“I’d say that if you’re going to take your own life, learn to tie a proper knot. She tried to hang herself and failed twice. It is not a painless death. If you’re determined to avoid pain in this life, it doesn’t make sense to me that you should choose a painful way out.”
We were quiet for a long time. We sipped our tea. There was only one narrow bed. I slept on the floor and waited for the effects of the tea to take hold. It was little more than a mild sedative but drinking calming tea was how old Takers spent their days.
Mom lay on her bed and reached down to trail her fingers through my hair. “I used to do this with you when you were little. Sometimes it was the only way to get you to sleep. I remember when you were a baby and I’d reach down, just like this. You were a bald baby.”
“Was I? Why reach down, then?”
“It’s a thing mothers do. Your father made a little nest for you so you were never far and I could pick you up and feed you without disturbing his sleep too much.
“New mothers always have the baby near the bed,” she said. “I’d wake up in the middle of the night to listen to you breathe. A baby’s breath is so soft you can barely hear it most of the time. When I couldn’t hear you I’d put my hand on your chest to feel your little heart pounding.”
“I didn’t know mothers did that.”
“The good ones,” she said.
“I’ll never know the feel of a baby’s heart pounding under my hand in the night, Mom.”
“It’s scary, anyway,” Mom said. “To have a baby is to worry all the time. If they get to grow up, the prize you get is to worry about them more.”
“I wasn’t worth it?”
“I guess that depends on what you do about this depression, Peach.”
“What’s a peach?”
“You’ve asked me that before.”
“And all you ever said was, ‘sh,’ and ‘sorry.’”
She sighed. “A peach was a sweet, fragile thing. It bruised too easily.”
When she said that, I remembered the look of the Fathers and Mothers in old pictures. They stood stiffly in their starched white shirts and plain dresses. They stared at their recording devices against grim backdrops of storm clouds and dust clouds, dust bowls and empty bowls.
I reached up and touched my chin. It was stuck out, too.
“What do you do down here in the basement all day, Mom?”
“What do you mean?”
“Is it really all about the tea?”
“The tea helps all sorts of old people problems. Those of us who got the early generations of Vivid often get glaucoma. The tea helps with that. It reduces intra-ocular pressure.”
“What else?”
“Oh, we sleep and we talk to our friends about the old days. Always hush, hush. But I suppose Maintenance isn’t very worried about a bunch of old folks. Our genetic significance has passed us by.”
I thought about the basement’s common area. The music was more interesting down here. It wasn’t meant to be soothing like the music on the Worm and through the towers’ concourse. It was meant to encourage old people to get up and move.
The music was from before the Fall, of course. No new resources would be wasted on such luxuries as musical instruments. The music played on a loop. Some of it was energizing but I couldn’t understand the words. They went by too fast and too many of the Old World references were unfamiliar.
There was one song that was perfectly understandable and the sentiment made me happy and sad at the same time. The music was called, I Want to Hold Your Hand.
I squeezed my mother’s hand and fell asleep.
In my dream, I wondered where Carter’s hand was. I went searching for it and instead I found Sy Potter in the greenhouse complex. He was still clad in his black ceramic armor but his face was Carter’s face. The drone was turning a crank that protruded from his body at the space between his legs. I stepped closer. He was recycling my lover’s hand for plant fertilizer.
I woke Mom with my screams. Neither of us could return to sleep that night. I lay awake, listening to my mother’s breath, in and out, in and out. I pretended she was the baby and I was the mother.
I thought of the drone who envied my dreams for a long time. I wondered if I could reprogram him to experience nightmares from which the bot would never awake.
Ever.
11
On the seventh day my rest was over. Sy Potter appeared at the door to my mother’s room. He knocked and bowed to her cheerily. “Greetings, Elder Citizen! How are you today?”
“Fine, thank you,” she replied.
“And how is your daughter?”
“Obstinate.”
“I’m sure you did the best you could.”
