Puck sampled the air with twitches of his sensitive nose, and Kayla rubbed his head. “Even though we’re castaways with no one else in the world to talk to, we’re free.”
Puck squeaked.
“We don’t have to hide, or whisper, or fear what anyone will think of us.” Raising her face to the morning sky, she held out her arms and spun slowly with the wind like a lazy weather vane.
“We can say anything we want!”
Her personal declaration of independence echoed across the city’s deserted carcass, until swallowed by the silence. No one returned her call. How long could her optimism last before loneliness wore her down?
There were no bones, bullet holes, or the signs of deliberate destruction one would expect from a war. Time alone seemed responsible for the decay. The wind had scoured the insides of the building so thoroughly that little remained, so she concentrated her efforts outside, where, in one or two spots, great drifts of trash had accumulated like eddies in a stream.
She uncovered a metal statue, half buried by debris, and no longer than her forearm. After pulling it free, she wiped a thick layer of dirt from its face with the hem of her disintegrating cloak. A gleaming, exaggerated visage stared blankly. After polishing an unreflective flat disc on top of its head, she set the oddity on its feet in the bright sunlight.
“There you go, little man,” she said, admiring her restoration. A hum ignited inside it, and an internal light sparked within its eyes.
“Ixtalia!” the statue exclaimed.
Kayla yelped and jumped back.
“Ixtalia!” it said a second time and marched in a circle, its head, arms, and legs beating time to its metallic steps. “Ixtalia is the place to be. Ixtalia is for you and me! Ixtalia is safe for everyone, so come and join the fun!”
The little man spun twice with a flourish. This must be what her books called a robot.
“Can you tell me how to get to Ixtalia?” Kayla asked.
“Ixtalia is the place t-o-o-o-o …” Its voice slowed and then stopped. A pop sounded inside its head, and a wisp of smoke drifted from its mouth. It stood frozen, a statue once more.
“Ixtalia,” she whispered as one might an incantation, but without effect.
After searching a few trash heaps in vain for any books or clues, she began scaling one of the pyramid-shaped buildings dominating the skyline for a higher vantage point. Most windows had been blown out long ago, leaving the dwellings empty. The few scratched and filthy panes still intact offered little insight into the dark interiors.
The incline neared forty-five degrees, and it took her fifteen minutes to rise above the tallest of the remaining skyscrapers. With the rise in altitude, the wind increased. Her tattered cloak acted the part of a sail, and she gripped the crumbling building tight to keep from slipping. But then, a particularly violent gust tore the cloak from her body. Puck chirped and clung to the hood as it lofted skyward.
“Puck!” Kayla shouted in panic and jumped. She shot upward higher than she’d expected. The mouse squeaked a frantic plea as her hand reached for it, but to no avail. Just as she slowed, turbulence buffeted the mouse’s personal airship toward her. She snatched him from the remains of the cloak.
Then her ascent reversed.
The side of the pyramid rushed toward her with a sickening inevitability. Her hair billowed as if caught in a tempest. She cradled Puck against her naked chest. Equations of time, gravity, and acceleration flickered through her consciousness.
I don’t want to die!
She fell faster and faster toward one of the intact windows halfway down the pyramid’s surface. She smashed through the edge of it in an explosion of glass and concrete. Pain shot into her legs, back, and shoulders. All her attention focused on keeping the little mouse cradled in her arms. Her back hit the concrete floor of the room with a thump and a shower of pulverized stone. The force sledgehammered her head into the floor and knocked the breath from her lungs.
For a while she stared at the backs of her eyelids and imagined the monk’s fleshless skull gazing at her. Am I dying? With a great effort, she opened her eyes.
Puck’s tiny face stared at her, unharmed.
She groaned as she sat up and put her hand to the back of her head. The skin was already healing, and the bone was unharmed. Her fingertips traced the rim of the shallow depression her head had pounded in the concrete.
She kissed Puck, and let his whiskers tickle her face before placing him on the floor. She rose from the crater and pulled off the remains of her cloak, revealing deep cuts from her plunge through the glass and concrete. The worst pain sliced through her side. A slender piece of steel from the window’s frame punched in above the left hip and jabbed out the right side of her torso, below her ribcage.
She took hold of the metal and pulled. It slid out of her body with a spurt of blood. She gasped and fell to her knees, clutching at what should have been a mortal wound.
Her breaths came in short, agonized gasps. But soon they evened out, and she removed her hand from her side. Only the stain of sticky blood remained. In another moment, even the pain vanished. Fire, an arrow through the heart, suffocation, starvation—and now throwing herself off a building and being impaled by a steel rod. Am I indestructible?
The room looked like it had been a dwelling of some sort. Though most of the household decor had crumbled to dust, a few plastic items survived the centuries. Furniture, a cup, several children’s toys, bits of machines that had rusted around these internal components.
This had been someone’s home.
She opened the door and explored the rest of the well-preserved floor. Most of the apartments hugged the outside of the building. The interior was a maze of shops and open spaces that contained remnants of plants, water gardens, and even a sports arena. After exploring dozens of glassed-in rooms with no success, she stumbled upon one with clothing made of a plastic-like material.
