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Book #2 of The Human Gods: DONE

Get your copy: download the book files below.

Over the last year+ I’ve been working hard on editing, rewriting, and fixing the sequel to The Last Human. After finishing the final chapter in April, I discovered there was still quite a lot of polish left out. So, on top of the 100s of hours spent editing this book, I spent another unholy amount of time in April/May cutting one last editing pass on the book to make sure it read well. 

The result?

The story of Book #2 is generally the same, but the overall quality is so much better. I added in a ton of scenes and moments (and removed many that either didn’t make sense or were actively hurting the story).

I want to make sure you get a digital copy so you can read the new version. You can download the file here. I’ve put up the .epub and .azw3 file types, but if you need a .mobi or something else to read it, let me know. 

PATRON-ONLY COPY HERE

What is Book #2’s Title?

It’s not finalized yet. Here are some titles I’m mulling over at the moment:

• The Bringer of Change

• The Dead Heart

• The Prophet’s Curse

Book 2 questions the hopeful prophecies of Poire’s coming, so I want a title that reflects the darkening tone, while still invoking some sense of adventure (and maybe even a sense of wonder). 

So far, I’m leaning towards that first title, but if you’ve got thoughts on your favorite, please let me know in the comments. Titles are always a super challenging choice for me, which is half the reason I try to title every single chapter—to practice writing them.

Before Publishing This Book

Next steps: make the book market-ready. There are a few more steps before I officially publish Book #2:

• Finalize the Book’s title and book description

• Send this manuscript to my copy editor for a final polish (I’m really bad at splicing sentences, and I really appreciate books with a professional shine). 

• Get cover art

• Cover design

• Final formatting

• Publish

I’m still thinking through the cover art, because I’m thinking about hiring an artist to create covers for all 4 books at once so they have a unified style. Not sure yet. 

Once I do get professional cover art, I’ll drop it here, along with the book’s official publication date. 

Next Series

And now, I’m officially working on the new series. 

This time, the goal is to challenge myself to improve my writing output. 

Not speed, but output. 

As you can probably tell from the first part of this post, I tend to rework my writing. Perhaps too much. The Human Gods was the hardest story I’ve ever written in terms of structure. Prophecies are difficult to write, especially when they refer to moments that happen earlier AND later in the series. With so much recursion, I felt the need to go back to fix things, while simultaneously writing forward toward a predetermined point. New characters and concepts kept popping into my head, which continued to blow up the story. 

Because it was my first full-length series, I let perfectionism take hold. So, my challenge for this new series is to kill that perfectionism—and to focus on telling better stories, faster. 

I’m pleased with how The Human Gods turned out, and I can’t wait to put final edits on Books 3 and 4. 

But, if I’m being honest, I’m so much more excited to push into new worlds, to grow new characters, and to tell new stories—using everything I learned from writing The Human Gods. My hope is this new series will be more than 4 books long, but I’ve learned how crucial it is to be flexible. Even the master planners get it wrong. Tolkien originally planned for The Lord of the Rings to be published as a single volume (with six parts) instead of a trilogy. I’m not saying this new series is going to be an epic, global phenomenon. But I’m not saying it won’t be one either. 

What’s Next?

The first draft of The Last Human (series title: The Human Gods) is finished.

This is the first time I’ve ever finished an entire series, so I thought I’d talk about my writing process, what I learned, and—most importantly—what’s coming next.

Early April: Book #2 Drops

I’m going to drop the newest version of The Last Human Book #2 here.

This is my “almost final draft.” All it needs is a professional editing polish, a title, a book cover, and then I’ll self-publish it.

What’s new in Book #2? 

This version is about 50% rewriting and 50% editing, so you’ll see a TON of differences if you choose to go back and read it. I can’t tell you how many hundreds of hours of work I’ve put into this, but I learned a ton. Specifically, I learned how to write a story that doesn’t need so much rewriting. 

When I started The Last Human, I knew where Poire’s journey would ultimately take him, but I didn’t have a clear picture of the steps along the way. I also knew that I wanted to write a prophecy—but most prophecy stories are written like this:

• Character takes a step

• Some religious character says, “Ah, yes, as the prophecy foretold.”

From a writing standpoint: the prophecy always works, no matter what your character does.

I wanted to do the reverse—I wanted to show you the prophecy, and then let you see how the chosen one fights back before inevitably following through. Too late, I discovered how difficult this is. Somehow, I had to “spoil the ending” while still ramping up the tension and raising the stakes. 

My first draft of Book #2 was off because I didn’t know exactly how the story would end. However, when it was done, I took the opportunity to go back and fix everything. The prophetic moments are properly foretold. The weird inconsistencies are knocked into place. Everything just works now. 

I also improved the line-by-line writing and put a better focus on the most interesting details, like the powerful technology and the feeling of being a “god” in a world of primitive worshippers. There’s a much greater cohesion between the prophetic elements, and the in-world truth behind humanity’s visions of the apocalyptic future.

I’m so excited to finally share this new version with you. I’ll post the whole thing here in the next 2-3 weeks, both as an ebook you can download, and with the individual chapters updated.

Late April: “Test” Chapters for New Series

Next, I’ll publish some test chapters for a new Science Fantasy LitRPG series I’m working on. 

I have an enormous list of elements I want to include in this story, and I’m not sure how many will actually fit: 

• Magic vs. Tech and Magic x Tech and power that comes at a cost

• 4X empire building in the background, character growth in the focus

• Corporate cults, self-made gods, and a main character who worships neither

The truth is, I don’t know what this story is yet. I’m still braiding together the ideas in my head. There’s so much worldbuilding to be done. I have city states that are literally one building, gods who lead armies to war, tech wastelands that sprawl for hundreds of miles, and a character who is exactly not the chosen one. 

I want darkness and levity. I want desperate heroes and cozy fireside moments. I want it to be seriously fun, so at the very least, expect some satire. I also want it to speak about the current direction of technology, AI, and the corporate tendency to commodify all things. 

Why LitRPG?

It’s so much fun. That’s the only real answer. I’ve been reading a ton lately, and I have a few concepts that I haven’t seen anyone explore before—specifically around life and death within a system. You’ll know what I’m talking about in the first few chapters.

I also wanted to step outside my comfort zone, and to push myself to write faster, because I want to bring you more stories, more characters, and more worlds. If it goes well, I’ll end up writing a few longer series in this new universe (it’s a really good concept, I’m trying not to spoil anything yet, but damn it I’m so excited to show you).

My goal is to write something that’s both addictive to read, and to tell a story that gets wildly out of hand. Characters will find themselves in places they have absolutely no business being. I’m talking out of the frying pan, and into the unholy torture oven from hell (powered by the boiling screams of ten trillion demon engines). 

It’s possible these test chapters get thrown out. It’s also possible they become permanent parts of the story. I want to give myself the flexibility to get some crucial elements right, but I’ll be writing with the goal to make them work.

Early May: New Series, Chapter 1

The plan is to roll out the new series by the first week of May. Maybe sooner, depending on how worldbuilding and plotting goes. 

Lately, I’ve been reading a ton of LitRPG, SF, and historical non-fiction to get strong ideas for where I want to start. I’m fascinated by the renaissance, the evolution of religion, the power of belief, and the intersection of magic and machines. But I’m also fascinated by stories that really hook the main character into a personal journey—and that’s where this story needs to start.

My goal is to write a complete story in the first book, with strong sequel potential. I also want to push the chapters out faster, which means I need to structure the story to avoid rewrites as much as possible. Basically, I’m trying to learn from the mistakes I made with The Pacifist, and The Human Gods, so that I can write better, faster, and publish more regularly here.

The Rest of 2025

• Late May/Early June: Publish Book #2 of The Human Gods 

• Late 2025: Publish Book #3 of The Human Gods (editing should go much faster for this one)

• Late 2025: Book #2 of New Series on Patreon (maybe, depends on how fast I’m going!)

• First Half of 2026: Publish Book #4 of The Human Gods

I dream of getting The Last Human/The Human Gods narrated. It seems likely that’ll happen in 2026 at the earliest, but good voice actors are expensive (as they should be), so I have to find a way to make the numbers work.

***

There are so many concepts floating around in my head, the goal over these next few weeks is to nail them all down.

Most of all, I’m excited to show you what I’ve been dreaming up next. I can’t wait to start afresh with everything I learned from both The Last Human and The Pacifist.

One last reason I think you’ll like this next series: at crucial points in the story, I’ll put up a few options on Patreon, and let you tell me where you want it to go next. Honestly, I can’t believe I haven’t done this sooner. 

Anyway, I’m going back to writing. Thank you so much for reading, and I can’t wait to share the future with you.

The Last Human IV - 69 - Of Old Friends

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New moss bearded the ribs of the Ark, cutting lush green lines against a bright, blue sky. Clouds built white castles in the distance, tinted with the promise of rain. But not today. Today, light from an alien sun (truly alien, Laykis thought) filtered down through the city in the Ark. 

After only a handful of years, the atmosphere on Maker’s Haven had already reached its optimal mixture. Thus, the xenos had turned off the shield, and the sun shone directly on Laykis’s metal body. Yet, it did nothing to warm her spirits.

She paced back and forth beneath the boughs of a young Kapok tree. Her legs creaked and squeaked with every step, and her feet scraped over the marks in the concrete, grooved from years of anxious pacing. Since the Ark had landed on Maker’s Haven, Laykis had hardly left. Instead, she had spent almost every free moment in this park—working on this new design. The first of its kind, in this universe.

Today, she would find out if her dream was more than a dream. 

Talons clicked along the concrete path. Laykis turned to look. Too fast. Something grinded in her hips, and she lost her balance, barely catching herself on the Kapok tree. 

Eolh rushed forward to help steady her. “You alright?”

“You’re late,” Laykis’s voice clicked with more sharply than she intended. Inside her chassis, her core hummed with anxiety.

“Sorry,” Eolh cawed. “Vaolh was leading the other fledglings in a coup, and my dear wife, the Queen of Aviankind, wasn’t strong enough to hold them back on her own. Vaolh might have my feathers, but he’s got all his mother’s talent for command. Little shit kept screaming about the oppression of nap time. Then, he started leading a protest chant.” Eolh leaned in and whispered conspiratorially. “Don’t tell Ryke, but I heard him practicing a revolution speech in the bath this morning. The fledge is five years old, Laykis. Five!” 

“Her Majesty has run a nation of millions. I’m sure she’s more than enough to handle one fledgling avian.” 

Eolh croaked a laugh, “Maybe him alone. But she’s got three others to worry about now.”

“Would you like to reschedule?” Laykis asked. “Perhaps we should reschedule.”

“Unh uh,” he shook his head. “I know how important this is. This is the one.”

A pyramid’s peak rose just above the canopy of young trees. Its base dominated the center of the park, and thousands of wires grew like black vines down its sides, and buried into the deck below the park. The pyramid was a crude imitation of Sen’s Mirror. Laughably primitive, Laykis thought, nothing compared to what the Makers could build. But, after years of studying Sen’s designs, and working on prototypes and running tests, this was the culmination of her efforts. Please let this be more than a dream.

Five and a half years ago, when the Ark had landed on Maker’s Haven, they held a grand funeral for Yarsi. Her body was laid to rest in the altar of the largest Temple on the Ark—a fitting resting place for a mortal-turned-god. 

But the memory device was not buried with her. It was kept in a shrine, and though it was safeguarded day and night by a retinue of priests and honor guards, the shrine was open to all worshippers. With permission, and a great deal of reverence, Laykis had touched the device—and found that it still worked.  All of Yarsi’s memories, and all of Emorynn’s, were hers to access. 

In those memories, Laykis found the plans dreamed up by Emorynn—and witnessed in the real by Yarsi. With their combined memories, Laykis hoped she might have a chance to recreate the Mirror.

The xenos were not so hopeful. Only a god, they believed, could recreate the works of the Makers. On top of that, Laykis was deteriorating. Her core was cracked, and a microscopic flow of Light leaked out of her, eroding both Tython’s original designs and the layers of improvements Laykis had made to herself. Of late, Laykis had even begun to doubt herself. 

But Eolh—Eolh believed. In her, his faith never wavered.

“It’s going to work,” Eolh said. 

“You don’t know that,” Laykis clicked sourly.

“What about Yarsi’s memory-thing? Nobody but you could even read it.” 

“Yet I still don’t understand half of what I downloaded. Emorynn’s memories are too vast. And though the Mirror was her concept, it was Sen who built it.”

“Exactly,” Eolh crowed, “Sen built it. If it was done once, reckon it can be done again.” 

Her Core was practically vibrating. If Laykis had a mouth, she might be clenching all her teeth. She hadn’t felt this tense since … well, since the day she first found the human child, still alive in his cryochamber. 

“Listen to me, Laykis. You keep working on it, then it’s going to work. I was there, too, when he went through. I remember the Mirror—and this one feels just like it. You’re so damn close. Handle the wires and I’ll get the switch, and we’ll test this one together.” 

Laykis nodded. She stooped low, and grabbed the thickest wire of the bunch. A twinge ran out from her Core and down her wrists, and suddenly her fingers refused to grip. She tried again, but her hands kept sliding off. Eolh had to come over and help her, and in the end, she stood at the switch while he wrestled the wires into place. Even my hands refuse to work. And her Core was humming again. Why did I think I could follow in the Makers’ footsteps? 

But Eolh put a feathered hand on her shoulder, and squeezed. “Come on, android,” he crowed. “We’re ready.”

Her hand hovered over the switch. She stopped. “What if it doesn’t work?” 

Eolh didn’t grumble or growl or sigh. Instead, her avian friend looked her in the eye and said, “This was your idea, android. So, of course it’s going to work.”

And just like that, her Core whispered, smooth and quiet. All the tension melted away. They pulled the switch together. 

Milliseconds ticked by, and her excitement ramped. Two excruciating seconds later, Laykis couldn’t stand it any longer.

“Do you see anything?” she asked.

“Give it time.” 

She could feel the hum of energy coursing through the wires. She could feel the drain on the Ark’s reserves as all that power surged into the Mirror. And still nothing.

“Eolh?”

Peering in, Eolh pressed his beak against the Mirror’s glass-like exterior, shielding his vision with both wings. 

“No,” he said.

“We can’t drain the Ark forever.”

“Yeah,” he sighed. “Maybe …” 

Laykis was about to pull the switch off, when he crowed a sharp “Wait!” 

Something moved.

A flicker.

A flare of iridescence.

A single thread of Light, as thin as spider’s silk, drew itself down the center of the pyramid. Then, it peeled open, a sliver that revealed billions of glittering specks, dancing around each other. Laykis stared rapt, though her sensors could find no pattern in the dance. Lines and curves danced and bounced and erupted out of each other. Alien shapes speared out of the darkness, swallowing each other and splitting into new concepts, before splitting again. New depths of new infinities revealed themselves in an endless, never-repeating—

The Light seized. All stood still. 

“Uh oh,” Eolh said. “I think we overloaded it.”

Laykis’s voice clicked as she whispered, “No.” 

The pattern wavered, but did not change. Slowly, so slowly, her visual sensors began to adjust. There was a curve, like the corner of a lip. And there, two orbs that might’ve been a pair of eyes. And …

From the rising glass surface of the Pyramid, a face smiled down at her. She had dreamed of that face since the day her Maker brought her to life, so many thousands of years ago. 

An ancient voice spoke her name. “Laykis?” 

“I am here! I am here, Divine One.” Her Core was humming now, soaring with divine ecstasy. Oh, how she had waited to hear his voice.

“Of course, you are. It was always going to be you.” 

Eolh was beaming. He nudged Laykis in her metal ribs, as if to say, see? didn’t I say that?

“Ten thousand eons I have waited, and ten thousand more. And yet, I always held onto my hope you would somehow find me. It has been so very long since I have heard your voice.”

“Have you not been watching over us, Divine One?” Laykis asked.

“I have seen nothing since I pulled the Ark through the Scar,” the Savior Divine said. “How long has it been?”

“Five and a half years,” Laykis said.

“So short a time?” the Savior Divine shook his head, causing his great image to warp and glitter. “I could have sworn … but tell me. What of our xenos? What of Eolh and all the others?”

“I’m here, too, fledge.”

“Fledge,” Poire chuckled, his voice rich and deep and full of barely-bridled joy. “Oh, nothing can compare to the sound of my two oldest friends. Tell me, tell me everything.”

Pride pulsed in Laykis’s Core. To Eolh, she asked, “Where shall we begin?”

“The children?” Eolh croaked.

“The children. Divine One, we have wanted to ask, as you are the only one who might know. How shall we raise the children?”

“What children?” The Savior divine asked. 

Laykis and Eolh looked at each other for a long moment, both too stunned to say anything.

He doesn’t know?” Eolh asked.

“I don’t think he knows.”

“He doesn’t know … ”

“Know what?” the Savior Divine asked.

“But he should’ve seen Khadam bring back the canister—”

Laykis shook her head, “Human-made metal. Designed to absorb the Light. He couldn’t see.”

“What are you two talking about?” the Savior’s voice boomed with impatient curiosity. He almost sounded like the young Poire they had both met in the Cauldron, so long ago.

Eolh and Laykis looked at each other once more. And the two of them shared a laugh that made Laykis’s Core sing with joy. They told him about the human embryos that Khadam had brought to the Ark. Safe and secure and, blessedly, free of the Prophet’s Disease. 

“We figure,” Eolh said, “We can bring them out in cohorts. That way, we can get a handle on dealing with them. Because, you know, nobody’s ever raised a human child before.”