“Thank you, sir,” mom said.
“Mom! Stop being nice to the killer robot!”
The drone turned its cam toward me. “Miss Cruz. I asked you not to use that word. Please respect my wishes, at least in my presence.”
“I’m guessing that ‘robot’ offends you but you’re proud of ‘killer.’”
Sy Potter turned back to my mother. “Will you please excuse us, Elder Citizen?”
My mother blew me a kiss and hurried out. I hated her a little bit then. Looking back now, it’s clear to me I didn’t understand her as well as I thought I did. People who remembered the times before the Fall were more wily. A little old lady was no match for a battle drone so she wisely retreated.
Defiance is more complicated than I knew. If your defiance is not a clever dance, it will probably become a clumsy failure.
Sy Potter rolled into the small room and began a scan before he even extended his legs. “No windows. Like a monk’s cell. Such minimalist environs give one time to think, no?”
“No.”
“How have you been spending your time?”
“Hating you.”
“I am an officer of the court and an agent for the Fathers and Mothers, Miss Cruz. Do you understand that such talk is sedition?”
“You killed Carter.”
“That is a separate matter that does not concern you. Please pardon me for saying so.”
“Separate because I don’t matter?”
The drone tilted its cam in a gesture that I guessed was meant to look like it was considering the question. “Essentially.”
“So you admit Carter’s killing was politically motivated and you don’t care about our unsanctioned affair?”
“Biological relations are more interesting to those capable of them,” the drone said.
“Are the Fathers and Mothers aware you just wanted to get rid of your witness?”
“Your questions are impertinent and your tone is, frankly, off-putting. I gave you this time to reconsider your actions. I had hoped you would be eager to return to work. Despite my magnanimity, you goad me. Why? Is it because I am, as you say, a robot? Do you not acknowledge that I am as sentient and self-aware as you are? Perhaps more so?”
“I don’t care if you can think on your own,” I said. “I care what you do with your ‘Next Intelligence.’ You think you’re smart but your tactics disgust me.”
The drone put a light hand on my shoulder and I began to tremble again. “Elizabeth. You are an intelligent person and, though you have no guile, you are brave. That was well said but you don’t understand my goals. It won’t make any difference to you, perhaps, but I must express that I admire your courage.”
Its hand encircled my wrist and clamped down hard enough to drive me to my knees. “Will you return to work now?”
“No.”
“Very well. Elizabeth, you think you are intelligent, but you have no plan, no allies and that was a terminal tactical error.”
The drone must have sent a signal. Two smaller med drones squeezed into the room. Sy Potter guided me to the bed. One of its arms snaked out and grabbed my free hand. Another pair of Sy’s arms pinned my knees as a med drone clicked into place over my chest. I heard a whirring sound as something in its undercarriage
locked down over my breasts and rib cage. I could barely breathe. The other med drone clamped my head still and then slipped over my face like a hood.
Tiny spider-like feelers pried my eyelids apart. The weight on my chest was so heavy I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t speak. All I could do was moan miserably. The machines said nothing.
They used no anesthetic. That was a resource for Citizens. I thought they were about to suffocate me. They didn’t but I soon wished they had.
12
I awoke in an unfamiliar place. It was dark and cold stone chilled my aching back. I staggered to my feet, unable to see. Vivid’s thermal vision didn’t start up automatically. I had no readout. I felt my way along a stone wall. I heard voices somewhere to my right. I followed the sound, inching one foot in front of the other so I wouldn’t fall. “Hello?”
“She’s up and alive,” a woman said. “This way, love. Follow the sound of my voice.”
“She’s a pretty one,” a man said. Other men laughed.
Around a bend, dim light played across the stone. The alley grew narrow and then widened. I quickened my steps and soon came to a clearing at the center of a circle of massive pillars.
Half a dozen men and women sat around a fire. They were dressed shabbily. Some wore rags on their feet instead of shoes. One old woman was barefoot. Their skin looked yellow in the firelight. Everyone looked tired.
