At least they’ll have no memory of the world they lost because of me.
One after the other, the pods split. The two-foot-tall green creatures climbed from the shriveled remains of their former bodies and gazed at the false-sun with awe and mounting fear.
Without any memory of their previous lives, what differentiated this from death? One might ask the same about reincarnation, or V-Dreamers—or a girl who’d had her memories erased and new ones implanted.
The Monads drifted toward her, their faces hopeful as they gazed on her.
Kayla told them the story of Jesus and how He loved them—how He would reward them with eternal life if they trusted in Him and followed His commands. Saphie listened with interest.
“But Monad still afraid of dying,” said one of the little creatures.
Kayla hugged him. “Death is a doorway to a new life. There’s nothing at all to fear. After you die, you’ll go to Heaven and be rewarded for your faith.”
“What Heaven be?” another Monad asked.
“Heaven is a place of eternal happiness and light,” Kayla said. “It’s a place where the Great Father in the sky never sets, but shines his grace on you forever and ever. In Heaven, there’s no suffering, no pain, and no death.”
“Heaven be wonder-place!” a Monad said. “What Jesus want Monad be doing for great reward with Sky Father?”
Kayla pointed to the pile of rocks and gave them their life’s purpose.
If only I could believe as easily as they. Was her belief in Jesus simply an accident of her birth? If she’d been born a Hindu, would she not believe as passionately as Fatima in different gods?
The Monads moved the first stones from one side of the cavern to the other in obedience to Lord Jesus. The joy of participating in something greater than themselves transformed their simple faces. First one, and then all the rest took up the chant that would serve as their holy mantra during this single day of their life.
“Work, work, stones to move;
Beautiful goddess command.
Our reward to come;
When Jesus take us home.”
Distant angry shouts drifted in from the corridor.
Is the government attacking Middilgard?
Kayla walked casually to the arched entrance. I must not alarm Saphie or the Monads. As soon as she left their view, Kayla sprinted at full speed toward the sounds. Puck vanished into her pocket as she ran.
The voices grew in volume. Not an attack, but something more astonishing. Ohg and Tem are arguing.
“...if they attack Middilgard, we’ll have no defense, whatsoever!” Tem yelled.
“They won’t find us in a million years,” Ohg shouted back.
“You’re gambling the lives of Middilgard on your ego. Can’t you see that we must arm ourselves in preparation—”
“If just one resident died every decade at the hands of your so-called “defensive” weapons—whether from an accident, dispute, or mental instability—that would add up to forty-four Gene-Freaks dead by now.”
“Let’s at least put it to a vote,” Tem said.
“This is not a democracy. I created Middilgard as a haven for any Gene-Freak to join me according to my rules. You’re exploiting this crisis for an agenda you’ve harbored since you got here.”
Tem’s eyes blazed and every muscle in his arms and shoulders etched into clear relief. “Can’t you see that we’ve stagnated?”
“I call it a perfect equilibrium.”
Kayla reached the doorway to the cavern and stopped. A growing crowd of Gene-Freaks peeked through while Ganesh stood behind Tem and Ohg, wringing all four of his hands like a child caught between feuding parents.
“You think you’ve created a Utopia,” Tem said. “But the reality is that you’ve created a frozen society with you as absolute dictator!”
“How dare you criticize me after all I’ve done for you!” Ohg’s eight legs raised him upward, and he glared down at Tem as if intending to pounce.
“Yes, you saved all of our lives, and we’re grateful,” Tem said, “but that doesn’t make us your property. We need to fight for our freedom from the government, to engineer our own Mind-Links, build drones for defense, and reverse our sterility so a fresh generation can breathe renewed life, purpose, and hope into Middilgard!”
“Madness!” Ohg’s twisted face contorted even further in rage. “The larger we grow, the more opportunities exist for someone to slip up and reveal our location. Did you learn nothing from last night? No weapon can protect us from the overwhelming force of the government. You would lead us all to our deaths to satisfy your thirst for revenge.”