The Savior said, “And what about the years you spent raising me?” 

“Oh,” Laykis clicked.

“Huh,” Eolh crowed.

And Poire burst into laughter. The sound was so sweet, Laykis wanted to listen to it for the rest of her life.

THE END.

The Last Human IV - 68 - To Bless and Be Blessed

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The two avians locked themselves together. It didn’t seem to matter that Agraneia was still standing in the room. 

Agraneia coughed awkwardly. “I’ll, uh, see you two later.” She didn’t think either one of them heard her as she slid the door shut behind her.

She knew she should be glad for Eolh and Ryke. They deserved all the happiness that life could offer. Agraneia should feel relieved that the Scar hadn’t crushed the Ark into dust, and that their xeno patchwork of a civilization would find a new home …

But she couldn’t feel it. No relief. No joy. Nothing but her bruised flesh and sharp pains where the Sovereign’s monster had tried to break her.

There was someone Agraneia needed to see, only she wasn’t sure if Talya would want to see her. After all, Agraneia had left Talya—more than once—to seek out some stupid ideal. To do the right thing. And, if the gods demanded it, to get herself killed.

But the gods demanded something else. And that was turning out to be far more difficult.

And now, Agraneia was afraid that she didn’t deserve to see Talya again. Maybe Talya doesn’t even want to see me. Is it cruel to seek her out? Or just selfish? Hells, it was possible the Queen’s wingmaiden had already found someone new. Someone who wasn’t an emotionally-stunted coward with a monstrous past.

But her legs knew something that her mind didn’t, because they were already in motion. Agraneia limped through the Ark’s corridors and crowds of xenos (disheveled and exhausted and crying with relief). Without really meaning to go, she found herself standing in the hospital ward. Nurses with bloodstains and sleep-deprived doctors fretted to and fro like bees tending to a hive, worrying over patients in their cots. The scent of dried blood and old sweat and sharp disinfectants stung at her nostrils. Shouts for sedatives competed with the screams of some poor soul who was being carried away for an amputation. Heart hammering in her throat, Agraneia unconsciously wrapped her hand around her liquid arm. Feeling a surge of dread and sympathy for the unfortunate patient. 

“Patient intake?” A plump red-feathered nurse came charging past her elbow, eyeing her impatiently. “What’s the nature of your wounds?”

“Oh, I’m not here as a patient.”

“No?” she clucked doubtfully, eyeing the burned bands of flesh around her wrists and arms. 

“I’m looking for someone.”

“Family or loved one?”

“I … I think so.”

“You think so? Well, you can find a list of patients over there, but I’m warning you now, it’s long.”

“Not a patient. Looking for someone who works here. Talya?” 

The red avian’s brow feathers rose a few inches, and her crest feathers spiked. “Oh,” She uttered icily, “I see.”

Agraneia swallowed. “Is she here?”

“She is.”

“Can I … see her?”

“If it were up to me?” The nurse sighed heavily, shaking her head as if to say ‘not my problem.’ “Talya’s in the back.” 

Agraneia thanked her, and the nurse gave a curt toss of her head, before tending to the next xeno.

The back was quieter, though the antiseptic smell was stronger. Almost intoxicating, but far from pleasant. A tech was mopping a long, bloody stain on the floor. Agraneia limped through halls crowded with cots and barely conscious patients. In one room, a family was sobbing over a body, covered with a towel, while a nurse gently urged them to take their grieving outside, so they could make room for other patients.

Talya was in the last room on the left, helping a blue-feathered nurse peel the bloody wraps off a patient. Both their white uniforms, and Talya’s white feathers, were stained with blood. 

Agraneia stood in the hall. She couldn’t bring herself to step inside. Maybe she doesn’t want to see me. Why would she? Frozen by indecision, gritting her jaw, Agraneia just watched the wingmaiden work. Two techs hurried down the hall with a gurney, shouting for Agraneia to move out of the way.

Talya kept working, but her partner glanced at the doorway. The nurse’s face darkened. “Talya,” he whispered, and nodded at Agraneia. 

First, the wingmaiden turned. Her eyes widened. Her beak fell open in stages. 

“I …” Agraneia rumbled. “Talyam I’m …” The room was spinning, and she couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t find the words. She never had the damn words.

It didn’t matter.

“AGRANEIA?” Talya screamed. A few conscious patients lifted their heads.

Before Agraneia could open her mouth to say another word, Talya threw herself across the room like a feathered missile. She slammed against Agraneia’s chest, and wrapped her arms around her waist, squeezing exactly where the Sovereign had broken her ribs.

Agraneia toppled over with the smaller avian still holding on. Together, they crashed to the floor, and Agraneia gasped in blissful agony.

“You’re alive!” Talya squealed between a barrage of kisses, “You’re alive!”—kiss, kiss, kiss—“You’re alive!”—kiss, kiss—“By the gods, you’re alive!” 

There was nothing sanitary about this, and Agraneia was pretty sure Talya’s hands were still covered in someone else’s blood, but Agraneia was damned if she was going to stop her.

***

The city built by the xenos on the Ark’s habitation deck was in ruins. While the experts searched for a new home, the xeno survivors had to share the rest of the ship. People slept in shifts in the barracks scattered across the bowels of the ship, or made their homes in tucked-away corners in the halls and corridors of the Ark’s mazelike interior.

Talya had claimed a prime spot in the aftward grow labs, where green stalks grew out of hydroponic beds and broad leaves tickled at the ceiling. Grassy smells and the insect-like buzz of growlights gave it an almost pastoral feel. There were other xenos, other families, scattered through the growing crops, but spread out enough that Agraneia could almost pretend she and Talya were alone. If not for the hallucinations …

The dead faces lurked in the shadows of the ripening nangka fruits and sugar grasses. Their eyes weighed on her, their whispers rustled as soft as leaves. Agraneia fought to keep her eyes on Talya, who patted her bedroll, inviting the cyran closer.

“Agra? What’s the matter?”

“Hmm,” Agraneia hummed through her frown. Shouldn’t it be easier now that they were safe? But the words were stuck in her throat.

Talya watched her, but didn’t rush her. Ever patient, she waited in silence.

Agraneia growled at herself. If Talya could be patient, then why can’t I find the strength to speak? She squeezed her eyes shut, and took a deep breath, and spoke in a rush. “There’s something wrong with me, and it’s been broken for such a long time that I’m afraid it can never be fixed.”

Talya reached out. Feathers brushed over scales as her fingers intertwined with Agraneia’s. And, silently, the wingmaiden waited.

“I …” Agraneia hesitated. The words were getting stuck again. Her chest was tight, and not just from the bandages wrapped around her torso. Agraneia growled, trying to force it out. “Wanted to ask—you—I’m asking—Maybe if you could—”

“Agraneia,” she said, soft and sweet. “Are you asking for my help?” 

Agraneia swallowed. And nodded.

“Don’t you know that I love you?” Talya asked.

“But I left,” Agraneia's brow furrowed. “I left you on your own.”

“Because you stopped loving me?”

“I always loved you.”

Talya’s smile was like a sun burning through the clouds. Yet, just as swiftly, it was gone again. “Then why did you leave, Agra?”

Agraneia stared into the green walls of plants. A sprayer hissed as it showered another crop a few rows over. It didn’t quite drown out the whispers. They were talking to her. About her. Saying all the things she didn’t want to hear. Some of them were even true.

“Because I hate myself,” Agraneia finally said. “Because I don’t think—I didn’t think—I was worthy of your love.”

“Do you want to change that?” 

Agraneia’s eyes shot back to hers. “More than anything. But I’ve always been this way. I don’t know if I can change…”

“Back when Gaiam was occupied, Queen Ryke used to tell me things about the gods. About their great works. Their magical artifacts,” She nodded at Agraneia’s liquid arm. “But Queen Ryke always said these things were nothing compared to their greatest power. What separates mortals from the divine? They had the power to change themselves—with nothing but will.

“And when the Magistrate’s forces took hold of the Cauldron, Ryke always told me to remember one thing. That we are descended from the gods. Even you. If they can change, then why can’t you?”

***

When the xenos chose a new world, it didn’t have a proper name—just a string of letters and numbers in the Ark’s sensor data logs. 

The xeno people were still arguing over what to call it as the Ark descended into the new world’s atmosphere. Without Yarsi to guide the Ark, the descent was more than a little choppy. Teams of navigators, engineers, and other officers chattered and squabbled as they slowly, pendulously guided the Ark to rest at the bottom of a u-shaped valley. Surrounded by towering granite cliffs and rounded slopes, the Ark was protected from the dry winds that scoured this world. Once the dust settled, teams of tinkers and geological experts donned their expedition suits and began to map out the foundations for the Towers that would power the dome over the valley. 

Once the Towers were built and the dome was up, they would feed Khadam’s printers and fill the dome with a balanced air mixture and generate the other elements needed for life. Only then could the xenos turn their sights on transforming the world into a true paradise. 

In the meantime, Agraneia busied herself around the Ark. With Talya’s help, she searched for a new purpose. At first, she tried to offer her services to the heavy maintenance crews. Though this world had an atmosphere, it was thin, and the ship still needed to pump and sustain interior oxygen levels. But the banging of hammered metal and the blaze of welding torches and the shouted communications aggravated her hallucinations. It made her work dangerous. 

Agraneia tried to help Laykis build her new android body. But once Laykis’s core was grafted into the starter chassis, as Laykis called it, they both knew the android didn’t really need her.

Talya suggested she try working in the makeshift hospital ward. Here, the faces still watched and whispered over her shoulder, even as Agraneia worked tirelessly to feed and clean patients, and help them get back on their feet. Sometimes, a wounded xeno came in, and Agraneia had to cover her nose and mouth to prevent the smell of blood from sending her off. As an aide, she was hopeless in surgery. It was intoxicating. 

Every day was a fight. Every day, she wanted to quit. To somehow leave everything behind. But, she knew, the faces would only follow her. 

And every day, Talya coaxed her back from the darkness. Be patient with yourself, Agra. Some wounds take lifetimes to heal. 

The problem was, Agraneia didn’t feel like she was healing. Not until she found the lost cyran child. 

She was looking for bandages in the back halls of the hospital ward, when she heard a noise. Some of the rooms back here didn’t have power, so they mostly stayed empty. 

Expecting to find a forgotten construct, Agraneia poked her head into the dark. He was staring at her. Dull, aqua scales and crest fins that were just starting to grow in. He must’ve younger than Yarsi, when she and Agraneia first met. 

“Uh,” Agraneia said. “Hello?” 

He flinched, and shrank back into the darkness. But he didn’t blink. She knew that look. Had seen it many times, reflected back at her.

But this was a child. She didn’t know how to talk to children. And shouldn’t his parents be around? Then it dawned on her. You idiot, the faces laughed at her. You fool.

“Are you alone?” she asked.

Silence. He was shaking slightly. Probably, he hadn’t eaten in days. 

“Look,” Agraneia rumbled, “You can’t stay here.”

He shrank back as she stepped into the room. When he bumped into the corner, he curled into a crouch. His wide eyes bored into her. An animal, ready to bite and claw and tear into her if she came any closer.

Agraneia’s blood was up. But she was not afraid.

“Scared?”

He made an imperceptible twitch. Could’ve been a nod. Could’ve been nothing.

“Me too,” Agraneia said. She leaned against the door frame and sat slowly down. Her knees cracked, and the boy flinched with every pop. 

“You and me,” she said. “We’re alike.”

“What do you know?” he snapped. “You’re a noble.”

 “I’m anything but,” Agraneia chuckled darkly.

“Your scales glitter. Mine don’t.” He glared at her. Full of hate. Just like all the other faces that haunted her. 

“You think you have to stay angry, because anger feels better than everything else. You’re afraid of suffocating, so you stay angry. But it eats at you. Hate is an acid. It burns you up and makes you sink to the bottom. Makes it impossible to ever see the light again.”

“What do you know?” the boy spat. His fists were clenched so tight, her knuckle scales stood out.

Agraneia lowered her voice until it was little more than a gentle rumble. “They’re all dead aren’t they? Everyone you ever knew.”

His eyes flicked down, and the rage started to drain away. He frowned harder, trying to summon it back, but the truth had punctured something in him. Tears pooled in the child’s eyes. His lip quivered as he fought, and fought. 

She remembered trying to be that brave. She remembered killing everything inside herself, just to stop feeling the weight of it all. 

“Hey.”

He was breathing hard. Staring at the floor. She was losing him.

“Want to see something?”

Agraneia lifted her liquid arm. Her liquid metal hand melted into a new shape. Chrome fibers threaded together in a semblance of muscle, and her fist turned into a gleaming metal hammer. Then, it changed again, into a long, elegant blade. And once more, becoming an ornate and delicate miniature tree. A small, silver trunk sprouted from her forearm, filigreed branches catching the light from the hall. 

The boy’s eyes were wide with awe. 

“A god gave it to me,” she said. “Want to hear the story?”

This time, she was sure he nodded.

Agraneia talked for hours. She talked until her mouth went dry, and her voice croaked like a corvani’s. She told him about her life before Eolh, skirting around the goriest details. And she told him how everything changed. And how Poire entrusted her with the liquid armor. 

“It took me a long time to learn how to shape it,” Agraneia said. “But now, I don’t even have to think. It just knows what I want. It can even do this—”

She threw out her arm, and the liquid metal extended into a long blade. It sliced into the nearest wall, carving a long hole into the Ark’s hull. Sparks flew, and light poured in from the next room over. 

“Oops.”

The cyran boy stared at the wall. Then back at her. Completely enraptured. 

“Uh,” she said, “Don’t tell anyone about that.”

He wanted to hear the rest of her story, but she convinced him it would sound better over a few plates of food. “I’m starving. Tell you the rest once we get some grub.” 

“Okay,” he said. Sounding small and uncertain again. 

This time, it was Agraneia’s turn to flinch, when a small scaled hand pressed into hers. 

In an instant, it was clear. The dead faces were all around her. Screaming and laughing and raging at her, for what she had done. 

But, for the moment, Agraneia couldn’t hear a word they said.

The boy’s name was Krusan, and his parents had been on the Ark. They pushed him through the bulkhead doors, right before their compartment was ripped open to the vacuum. With Talya’s help, Agraneia helped little Krusan start on a new path. “One day,” she said, “Not today. Not tomorrow. But one day, it starts to get better. You have to work at it, though.”

Krusan was only the first of many. Next, Agraneia found two avian girls who had watched their siblings get ripped apart by the Sovereign’s drones who had managed to burrow into the Ark. 

Unlike Krusan, who took hours to start talking, the two avian girls latched onto Talya in minutes. Then, there was a young gaskal with red and green and yellow scales, who didn’t talk for weeks until Krusan taught him how to play ships and pirates. After that, nobody could get him to stop talking. 

Still, the voices whispered to Agraneia. Her dreams were as vivid as ever. Sometimes, she could feel her fingers wrapped around the throats of her enemies, even as they clawed back at hers. On those nights, she woke up sweating. And rolled over, and held Talya tight.

The Towers went up around the Ark, and the new shield dome came to life, trapping in the oxygen and moisture they would need to turn this place into a living paradise. They named the planet “Maker’s Haven,” such that Khadam’s great deeds might never be forgotten. The first plants began to take root in the soil around the Ark. New buildings rose—in the Ark’s half-ruined habitation deck, and on the planet’s surface.

Agraneia and Eolh walked the perimeter of the dome, watching the newest highrise roost go up. It was the tallest one yet, and there were already bridges connecting it to the Ark, and a handful of shorter buildings built higher on the slope. Outside the shimmering blue dome, the valley was desolate and red-brown. But here, fields of sprouts were already flourishing. Little green plants, braving this new, alien world. Despite her wrenching nerves, it gave her hope.

“Eolh,” she said, finally summoning the courage to ask, “I was wondering if you could help me.”

“Is that right?” he cocked his head. “Help with what?”

“Starting a group.”

“Another one? All those little followers, I don’t know how you and Talya keep up with them.”

“The kids? Easy. Throw them around for a few hours, then let them run wild, feed them and let them run around again. They sleep like rocks.”

“Didn’t know rocks were so much work.” 

Agraneia waved him off. “I have to do more.”

“Have to?” He eyed her carefully.

“The voices in my head. They’re never going away. Problem is, they’re right. They always have been.”

“Oh, Agra … ”

“But I won’t let them be right forever.”

Eolh cocked his head the other way. “What do you mean?”

“I want to start a group. Broken. Lost. Anyone who needs it. We’re going to, uh, help each other. Thing is, I’m not much of a leader.”

“Come on,” Eolh said. “Reckon it’s easy. All you have to do is say the right things, and say them a lot. Just a lot of talking.”

“Hm,” she grunted. “Talking.”

 Eolh clicked his beak. “Fair point.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I reckon it’s a skill like any other. I mean, when you first started at the War Academy, you had a lot to learn, too. Didn’t you?” 

“Sergeants said I was a natural. Best they’d ever seen.”

“Of course they did,” he crowed out a sigh. “Well, then. You’ve got all the time in the world to learn, old friend. We’ll start small, yeah? Just a handful. Can you handle that?” 

“Don’t know.” Agraneia rolled the tension out of her shoulders. “But we’ll find out.” 

“Don’t worry, Ags. Some day, you’ll be an orator unlike any other.” 

“And if not?”

He shrugged. “Really, if you think about it, it’s not about you. It’s about who's listening. And good authority says I’m a good one. A natural listener, even. Best they’ve ever seen.”

Eolh couldn’t hide that stupid, smug smile on his face. 