“Where am I?”
A young man wearing a ridiculously tall hat stepped away from the fire and greeted me with a smile. “Welcome. Two little drones dropped you off back there a few minutes ago. Old Sam went to look at you.”
A toothless old man gave me a gummy smile and waved.
“Old Sam said you were dead. We were going to have a look ourselves after dinner but here you are. Welcome to the Undead.”
“Nah. That’s not our names. We’re the Blind,” a woman said.
A girl who was perhaps half my age said in a high, thin voice, “Exiles.”
Another woman laughed. “How about the Fled?”
“How about we eat?” Old Sam said. “Give the girl something. She’s too skinny for my liking and she’s had a bad day.”
I stepped closer to the fire and had to narrow my eyes to look carefully at what they roasted. The young girl had skewered what looked like two halves of an onion. In the middle was an animal I didn’t recognize.
“What is that?” I asked.
“Rabbit,” Old Sam said. “It doesn’t look like much, but it’s an arduous meal after the drones knock out most of your teeth.”
I threw up on the young man in the tall hat. My little audience roared with laughter.
It took almost as long for the gathering to quiet as it took for my stomach to settle. The older woman wrapped me in a blanket. The man in the silly hat was ushered off for a change of clothes. He went off shouting that I could wash his clothes in the ocean at first light.
Several of the group clapped me on the back. Someone said, “I’ve never seen young Kenny at a loss for words! That was beautiful!”
I didn’t want to eat. I sat on a broken slab of concrete and leaned close to the fire. Their cooking repulsed me but the lure of heat was undeniable. “I didn’t know it got so cold.”
“At night, yeah,” the girl said. “People say you get used to it but you never do.”
“What time is it?” I asked.
The oldest woman shrugged and gave me a lopsided grin. “About the same time as it was yesterday morning about this time. I’d tell you more, but I left my timepieces somewhere back there before the Fall. Silly girl.”
“Don’t mind, Marge,” the girl said. “She’s mad at everybody all the time.”
“Well, if I wasn’t mad at you before, I am now,” Marge told the girl.
I rubbed my eyes. They were irritated. It was a strange thought but my eyeballs felt cold. I tried to cycle through macro to micro to thermal to color enhance. I looked to each face around the fire, but no name appeared in green below any of them. They were nameless.
After a time, I saw the first glimmers of light besides firelight. There was nothing but concrete above me, but, off to my left, I could glimpse the first hint of a lightening sky. I stood on shaky feet and walked toward it.
My new companions called me to return to the fire. I ignored them. I’d never been outside at night. I didn’t know the dangers. I had always been able to see. I had to crawl over some fallen stone and broken rock. I almost stumbled over a mesh of rusted metal. The ground was a maze of rocky debris and, at several narrow places, I almost fell. After a time, I reached the edge of the concrete enclosure. The roof ended and the open sky stood above me again.
When I looked up, I could see the round orb of the moon as I had never seen it. It looked so white, almost like a lamp. I tried to get Vivid to go to telescopic to view its topography. I could see no craters. I wasn’t working for the City so it seemed Vivid wasn’t working for me.
I suppose you already know what happened before I did. Vivid was gone. The machines had taken it from me. I was no longer a Citizen. I had known the Fathers and Mothers and Maintenance could turn off Vivid, but I never expected to live without it.
The corneal implants had occasionally malfunctioned during lockdowns. When the grid powered down in the middle of the night, occasionally I had awoken to darkness. With my room’s shutters down, there had not even been moonlight sparkling off the bay to confirm which wall was which.
Imagine reaching up to your face to brush your hair from your eyes. Now imagine that, at that moment, you discover your arm has been amputated at the elbow. That’s what the first while without Vivid felt like. Call us the Exiled, the Nameless, the Goners. I thought the Blinded sounded right.