She tried on a pair of matching slacks and a shirt. At first they seemed too big, but with a hiss and a delicate crinkling, they folded about her curves so perfectly that it made her blush, despite her isolation. A light jacket with a few pockets gave Puck a place to settle into, and a pair of self-molding athletic shoes offered better traction than her bare feet. Whatever color they’d once been had faded to a dull gray.
After heading back outside, she resumed her climb.
At the pyramid’s peak, the scale of her isolation became clear. Except for the sharp line of Potemia’s boundary to the south, the city extended to the horizon in an unbroken procession of grids and occasional mountainous pyramids—all crumbling to ruins.
I’m not giving up.
With a determined set to her jaw, she surveyed the structures, streets, and ruins for any sign of activity. After half an hour, a distant plume of dust appeared through the shimmering heat.
The speck hovered on the very edge of her vision, and she strained to see beyond their limitations. Suddenly, her eyes prickled with a needling heat. Her vision vibrated, and a strange shift disrupted her balance, as if flashing her toward the distant speck. She closed her eyes and steadied herself. When the heat and vertigo diminished, she opened her lids. Her sight had transformed. Like the compound lens of an eagle, her eyes zoomed in with astonishing magnification.
The distant speck resolved into a rising cloud of dust with vague shapes moving within. They appeared human. She counted fifty shadowy figures. Her heart pounded. If only she could fly, but she’d already tested that ability and found it lacking, to say the least.
Grinding her teeth at the delay, Kayla descended the man-made mountain and started running toward her new goal.
I’m not alone!
Navigating the ruins proved frustrating. Large sections of the ground occasionally gave way and transformed into gigantic sinkholes within the undercity below, but she leapt clear each time. A violent dust storm drove her into the ruins for shelter as the day ended. Falling into one of the cavernous holes in the dark would delay her
and endanger Puck.
Exhaustion forced sleep, and she dreamed of Peter, once again. Through his eyes, she viewed the interior of what she’d learned from her books was called a “train.” He sat in a luxurious seat and stared out the window at a thriving city of automobiles, pedestrians, and towering buildings. A swarm of flashing drones blanketed the sky like metal worker bees servicing their hive.
“May I offer you a complimentary VR headset, sir?” The female attendant wore a skin-tight blue uniform, and gazed at him with the slitted pupils of a cat.
“No, thank you,” Peter said.
The girl leaned toward him with a conspiratorial grin. “This is the latest model, with complete neural interfacing. You experience it throughout your entire body.” She winked. “Even intimate touch.” She giggled and resumed placement of the helmet, but he intercepted her hand.
“Thanks, but I just want to rest.”
“Yes—of course, sir.” The girl frowned.
The rest of the passengers all wore the helmet. They slumped in their chairs with heads lolling to the side, and drool slipped from one or two mouths.
At the end of the aisle, the cat-eyed girl whispered to another attendant, who glanced at him.
Peter closed his eyes and reclined his chair. Soon he fell asleep, releasing Kayla from the dream.
The morning light streamed through the wrecked doorway and woke her. Refreshed and charged with new purpose, she continued her journey. Fuming at every toppled building, she ran with reckless abandon, sometimes leaping chasms of thirty feet without breaking stride. Once she overestimated her range and plunged twenty feet down to the next level of the undercity. She vaulted to the surface and sprinted onward.
What if they’ve left and I’m too late?
Around noon, the clatter of rocks and a faint chant caused her breath to catch. She scaled the debris from a collapsed building, and the guttural words came into focus.
“Work, work, stones to move;
Beautiful God command.
Ohg’s servants we, Our reward to come;
When Father die below.”
She peeked over the top of the rubble at the several dozen workers below. They averaged two-feet tall, with green skin free of clothing. Their muscular backs bent under large burdens of rock. Despite their nakedness, they lacked any distinction between male and female, while their oversized heads and protruding jaws lent them a mildly repulsive quality. Each sprouted a pair of bulging eyes that moved independently like those of some reptiles.
Could mankind have devolved into these sad remains?
“Work, work, stones to move;
Beautiful God command.
Ohg’s servants we, Our reward to come;
When Father die below.”
Who was this beautiful God, Ohg? Were they referring to a real person, or a mythical figure? More important, did they know of any other surviving humans? Taking a deep breath, Kayla stood and descended the rubble.
The chanting stopped and eyeballs swiveled toward her, but not a single body faltered in its task. Each creature continued heaving concrete onto its back and carrying the burden across the clearing to a growing mound. Kayla halted at the edge of their line, towering over them.
“Hello,” she said to one wide-eyed face making its way past for a new load of debris.
The creature’s toad-like mouth trembled. “Are a god you?” it asked.
“Well, no, I’m not a god.”
“You beautiful like Ohg God,” her admirer said, one eye looking at her, and the other focused on the path before it. “But your hair deathlike. Ohg hair color of Father in sky.”
“Do you mean the sun?” she asked, walking beside it. “Is his hair yellow like the color of the sun?” The little creature nodded. They reached the pile of rubble, and her new friend hoisted a chunk of concrete.
“I’m Kayla, what’s your name?”
“We people Monad.”