***

Terrible thunder and rain storms battered the Shield Wall, but inside the crops were in full bloom. There were insects—actual insects—buzzing inside the shield wall. Apparently Khadam had found frozen samples of genetic material deep in the vaults on Gaiam, back when it still existed. Combined with the stowaways aboard the Ark, new life had come to Maker’s Haven.

Agraneia had started the first support gathering with one rule: only those who want to become better may join. The first time, nobody wanted to talk. So Agraneia stood at the front of her small crowd, and told them about herself. 

“Hello,” she said awkwardly. Her voice echoed uncomfortably loud in the compact amphitheater. There were less than ten of them, including Eolh and Talya, gathered in a ruined park on the Ark’s habitation deck. The ribs of the Ark rose high around them, and above that, the crystal-blue shield protected them from the onslaught of the storms.

“My name is Agraneia. I was a first lieutenant in the Emperor’s expeditionary forces. Part of a special battalion, until the end. The things I did … I’m not proud of them.”

She took a deep breath. Eolh nodded at her. Talya leaned forward. And Agraneia plowed ahead.

“I killed many, many people, and I regret every single life I took. Even the ones I took to save others. But the truth is, fighting made me feel alive. We were the best of the best. The Emperor’s tech kept us head and shoulders above every force we encountered. It was terrifying, how strong we were. I became addicted to it. I lost myself. Became a machine for an Empire I didn’t believe in. They told us that the xenos were beneath us. Lies to make us feel important. It was a xeno—a friend—who helped me make myself anew.

“Today, we’re here to remind ourselves that we don’t have to be alone. As a god once told me,” She held up her liquid metal arm, “Reach out. And I will reach back.”

The next gathering, there were more than fifty. Sure, some of them just wanted to hear some old war stories, but it didn’t matter. Agraneia had finally begun to be.

The groups came and went, but mostly they came. Sometimes ex-soldiers showed up, just because they’d heard about her. The legendary Agraneia. Even a few of Eolh’s less-than-gentle Lowtown friends joined up. Some even made friends with the very cyrans they had once sworn to kill. Some.

“Surprised there haven’t been any knife fights,” Eolh said over dinner one night. They were sitting round a long, wooden table that one of Agraneia’s support groups had carved from printer fabricated wood.

“That’s because the Sovereign wiped out most of the Ark’s alleys,” Ryke smirked, “Give them a few months to repair the City and—oofh.” The Queen rubbed at her rounding belly, wincing with discomfort. 

Eolh touched her wing. “The egg, love?”

“Tomorrow, I think.” 

“No. Already?”

She winced again, but smiled happily at her corvani mate. 

Across the table, Talya could barely contain her excitement, “So? Have you settled on a name yet?” 

“No names until it hatches—” Ryke said. 

At the same time, Eolh said, “Vaolh if it’s a boy, Nyka for a girl.”

Ryke glared at him.

“What?”

“Nyka av’Ryka?” Ryke asked. “What kind of name is that?”

“Oh, so she’s taking your last name now?” 

“She will be half oqyllan.”

“And half corvani!” 

To Agraneia’s left, Laykis finally perked up, as if she’d just heard the question. “What about Poire?” she asked. 

“Not Poire!” Eolh and Ryke said together.

“Well, I’ve always been partial to the name,” Laykis said. 

And Talya was trying so hard to hold in her laughter, but it came out in a chirping outburst. 

That night, after everyone had left, and the two of them were lying in bed, Agraneia curled up against Talya. The wingmaiden nestled against the cyran, using the liquid arm as a pillow, and squeezing the other around herself. Talya sighed with deep content.

And Agraneia’s face hurt from smiling.

Next >

The Last Human IV - 67 - One Last Prayer

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This new universe looked much like the one they had left behind. The stars were different, and the galaxies, closer and brighter.

But Poire had brought them here. He had opened the Way, and shepherded the badly damaged Ark through one Scar, and into another. To our Salvation. 

Ryke wanted to give thanks to the gods. She should have been on her knees, praising them for guarding her people, and keeping the flame of hope alive.

This should have been the most joyful moment in her life. And yet…

The Falcyr had already taken Yarsi’s body away, to prepare it for the funeral. There was nothing left of Khadam, or at least nothing in this universe. And yet… Ryke couldn’t stop praying the same useless prayer she’d prayed since Cyre. If only…

But the Bridge was already filling up with geologists, biologists, and planetary survey specialists (mostly cyrans who run vanguard in the Imperial Army). The Ark’s remaining sensors aimed in every direction, and filled the Bridge’s screens with detailed data on numerous planets. There were bright orange rocks, littered with craters and jagged mountain ranges and blue spheres and too many brown lifeless worlds for her to tell the difference. 

“Exceptionally high levels of nitrogen,” Ryke overheard from a group of scientists standing at one console. “And plenty of carbon dioxide.”

“But no oxygen.” 

“Plenty of water vapor. And polar ice, look there.” 

“And what will we breathe? Water?” One scientist snorted derisively, and looked to his colleagues for support. “Even the cyrans outgrew such primitive methods of respiration.”

Heatedly, one of them snapped back, “The printers, you fool! The printers will create whatever elements are lacking. Including oxygen.”

“Do you have any idea how much oxygen we’d need to cover a planet’s atmosphere?”  

“Gravity is what matters. And temperature.” 

“Both are nominal. This one even has two moons.”

She tried to hurry past them, clasping her fingers together to stop the trembling, but one of the scientists noticed her.

“Your Majesty,” he called, and all their heads turned expectantly. “We’ve found one! It’s just like home.”

“Maybe even better than home!” someone else chimed in.

“Of course,” Ryke’s voice rang hollow as a bell. “Do what you think is best.”

Planetary experts they might be, but they were still wrong. None of these worlds were like home. Home was where her friends were. Home was where her heart still beat. Home was where she prayed, every night, desperately hoping the gods were listening. If only…

Ryke had taken her people to the Stars, and her friends had given their lives, and now the survivors of civilization—millions of xenos—were saved. It was time for the experts to take over. Already, they were trying to figure out where to put down the Ark. And with a plethora of planets to choose from, it would take them days. Months, maybe. The Ark was falling to pieces, but this universe was perfect. 

Good, she thought. Good for them. 

And where was Agraneia? Where was Laykis? Yarsi would never see their new home. Nor would Khadam. And nor would … 

She stopped at the thought. Her whole body shuddered, and she had to swallow her feelings. She choked, and started to cough. 

“Your Majesty?”

“I…” The air was thick. Too hot.

“Are you well?” 

Ryke winced as they expressed their concerns. 

“I’m…” she shook her head, and pushed past their group. Shoved her way through the throngs of scientists and military advisors and blurring faces. “Your Majesty!” They wanted her attention. They wanted to ask her things that she didn’t know the answers to. They wanted her, and she wanted—she needed to get out. Breaking into a run, Ryke barrelled through the Bridge’s door, almost knocking over a group of squeaking redenites as she turned into the corridors. She collapsed in the first empty room she could find. A boardroom, or something like it. No windows, no screens. Just a table surrounded by chairs, and a blank screen on the wall. 

It started before she even had the door closed. There was nothing regal about the squawking sobs that wracked her body as all those burning, pent-up emotions came pouring out. She collapsed onto a chair, and buried her face in her arms. Tears kept coming and coming, even when she squeezed her eyes shut. Why did it have to hurt so much, just because they weren’t here? Gone, and never here again.

She cried until her throat was raw and her face hurt and pools of tears dripped off the table. Time refused to move. She wanted to sleep. To not exist. To stop feeling. She wanted the one that she could never have again. He promised he wouldn’t ever leave me.

She prayed. Please, gods, I don’t want to feel anything ever again. And she cursed them, too, that they could ever let this happen. 

But the gods were dead. Ryke had believed in them. They returned, as was promised, only to leave again. And they took the ones I loved with them. She screamed at the wall. How could they do this? She screamed at the ceiling. I prayed! I always prayed! But her prayers were as useless as her fury. Ice gripped her heart. Made it weak. Made her tremble. She collapsed to the table, shivering and pitiful. 

The door hissed open behind her. 

She didn’t have the strength to speak, let alone to shout. “Get out.” 

“Hey,” a cyran woman growled. 

“Agraneia?” Ryke lifted her head, wiping the wetness from the feathers around her eyes. “You’re alive?”

Agraneia looked a mess. Singed scales, flaking and white. Surprisingly deep wounds that looked like they’d been left open far too long carved gruesome furrows across her body. Yet, she was alive. Blessedly alive.

“Oh, gods,” Ryke stood up to embrace her, when something made her stop. 

There was an odd smile on the cyran’s face. Nervous, maybe. Agraneia’s scaled lips quivered, like she didn’t know how to say what was on her mind.

“What’s wrong?” Ryke asked.

“Uh,” Agraneia carefully—very carefully—placed a heavy, rounded cylinder onto the table. “Wanted to show you something.”

“What is this?” It was made of the same black metal as the Dam. Green lights blinked peacefully in a ring at the top, and a screen read -321°F. She had no idea what that meant. 

“They said it’s like an egg,” Agraneia said. “Only, there’s a lot of eggs. Inside the thing.”

“Eggs?” Ryke furrowed her brow, not understanding. Then, a cold shock trickled down her spine. Her crest feathers went rigid. “Whose eggs?”

“Mmm,” the Cyran hummed. She looked over her shoulder.

But this was no time for distractions. Ryke eyed the cyran. Took a step forward. Instinctively, she slipped back into that royal voice she used in front of her Council. “Whose eggs, Agraneia? Answer me right now.” 

Before Ryke could take another step, a new voice froze her in place.

“Oh,” the voice crowed from the hall, “You know exactly whose eggs those are.” 

No. 

It felt like an icy dagger had buried into her chest and stuck her in place. She couldn’t breathe. This isn’t possible.

And suddenly, the Queen of Aviankind couldn’t turn around to look at him.

“Hey,” his voice was gentler this time. It made her think of home. Of the midday songs in Midcity. Of walking the alleys of Lowtown, hand in hand, pretending that this was how things would always be. Of the scent of candles, burning low in her bed chambers, as his fingers ran down her neck, and his arms held  her.

Of a future she had lost, and still prayed for. Every day. If only …  

“Do you remember me?” He sounded just like he did, all those years ago. His voice was dark and leathery and just this side of raspy and tender and full of warmth that she still dreamed about. 

And the only thing she could think to say was, “You lied to me.” Ryke refused to turn around, in case she woke up from this dream. “You said you would never leave me.”

“I tried,” he said. “I tried everything.” 

It hurt to swallow. Her heart fluttered. Ryke had already cried all her tears, so why was everything blurry again? 

On Cyre, she had stood on the Gate. Watching him, crying out, unable to tear her eyes away and screaming herself hoarse, as if he might somehow hear her. But Eolh was already beyond the barrier, flying Khadam’s weapon into the Swarm. And when the Scar took him, Ryke had fallen to her knees. She had screamed until blood came up, and they had to pull her down because she kept trying to throw herself into the air to go after him.

“I know what I did,” He sounded uncertain. Almost afraid. Of me. “I’m sorry, not for doing it, but that I had to do it. I wanted to know if you would ever forgive me.”

It took a long moment for Ryke to gather her strength. Her voice shook. “Only if you promise never to do it again.” 

“Ryke.”

She flinched at the sound of her name, coming from his mouth. Don’t look, she told herself. Don’t let this dream end.

“My heart soars when I think of you. My body aches, when you’re not near. Every breath I take only for the chance to sing your name. I love you, Ryke. And I always will. Never will this corvani leave you, ever again.”

“Whatever happens?” she whispered.

“Whatever happens.” A hand slipped into hers. Warm and rough and agonizingly familiar and impossible—impossible, because he’s dead, he’s gone forever. 

“My Heart,” he said.

“Eolh.” Her feathers shivered. She turned, her hands clenched into fists, covering her heart. Bracing for the inevitable moment when this moment, this madness, this dream, would be ripped away from her again.

Thin streaks of white dusted his blue-black feathers. She didn’t remember that. But his beak was black and smooth and scarred with uneven notches in places she had forgotten that she had forgotten about. And his eyes, Eolh’s eyes, were exactly like the ones she had dreamed about, every night since she’d lost him (and since before that, too). 

Ryke forgot to breathe.

“Ryke.” 

His voice was like the gentle tap of a hammer. And it cracked her heart. And she felt herself melt as his strong arms wrapped around her, and his beak slid against hers. And she was lost in those eyes. 

“I can’t believe it’s you,” Ryke said.

The gods, it seemed, in their infinite wisdom and grace, had found a reason to answer one last prayer. But she would thank them later. Ryke was busy squeezing her arms around the only corvani who ever had her heart. And, by all the divine gods, there was no way she was letting go.

Next >

The Last Human IV - 66 - The God Who Was There

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Poire did not touch the ground. There was no ground to touch. The remnant universe had changed according to Poire’s will. He had atomized and recombined all the matter—all of it—into a new form.

Sweeping currents of dust snaked through vast fields of asteroids. Seas of floating stones clicked and cracked against each other in their endless orbiting dance. 

As Poire drifted through, the field parted to reveal a vast and complicated structure. An ever-shifting sphere, brimming with prismatic Light. It was made of countless columns and innumerable spindles and geometric thorns that slid ceaselessly over each other so that the whole structure seemed to be swallowing itself even as its insides poured out.

Poire had spent Eons perfecting the Crown’s design. His new engine only had to work once … but it had to work. Inside, a pale Scar blazed. Its brightness made it difficult to see this universe. But Poire no longer needed sight. He could feel every stone, for they were made of him, and he, of them. Every movement was his movement. Every drop of energy was his energy.

Poire closed his eyes, and took a calming breath. It wasn’t that he needed the oxygen, but he found the old techniques still focused him after all these years.

A shadow flickered from the Scar, and Poire opened his eyes. She was nothing more than a black speck amidst all that Light. So small. So wonderful. And it made him sad, for what he was about to do to her. 

Then, he spoke. “It wouldn’t have worked, you know.”

Khadam didn’t believe him, at first. And this delighted Poire, because he had watched her life from a distance, so many times, that he had forgotten what it was like to really speak with someone.

When he told her to send the Ark into the Scar, she answered. “Are you insane?”

“I will open the Way.”

“You’ve seen everything,” she said. “Then you know how this ends.” 

She wanted it to be true. She wanted to know that he knew. But Poire could only laugh, because he had never done this before. “I don’t know at all.” 

Khadam didn’t believe it was him. She was dying, and she thought she was losing her grip on reality. But even in the dark confusion, she cared about him. 

“I’m sorry. For everything that happened to you.”

He loved her, then, in a way he had never loved her before. Poire’s heart ached. It made what he was about to do hurt so much more. 

With a great exhalation, Poire ushered his Light through the narrow slit of his Scar. Focusing on that black speck, he forced Khadam’s diseased matter to grow, to rip from her body and unfold into wings of living obsidian. He tried to distract her from the pain.

“It wants to live, Khadam. Tell it how. Use it.”

It was not enough. The Dam was intact, holding the Scar in stasis. Sensing their prize had finally lost, the Sovereign’s machines streamed toward the Ark.

Thus, he would prove Anu right. The Destroyer would return to his home.

Poire touched the Scar. It burned in ways he had not imagined. The Dam tore at his flesh, ripping it apart molecule by molecule. Absorbing him. Is this how Anu felt? He wondered. He could not cross. Not yet.

But he could sense her. The Disease made her shine brighter than anything else on that side. She was so close, and so close to death. So, Poire pressed himself against the Scar, burning his own flesh that he might feel hers. Exhaling his life through the Scar, through the void, and into her.

The spines on her back were flooded with Light, and they grew, and they multiplied, and Khadam’s body began to split apart. And she laughed. Poire could feel the cracks running down her calcified spine, even as her wings spread wide, and carved the Dam into pieces. Oh, how she laughed, as her bones cracked and her body was eaten by that glittering death. 

Unfettered, the Scar blazed, as if to shine all its glory on the last moments of the only other human in all existence.

And she listened. “Is that you?” she asked. “Is that really you?” 

“Khadam,” Poire said, smiling, with tears in his eyes. “I am here.” 

And then, there was a touch. The ghost of a touch. Through Anu’s dying matter—the Disease—Poire felt Khadam. Felt her flesh, ragged and torn. Warm, and soft. Alive.

Their first touch. Their last.

Poire wished he could stay in this moment for a thousand lifetimes. Oh, how he wished. But the universe never waits. The Sovereign’s vast armadas were descending upon the dam, and Khadam was screaming at the xenos to fly into the Scar.

The Dam broke. And he could no longer see her. Only the Ark, and the billions of ships of the Sovereign Swarm.

With an open palm, Poire touched the Scar.

Light, brighter than any sun, erupted as the ancient wound in the void began to split open. A firestorm of Light sent countless bolts of Light spearing through the fractured pieces of the Dam. The tide of the Sovereign’s vast fleets begin to turn. Heavy cruisers and long battleships, slow and lumbering, ignited their repulsors as they tried to flee from the Scar unchained. Waves of drones peeled back, scrambling and scraping against each other in their rush to escape the surge of Light. 

Futile.

Torrents of Light to leap from the Scar, strobing through swathes of the armada. Where the Light touched, armored hulls became obsidian glass. Structural welding turned to dust, and carriers and heavy cruisers began to burst under their own weight. Flocks of drones died, screaming across the void, and their momentum turned them into kinetic projectiles that smashed against their sibling ships. 

But this was only the beginning. The Herald was about to make his return.