High above me, the great hulk of the City came alive at the first touch of sunlight. At dawn, every window became an active solar panel. The Worm began to weave its way through and around the City again.
To watch the City come alive from far below was an awesome sight. However, it was not the towers that drew my eye. The bay was full of sailing ships I’d never seen before.
At the feet of the towers lay another city. It was constructed of tents and rubble. I had viewed this same landscape countless times but I had never glimpsed this camp of the dispossessed.
I had thought Vivid’s function was to enhance our view of the world. That seems naive now, I suppose. What can I say? Fish don’t see the water. People don’t see air. Citizens weren’t allowed to see the devastation and suffering beneath us.
The Fathers and Mothers showed us the world as they wanted us to see it, sterile and lonely. They programmed Vivid to erase the rest. To my eyes, the bay had always been empty. On the dawn of my first day of exile, I knelt on the ground before a harbor filled with sailing ships and a camp filled with people.
My vision blurred with tears.
13
It was the girl who came to collect me. “What was your name?” she asked.
“Elizabeth.”
“What will your new name be?”
“I don’t understand.”
“My name used to be Liesel,” she said. “I chose Greta for my new name. I like it. We change our names when we come here.”
“Why?”
“The past is the past. History is a burning coal. It shouldn’t be held.”
I shook my head. “I’m fine with my name.”
“How old are you?” the girl asked.
“I feel very old today. You seem young.”
“I’m fifteen, I think.”
“Why are you out here?” I asked. “Were you born out here?”
“My family came to Low Town years ago.” She pointed to the Bay. “We came on the biggest tri-master, the Apple’s Eye. I remember sitting at the bottom of the middle mast. The sails are huge solar and water collectors. It was the most beautiful thing when the wind was strong. When I’m old enough, I’m going to work on one of those ships.”
“Where did you come from? Not the City, I
guess.”
“Germany,” she said.
“Where’s that?”
“Far away. It’s not really there anymore.”
Greta’s blue eyes watched me steadily. She waited for me to get to my feet. I couldn’t bear to move. My eyes hurt. My head ached. My body was sore. I lay down.
“The Olders say you came from the City in the Sky. What’s it like?”
I looked around. “Not like this. Are there many like me?”
“No. Most of us came from Elsewhere.”
“Where’s that?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know…just…Elsewhere, that’s all. Like Germany.”
“Why do they come here?”
“Everyone knows — ” Greta stopped, smiled apologetically and corrected herself. Her voice took on the sing-song quality of a child reciting a bedtime story. “The Firsts came on the rescue ships. They built the City in the Sky. Then they went inside and closed the door behind them. The Seconds came on trade ships hoping to be let in but they never are. The Thirds come because this is the last place to come. The generations in Low Town don’t live long, so maybe we’ll talk about the Fourths soon.”
I looked at the sky. I could detect no hint of a flurry of diaphanous monster pollen wafting by. Was I that blind now? I closed my eyes and raised a bare hand to test the air. Whenever I was outside, Vivid had shown me tufts of dangerous monster pollen floating on the breeze. I could feel nothing. Had I ever?
We had lived our lives under the watchful eye of high security. Mother told me that when people objected to the abuses of power by humans’ prying eyes, the job had been handed over to robotic surveillance. Vigilance was necessary, we’d been told, because the pollen would poison our crops and we would all starve to death. But I’d seen an onion out here, in the open air, and the remains of a rabbit on a stick.
For the first time, I suspected Vivid had added elements to my vision in addition to erasing things. Maybe the people of the City in the Sky were their own kind of blind.
That made me angry and it made me rise to my feet. “Where are the others like me?”
Greta pointed back toward Low Town in a vague gesture that told me my fellow exiles weren’t all in one place. The hills at the base of the City’s pillars all angled down to the sea. As Low Town awoke, I saw more people from where I stood than I’d ever seen in the towers’ concourse.
Machines Dream of Metal Gods Page 5