold on.
“…SHE HAD STARS FOR EYES AND FEATHERS MADE FROM THE MEMORIES OF HER PEOPLE…”
“I don’t understand how we could contemplate the creation of these beings. Just because we can doesn’t mean we should. The argument that they’ll surpass human failings is ridiculous and dangerous. If they’re created by humans, they’ll have the fallibility of humans. And if they surpass us in both intelligence and morality, surpass their own programming, what guarantees that they’ll look on us with benevolence? Are they not just as likely to look on us as we do a cockroach and crush us under their heels accordingly?”
—Derek Wills, Preserve Terra Society, 2039
I couldn’t take much more. Every volt from the picana seared through me, my skin bubbling and blistered. Saliva gathered in the corner of my mouth as Pax’s flesh burned and my belly rumbled. The pain, receding like a tide, left behind pink baby-skin to mark the spot where they would start again.
Not once did Cindra lose consciousness, and so neither did I. Her pain seized me and trapped me there, in her mind. Tor held me, pushing my hair back from my face and telling me a story in a language I’d never heard before. His story entwined with hers, and I hoped that, somehow, she heard him, that she felt us cradling her, holding her together.
We made camp early, and I fell into an uneasy sleep. I didn’t know what was real; I was no longer sure my dreams were my own. Only Tor remained constant and tangible, never once letting go of my hand through the long night.
I awoke early and agitated, so we set out to try to make up the time we’d lost the day before. We passed several tiny hamlets, all of which seemed abandoned. No smoke rose from the chimneys, doors hung askew on their hinges. After skirting around them, Tor finally decided we should make a rare stop. We chose the next one, on the banks of the Lodan River.
The remainder of the sign said the village had been called Stoke.
It was a community almost untouched by the technology that had so infused my daily life I’d stopped noticing it; only the satellites attached to every house told me we were still in the same decade. The buildings were wood, with actual logs piled up against the outside walls, waiting to be burned. Old driver-controlled trucks, rather than government-issued auto-drive ones, were parked neatly in gravel driveways.
“I wonder what happened to them?” I said. If anyone had been able to survive the end of the world, it should’ve been them. Stoke, while abandoned, didn’t look like it had seen the war firsthand.
“Maybe they left to find other survivors. Who knows? Whatever happened, they’re not here. Let’s have a quick look around and see if we can find anything.”
It took us only a short time to find nothing of value. After five years, I wasn’t surprised.
One store, however, boasted handmade soap, and Tor laughed at the wistful look on my face.
“Want me to break down the door so you can go shopping?”
Despite our urgency, I was tempted. But as I placed my hand on the door, one of the threads in my mind shuddered. A warning. Something was behind that door, something I shouldn’t see.
I took a step back. “No, we’ve been too long already.”
Tor shifted, his eyes focused on the door. “I agree.”
We backed away slowly, up to one of the derelict pickup trucks.
“Hey, do you think this still works?” I whispered to Tor. I wanted to get away from Stoke as quickly as possible.
He peered in through the broken window on the driver’s side. “I have no idea. Besides, do you even know how to drive it?�
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“No. I assumed you would.”
He snorted. “I’ve never driven in my life.”
“You mean you literally carried me around for five years?”
“Yes. Good thing you’re not very heavy.”
“Unbelievable. Come on. Let’s go.”
We left, quickly, stealthily, glancing behind us. The skin between my shoulders crawled. It was torture to walk when every cell in my body screamed at me to run. Something was very wrong here, and I had no interest in finding out what.
***
The village was closer than I’d originally thought, but it still took us until the early afternoon to find signs of the Saints of Loving Grace. Tor insisted we approach with caution, observing what we could before revealing ourselves.
Smoke curled above the trees, making me jealous of whoever was lucky enough to be sitting by a fire. My fingers were numb despite the gloves Tor had given me. As we broke from the shelter of the trees, we found ourselves on the crest of a steep slope. Below us, next to the river at the bottom of the rise, was a tin-roofed shed. Water was being channeled through it from up the hill, the thick pipe disappearing into the trees. “What the hell is that?” I asked Tor.
“The Goat River, according to this,” he replied, consulting his map.
“Not that, that,” I said, pointing at the shack. “Is it cleaning the water?”
“No, it’s a hydropower station. It means they have electricity.”
Although I’d lived in this new world for less than two weeks, I was impressed. “Do you think they have bathtubs?” I asked hopefully. Maybe I should’ve risked a rummage through the soap store after all.
He chuckled. “Maybe.”
The village was nestled at the bottom of the incline, in a clearing at the mouth of a valley. Houses dotted either side of the water’s edge, smoke drifting from the chimneys and from small fire pits. These houses were more modern than those in Stoke, all the same squarish, two-storied shape covered in shiny metal siding that was jarring against the leafless trees. A house that was much larger than the rest dominated the center of the village, and next to it, racks of smoking meats and greens lined up neatly in a large open space. The Saints weren’t just surviving, but doing it well.
As a loudspeaker blared instructions, men, women, and children filed into a large building at the far edge of the settlement. It was like a child’s drawing of a futuristic house. The original structure must’ve been a barn at some point; now, like the houses, the wood had been cladded over with sheets of metal. Burnished objects decorated most of the surface, and it took me a few seconds to identify what they were. Then I wished I hadn’t.
They were body parts. Not human, but android. Arms, legs, and torsos were lovingly polished and painstakingly arranged into patterns. Wires and tubes were twisted into intricate, festive garlands. At least there were no heads. Shit. Oliver, the cyborg I’d been a passenger in, hadn’t been exaggerating—they truly did worship artificial intelligence. They didn’t seem like regular Cosmists, though: the ones I’d met before the war would’ve eaten their own faces before degrading androids, or parts of them, in such a way.