***

The Scar was a yawning infinity, and Yarsi’s mind rebelled at the sight. It felt like her sense of reality was being pulled out from her eyes. Yet she could not tear her eyes away from the view. 

Landscapes rose and fell like waves in an ocean of endlessly-complex fractals. Distant horizons flickered and melted toward her and away from her at the same time. Impossible dimensions folded into being, and showed her things that could not be. 

Then, she saw the Scar begin to open.

Celestial lacerations opened at the edges of the Scar, splitting space for thousands of miles above and below. Flashes of alien radiance cast brilliant shadows across the distant Moon and the Earth’s polluted atmosphere. And, like the petals of a great, black rose, the Dam’s platforms tumbled apart, and were obliterated by the Light.

The remains of the Sovereign’s armada turned to flee toward the Earth or the Moon or out into the stars. Yet the Scar would not let them go. Heavenly rays speared across the void, arcing across hundreds of thousands of miles, carving jagged lines through the scattered armada. Where they touched, metal turned to dust.

Yarsi thought of running, too. But it was too late. On faith, she had obeyed Khadam’s command. Did it matter? Yarsi’s mind began to spiral. Would anything have mattered?

A roar of gasps erupted inside the Bridge. Something was happening in the Scar. The xenos covered their faces, as if the very sight of the Scar caused them excruciating pain. But Yarsi held her gaze. She wanted to know. She needed to know. 

The infinite horizons of the Scar surged together, twisting themselves into new shapes. Yarsi whimpered. Her mind felt like it would burst. The Ark showered her with warnings about her organic body. She held her gaze. The threshold of the Scar shifted as something heavy rose up from the distant center. Whatever it was, it caused the rays of Light to pull back into the Scar, until a searing, stuttering web of Light covered the Scar from end to end. 

The Scar gave a heartbeat lurch. A wave rippled out, and caught the swarms of drones and machine ships, both the dead and the living. In the split moment before it smashed against the Ark, Yarsi inverted her generators, turning her light into a thin sheen of skin that Covered the Ark. A scream erupted from her lassertane body and it carried across the Bridge.

Vaguely, she felt a flutter, as one xeno rushed to her side. The impression of a golden beak, and golden eyes, and Ryke’s worried voice pouring into her auditory sensors. “Yarsi?”

But while the Swarm was caught and thrown, the wave simply rolled through the Ark, and the Ark held its course. 

“Yarsi, it’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”

But of course, Ryke couldn’t see the future. Not even Yarsi could, anymore.

The Scar lurched again. A fissure burst in the jittering web of Light, and the Moon cracked into three great pieces. A black, glittering crust already formed along the craters and edges. 

“Oh, gods.” 

Beyond the Moon, great pits formed in the clouds, and the white atmosphere of the Earth began to boil away, revealing fresh, massive holes on the planet’s surface. Turning black. The planet’s crust crumbled into itself, revealing miles of machinery and glowing oceans of magma, which, too, were already hardening into black crystal.

Here, then, was the beginning of the end of all things. Even Ryke knew it.

“Oh, most merciful makers. Oh, Gods of heavens and earths. Guide us through death and light. Show us the way to our Savior Divine. Oh, most merciful makers…”

Now, the Sun began to dim. Black bands, horizontal striations, wrapped around the Sun, and shadows spread across its corona. Immense and slow, the bands widened.

This, then, was the moment that Emorynn had deleted from her memories. This was the end that the First Prophet had seen, and had decided that no one else should see. She had let Yarsi believe there was a path to salvation.

And all these years, Yarsi had clung to hope. But no one would survive this. No one, and nothing. Did it ever matter?

Ryke’s prayer stopped. Desperately, she turned to Yarsi. “He’s coming, isn’t he?” Ryke whispered, “Isn’t he coming?” 

All these years, Yarsi had clung to hope. Ryke deserved to hope a little longer.

“He,” Yarsi’s voice thrummed from the Ark’s speakers, “Will open the Way.”

And as the Scar lurched again, Yarsi shoved the Ark’s energy—all of it—out through the generators. The spearhead ship glowed. 

But though Yarsi was embedded into the Ark, she was not a machine. The strain on the Ark took her beyond the limits of her flesh. Every system screamed at her. First, her low level functions began to falter. Then, even the support modules keeping her organic body alive flickered and died. Her body gasped. Whimpered. It felt like fire was burning at her insides, but she held the shield of Light firm. 

The Sun was a black stain on the fabric of the void. And the distant stars began to dim as even their photons were devoured by the Scar’s Light. The threshold of the Scar rippled, sending out wave after crashing wave across the solar system. Each time, it stole Light from the Ark’s shield. 

Yarsi’s body thrashed in her metal throne. But she held the shield. Even as Yarsi’s mind was ripped from her body, she held. The last thing I’ll ever do. She would give them more time to hope—even if she would never know whether hope made a difference.

Yarsi of the Ark tried to smile, but her body no longer responded. Still, she pretended she was. Smiling was how she always wanted to die.

The metal tomb opened, and Yarsi could hear, with her own ears, the whispered prayers of her avian friend. Praying for hope.

***

Poire drifted forward. 

The tails of his robe were arrayed in a splendorous circle. Thousands of miles of geometric tiles, twisting like fabric, reached to the edges of his Scar, and embedded themselves in the very outer edge.

He pulled himself into the Scar. 

And, for the first time in a very long time, Poire went home.

***

A web of Light shivered across the Scar. 

And then, the web was outshone by a new brilliance. It emerged from the Scar like a sun returns from an eclipse. At first, the brilliant object was little more than a sliver of painful radiance. 

Then, it resolved into something much greater. 

Tails of a grand, prismatic robe stretched to the edges of the Scar, so that he seemed to be suspended at its center. His shining form was both hard to gaze upon, and impossible to look away from. Until everything began to burn with his Light. The last remains of the dam disintegrated. Then, the remains of the Swarm. Then, the broken moon crumbled and became ash. The Earth darkened, soon after.

But, shielded by a sheen of iridescent color, the Ark approached the god. Compared to the ship, he was tiny, and magnificent in his power.

Poire opened his arms.

Every Scar that had ever been carved into this universe flooded with Light. And the Dams broke. The Historians, those old xenos long forgotten by their makers, were extinguished in an instant. The worlds nearest to the Dams, some full of primordial life, some flourishing with primitive civilizations, evaporated. 

Every machine the Sovereign had ever created turned to dust.

And the universe was filled with Light. And the universe was nothing, but the Light.

And the first Scar folded back on itself, dragging Poire back to his Crown in his remnant universe. Ten great, glowing strands extended from his fingertips, barely touching the Ark as he dragged it with him.

The Crown’s eternal gyrations slowed. For a brief moment, they stopped. And then, began to move in the opposite direction, gathering speed. 

***

The Ark shook, and the smell of burning metal filled the air. Its protective sphere rippled dangerously, so thin now that Ryke could see outside. But what she saw made her never want to see again. Her mind screamed. She didn’t know if her voice screamed, too. 

***

Please, Poire prayed to himself. Please let this work. Cracks had already begun to form in that thin sheen surrounding the Ark. If the shield broke, a single touch would destroy them all. Please open.

A tear appeared in the void. Thin, and narrow. Almost surgical. It burned a deep, furious blue.

A Scar to a new universe. One that Anu had been to, and to which Poire would never go.

And Poire shepherded the Ark through. 

***

“Yarsi,” Ryke held the dead girl. She spoke to her, even though she knew the girl couldn’t hear her. “Look. Look what you did.”

The Queen held the girl’s face against her chest, rocking her back and forth. “Look what you gave us.”

The Ark’s screens showed the universe outside. 

Bolts of geometric lightning still licked at the Ark, trying to cling to the hull as it drifted away from the Scar. Ahead, there was only the darkness of the void. And the endless, glittering stars of an untouched universe. Waiting for new life.

Next >

The Last Human IV - 65 - The Turning of the Key

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From this vantage, the twin fleets appeared like a streak of metallic paint smeared across the solar system. No longer could Khadam tell which one belonged to which half of the Sovereign. They occluded the moon, and half the Earth. Missiles carved white lines, and novas of energy exploded across the fleets, creating pockets of the void that only filled in with more machines.

But, it seemed, both halves of the Sovereign had seen the Ark jump from the Earth to the Dam. And now, like twin silver tails, clouds of drones and ships rose from the Earth’s fire-choked atmosphere, and streamed toward the Dam. Small, sub-light corvettes led the pack, each one probably carrying enough warheads to crack the Ark’s damaged hull. But they didn’t fire anything, yet. It wants me alive.

Khadam’s lie had bought the Ark a few more precious minutes. And she would not waste them.

While waiting for the Ark to pull into position over the Dam, Khadam explained her plan. “The Dam’s purpose is twofold. First, it ontains the Scars—keeps them from growing out of control. But it also extracts the Light. Do you see those towers?”

She pointed at the screen, where dozens of massive, black towers were scattered across the Dam’s open petals. The strange, jittering rays of Light from the Scar were pulled toward the towers, and seemed to catch on them, sending rings of alien lightning down their lengths. 

“Where does it go?” the corvani asked. “All that energy?” 

“Normally, its stored on the other side of the Dam. But the Sovereign probably taps it out frequently. So, we’re going to stay on the Scar’s side of the Dam.”

“And tap into the towers manually?”

Khadam was surprised by the feathered xeno’s perception. “You’re a good listener.”

“Well,” he crowed bashfully. 

“The good news is we don’t need to dock.”

“And the bad?” Agraneia asked. She was sitting on the floor, one hand gripping the torn rags of her shirt, like something was broken inside her chest. One glance at her, and Khadam could tell the cyran needed medical attention soon. “What’s the bad news?”

“Someone has to go down there and redirect power from the generators into the Ark.” 

All the xenos in the airlock looked back at the screen, at the complicated majesty of lightning rolling down the black metal steeples of the Dam. Then, they looked at each other, completely at a loss.

“It’s you, isn’t it?” Agraneia rumbled. 

“The Key…” Eolh said, more to himself than anyone else.

“Well, unless any of you know anything about short-range Light transmission, CLM filters, or operating non-contact MEAAs?”

The Ark’s speakers crackled as Yarsi started to speak, but Khadam shut her down. “Not you, Yarsi. I need you on the ship. You’ll keep us in position. And when I come back to the ship, I need you to have our jump coordinates already plotted.”

“Are you sure, Khadam?” Yarsi’s amplified voice rolled through the airlock. “We have jumped before, and the Sovereign followed us.”

“Not this time,” Khadam said. “This time, won’t see us leave.” It wasn’t the whole truth, but Khadam couldn’t tell them any more than that. She resisted the urge to look at Agraneia. Instead, she caught the corvani’s pupils boring into her. 

He knew. He could tell that she was holding back. But the plan depended on this. 

Everything depended on this. 

She held her breath. Don’t tell her. Don’t let Agraneia know. 

But Eolh didn’t say anything. Instead, he only gave her a nod.

“Okay,” Khadam said, “Yarsi, move everyone to the shielded decks. Close up everything, full ECEP.”

“Confirmed,” Yarsi said, and Khadam could already feel the shifting of bulkheads and the girding of electronic systems. 

“Move us into position.”

Rays of pure Light snapped and bent around the Ark as it hovered over the Dam. The Scar yawned like a boiling, rainbow lake whose mind-bending depths wanted, furiously, to escape. And the lightning-wreathed towers slid into position below.

“Maker,” Agraneia said, suppressing a cough. “Maker, I would go with you. But I am…” she tried to sit up straight, but started coughing so hard she had to cover her mouth to catch the blood. “I would only fail you. Again.

“Again?” Khadam knelt at the cyran’s side. “Agraneia, I’ve had many friends in this life. Most of them, long gone. But never have I had one that I could lean on like you. Even Rodeiro let me go. But you? You came back. You never failed me.”

The corners of the cyran’s mouth tugged down. There were tears in her eyes, and Khadam didn’t think it was from coughing. So, as gently as Khadam could, she pulled herself toward the cyran and wrapped her arms around the cyrans shoulders. “You,” she looked up at Eolh. “Keep this one safe.”

“Wait,” Eolh cocked his head, “Don’t you need someone on the Dam with you?” 

“This one’s for me.”

The Ark’s control repulsors ignited and shoved the great ship to a hard stop. Khadam slipped into one of the emergency suits from the airlock’s storage (wincing as she shrugged her shoulders into the airtight weave, and put on the helmet). The xenos moved to the staging room, leaving her alone in the airlock. Agraneia was the last to go, supported on Eolh’s shoulder. Before the door slid shut, Agraneia said, “Be swift, Maker. We’ll be waiting for you.”

“I know you will.”

Then, the airlock opened up. And Khadam jumped. Her suit’s repulsors ignited as she glided down to the Dam. Above her, the silent roaring glow of the Scar flared. And below, around the edge of the Dam’s petals, she could just make out the twin tails of the Sovereign’s fleets, sharp and rising toward her. Still hundreds of thousands of kilometers away, but coming in fast.

Khadam rolled her arms, grimacing as a lance of pain erupted where the Disease was grinding her muscles into dust. She bloomed her repulsors, and soared down to the Dam.

This Dam, unlike so many others, had been maintained to the highest standards. There were no androids here, nor tentacled Historians. Only the Sovereign’s machines, maintenance constructs coated in the same black metal as the rest of the Dam, lurked like overgrown creatures in the shadowed halls and vaulted ceilings. 

Who knew how long they had lived here? Some of them were covered in that strange corrosion that came from dwelling too close to the Light for too long. Their joints scraped and creaked as they huddled in the darkness. The fact that she saw any of them, meant there must’ve been hundreds watching her. Yet, they all stayed at bay once they saw what she was holding. 

Khadam held the negation cube out, like a pilgrim carrying a candle. It glowed, but she kept its destructive power deactivated. If she were to use it inside the Dam, its field would bounce off the Light-reflective walls. The resulting cascade would be lethal—not just to the constructs, but also to her. The only thing keeping her alive, then, was the threat of suicide. 

And so far, it worked. She walked through the machine-infested Dam, unscathed.

Until she got to the elevator. She stepped inside the glass vessel, and as it climbed along one of the lightning-covered towers of the Dam, she gazed out into the Scar’s sparkling depths. It had been a while since she’d seen one this close. A weeping wound to infinity. Beautiful, she thought. The way it moved, ever changing its shape without growing, reminded her of a living thing. And as she stared, and listened, she could almost hear—

Something heavy dislodged from the ceiling and landed with a heavy clank. Five long arms reached for her. She jumped back, and slammed her back against the glass. Her flesh crunched painfully against the diseased calcification. 

“Get back!” she gasped.

The thing lurched, as if it couldn’t make up its mind. It paused, like it was receiving orders from several conflicting sources.

She raised her thumb over the cube, and her voice trembled as she shouted, “Last chance!”

She didn’t know if she meant it. 

The spidery construct retreated into the corner. She held the cube in its direction, and it pressed itself away from her. Then, she noticed the corrosion around its leg joints. Why not? She thought, and grabbed one of its legs, and ripped it free with a satisfying crunch. Wires stuck out of one end, and she grasped them, wielding the leg like a club.

The construct curled up its remaining legs, and eyed her the rest of the journey. Khadam kept the cube outstretched.

The elevator opened on a vast atrium, full of glass-encased turbines brimming with Light. Great, spinning blades sent shining reflections across the atrium. Tendrils of gas formed around the turbines, sparkling as they sank peacefully to the floor. 

A huge window, made of pressure glass, gazed upon the terrifying expanse of the Scar, and the clouds of glittering gas that spewed from its depths, and the bolts of radiant, warped energy. But the Scar’s blazing, transforming brightness was cut in half by a spearhead silhouette, marred by missile craters and missing chunks of hull.

Khadam swept over to the console, still holding the cube in one hand, and activated the transmitters. Three of them answered her call, but only two of them reacted. Great coils beneath the turbines whined as they angled slightly, rolling up toward the ceiling. As the coils hummed, they also darkened, and all the tendrils of gas were suddenly pulled toward them. 

“Khadam,” Agraneia’s voice crackled in her helmet. “Connection confirmed. The Ark is receiving power.” 

Easy part, done.

“Confirmed,” Khadam said.

“How long?”

“Need a moment to make sure the Sovereign doesn’t break anything while she charges.”

Agraneia grunted her affirmation. 

Soon, came the other part. The part that…

That…

Poire did it, she thought. And if he did, then why can’t I? 

But for now, all she could do was wait. And the waiting took an age. 

“We’re rising fast,” Agraneia said. 

“Not yet.” 

It felt like her stomach was turning to ice. She had prepared for this, for something like this, thousands of years ago. Khadam had been so willing to give her life, back then. Back when she thought it would make an actual difference.

Now, all they could do was run. 

But, damn it, she would make them run. The Sovereign didn’t get to have this last victory so easily. Her hands clenched into fists. Her whole body clenched. Come on.

“Khadam, the Swarm. They’re at 10,000 and closing.”

“What’s our reserve?” Khadam asked.

“Just under 1%. Enough.”

Not yet. They needed every chance they could get. 

“Under five thousand. They’re braking. They’re almost here, Khadam. Get back to the ship.” She growled that last part.

“What now?”

“1.5%.”

Good enough. 

Khadam sent an impulse to the Ark. She felt Yarsi confirm her orders. And the Ark started to pull away from the Dam.

“What?” Agraneia’s voice crackled. “Khadam! What about the plan?” 

“This is the plan,” Khadam said.

“No!” Agraneia’s roar ended with a bloody cough. She sucked down air, desperately trying to get the words out, “You said you were going to come back. You have to come back. Khadam.”