“So we should hide in our hole for another five hundred years, or a thousand, or a million?” Tem paced like a caged animal. “Shouldn’t we at least try?”
“If you are so unhappy here, you are free to leave!” Ohg slammed one of his talons into the floor, and a shower of chips geysered around it. “Try escaping to your own planet like the Scientarians and starting your own kingdom.” Ohg turned to those peering in from the doorways. “Each of you knew my rules against weapons and killing when you came here, so no one is my slave as this Mongol claims.”
“Please, don’t fight,” Ganesh said, his trunk waving back and forth like a distress signal.
Ohg leaned close to Tem, and his stubby finger jabbed toward the Mongol’s chest. “The fact is that you wish to run things yourself. It’s true that I’ve never had armies under my command, or killed hundreds of thousands like you have. But I won’t let you turn Middilgard into a breeding ground of a new army for your ego to slaughter!”
Tem’s eyes bored into Ohg with a fury that few could have withstood. Ohg returned his glare with equal intensity.
Finally, Tem turned and left. The huddled audience scrambled to make a path for him. He walked right past Kayla without seeming to see her, or anyone else.
Ohg swept his gaze across those watching, glaring a challenge. The residents shrank from his anger and melted into the surrounding corridors.
Kayla quickly turned to go.
“I want to talk to you,” Ohg said.
She froze and gazed at the floor.
Puck peeked out of her pocket and gave a little squeak at Ohg as he marched over.
“You disobeyed me.”
“I’m sorry,” Kayla said, “but you know why, don’t you?”
“Yes, I know why. But I can’t risk having anyone here I don’t trust.”
Kayla’s face tightened. “I’m not the only one hiding things. Why didn’t you tell me about Project Nihala?”
“I planned telling you when you were ready.”
“I’m ready now.” Kayla met his gaze.
Ohg remained silent for a moment, but then sighed and related what he’d learned from Raymond Roberts in his pornographic virtual desert.
“So it all leads to Reinhold Watts,” Kayla said when he’d finished. “Do you know where he is?”
“He vanished after the government destroyed his greatest creation.”
“Humanity killed the AI that gave them immortality?”
Ohg nodded. “No one but the Security Council attended the proceedings, so the details remain a mystery. All those present, except Colrev himself, soon became V-Dreamers, with their memories wiped clean. An entire industry of conspiracy theorists thrive on the subject even now. Some say Colrev executed Professor Watts, or that the scientist escaped and assumed secret leadership of the Rogues. Others speculate that he and a few remaining Scientarians slipped past government surveillance and are building a new army of robots on one of the moons of Jupiter to return for vengeance.”
“Could he have escaped?”
“I think Colrev used the professor’s love of Eve to trap him. It seems probable that the general turned him into a V-Dreamer, which is essentially the same as killing him as far as we’re concerned. ”
“So we are no closer to an answer.” Kayla lapsed into silence for a long while. In the distance, the Monads�
�� chant echoed through the corridors, along with the sound of rocks banging together.
Kayla faced Ohg. Before being banished, there remained a final question. “I’ve opened my mind to you, but you’ve never told me who made you and why.”
Ohg looked at her for a long moment, his distorted face unreadable. Finally, he nodded. “Very well, I’ll tell you.”
Chapter 26
The familiar pressure of loneliness expanded inside Kayla’s chest with each step she took. Except for the light spheres in the ceiling, the long corridor was bare.
I’ve never been in this section of Middilgard.
For a long while, only the rhythmic clicks of Ohg’s eight claws on the stone floor violated the silence.
Where will I go if Ohg banishes me?
Ohg cleared his throat and finally began his story. “At first, I remember nothing but darkness and fear. I was like one of the prisoners in Socrates’s parable of the cave. My shadow-god was a creature made of metal that entered my dark cage with a blinding light mounted to its head. To me, it seemed alive, moving as it did, much like the shadows in Socrates’s cave.