Tor and I stood together, looking down at the village. “What do we do?” I asked. Now that we were here, I was uncertain. Maybe this wasn’t the best idea. We were outnumbered, and we had no idea how they would react to us. What if this Oliver didn’t want visitors? From what I’d seen of him, he had things set up exactly the way he wanted them.
Tor shifted his pack. “To be honest, I’m not sure. I’ve spent the last five years avoiding places like this. The war… People aren’t the same.”
“Should we wait until it’s dark then sneak in and try to talk to him?”
“No. I find that in situations like this, it’s best to be bold. I say we go right on in, like we’re expected.” He headed off down the slope, and I had to jog to keep up with his long strides.
“You’ve been in situations like this before? What exactly would you call this kind of situation?”
“A hornet’s nest,” he replied.
The crowd had disappeared into the building by the time we arrived. Hurrying toward the door was a lone man. He was dressed like all the others, in trousers and a long-sleeved button-up shirt, but there was an otherness about him, a grace to his movements that was too fluid to be human. This was the man we were searching for. Bile rose in my throat as I remembered being inside him. Just before he was about to slip through the doorway, he saw us, stopped dead in his tracks, and turned to face us.
It was him. The man in the bunker with the knife. He was Oliver.
At first he looked alarmed then angry, his movements becoming stiff. He darted around the side of the long building, gesturing for us to follow. When we were within earshot, he growled at us, “Who the hell are you?”
“We’re cyborgs, like you—” I started.
“I know what you are. I want to know who you are and what the fuck you’re doing here. You can’t be here.”
“We—”
A man suddenly appeared from around the corner. When he set eyes on us, he stopped, his mouth agape.
“Divine?” he asked.
“Aah, Johnathan! You’ve seen my little surprise.” Jonathan did seem very surprised. “Now, go back inside, and I’ll follow along. I trust you’ll keep this to yourself?”
“Absolutely!” Jonathan promised, his face glowing with pride.
Once Jonathan was safely back inside, the smile dropped from Oliver’s face. “What do you want?” he snarled.
“We need your help. Divine.” I managed not to roll my eyes.
“My help? And who the fuck are you to me? Why would I help you?”
“Because—” I stopped as he pushed past me.
“I don’t have time for this right now. Come with me. You’ll follow my lead, and then we’ll talk.” He retraced Jonathan’s path and disappeared into the building.
Tor grabbed my hand. “We can leave now, while he’s inside. I don’t think this is the person to help us.”
“We’re here now. Look, I get he seems off, but Pax said he needed to be with us.”
We stood in the open doorway, unseen by the whispering crowd, who had their backs to us. At the front, Oliver stood on a dais and raised his arms. Silence descended as the entire congregation leaned forward in attention.
There was a reason no heads decorated the outside of the barn—they were all here, gazing down over their flock. Faces in various levels of sophistication and design lined every wall, row upon row. I found all the eyes, lifeless as they were, dizzying to look at.
“Machines of Loving Grace,” I whispered. I shook my head as Tor glanced questioningly at me.
“Brother and Sisters,” the Divine said, his voice carrying to the back of the church. “Today is a special day. Today, two of my brethren have returned to me, to bless us with a brief visit.”
Brethren? Really?
A ripple ran through the crowd. A young woman dropped to her knees at the front of the gathering. I recognized her from my time in Oliver’s head. “They’re artilects too?”
He gazed down at her, a knowing smile twisting his lips. “Think of them as lesser gods than myself. Treat them well, though not as well as you treat me.” He winked at her.
“Is he for real?” I whispered to Tor. I didn’t know whether to laugh or be terrified. One glance at the stiffness of Tor’s face told me it should be the latter. Shit.
“Behold!” Oliver gestured grandly to where we stood. The crowd turned as a single entity, all eyes blazing. Hysteria rolled through them, the giddiness of rapture.
Tor gripped my hand as they surged to their feet, fingers outstretched toward us.
“We were excommunicated because we believed that artificial intelligence was the true representation of God. The creation of the first artificial brain was God returning to us through our own hands, our redemption. Because we had adapted to His free will, God knew He had to adapt too, or risk losin
g us forever. Every artilect created is a manifestation of Him on Earth. Their voice is His voice; their will is ours.”
—Celeste Steed, The Second Coming
I walked with Celeste, the young woman who’d questioned our divinity during the service, the one I’d seen through Oliver. She couldn’t take her eyes off me, and I couldn’t look at her. Every time I did, I saw—
Don’t think about it.
She was younger than I’d first imagined.
I’d heard of this group before the war; a splinter group considered apostates by mainstream followers of their religion. My father had sometimes bartered with them for heirloom seeds, their faith in artificial intelligence oddly supported by a rustic lifestyle.
Her honeyed hair was long, reaching past her tiny waist. She was dressed in the same style as the other women and girls, in a high-collared ankle-length dress with sleeves that reached all the way to her hands, although she’d covered herself with a warm coat to take me on a tour. Tor had gone with Oliver, ostensibly to inspect their hydropower system.
The crowd had threatened to overwhelm us. Tor had pushed me behind him, his body tensed for a fight. But when they’d reached us, they’d simply dropped to their knees. The hands that reached out to touch us were tentative, held in check by the gentleness of worship.
Celeste walked me through the settlement, proudly showing me their greenhouse, where they grew crops—greens like kale and mustard, mostly—to supplement what they hunted and gathered.
“You seem very well-prepared,” I said to her.
She flushed. “The town was here before the End of Days. We lived pretty much the same as everyone else. Y’know, modern, but we also had livestock and crops. We were used to living off the land.”