“Yarsi,” Khadam said calmly. “Wait until the Dam breaks. Then, take them as far away as you can.” 

“I carry your will,” Yarsi said, over the sounds of Agraneia choking and coughing and screaming. 

Her hands were shaking. And before the cold in her stomach froze her, she strode to the window. And pressed the cube to the window. “Goodbye, Agra.” 

“Khadam!” 

The human thumbed the cube to its highest and lowest setting, and pulled them back together until, intertwined, they overloaded the cube. In an instant, it grew too hot to hold—but not before it let out a singing, piercing screech—and the layers of glass shattered.

The vacuum seized her by the chest and yanked her off her feet. The air was stolen from her lungs, and the laugh from her lips as the void screamed and began to break everything—

Two black walls shot across her view, and slammed together. The pressure dropped Khadam to the floor.

“No,” she said. “No!”

Behind her, all the turbines remained intact. The Sovereign must’ve reinforced the Dam, long before she got here. Her plan was dead. All of them were dead… Unless…

Khadam picked up the spider-drone’s leg, and flung herself at the nearest turbine. Glittering gas still billowed out from its glass-encased blades. She raised her arms, and growled as she brought her makeshift club against the turbine’s glass. Her growl turned into a scream as the crystallized muscles in her back tore her skin open. Warmth trickled down her back, but she didn’t care. She slammed the club against the glass until it cracked. 

Shivering, she slammed the club down again. And again. The glass shattered, and glittering fog plumed out from the turbine, filling the generator room. She laid back, mewling pitifully as the crystallized flesh tore through her suit and blood flowed in a sheet down her back. 

But her work wasn’t done. The Light was volatile, but she needed to bring out more if she wanted to force an overload. Break enough turbines, and it would happen. But it was so damn cold. Finish it, she told herself. This is what you came for. This is why you left everything behind. She tore off her helmet, swallowing down the pain as she forced herself to lurch to the next turbine. With every gasping breath, she inhaled a little more of the gaseous Light. it sank into her lungs, and spread like ice in her veins. 

She raised the club in both arms. And yowled, as some muscle was severed. She felt it snap loose, and her hand went numb, and the club clattered to the floor. Khadam followed it, soon after, knocking her chin hard on the deck. Stunned, she lay there, watching the curls of mist pool on the floor.

“It wouldn’t have worked, you know.” His voice came from everywhere.

Clenching her jaw, Khadam pressed her hand to the floor, and pushed herself up. There was no one else in here.

“It wouldn’t have worked,” He repeated. “Even with better timing, the opened Scar wouldn’t have hidden the Ark’s jump. The Sovereign has been busy these last ten thousand years. Its net extends further than you hoped.”

“Yes,” she spat, and pulled herself up to standing. She leaned heavily on a nearby console, smearing blood on its interface. “But the Sovereign is at war with itself. There was a chance.” 

Poire hummed doubtfully. 

Khadam didn’t know why, but she felt the need to argue with this hallucination, or dream, or whatever this was. “With the Scar unbound, it could have swallowed some of the fleet. Tipped the balance, just enough. And in the chaos…” 

“You hoped to give the Ark time to escape?”

“Yes.”

“Maybe, if the Sovereign’s war was still going.”

“It’s over?”

“When the Ark jumped, Innovation took its chance. It corrupted Domination’s last capital ship, and Domination folded.”

“You don’t know this. You don’t know anything. You’re not real.”

“What would it take to change your mind?”

“Where are you?” she shouted to the ceiling. “If you’re here, then show yourself!” 

“Not time yet.”

She snorted. Blood came out, and she almost choked on it. “Better be quick then. The Swarm is probably all over the Ark by now. Or weren’t you planning on saving us, oh, Divine Savior?” 

“I am,” he said. “But I need your help.”

“To do what?”

“Destroy the Dam.”

“And then what? I thought you said it wouldn’t have worked.”

“It wouldn’t have. Not for long. All the Dams—all of them—are guarded. The Sovereign has been busy. With nowhere left to turn, the Ark would have flung itself across the void, and attempted to land on a hospitable planet. But all the known ones, too, are watched.”

Khadam had feared this to be the case. In her deepest thoughts, she had known this. Somehow, she had hoped, the Ark might be able to fall off the Sovereign’s radar, or to run further—but she had known that the Sovereign would be waiting.

“Where, then? Where should they go?”

“Tell Yarsi to prepare her engines. Face the Dam. And tell them to go into the Scar.” 

“Are you insane?”

“I found the Way, Khadam,” He pleaded. “It’s you. You are the key I’ve needed. And the Way will be Opened.”

“Are you,” she repeated, “insane?”

“Such a deceptively simple question has such a dreadfully complicated answer. I have the time, Khadam, but I’m afraid you don’t.” 

“Then what are you?”

Sorrow laced his words. “I am what we always feared I would be. I am what I will be forever, unless you help me. Please, Khadam. Listen to me. The Way will open.”

It sounded like him. Somehow, it felt like him. Had she really lost so much blood that she was hallucinating? No, it must be the Light. The Scar was peeling her mind. Khadam brought one hand to her shoulder, trying to warm her flesh. The other one hung limp at her side.

It was over. There was nothing left she could do, so why not? Why not take comfort in this mad vision at the end of her life? She had always liked Poire, anyway. She would never tell him, but she always found it inspiring, the way he refused to give up. Stubborn. Brave. Selfless, to a fault.

“I can’t,” she said.

“You can.”

“No. I can’t. Even if you were right about the dam, I can’t do anything, Poire. I’m—” her voice caught as she stumbled toward the truth no one wants to hear. “I can barely stand. And you’re asking me to break the other turbines?”

“Oh, no,” He said. “That wouldn’t open the Scar nearly fast enough.”

“Then what?” 

“Tell them to go into the Scar.”

“You would have me kill them?”

“I will open the Way.”

“The Scar will break the Ark. The Scar will tear it open. The Scar is death.”

“And what remains for them here?” Poire asked, his voice as strong as stone, as inevitable as a storm.

But it was madness. Was it not better for the xenos to take their chances and flee across the Stars? Perhaps they’d get lucky, and the Sovereign would lose track of them before they ran out of power. Better to waste away the last of their days aboard that ship, running to the dark places of the universe. 

And then … ?

What hope was there? Yarsi had her memories, but she was tied to the Ark. When it died, the last of humanity died with her. 

So, then. Perhaps, mercy was the last, greatest gift. 

Or perhaps… 

“Poire?” she asked. “How do I know if it’s really you?” 

“Do you remember when we first spoke?”

“You were a child.”

“You thought I was the Destroyer.”

“Everyone did,” she said, defensively. “But you weren’t what we thought you were. You challenged everything we believed. You gave up everything. And I’m… I’m sorry. For everything that happened to you.”

“I’m not,” He said. “And I never will be. You trusted me once, Khadam. I’m only asking you to do so, again.”

Khadam licked her cracked lips, and tasted metal. It wasn’t just from her implants.

“You’ve seen everything?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Then you know how this ends.”

Here, he laughed. And for a moment, he sounded just like the young boy she had met, so long ago. “No, Khadam. I don’t know at all.” 

Khadam took a shivering breath. Then, she crawled over to her helmet, and opened the connection to the Ark. 

Agraneia’s voice crackled through, “Khadam? Are you there?”

“Agra,” Khadam said. “Tell Yarsi—into the Scar. Take the Ark into the Scar.”

Taxed to her limits, Khadam fell back against one of the glass-encased turbines. The helmet fell from her fingers, with Agraneia’s protests still issuing out in tiny crackling fits.

“Don’t think they’re going to listen,” Khadam said.

“Soon, you’ll give them a reason. Are you ready?”

“Yes. Fine,” she mumbled to the voice that wasn’t really there. It was getting hard to keep her eyes open. 

“Stay alert, Khadam. I need you to direct it.”

“Direct what—?” Before she finished the question, she felt it. 

Tendrils of mist snaked along the floor, and twined around her arms. “What is this?” she asked, and when her mouth opened, the tendrils reached up and poured down her throat. So cold and sharp she couldn’t even scream. 

The crystalline patch between her shoulders shifted at first. And then, rippling bursts punctured the skin on her back, and she did scream. 

“I know,” Poire said. “It has to hurt. And you have to guide it.”

The Light was eating her from the inside. Her veins darkened, like ink running in spider webs down her wrists. On the backs of her hands. And all she could think was why? Why is he doing this to me? Her throat was raw. Her back was on fire. As she bent forward, she felt something behind her scrape painfully against the turbine’s glass. 

“It wants to live, Khadam. Tell it how. Use it.”

Spines grew out of her back. The veins in her arms thickened. But Poire was right. It was alive, and as it invaded her body, so too did a kind of strength. 

An ancient strength, one that had waited through endless eons to meet its end (its beginning) here, in her death. 

Like an impulse to her machines, she sent out the thought. Telling it to how to grow. Obsidian vines burst from her skin, intertwined with her muscle and bone. Empowering her to rise to her feet once more. And as she stood, a wet, ripping sound marked two new growths, black ridges rising from either side of her upper spine. Sail-like wings grew from the ridges, stretching until they were longer than her body—and longer still. Each one clattered with dozens of long thorns, illuminated with alien, geometric patterns that glowed with Light.

The wings weighed nothing to her. In fact, she weighed nothing. As she floated to the center of the atrium, all the unstable mist drew toward her. And she sent another impulse, and the thorns on her wings speared out. They pierced through the walls and the floors. They shattered the glass around the turbines, and carved through the spinning blades. And as they drank from the stores of Light, they grew longer. 

The pain was unbearable. And yet, she bore it. 

The truth was unbelievable. And yet…

Her thorns grew beyond the atrium. With a flick of her mind, they carved great gashes in the black, shield doors, opening the room to the void. And the Light from the Scar crept in. 

Her eyes wept a glittering, rising mist. And she could see Him, watching her from the Scar. Oh, how she could see Him. When she spoke, her breath came out as mist. “Is that you?” she asked. “Is that really you?” 

“Khadam,” He spoke. The Herald. The Destroyer. The Savior Divine. “I am here.”

Once, it had been her nightmare. But now, his face was as sweet and familiar as an old, favorite dream. Khadam extended her good arm to the floor, and one of her spines shot out, spearing the helmet. She caught it, and spoke to the xenos on the Ark.

“Did you think I was divine?” Khadam shouted, her throat full of blood. “I am no god! But listen to me, children of humanity—take the Ark into the Scar, and you will find your Savior!”

The spearhead silhouette soared overhead, headed towards the irridescent wound in the void. Thousands of machines trailed in the Ark's wake, closing in. 

Khadam let out a shriek—not of pain, but of pure, absolute joy. All the spines on her wings shot out, growing into columns of glittering, black stone. They twisted and flailed and flowed like the arms of some primordial, alien being. They grew across the miles, cutting easily through the black metal of the Dam. Towers broke off the superstructure, and the petals of the disc cracked free.

Imprisoned no more, the Scar blazed to life.

Next >

The Last Human IV - 64 - One Last Test

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The falkyrs’ wings beat the air, driving the hot winds away. One wrapped his talons around Khadam’s shoulders, and—without landing—hefted her from the ground. Khadam gasped as his talon dug into the blackened patch on her shoulders. The disease had spread since she’d been stranded on Earth, but Khadam was too exhausted to adjust herself in the falkyr’s grip. 

Agraneia and Eolh were carried alongside her, and dozens of other winged warriors flanked them on their flight up into the Ark’s underside. Though the Ark was half-submerged in the clouds, she could see the ruin of her last creation. Horrendous gaps had been torn from the ship’s sharp hull, and great scars ran along its spear-head length. But the light from the porthole beckoned them in, and Khadam could not remember a sweeter sight.

The moment Khadam’s feet touched the airlock floor, she sent an impulse to her ship. Position us out of the Sovereign’s visual sensors. Give us as much time as possible.

Instead of the usual computerized tones, Khadam was surprised to hear a living voice: Yes, Khadam. Moving to the clouds.

“Yarsi?” Khadam asked out loud.

Everyone in the airlock turned to look at her. Eolh and Agraneia and even the falkyr, still gasping through open beaks. 

“How is Yarsi controlling the Ark?”

“She’s a prophet,” Agraneia shrugged. 

Khadam stared at her, dumbfounded. 

“Her implant,” Agraneia grunted, touching at the scales of her own neck. “Memories, from a god.”

Khadam chewed her lip thoughtfully. Is that why the Sovereign didn’t destroy the Ark? The ship was in bad shape, but it should never have survived the Sovereign’s armadas. 

“Yarsi, ship status,” Khadam said. Semi-transparent feeds expanded across Khadam’s vision, giving her access to the Ark’s remaining sensors and internal logs. 

Khadam grimaced. More than 60% of the sensors were damaged, if not outright destroyed. Most of the stabilizing repulsors were shattered, and the remaining ones would be overloaded soon if they didn’t leave the Earth’s atmosphere. But the cannon craters and shorn-off plating meant that most of the Ark would be exposed to the vacuum. More systems were offline than not, and life support was on its last legs. A few weeks of repairs, and maybe the Ark would sustain itself again, but, honestly, oxygen was the least of their worries. 

One of the Sovereign’s drones had burrowed into engineering, found the last two fuel cells, and shattered them.

The only fuel left was what was already in the reactors. 

“We only have enough Light for one jump,” Khadam said. She pulled her hands through her hair, and slumped against the wall. “One.”

“I might,” Yarsi’s digitized voice poured over the speakers, “I might be able to stretch it to two.”

“Two then.” She blew out a frustrated breath, and shook her head. “And the Sovereign will follow us, no matter where we go.”

Khadam slid to the floor, and massaged her scalp, sliding her fingers across the neural conductors running from her eyes to her temples. Her thoughts dripped as slow as cold oil. Her body wanted to sleep for a hundred years. Even after waking from the cold chamber, she hadn’t been this tired. 

“Yarsi,” Khadam said. “How did you know where to find us?”

“The First Prophet’s memories live inside me,” Yarsi said. 

“Emorynn?” Khadam said, “You have Emorynn’s memories? But—Yarsi—then you’ve seen everything.”

The First Prophet’s visions were legendary. Of all humanity, she had seen the most. Of all the infected, she had lived the longest. Rodeiro had built his entire clan upon Emorynn’s words to him—when he had served her. If Yarsi was carrying Emorynn’s memory…

“You knew we would be on that mountain. You knew the Sovereign wouldn’t destroy the Ark. You know what happens next. You’ve seen everything.”

“Emorynn saw everything,” Yarsi corrected her, “I was merely gifted her memory. But the memory has gone dark. I knew where to find you. I knew we would lift you from the Earth. But everything after this moment was erased.”

“There’s nothing else?” 

“I am made blind, again,” Yarsi said.

“But why? Why would Emorynn erase her own memories? Why would she keep them safe for so many years, only to have them dry up when we need them?”

Yarsi had no answer. But someone did. 

Agraneia cleared her throat. “Poire might know.” Everyone turned to look at her, and she held aloft the android’s fractured core. Veins of liquid metal sealed the crack shut, but it was still leaking a gray, sparkling mist. 

“Laykis was the last to speak with Him.” 

Khadam sighed. This again. “Poire went through the Mirror,” she said. “He’s gone.”

“But,” Agraneia gestured at the corvani standing next to her. 

“Yeah,” Eolh said, “I don’t think she believes it, Ags.”

“But,” Agraneia said, stumbling over her confusion, “But He… But Eolh’s alive. Poire brought him back.”

“Look,” Khadam pinched the bridge of her nose. “I don’t know what happened, but that’s not possible. That’s not a thing we can do.” 

Eolh splayed his feathered fingers and shrugged, as if to say, well, here I am.

“We’re not gods.”

No one argued with her. 

No one agreed, either.

She didn’t have the time, let alone the energy, to figure this out right now. Poire was dead. The android had brought a message from him, yes, but Laykis didn’t understand either—that message was only an echo. Nothing could survive the Mirror. Nothing. 

“Poire said,” Agraneia muttered. Quietly. Almost needful. “That you were the Key.” 

“The Key to what, then?”

“Uh,” Agraneia grunted, uncertainly. “I thought—Laykis thought—that you would know what it meant.”

Khadam snorted. It was meaningless. And worse, it was just vague enough that, of course, the xenos believed it held some divine importance. Like it was some magic phrase that would just solve everything. What kind of lock am I supposed to open, anyway? Perhaps Poire’s mind had melted when he opened Sen’s Mirror. 

She wondered if it hurt him the same way her shoulders hurt now. The disease broke her skin every time she moved her shoulders the wrong way. It felt like dozens of tiny, calcified fangs were digging into her flesh. 

“Hm,” the corvani crowed, “Did Poire say anything else to Laykis?”

“That He will open the Way. And—”

“And the Way will be opened,” Eolh finished. “Yeah, she’s said that before. Many times. Does that mean anything to you, Khadam? Please. Anything.”

“No.” Khadam clenched her jaw. She wasn’t trying to be unhelpful. It’s just that they were, all of them, wasting time. She needed to think. But that damned corvani was drawling on…

“...used to talk about it all the time. And the Way will open. She said they prayed the same thing on worlds nobody had ever heard of. I always thought she was making it up. That was a Gaiam thing, I thought. Then, I found out the Historians wrote the same thing in their old Book.”

The Historians. 

They called him the Savior Divine, too. Hadn’t they?

And yet, Khadam had always known him by his other name. The Destroyer haunted her dreams, long before Poire was born.. Not a boy, but a man, shrouded in a gray and terrible light. Robes shining like metal, flowing like cloth. In his wake, destruction.