“This creature fed me through a tube forced down my throat, hosed me off, and just as suddenly left me to the darkness of my prison.”
Ohg’s face remained free of any hint of emotion, but Kayla’s heart twisted in sorrow for him.
“I had no way of forming coherent thoughts,” Ohg said, “since abstract thinking is tied to language. Loneliness ruled my mind, even though I could not name it.
“And then came a day when my world moved. I slid from side to side within the metal cage, uncomprehending what invisible force attacked me.
“A beam of light rose through the drain in the floor, sending me scurrying to the corner in terror. I thought it a living being bent on my destruction.
“With a jolt, the glowing creature vanished, and my world stilled once again. But strange sounds invaded my solitude, and panic seized me. I imagined a land of malevolent creatures of light circling my sanctuary. When the door of my prison opened, a brilliance more powerful than any I’d known assaulted me, confirming my worst nightmares.
“I retreated to the opposite end of my dark world and curled into the smallest ball possible, but my robot mother reached in and seized one of my legs in her metal talons. I struggled desperately as it pulled me outside into the terrible light.”
Ohg went silent as they approached a group huddled in hushed conversation.
“What if Tem be right?” a centaur asked. “Maybe we should—”
Someone cleared their throat, and the mythological man-horse glanced back at Ohg and Kayla. The centaur’s face reddened. “Ohg, I didn’t mean to—”
“No need to apologize, Hylaeus,” Ohg said as they passed. “Everyone is entitled to their opinion.”
A woman with transparent skin separated from the group. Kayla blanched at the sight of her muscles and veins naked to the eye.
“Is it true that the Pures search for us again?” the woman asked.
Ohg paused and patted her shoulder. “Don’t worry, Ostara. The government hunted us for three centuries without success. This time will be no different.”
“If you say it, I worry not,” Ostara said. “My trust in you be complete.” The woman smiled, and Kayla’s stomach turned at the sight.
When they entered a deserted tunnel, Ohg continued his narrative. “The year was 2042, and my birth into the world took place on Halloween night in one of MITs most prestigious fraternities, Pi Lambda Phi.”
Kayla followed Ohg into a series of interconnected caverns filled with a myriad of trees. He stopped beneath a large oak and removed a thumb-sized metal cylinder from his satchel. “Many years later I unearthed a recording of the event itself.”
A virtual screen bloomed from the cylinder and hovered before them both. It displayed a low-angle shot of a group of Halloween-attired college students surrounding a metal box on the floor. A two-foot-tall robot forcibly dragged the monstrous baby from its metal womb. The terrified infant screamed along with the girls watching it. All eight of its spider legs scrambled on the wood floor as it attempted a retreat into its prison.
“Oh G–Ohg G–Oh God!” stammered a blonde dressed as a sexy zombie.
“That’s a good name for the thing! Ohg. Quite appropriate, don’t you think?” said a boy wearing a fake nose in the shape of an erect penis as well as a red wattle under his neck. He’d shaped his hair into a mohawk so he resembled a rooster with the head of a phallus.
A few of the younger girls giggled. “You’re hilarious, Terrance!”
“I’m Priapus,” Terrance said indignantly. “The Greek god of fertility. Get it? Rooster, cock, fertility.”
“That creature is horrible!” shrieked a scantily dressed French maid. She hid behind a tall Frankenstein.
A boy dressed as a knight displayed his manly courage by poking the monster with a plastic sword. A couple of others grabbed pool sticks and joined him.
“I can’t believe you’re a part of this, Zach. This is beyond cruel!” a dark-haired girl dressed as a vampiress admonished her Dracula-costumed boyfriend. “You all should be ashamed of yourselves!”
“You’re one to talk, Charlotte,” Zach said. “I’ve had some long conversations with that Gene-Freak monkey you created. You’re no less a lawbreaker than we are!”
“Helen is a Bonobo, and that’s legitimate scientific research,” Charlotte said. “But what you’ve done here is nothing but a sick joke. It would give the Fundamentalists in Congress even more ammunition against us.”