“But what is your name?” Kayla pointed at it, and the creature stepped away from her finger as if from a knife.
“Not understand, I/we Monad.”
They don’t distinguish the self from the whole.
“What are you working on, here?” She made a sweeping gesture encompassing the clearing.
“Monad move rock from there,” one of its eyes looked behind at the diminishing pile, “to there.” Its other eye swiveled forward to the growing pile.
“I meant for what purpose? Are you building something?”
“Monad move because God tell move.” The creature’s eyes misted, dreamy and remote. “Monad born with great fear of Father go away. When Father leave, Monad die.” A tremor shook its body. “We know this without told. Great fear, great fear.”
Its face brightened. “God Ohg come to us, tell us Father create us for great purpose. Move rock, don’t lazy be, don’t fighting be.” Its green head shook from side to side. “When rock moving be finish, Monad reward with life forever with Father in sky. No rock, no death, only happy.”
“Do you mean you will die when the sun goes down?” Kayla asked. It nodded. “And you have only been alive since dawn?” It nodded again.
But these must be the same creatures from yesterday.
Halfway between the two piles of rubble, a pool of muddy water nestled in a hollow. Each passing Monad stuck its hand in the puddle and seemed to drink through its skin. Kayla sat down and watched the Monads lumber back and forth. Soon they resumed their chant.
“Work, work, stones to move;
Beautiful God command.
Ohg’s servants we, Our reward to come;
When Father die below.”
The day progressed, the old pile shrank, and the new one grew. The diminutive creatures staggered under the heavy loads. Their every stumble made Kayla wince. When she stood to help one of the smaller Monads struggling to drag a large rock, the creature sobbed.
“Monad can do. Not lazy. Monad can do!” it said. She dropped the rock and it stopped crying. Then it returned to its divinely appointed labor.
Puck busied himself hunting bugs and then sat next to her watching the Monads at their life’s work.
The sun dipped toward the horizon. A line of buildings to the east and west had toppled, as if to allow maximum direct sunlight into the clearing. Had someone taken them down on purpose?
The Monads placed the final lumps of rock atop the mound with pride. A cheer rose from the group, and they danced around their holy monument, linking arms, laughing, rejoicing, and glorying in their accomplishment. The Monad she’d talked to earlier took her hand and pulled her into the ring. She laughed along with their infectious enthusiasm. All had grown nearly six inches from when she first encountered them.
For what they considered the final hours of their lives, the Monads speculated on the form their “Heaven” would take. They indulged in occasional dips in the pond, and soaked up the last rays of the setting sun. Like her, they didn’t require food, drawing all their nourishment from the sun itself and the nutrients contained in the muddy pool—all of which probably explained the green color of their skin.
When the sun dipped below the distant buildings, Kayla stood, alert for any danger to her new friends. Would they fall asleep or lapse into hibernation like many plants did at night? Maybe they awoke each morning with their memories of the previous day erased.
When the screams of agony commenced, Kayla froze. Their tortured shrieks drove Puck under the rubble.
Kayla ran to the Monad whom she’d first spoken to and held its hand as a wave of pain contorted its body. Once the paroxysm passed, it said, “Monad obey God. Pain soon go. Reward Monad receive.”
Kayla sang a hymn to comfort it.
“Amazing grace, How sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch, like me.
I once was lost, but now am found …”
The melody of her voice rose. The Monads grew silent, and turned their trusting faces toward her.
“The Lord hath promised good to me,<
br />
His word my hope secures …”
In tandem with the darkening sky, her friend’s skin faded from green to a light brown. That’s what it meant when it said her hair was the color of death. Waves of pain wracked its body with increasing frequency, but its eyes stayed focused on her.
“When we’ve been there ten thousand years,
Bright shining as the sun …”
The Monad’s skin dried and withered, crackling like autumn leaves beneath a stampede. His hand tightened on hers, and its face contorted in pain. Kayla cried as she sang.
“We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise
Than when we first begun.”
With a final moan, the poor creature died, a shriveled shell of crumbling flesh. The hand she held vanished like so much dried dirt slipping through her fingers. All around her, the remaining Monads rejoiced in between cries of agony, anticipating the reward promised them by their absent God.
Kayla fled the tortured cries, stumbling through the dark until they faded to silence. She sobbed herself to sleep amidst the ruins of a bridge and slipped into her own form of nightly oblivion. For once, no dreams violated her exhausted slumber, so it wasn’t until the first rays of dawn topped the horizon that she awoke. And then, a voice reached her.
With cautious movements, she scaled the rubble, and the voice became clear. In contrast to the guttural rumblings of the Monads, the voice rang pure in tone, confident, and was definitely a man’s.
“I am Ohg, son of the Great Father in the Sky who gives you life!”
Kayla poked her head above the ridge. A young man stood in the clearing, curly blond hair cascading across well-formed shoulders like a mantel. He wore only a loincloth. The combination of poetic blue eyes, squareness of jaw, and a physique an artist might dream of sculpting, caused her breath to catch.
She counted fifty healthy Monads sitting in a semicircle around the young god. Only their diminished size marked a departure from the fifty Monads of the previous day. Where had they come from?
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