And when she pleaded with him, screamed at him, begged him, he only lifted his hands, and made the Light swallow the stars and the void, until there was nothing left.

She hated him. That was, until she found him.

Poire was a lost, hopeless child. Severed, not just from his family, but from all humankind. And then, again, from all his xeno friends, when he walked through that Mirror, and into a universe where no one could live.

And yet…

And yet, the android believed that Poire was still alive—that she had spoken to him. He watches us, even now, she had said. Khadam had chalked it up to core degradation. No construct could survive ten thousand years fully intact. For all Khadam knew, Laykis had invented her conversation with Poire. Just another kind of madness. Like the nomads on that nameless world. Or the cyrans who worshipped their emperor. 

Or the Historians and dams…

Now that was an idea. Something that only I can open, she thought. So dangerous.

Khadam reached up, and scratched her fingernails across the patch between her shoulder blades. She felt the skin crack and crumble. The disease calcified her flesh, and crystal daggers grew into her muscles. Longer and sharper than before. Tearing into her blood vessels. Turning them black. Spreading.

Maybe nothing is too dangerous to try, now.

Poire was always damned. And yet, he never stopped trying to save them. So why can’t I?

“Yarsi,” she said. “Open our communications. All frequencies. All networks.” 

“Opening channels—-” 

Noise screeched and howled through the speakers as waves of digital sabotage tried to override the Ark’s systems. Through her neural connection, Khadam could actually feel Yarsi struggling to maintain control over the ship’s crucial functions. 

“I’m here, Sovereign.” Khadam declared.

No response, except for the mangled racket. The lights in the Airlock flickered, and the doors shuttered open, letting in a hissing wind before shutting again.

“Innovation, I want to bargain. You will leave the Ark untouched. And I will give you my life.”

Agraneia tensed, but Khadam ignored her.

It sounded like a thousand voices, distorted and perfect and layered over each other in an electronic cacophony. Beneath it all was an ever-present hum, a droning, low-frequency pulse that pressed into her skull, as if the voice of the Sovereign was trying to imprint itself into her thoughts.

“The Ark is already mine,” it said. “And you, with it.” 

Khadam smirked, bitterly triumphant.

The fact that the Sovereign had responded at all told her everything she needed to know. It wanted to intimidate her. It wanted to make her obey. 

How many imprisoned humans had she killed? Maybe I’m the last one. 

It needs me. 

The Sovereign always wanted more. And it would risk billions, trillions of its own just to take her alive. 

“I will deliver myself to you on neutral territory. If you make a single offensive move, I will destroy myself and this ship.”

A screeching pause, which was odd, because the Sovereign had been so quick to answer before.

“And,” the voices growled, roared, and sang all at once, “And the other human?”

Khadam furrowed her brow, and looked at Agraneia. Poire? She mouthed.

“The one who pilots the Ark. Will you give them to me as well?” 

It took a long moment for Khadam to piece it together. Fortunately, the Sovereign seemed to mistake that for honest hesitation. “If that’s what it takes,” Khadam said, “Yes. Both of us.”

Then, before she could make any other mistakes, Khadam nodded, and Yarsi closed the communications.

“Divine One,” Agraneia said. “What have you done?” 

“If the Sovereign can lie, then why can’t I?”

“So,” Agraneia grumbled, “You have a plan?”

“I have a plan.”

“Is it, uh, any good?” Eolh asked. 

Khadam wetter her cracked lips, tasting the metal implant that ran down her lower lip and through her chin. “Do you want the truth?”

“Think I just heard it.”

“Yarsi,” Khadam spoke. And she could feel Yarsi watching. “Take us up.” 

She could feel her pulse thudding in her neck. All the years of fear, of living on the edge of a razor, seemed to catch up with her all at once. Just a little further, she told herself. And then…

One last test.

Clouds parted, as the speartip hull ascended, scorched and scarred yet glittering in sunlight. They could see debris falling in orbit around the planet. Hull fragments and shorn-off repulsors and chunks of plates tumbled and sank into the atmosphere, glowing red hot. 

Repulsors flared in the debris. Swarms of drones, lurking in the falling metal. But as the Ark ascended, they did not come forward. A double-sided victory. On the one hand, it meant the Sovereign would let her pass. On the other, it meant that the Sovereign was no longer at war with itself. 

She wondered if Innovation had won. 

The Sovereign’s fleets still outnumbered the stars, though many of the ships were damaged, leaking fluids or trailing wreckage or pockmarked with gaping holes that showed all their internal machinery. In essence, all that destruction had cost the Sovereign almost nothing. Its fleets still wrapped around the Moon, and flickering streaks of Light told Khadam that more ships were jumping in from the outer reaches.

“Yarsi?”

“Yes?” Khadam felt the lassertane’s confirmation through impulse. She wasn’t used to the xenos contacting her this way. It wasn’t supposed to be possible. 

“You can jump the ship, right?”

“I do,” Yarsi impulsed back. And another impossibility. The Ark wasn’t made for xenos. But how else had they made it to Earth? So, she would trust her little lassertane friend, one more time.

“Okay. I don’t want the Sovereign to have time to set anything up. Sending you the coordinates now. Go when ready.” 

Slowly, the Ark started to turn. Khadam tensed, worried that the Sovereign might predict their route—but then she felt the tell-tale tingling in her head as the Ark initiated its jump. 

The Light dam over the Earth, the first one ever built, filled the view screens. And behind it—like a mouth to infinity—a great, glittering Scar.

“I know this dam,” Yarsi impulsed. “This is where I met Anu. The one made of Light.”

Next >

The Last Human IV - 63 - The Ninth Hell

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Avians and cyrans both believed in the Eight Hells—one for each of the eight Great Sins. As Agraneia crawled out onto the Earth’s surface, she believed she had found the Ninth.

Clouds of smoke and storms of pollution raged above, swirling and billowing into each other. Agraneia pulled herself to the edge of the huge intake pipe, and gazed down into a wide, machine-covered landscape. Hills and twisted metal towers cast shadows that were sharp against the brightness of the too-bright sky. Flaming shapes tumbled across the gray heavens above. 

A great blue spear of energy pierced the clouds and carved a burning line through a sprawling factory, eradicating pipelines and hoppers and tangled conveyors and long, sloped buildings. In response, enormous metal jaws opened in the ground and missiles as tall as buildings emerged, each one propelled by a single, massive repulsor. They disappeared into the clouds, followed by swarms of drones, some chasing the missiles, some chasing each other, scouring the sky with fiery laser lines and short-range rockets.

Agraneia dropped from the intake pipe. The air itself tasted hot. Warm winds billowed, and heat radiated off the ground into the soles of her feet. Distant, quaking booms sent visible shockwaves through the great expanse below.

Eolh stepped out of the pipe behind her and let out a low, incredulous whistle. The Light, or whatever had birthed him back into this world, had all but faded from his feathers, so that he once again looked like that corvani who had flown into the Scar, five years ago. No, she thought, exactly like that corvani. The wiry thief hadn’t aged a day.

Agraneia held what was left of Laykis in her metal arm, which still tingled from whatever the Sovereign had done to it. But the liquid metal was awake again, and she could feel the connection solidly in her mind. A blessing, and one she would sorely need. Her only fear was that the liquid metal wouldn’t be enough to keep Laykis’s core from leaking out.

“Gods damn, it’s hot,” Eolh croaked. 

“Will the android’s core survive in this?”

“Should,” Eolh said. “But the question is, will we?” He held his wings out, and lifted his feathers, trying to stay cool.

“If they burn out the atmosphere, the heat won’t be a problem.” Agraneia eyed the erratic fleets of drones that swarmed far overhead. There must’ve been thousands of them, dipping in and out of the clouds or weaving between columns of distant smoke. If any caught sight of her and Eolh… “Best if we go fast, and stay low.”

“Do you hear that?” Eolh asked. His beak was turned to the side, one ear cocked to the sky. The other, listening at the entrance of the intake pipe.

A frantic, rapid clattering sound, like a hundred iron fingers clanking on metal, echoed up the pipe. Moving fast.

With her organic hand, Agraneia grabbed Eolh by the back of his neck, and shoved him away from the pipe. Her liquid arm shot out in a cone of rods, forming a web-like grate over the intake pipe. She shoved hard, and still almost lost her footing when something massive slammed into her makeshift grate, but the liquid metal knew what she wanted and dug hooks into the pipe’s metal. Slender titanium claws shot through the gaps in her web, and Agraneia barely dodged back before they impaled her. Then she saw the machines’ mouths. Gaping jaws full of drills grinded against the liquid metal web, filling the air with an unholy shrieking sound as they sheared against the liquid metal.

Agraneia shoved Laykis’s core and mask into Eolh’s hand. “Run,” she said.

“Which way?” 

“Just run!” 

Eolh took off, still cradling Laykis’s core in both wings, he. Agraneia peered into the pipe, and gazed into the glittering sensors of the machines. Already, their oversized centipede bodies wriggled and their legs skittering over each other as they bored into the softer metal of the pipe, filling the air with the scent of burning metal.

Agraneia sent an impulse down the rods of her liquid arm. The rods flexed, and crunched the end of the pipe shut. She ripped her arm out, and sprinted after Eolh. Behind her, the metal screech of the drills rose to a fevered whine. Something heavy dropped to the ground, and all those machine legs came skittering down the rocks after them. 

Oh, gods.

She thought they would have more time. If it was only the crawlers, they might’ve made it. But more drones began to descend from the clouds above. First, it was only ones and twos. Then, they formed into flocks that swayed and gyrated and reached down like the bony, grasping fingers of death. 

Every stride felt like a dagger driving into the top of her thighs. Her lungs screamed for air, even as the air burned her lungs. Agraneia didn’t have the breath to shout at Eolh. Not that it would matter anyway—he was far ahead of her, and all she could do was run after him. But where are we running? There was nowhere to hide in this forgotten waste. Came all this way to die for nothing.

She shook the thoughts off, and put all her effort into catching up to the corvani, who was rounding an outcropping. One of the centipede things clattered past her. With all those pistoning legs it seemed to swim over the rocks before rebounding on a boulder and diving straight at her. 

She thrust out her liquid arm. It formed into an absurdly long and thin blade. The blade curved down the centipedes drill-choked mouth, piercing its core. Whip-fast, she retracted her arm and the dead thing crashed face-first into the rock and scree before tumbling toward Agraneia and the edge of the cliff. She leaped over it, and barely caught herself. Took a chance to look behind her. And immediately wished she hadn’t.

All the denizens of the Ninth Hell were behind her. Drones screamed like banshees, raising their segmented limbs, ready to impale her. Monstrous centipedes clattered over the stones, some crawling down the cliffs and skittering back up the lip to block her in. 

No more running. 

She could stand. She could fight. In death, she could give Eolh time, as he had given it to her. Agraneia raised her arms over her head, and brought them down, bellowing a furious roar that echoed down the cliff sides.

The machines surged in. 

She sent an impulse to her arm, telling it to become a whip tipped with heavy blades that might slice through metal. 

But the arm refused to change. 

In fact, it didn’t move at all. It was nothing more than a stiff slab, a primitive metal prosthetic. No, Agraneia thought. Not now. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. She was supposed to help her friends, as they had helped her. This was the redemption she had fought for, gods damn it. She screamed, slapping her organic hand against her liquid arm, hoping to wake it up.

The flock of drones swooped down. Instinctively, she threw up her arms to block their onslaught. 

But, like a legion of birds hitting an unseen squall, the drones dropped from the sky in a steady stream. And the centipedes that clung to the cliff’s edge simply let go, and tumbled away into the scorching winds. And the other vile constructs simply collapsed to the ground, as if their bodies had grown suddenly heavy.

“Holy shit,” Eolh croaked from somewhere behind her. “We’re alive?”

Agraneia wheeled around, searching for the source of their luck. 

She looked like an angel, floating on blue wings. Tiny repulsors lined her suit, guttering and sparking out as she rose over the cliff and landed on the ledge. Her suit was torn and red with dust. Her long, dark hair was haggard and knotted, her face gaunt and dripping with sweat. Her eyes, severe. 

Khadam. The Key, it seemed, had found them. In one hand, the human held a cube of flowing chrome. Each face shifted into the others effortlessly, like leaves over water. It almost hurt Agraneia’s eyes to look at. She could feel the cube’s power in the deadness of her liquid arm. A wild, warping vibration, not unlike the one the Sovereign’s monster had used to number her arm before. 

Then, the human clicked something on the cube, and its faces went still. Feeling flooded back into Agraneia’s arm. She flexed it, feeling the power once more in her liquid fingers. 

“Cyran.”

“Maker,” Agraneia bowed her head, partially out of respect, but mostly to cover the shame and guilt that crept into her scaled cheeks. I’m sorry, the words wanted to leave her lips, but somehow felt absurdly small. An insult, almost, compared to the magnitude of Agraneia’s mistakes.

Perhaps, instead, she should fall to her knees, and beg Khadam’s forgiveness. 

But before Agraneia could finish her thought, Khadam had wrapped her arms (thinned from hunger) around Agraneia, and squeezed. “Agraneia,” Khadam whispered hoarsely, “I can’t believe its you.” 

Agraneia grunted, taken aback. 

“How did you escape the Sovereign?” Khadam asked.

“These two kept me going. Eolh and Laykis both.” 

Khadam pulled away, searching for the android. “Laykis?”

Eolh unfolded a black wing and held up the cracked core still glowing that pale light. Khadam touched the tips of her fingers to the core. A moment passed, as if she was speaking to the android. Then, she nodded once. “Good.” she said. And that was all. 

“And you—” Khadam regarded the corvani, whose feathers were fringed with dust. “You’re Eolh?”

“Mhm.”

“I thought you were dead.”

“For a minute there, I thought so too.” Eolh cocked a wry smile. Then, he frowned. “Uh, what’s on your back?”

Four tattered straps of cloth fastened a heavy-looking cylinder to Khadam’s back. It almost looked like an artillery canister, only it was made of thicker metal and—despite the heat—cold vapor beaded on its exterior.

Despite her obvious exhaustion, Khadam smirked. Proud and bitter at the same time. “The Sovereign thinks I killed them all.”

“Killed who?” Eolh asked, not understanding. 

But Agraneia understood, and her eyes went wide with awe.

“I only wish I could’ve saved more of them,” Khadam said.

“More of what?” Eolh cocked her head.

“Embryos,” Khadam said. “Human embryos, frozen during the Lightning Wars. The Sovereign cut them out of pregnant women and stored the embryos in cryostasis. We …” Khadam swallowed hard, “We thought they were dead. Diseased. But some might still be…” She swallowed again. “They’re not safe. The Disease might take them anyway. I don’t care, I have to try.”

Eolh blew out a laugh, and both Agraneia and Khadam stared at him. 

“I didn’t believe her,” he said. “Laykis always said that one day, the gods would return.” 

“Yeah, well, not if we don’t get off this planet,” Khadam said. “There’s a Gate down there. Still active.”

Explosions rocked the landscape, shaking shale and scree from the cliffside. In the distance, orbital lasers wandered across the machine-infested landscape, melting metal and turning the sand to glass. 

“We sure about that?” Eolh said. He was holding Laykis’s core aloft, inviting the others to commune with the semi-destroyed android. Agraneia and Khadam brushed her core, and Laykis’s voice floated into their thoughts. “The Gate is destroyed.”

“No,” Khadam said. “I’ve been scouting it for a week. It’s still operational.” 

“It is the wrong path.”

“It’s the only path,” Khadam said, frustration creeping into her voice. “Agra, there isn’t time for this.” 

“I think,” Agraneia clenched her jaw. Afraid to say the wrong thing. But she had to say something. “I think we should listen to Laykis.”

“What?” Khadam said, incredulous. 

“She … she knows.” 

This time, an image flared into their minds. An image of a bright, shining mountain—surrounded by oceans of fire and black maelstroms of smoke.

“Up,” Laykis’ thoughts came through. “Up the mountain.” 

“Listen, I’ve seen the Gate. I know it has power. And you want me to, what, put my life—” Khadam gestured at the canister on her back, “All these lives—in the hands of a machine?” 

“Laykis,” Eolh crowed firmly, “Is not a machine.”

“Then what is she?”

“The only reason we’re here.” 

Khadam and Eolh glared at each other. The corvani’s feathers rose, and Agraneia could see his fear. But he didn’t back away.

Without taking her eyes of Eolh, Khadam said, “Agra?” 

“I wouldn’t be here without Laykis,” Agraneia said. “None of us would.”

Finally, Khadam broke and looked at Agraneia, desperately searching her face. “You’re sure?”

“Mhm,” Agraneia said. Surprised to find that, yes, she was sure. She had never been more convinced of anything in her life.

“Fuck,” Khadam deflated. Sniffed. Rolled her shoulders, and hooked her thumbs into the straps. “Okay, then. We go up. Up the mountain.”

***

Khadam’s stomach was a withered knot. She’d eaten the last pouch of protein paste days ago, and her filtered water ran out soon after. Acidic rainwater was the only thing she drank, but the taste made her gag and her kidney implants were shutting down, so she tried not to drink too much. Tired wasn’t even close to the right word for what her legs felt, but it took more energy to stand still than to keep walking. So, she stumbled on.  

Agraneia sidled up beside her, and hefted a muscled arm under Khadam’s shoulder. The cyran’s scales slid smoothly against Khadam’s skin, too warm in this sweltering heat. Khadam tried to thank her friend, but Agraneia hushed her. “Save your breath for climbing.”