“What’s wrong with its head, and why is half its body missing?” the sexy blonde zombie asked, sipping beer from a plastic cup shaped like a human skull.
“We cut and pasted its genes together months ago,” Zach said. “But the results were rather—unexpected.”
“We were blasted out of our minds,” penis-nosed Terrance said.
Zach jabbed Terrance in the ribs. “You’re not helping. I’d forgotten about it entirely until yesterday when we brainstormed ideas for the Halloween party.”
“I think it’s awesome!” Terrance said.
The French maid grabbed hold of his penis-nose and giggled. “This might be a good genetic feature to add next time.”
“Can it talk?” another girl asked as the baby Ohg’s eyes darted in terror.
“I doubt it—” Zach froze as the front door opened. “Shit, it’s Dorky Dale!”
The boys swatted the baby monster toward its cage, but it avoided the pool sticks and scurried under the skirt of a girl dressed as the Statue of Liberty. She screamed at the top of her lungs and jumped up and down until a loud snap sounded. The baby howled, sending several girls fleeing out the front door. Dorky Dale set down a pile of Physics textbooks and walked into the room.
Ohg clung to the top of the drapes over one window. Terrance dangled the cage beneath, while Zach batted at the baby monster with a plastic sword. Ohg whimpered, one of his spider legs hanging useless from his unfortunate encounter with Lady Liberty.
“What the Hell is going on here?” Dorky Dale demanded, causing a mass exodus from the room. Dale wore no costume, except for his thick glasses, which might have been mistaken for one with the way they distorted his eyes.
“These assholes thought it would be funny to create a spider-human hybrid,” Charlotte said. “While drunk!”
“It wasn’t me alone.” Zach shook the drapes, but the howling baby clung to the top with terrified desperation.
“Get away from there, for Christ’s sake!” Dale grabbed the metal cage from Terrance and shoved Zach aside. Ohg stopped bawling and hiccuped.
Dale pressed a button on the Care-Robot’s chest. “Return your patient to its safe-box.” The robot rose on jets of compressed air, smoothly disentangled the spider-legs from the curtain, and deposited the child in the cage with no fuss.
“Why didn’t we think of that?” Terrance asked.
“Because you’re a dick
-head,” Charlotte said.
“Hey!” Terrance crossed his eyes at his dick-shaped nose. “Oh, right. That’s a good one!”
“You’re lucky one of the professors didn’t stop by,” Dale said. “You could have been expelled. The University is under enormous political pressure, and students making illegal Gene-Freaks is just the ammunition they need to ban the rest of our Genetic Research program.”
Charlotte exchanged a worried look with Zach.
“It was only a prank,” Zach said. “I was planning on destroying it after the party.”
“God damn it, Zach,” Dale said. “How did you ever pass your Ethics of Technology course with a statement like that?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Zach balled his fists and stepped closer to Dorky Dale.
Despite being a full head shorter, Dale didn’t retreat an inch. “It means you don’t go around playing God. You don’t create a living being and then discard it like a failed term paper. Did you see the look of terror in that thing’s eyes? How would you like it if someone treated you that way?”
Zach glared. “It’s a Gene-Freak. It’s not alive like a real human is.”
“With an attitude like that,” Dale said, “you should run for Congress and join the fundamentalist who’ve transformed this country into a Christian Theocracy. You’ll certainly find a lot of agreement there, but not with the ethics board of MIT.”
Charlotte shoved Zach. “I suppose you think it would be fine to kill my Helen then?”
Zach wilted before his girlfriend’s anger. “C’mon, Charlotte, I didn’t mean it like that.”
“What should we do now?” Terrance asked.
“Forget you saw it.” Dale motioned to the robot, and it lifted the cage on top of its body and followed him.
Charlotte placed a hand on Dorky Dale’s arm, and he paused. “But what are you going to do with it?” she asked.
Dale’s angry expression softened. “I’m going to do what is right.”
The recording ended, and the virtual screen vanished.
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