The only problem was they didn’t really know where they were climbing to. They were only following the android’s memory. Up the mountain.

At least the negation cube still worked. Even though they walked out in the open—across boulders and through crags and on narrow paths that hung over sickening drops—the veil of the cube kept them hidden from the Swarm’s sensors. Drones circled aimlessly in the sky, sometimes tearing each other to pieces.

They climbed, and the heat climbed with them. In the flat lands below, the air wavered. Shockwaves rippled out from distant explosions, leaving new craters on the face of the Earth. But the factory-city Khadam had scouted—that was still intact. If we had gone down there, we might’ve reached the Gate by now. She could see it from up here, a clean, flat disc in the tangle of all that infrastructure. And every step, took them further away… 

“How much further?” Khadam asked, her voice a dry and dusty croak. 

“Don’t know,” Agraneia grunted, “The mountain is the last thing in Laykis’s memory. After that, the future is dark.”

“What are we looking for, then?”

“A light,” Laykis voice pressed into her thoughts. “A light in the dark.”

“How do you know?”

“It is the word of the Savior Divine.” 

But nothing was dark on the mountainside. Fires raged from horizon to horizon. Columns of energy ripped through toxic clouds and scoured the land. And above, the Swarm warred with itself. 

In fact…

Was that a light, breaking through the clouds? Judging by the angle, it would be above them soon. Directly over the mountain. Khadam’s heart leaped into her throat. Could it be?

The light separated into two glowing blue circles. And then, into eight. Then, Khadam’s skin started to itch.

Eolh crowed a concerned, “Uh?” She followed his gaze to the pebbles and stones, gently lifting from the ground. Trembling. 

“Shit,” Khadam said.

“What is it?”

“Run.”

A screech, just on the edge of hearing, gathered in the air. Pure energy pulsed in the clouds. Burning a hole as a new orbital laser pierced the atmosphere. It stabbed next to the mountain, boiling the rock to magma, sinking a spear of pure energy into the crust. The laser column was too close and too wide for Khadam to see which direction it was moving, but she had a feeling she already knew.

Logistics wants me alive. But Domination doesn’t know I’m down here.

It just wants to burn.

“RUN!” 

Another column shot down on the other side of the mountain. Energy crackled in the air, and little bolts of static snapped between Khadam’s fingers and the tips of her hair. That electric screeching sound amplified until she couldn’t even hear herself shouting. Warm blood trickled from her ears—the droplets falling out, not down. And at the edge of the orbital laser, the stone ground boiled.

Then, another column shot down. And another. And all the rest, until the mountain was surrounded by a blue, blinding light. She could see the veins through her fingers. Lightning walked up and down her body, and snapped from Agraneia’s liquid arm to Eolh’s wings.

The columns gyrated and liquefied the foothills, drawing toward the mountain side, when a shadow cut across the sky. Narrow and huge and as sharp as a spear. It descended from the clouds like a shark emerging from the sea, and it plowed beneath the laser columns. Blocking them from touching the ground.

A dark shadow spread over the mountainside. And high above in the Ark’s vast hull a circle of light opened. A flock of birds flew out. No, not birds, Khadam thought. Avians.

The children of the gods had come.

Next >

The Last Human IV - 62 - Unbroken

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Agraneia couldn’t stop shivering. The ceiling spun, and the floor felt like it was rolling on an arctic ocean current. She tried to steady the motion, tried to hold herself upright, but her muscles gave out. She tried to grab ahold of the chair, but her liquid metal hand was still numb and she couldn’t feel the fingers on her mortal hand. So cold.

And a voice poured like warm honey into her ears, “Easy there, Ags. Just stay with me another moment.” 

Feathered hands—real hands—hooked under her arms and the corvani crowed with the effort of hefting her up until she was face to face with a corvani. Icy cold filled her mind, slowing her thoughts. How can the dead be this strong?

An insect, or something like it, bit into her chest. Then, another—sharper than the first. She tried to swat it away, but her arms refused to lift. She grit her teeth, and tried again. She had to fight. She had to, if she wanted to live. 

“Easy,” the dead corvani said again. 

Then, a stiff warmth crawled into her veins. It started where the insect bit her, and oozed into her heart. Suddenly, her muscles tightened. Her eyes shot open. Two nanite syringes jutted from her chest. The last drops of that silvery liquid drained into her body. 

Gingerly, a black-feathered hand plucked them out of her body. Agraneia realized she was no longer bound to that chair. Instead, she was propped up, half laying and half sitting in her dead friend’s lap. Eolh looked down at her with a smile tugging at the corner of his blue-black beak.  How does someone eat with a beak that big? She found herself wondering. Ridiculous.

Then, the ice that clouded her thoughts cracked. “Eolh?” She sat up. Too fast. Her stomach clenched. She leaned over and started to vomit. 

“Easy, I said,” Eolh patted her back with his mortal hand. “That nanite’s good, but it’s no miracle. Give it time to work.”

The dead corvani was very much alive. “How?” Agraneia rasped. Thankfully, the nanite was starting to numb her raw throat.

“Found it in the Sovereign’s head-thing. Reckon the damned machine used it to keep you alive.”

“No,” Agraneia grunted, “How are you here?” 

“You asked for help,” Eolh said. “Poire heard.” 

“The godling?”

“Know anyone else named Poire?” 

Agraneia propped herself up on her stiff metal arm, and stared at him. Just stared. If he was a dream, he was more real than any dream she’d ever had. His dark eyes glistened in the dim gray light. His fingers gripped her wrist and shoulder, holding her up. The individual barbs of his feathers stirred in the artificial breeze from the air vents.

“Impossible…” 

“I thought the same thing. One moment, I was watching the Scar unfold across the sky. Could feel it pulling me—gah!” 

Whatever he was going to say was choked off, as Agraneia threw her arms around him and clasped her hands together and squeezed as tight as she could.

“Ags,” he gasped, even as embraced her back. “Easy on the ribs.”

She eased a little, but didn’t let go. His feathers were so soft. His muscles, as wiry as ever. She could even feel the warmth of his body through her liquid hand.

“Seems like the nanite is working,” Eolh said. 

Perhaps it was the nanite, or the days (or weeks?) of torture, or something else, but she thought she could see a faint glow blurring around the corvani. It outlined his feathers. His head. Even his clothes.

“What the hells are you wearing?” Agraneia asked.

Eolh looked down at his shirt, as if seeing it for the first time. Thousands of mirror-like tiles, as small as fingernails, clacked and clinked as he held it out. “No idea,” Eolh laughed. “I think the Fledge made it?” 

Agraneia pinched the tiles between her fingers. It moved like the highest quality chainmail, but she couldn’t see how the tiles were linked together. 

A distant boom shook the floor. It rattle the metal debris, and vibrated up through the walls. Then, another boom, this one close enough that Agraneia could feel it buzzing in her teeth.

“Come on,” Eolh said, unfolding himself from her, and helping her stand on shaky legs. “Time to go.”

Agraneia started to rise when her foot kicked a familiar hunk of ruined metal. Dull gray light shone from inside. The memory of Laykis, being torn apart by the Sovereign, rushed back and sapped the strength from the cyran’s legs. Agraneia fell to her knees. “Oh, gods,” she growled. “I’m sorry.” 

One of the Sovereign’s arms had fallen and crushed Laykis’s skull. The scarred mask of her face was intact, but the back of her head was crumpled inward. Hot tears slid down Agraneia’s cheeks as she cradled the android’s head. 

“Ags,” Eolh crowed her over. He stooped over the android’s body, and using the hand that the android had given him so long ago, Eolh popped open her chest chassis. The gray light brightened, casting dramatic shadows across Eolh’s blue-black beak.

“What is that?”

“Didn’t they teach you mechanical anatomy in the Academy?”

Agraneia sniffed and wiped her face with one arm. “What are you talking about?”

With his metal hand, Eolh ripped open Laykis’s chest armor. He plucked something from her ribs. A smooth, glowing oval that fit heavily in his palm. A construct’s core. It was almost translucent, like glass filled with something like smoke, except the core was cracked and gray mist leaked out, shimmering in the air.

Agraneia scrambled over to the android, and almost without thinking, she reached for it, intending to cover the crack with her liquid metal hand. When she touched it, she heard a voice.

“Is that you, Agraneia?”

Tears stung her eyes again, but she blinked them back. “Yes. It’s me.” 

“Are you well? I was very worried about you.”

For a moment, Agraneia couldn’t answer, she was so choked up. Laykis had been through the hells. Her body was broken, her core was fading, and yet Laykis was worried about her?

“I’m sorry, Laykis. It’s all my fault.”

“I couldn’t be more proud of how you performed. The Sovereign has had thousands of years to perfect its craft, yet when it tried to break you, you endured. Just like me. I knew I was right to call you sister.”

“What is it?” Eolh asked. “What is she saying?”

“Who else is there?”

“Eolh is with me,” Agraneia answered, though she had no idea how to explain it.

“Of course,” Laykis said, as if Eolh’s resurrection was the most natural thing in the world. “Vul, the Guardian who is with him until the very end. I should have known. And where is the key?” 

“Khadam?”

“Yes. She is everything, now.”

“I…” Agraneia’s stomach sank. After every torturous hour, after all these miracles, they were no closer to finding the Maker Divine. She glanced at Eolh. “Do you know where Khadam is?”

Eolh shook his head. But Laykis answered at the same time, “Yarsi knew.”

“Yarsi isn’t here.”

“Her memory is. I kept it safe.”

There was a tug on Agraneia’s thoughts. It came from Laykis’s core. “Open your mind,” Laykis said.

“How—”

It felt like a fist punching directly into the brain. Agraneia was thrown back as a whole set of memories filled her thoughts. Machine-filled corridors and utility tunnels and hordes of skittering maintenance constructs crawled into her mind. The memories overlaid the real world, glowing bright. She could see herself picking up Laykis’s scarred mask. Carrying the mask and the core with her, as she set off down one of the access tunnels. 

Agraneia pulled her liquid hand away from Laykis’s core, and the future memory disappeared. Timidly, she touched Laykis’s core again, and the memories flooded back. She could see exactly where to go. Curiously, she couldn’t see Eolh. 

She looked at him. He cocked his head at her. “What?” he croaked.

“You’re real, aren’t you?”

Eolh shrugged. “I feel real.”

Agraneia wiped her eyes once more. And put out a hand, letting Eolh help her to her feet. “As long as you’re with me, it’s good enough.”

Agraneia picked up Laykis’s mask. Put it under her arm, along with the core, and set off. 

***

The two armadas of the Sovereign converged upon each other. Trillions of repulsors ignited as twin metal waves screamed toward each other. Millions of kilometers of space rippled with movement. 

At the center of their convergence, there were three objects. The machine-covered Earth, a hollowed-out moon glittering with traces of silver, and further out, a Scar. With the scanners at maximum magnification, Queen Ryke could just make out the lonely black structure that hung suspended in front of the Scar. The Light dam looked like the closed-up bud of a night flower, like the ones that grew on Gaiam. That used to grow on Gaiam, she corrected herself. 

But her view of the Scar, and the Earth, were soon obscured as tiny, fiery streaks forked out from the twin armadas. Both sides of the Sovereign, it seemed, were eager to strike the first blow, but the left wing shot far more than the right.

Then, the right’s missiles split open, each body containing many smaller ones inside. Ryke watched as the waves of missiles slipped into each other, just over the Earth. Collisions created beautiful, blossoming spheres of superheated metal and radiation. Some were close enough to make ripples in the polluted atmosphere of the planet below.

But many, if not most, of the missiles survived. The Ark’s scanners counted the missiles, but there were so many zeroes behind that number, it became meaningless to Ryke. At first, the twin armadas ignored the Ark, only slinging missiles at each other. But as the Ark neared the Earth, swarms of drones and squadrons of ships peeled away from both fleets. They formed long, spearing lines and raved to reach the Ark. 

Hundreds of xenos watched, and more crowded in through the bulkhead doors, yet the Bridge was silent.

One of Ryke’s admirals whispered to her, “Your Majesty, we must turn back now. If we go any closer, we will never leave this place.”

Ryke turned toward the column of metal and wires on the Command Deck. “Yarsi will guide us through.”

The admiral wasn’t as certain. “But, Your Majesty, to what end?”

A tremor ran through Ryke’s chest. In truth, she didn’t know how to answer him. She feared that, perhaps, there was no answer.

One of the armadas seemed to be attacking the planet. There was much Ryke didn't understand. Gliding drones dipped into the atmosphere and swept over continental factories, dropping payloads whose devastation could be seen from space. Drones swarmed over the landmasses, cutting streaks into the clouds as they fought for dominance. And above the fray, great cruisers orbited like bloated sharks, directing invisible beams at the oceans, boiling them into steam.

Soon, Ryke guessed, there would be nothing left of Earth. And yet, Earth was where the Ark was headed, by Yarsis command. Who am I to question a god? 

So she watched. And prayed. And fought back the doubts and old memories that clawed into her mind.

Her faith was tested again when the first drones reached the Ark. They wanted to cut the engines and crack the ship open and devour its innards. But both armadas had the same idea, so the swarms that converged over the Ark had to choose: fight the Ark, or fight each other. Every weapon they spent on the Ark was one less attack on the opposing side. Thus, when drones slammed into the Ark, and started to drill into its hull, other drones shot them away before they could even grab hold.

“Ahead!” someone shouted, and Ryke could hear the crowd hold their breath as a crescent-shaped ship barreled head on toward the Ark. The inner part of the crescent split open lengthwise, like a monstrous set of jaws. Rows of heavy cannons and energy weapons bristled. Yet the crescent ship only started its first salvo before a massive cannon shell clapped into its hull, tearing the ship apart and scattering its cannons like so many teeth.

The Ark sailed through the debris cloud like a merchant’s ship through an ocean of ice. Though the Bridge was buried deep in the bowels of the Ark, they could hear the metal groan as something heavy dragged along the hull.

“If we must go to Earth,” her admiral whispered angrily, “Why doesn’t she jump us there? Why must we tempt fate?”

“She is saving her power,” Ryke said, “See the Ark’s reserves. There is only enough energy for one last jump.”

“Then,” the admiral said, almost hopefully, “Then Yarsi intends to pilot us out of here?” 

Ryke could smell his fear. And the fear radiating from all of them, mixed with the sweat and rankness of too many bodies crowding for too long on the Bridge. Yarsis had ordered everyone to abandon the habitation decks, and most had obeyed. Most, but not all. The faith of xenos was near to breaking. 

“Keep to your faith, avian,” Ryke said. And, gods, grant me strength to keep to mine.

An impact shook the Ark. A missile, intended for another target, detonated near the repulsors. Alarms raised and were silenced. Screens in the command center suddenly blinked out, as sensors were destroyed. Not that it mattered, as they were surrounded by chaos. Missiles serpentined through swirling storms of debris, shredded hulls collided together, and hosts of drones descended upon the remains, tearing into ships and into each other. It was impossible to tell which side was winning. 

An alarm barked an urgent warning, and a cluster of redenites gasped as they pointed at one of the screens. A clutch of drop pods had burrowed into the Ark’s hull, tearing away the weakest patches, and spewing dozens of hunter constructs into the breach. They descended upon the City, their repulsors blooming in the oxygenated air. They spread their limbs, capped with sensors and lethal projectile weapons, searching for targets.

On the hull of the Ark, one of the drop pods was ripped off, and tumbled into space. A drone, larger than the hunter constructs, heaved its body into the breach. It crunched and wriggled obscenely until it squeezed into the gap, and chased the swarm of smaller constructs into the City. Rings of multi-jointed limbs sprang out of its body, and sprayed penetrating rounds into the hunter. 

Why do they want to take us alive? Ryke wondered. Do they think there’s a god on the Ark?

Well, there was a god on board. Just not a human one.

The hunter constructs reversed and slammed their bodies against the massive drone, covering it with shivering bodies and dragging it down. Then, the whole Ark rocked, and the drones were destroyed as a chunk of the Ark suddenly disappeared. A cannon had blown out an entire section of the City, ripping out her people’s work. Skyscrapers and gardens and bridges and freshly-planted trees were sucked out into the vacuum.

An alarm blared on the bridge as the bulkheads sealed off the City, and the stubborn xenos who had refused to evacuate. 

Craters carved wounds into the Ark’s spearhead hull. Great pieces of its armor were torn out, exposing its innards to the void, and debris trailed in long lines behind the human-made ship. But the repulsors still glowed, and the Ark flew on. 

And the Earth loomed.

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The Last Human IV - 61 - Some Kind of Saint

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This was not Thrass et Yunum.

Then why could Agraneia hear the artillery? Giants, walking. Their footsteps shook the ceiling. And she could smell the trees, and the smoke from the campfires, and the earthy rot and salt and fresh soil from the lowland jungles. 

Plants grew on everything. Ivies climbed up the machine gantries half-hidden in the shadows. Vines coiled in the corners of the cavern, old rainwater still dripping down their stalks. Roots twisted around wires and bright red leaves sprouted from the Sovereign’s limbs and scanners and strange, blinking devices. 

Even Laykis’s corpse was overgrown with life. Green tendrils tied knots through her ribcage, and a crimson flower bloomed in her empty eyesocket.

“Where…?” 

Overhead, the Sovereign’s instruments clinked and swayed. A thousand red eyes glared down at her.

“I wanted to wait for this,” the Sovereign said, “But time is shorter than expected. Look into the Scar.” 

Something hard grabbed her head, and twisted her neck, forcing her to stare at a wall of Light. Everything went white. And the white stretched into forever. Reality folded into the unreal, and her mind split in ways it was never meant to. Vaguely, she was aware she was screaming so hard that her throat was starting to tear itself open, and that her muscles were ripping themselves to pieces. 

Her body shook. Her teeth chattered so loud, she couldn’t hear the Sovereign, demanding answers. “Who pilots the Ark? Who is alive? How did Khadam keep them alive? Tell me everything, cyran, and this will go away.” 

“I’m sorry,” Agraneia said, but not to the Sovereign. There were millions of faces in the Light, and somehow she could see each one in perfect detail. 

People she’d killed. People who’d tried to kill her. People she’d helped—she was surprised to see how many there were.

And some of the faces were not dead at all. Strange. She had never noticed the living ones before. Not just lassertane, but cyrans, and avians, too. They did not laugh. They did not whisper vile thoughts into her mind. Nor did they insist that she descend into an eternity of pain. 

They only watched. Grim and quiet. Waiting for something.

“Isn’t this what you wanted to see?” Agraneia shouted hoarsely, “Isn’t this why you’ve always been here? To watch me die.”

“Is that what you thought?” a corvani crowed over her shoulder. She felt Eolh, prowling around in the dense foliage that hadn’t been there before. He moved, always out of sight, so that she could only see the leaves and branches rustling in the corner of her eyes. 

“Then what do they want from me?” 

“To see you become saved.”

“Me? Why would they want me to be saved?”

“Because you brought them here. You kept them in here,” she felt a feathered finger tap on her skull. “When, otherwise, they would have been lost long ago. You are alive, Agraneia, and only the living can create meaning. So, they wait for you to create it. To make something worthy of all this pain.”

“I can’t,” Agraneia said.

“What did Talya say?” Eolh whispered. “Oh yes. Don’t underestimate the strength of others.” 

“Talya,” Agraneia sighed. And the agonizing whiteness of the world was filled with her scent, and the soft brush of her feathers. Then, black despair gripped Agraneia’s heart. “But I ran from her. I abandoned her. She can’t help me.”

“No,” the dead avian chuckled darkly. “Not now, you fool. But He can.”

“Can he?”

“He’s listening. He is always listening.”

So, Agraneia tried to send her prayer with a whisper. It came out in a gravelly rasp. “Poire, Maker Divine. Grant me nothing but a chance at redemption.”

And even when she closed her eyes, she could still see the faces. Watching her.

***

High above the surface of Cyre, Eolh took off his helmet. There was no air up here this close to the Scar. The Light devoured everything, and he hoped that suffocating would speed this up. He could feel his feathers turning to ash, and his bones crumbling apart. Death was every bit as painful as they said it was. 

But this death was worth it. With it, he had saved his friends, and millions of innocent xenos. Eolh had created time so that Ryke could escape with her life. 

Besides, Eolh’s pain would be over soon. He might as well close his eyes and enjoy it. His last thoughts were of Ryke. What had he promised her? Whatever it was, he couldn’t deliver. I only hope you’ll forgive me.

And the Light wrapped around his wings and hooked into his flesh. He wondered what it would be like, when he became nothing. Would it feel like falling asleep, or more like falling down a deep tunnel? 

He was still wondering, when the Light bent away. Streaks of multi-colored brilliance warped around him, as if he was surrounded by a liquid glass bubble. Hot, colorful droplets rained down on him, shimmering as they pooled into his wounds. The cracks in his bones sealed. Withered muscles thickened and ashen feathers were made whole again. Breath filled his lungs. Blood surged in his veins. His heart thumped, as if it was the first time it had ever beat in his chest.

And a voice, gravelly and deepened by age, spoke to him from outside the bubble of Light. 

“Hello, old friend.” 

Eolh squinted through the brilliant colors, trying to make out the man who had spoken from behind the glassy veil. His robes rippled and billowed around his body, like living things caught in an underwater torrent. Yet it gleamed as if it was made of polished titanium. His white beard trailed down to his chest, and white hair fringed a dark face, cracked and wrinkled.

“Gods, Fledge. You’ve aged.”

“You haven’t,” Poire’s ancient face crinkled. His smile was just like the one Eolh remembered him wearing, when he was still a boy.

Poire held an object lightly in his fingers. A jewel? A pearl? Whatever it was, it was so bright everything else seemed dim. Only, Poire had cracked it open, and its brilliance was already fading.

“But how are you here?” Eolh asked. “You left. You went through the Mirror.”

“And it seems you found a way to follow me.”

“I thought dying would feel more like a dream,” Eolh said.

“Maybe it does,” Poire said. “But you’re not dying. The Scar would have eaten you, but I pulled you out.”

“Pulled me … where?” 

“I cannot believe I found you.” Poire’s face crinkled again, and this time, his eyes were dark and sad. “I almost don’t want to let you go.”

“Go?”

“You made a promise, old friend.” 

“What promise?” Eolh furrowed his brow feathers. “I was on Cyre. Then, I went to push back the Swarm. And then … Ryke.”

“You promised her you would come back.”

But the Scar had opened, and swallowed him whole. “I had to do it, Fledge.”

“I know.”

“Did they … did she …” Eolh hesitated, almost too afraid to know. “Did anyone survive?” 

Poire held his gaze. The old fledgling’s deep, brown eyes widened, until they eclipsed the sky and became the entire universe. All the Scars, all the worlds, all the Light was contained within Poire’s eyes. And Eolh could see everything. The Scar had opened over Cyre, swallowing the Swarm whole before turning toward the planet below.

But a flash from the surface melted the anxiety that gripped Eolh’s heart. He watched the Gate open, taking Ryke and Talya and thousands of refugees back to Gaiam. To safety. 

Eolh sighed, and started to turn away—yet couldn’t. Poire’s all-encompassing gaze held him fast. Forced him to watch the years flicker by in the Cauldron. The city was brimming with new xenos. The refugees helped rebuild the city, and then transformed it with the help of Khadam’s newest gifts. Eolh watched Agraneia and Talya. And Yarsi and Khadam, working on her Ark. He saw Laykis, kneeling at the Mirror.

And he saw Ryke. And though the years flickered past, her face remained unchanged. Cold. Lost. In public, she stood strong for her people, but something was missing from her face. No spark. No joy. Only a hollow look in her eyes.

Ryke…

Her anguish caused him pain. Nothing had ever hurt worse in his life, and he had taken a dagger to the back. He could barely speak, it hurt so much. “I didn’t meant to lie to her.”  

“Then don’t,” Poire said.

“What do you m—”

The human blinked, and Eolh was thrust into a new vision. 

Oh, gods. Ags, what have they done to you? 

The cyran warrior was tied to a chair in a dark cavern, deep within the machine-bowels of the Earth. The crumpled remains of an android lay at her feet. Eolh’s stomach clenched at the sight. His blood boiled and all his feathers prickled with rage.

Above, a massive machine loomed over them both. Its long, spidery arms gimbaled in circles as they cut into the cyran, injecting new terrible things into her body.

“Look at her,” Poire said. 

“Oh, I’m looking.”

“Do you know what you must do?”

Eolh blinked. And realized that, yes, actually. He knew exactly what he had to do. The corvani nodded.

“You will only have one more chance.”

“More than I could have ever asked for,” Eolh said. But then, a new thought dawned on him. “Poire.” 

“Yes?”

“If I do this—if we get it right—what happens next?”

Poire smirked, and the years seemed to fade from his wrinkled face, until Eolh could only see his fledgling human friend once more. Just a boy, growing into a young man. Eolh couldn’t help but smile back. 

“So,” Eolh said, “It’s like that, huh?”

“This will change everything.”

“We will change everything.” Eolh put his feathered hand on the glass bubble. But the bubble it seemed wasn’t solid. His hand slipped through and the Light stung the tips of his fingers, burning the feathers before Eolh could pull back.

Poire held up the cracked pearl. Its glow had diminished, and Eolh could actually see the Light swirling out of it. Poire’s smile changed once more. This time, he looked sorry. “I only wish we could talk a little longer.” 

“You know,” Eolh said, “I was never the praying type. But after this, well, my favorite god will hear from me every single night.”

“When you speak to me, I will listen to every last word.”

“Goodbye, Fledge.”

“Goodbye, Eolh.”

***

Agraneia was nothing but a mote of dust, and the Scar was the gaping maw of a dead universe. 

“Gods!” she screamed, blood and spittle flying from her lips, “Send me your strength! Help me!” 

“There is nothing left for you,” the Sovereign’s perfect voice grated in her ears. Too loud. Too close. “There is no one coming to save you.”

“Poire, I beg you—”

Lightning poured out from her restraints, and into her veins. Her limbs danced. Her body shook. Her mouth convulsed and bloody froth poured from her lips.

“This moment,” the Sovereign whispered, “Will expand into eternity. You are alone, cyran.”

The Light from the Scar cast shadows over everything. The Sovereign’s monster was only a shape. Its huge, mechanical arms descended from the ceiling, dripping with wires and awful appendages. Its bulbous head swayed in front of Agraneia, glaring at her with a complex of eyes. 

Then, the Scar pulsed. Brighter than Agraneia thought possible. 

The Sovereign’s head swiveled, and its eyes tilted away from Agraneia to face the strange shape that floated out of the Scar.

A body.

An avian body. 

A corvani, whose black feathers were outlined in a sunlight glow. Agraneia laughed at the absurdity of it, even as tears rolled down her scales. Now I have truly lost my mind.

“Are you the angel of death, then?” Agraneia taunted the vision, “Come to take my mortal soul?”

But the Sovereign’s eyes were tracking the corvani, too. And its monstrous head swerved around his glowing form, and Agraneia realized the Sovereign could see him, too.

“Hello, Ags,” the angel croaked.

Agraneia squinted into the Light. “Eolh?” 

“In the flesh.”

The Sovereign’s thousand eyes flickered and blinked. Somewhere, a klaxon shrieked. The sound, it seemed, was intended to mask the movement of the monster’s great arms. They whipped down from above, three hulking serpents, tipped with sharp drills as long as Agraneia’s dead metal arm. They pierced the corvani before Agraneia could open her mouth to warn him. Only…

A wet hissing sound and the scent of burned metal filled the room. And when the Sovereign’s arms pulled back, they came away spewing sparks and dripping molten metal. The drills hadn’t melted, so much as evaporated into stinging, acrid smoke. 

And Eolh, wreathed in Light, was untouched. If anything, the aura around his feathers glowed brighter than before.

Gimbals screeched as the Sovereign’s head pulled away from the corvani. It barked a rapid series of commands, and the ceiling came alive. Hundreds of spindly arms and long, narrow claws and twitching, blade-tipped appendages unfurled toward the floor like a living canopy of vines. Instruments whirred and hummed and snapped with electricity. A drill arm whined as it snaked toward Agraneia. Not threatening her anymore. This time, it was going in for the kill.

Only a few days ago, she would’ve let it happen. She would’ve embraced death. But now, Agraneia fought like an animal against her restraints, growling and screaming and throwing her whole body into useless action.

The drill’s whine pitched as it followed her thrashing movements. It slid toward her like a waspish stinger. Closer, until she could feel the air twisting in front of her face.

If this was her death, she would not close her eyes to it. She would watch, she would—

Light erupted across the cavern. Eolh threw out his arms, and rays burst from the tips of his feathers, piercing the Sovereign’s canopy, slicing arms and wires and overgrown masses of cables at their roots. The drill in front of her face gave a final pitiful whine before it crashed inches from her chair. A dozen more lines sliced through the Sovereign’s head and half the sphere dropped to the floor. Claws and wires and liquified metal crashed with an unholy noise. Once more, Eolh flapped his wings. Thousands of sheared electronics rained from above, and the burning scent of metal and plastic filled the room.

He threw his wings out one last time, and the Light faded from a bright white to a soft glow. Then, to black. Agraneia’s eyes stung. She blinked, and saw only red and white. She couldn’t tell if her eyes were open, or closed. Every joint and bone in her body ached. Her head was swimming. 

And the boom of distant artillery shook the floor.

Was this real? Or had the pain made her truly mad?

She was afraid to speak. Afraid to find out that hope had only been a dream. She spoke anyway. “Eolh?” 

Her heart hung in her throat. 

Something moved in the darkness. Feathers so black, they were almost blue. “Yeah, Ags. It’s me.” 

“But you’re dead.”

“Guess we were both wrong,” he chuckled dryly, and Agraneia had forgotten the sound for so long, hearing it again made her heart melt.

He crouched next to her chair. One hand was made of metal, and it pinched through her restraints as if they were made of butter. The other hand was warm on her cheek. “What do you think, Ags? A dead corvani come back to life. Reckon that makes me some kind of saint?”

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The Last Human IV - 60 - The God

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Poire wielded the Crown, and time bent to his will. And with the Crown, he opened many scars, and he gazed upon the long-dead people of his home universe.

And he spoke, that they might listen. “Help me save them.” 

But they knew him already. Humanity, touched by the Disease, had seen the Herald in all their visions—a shining, celestial being with the dark, aged face of a man—and they knew that Destruction followed in his steps. 

In the visions, they had seen their loved ones die. And so it came to pass.

They had seen their worlds broken. And so it came to pass.

They had seen the stars gone dark. And so, when the Herald came to them many turned away.

But not all of them.

Some did not care, for they had lived long lives adrift without meaning. Others prayed to him, begging for a swift death, for they could not accept the dark future that was to come. 

He opened Scars across the universe, seeking every last clan of the human diaspora. He begged them to listen, even as their numbers withered and disease ate their flesh. He went to the Architects who built the network of Gates that crossed the stars. He went to the Engineers who had fused the Flow to the will of the human mind. He went to the Coldsmith clans, with their clever machines fueled by the powers of Light, and begged them to seek out a way to save humankind. 

And they listened.

Some reasoned that the Destroyer had come from humanity, and thus, only humanity could unmake him. These scattered clans united zealously around this holy goal. They sent their youngest, barely touched by the Disease, into cryosleep to hide from the Sovereign Swarm. They hoped to one day wake, and carry out the great mission: destroy the Destroyer. 

Others aimed toward more creative ends. A lone hermit called Tython, who had long ago left his people behind, turned his precious works toward saving humankind. He toiled night and day on a new kind breed of androids, one that he hoped would stand the test of time. And an architect called Sen fled from the Sovereign, and hollowed out a world, and hid a Mirror inside, with which she intended to visit the Destroyer’s own plane. A biologist named Auster sacrificed the last few decades of his life toward building research Conclaves, separate-yet-connected. Desperately, these Conclaves hunted for a cure to the unravelling human genome. 

There was an age of hope. But, vul, all efforts were in vain. And one by one, the last great leaders of humankind wasted away. In their dying dreams, they watched the Disease devour all. In the midst of destruction, they saw the Herald, shining and endless. Where he walked, the universe split asunder, and all things perished. 

“Is this all there is?” Poire asked. “Is this all I am?” 

But who could answer?

He watched humankind die. He watched the ages pass. He watched a lone android use the last Gates to walk across the worlds. He watched her find him. He watched the avians celebrate the last living god, and the cyrans, and Khadam. And he watched until the universe broke. 

And then, he went back, and tried again. He spoke. “Help me save them.” But, though they listened, and though they fought, the universe ended. He tried again. And again. 

And again.

Until, one day, he set down his Crown. Into the misshapen deserts of his world, he strayed, hoping to find answers in thought and time. From Anu, he had learned a new kind of patience and ten thousand years passed as easily as one. 

With a stride, he walked across far horizons. With a quirk of his hand, he raised castles as tall as mountains, and mountains as vast as continents. With a thought, cities sprouted across the lands, luxurious gardens and parks and trees and rivers that sparkled and reflected the glowing windows of the sky filled in the space between vast networks of houses. But the cities were always empty. Empty.

So, with his feet, he crushed the cities that he had made until they were nothing more than sand that blew away with the wind. He took apart the universe, particle by particle, wave by wave. He separated the colors from each other until nothing looked like anything. He hoped that by changing this universe, he might discern a way to change the fate of the other. But hope alone is no salvation.

New Crowns, he made, and new Scars, and into other universes he gazed. In alien places he searched for answers, for any pattern that might elevate his thoughts. Most universes were empty. A few even resembled his own, with stars and natural laws and standard matter like he had once known. In some universes, myriad lifeforms danced and grew and died under his gaze. Intelligence, he discovered, was rare, and none compared to the heights of human existence. Not even Anu, who had seen so much, had known how to save them.

“I have all the power,” he said. “And I have none.” 

He changed the world, and changed it again, and changed it until he could think of nothing else to change.

And he lay there, in the sands, for untold eons. Mountains rose like waves and washed over him. Deserts scoured him clean and the wind buried him in scree and sand. And when it hissed over the dunes, it sounded as if it was calling to him. 

Poire lifted his head, and spat the dust that had gathered in his mouth. “I have tried everything,” he said. “What else can I do?”

Listen, the wind sighed. It reminded him of a voice he had forgotten a long time ago.

“To who? There’s no one else.”

But, to Poire’s surprise, a voice carried on the breeze. 

“So what?” someone shouted. “I saved them. I saved them all!”

Poire sat up. Tilted his head to let the sand pour from one ear, then the other. He dusted himself off, and climbed the dune in time to see the Boy—another one—leaving specks of blood on the sand as he crunched away into the distance with his shoulders dropped and head down. 

“What’s he so miserable about?” Poire said to himself. Poire scanned the Boy’s bloody footsteps back to the shadow of a great pyramid, lording over this endlessly familiar land. The Mirror. Its apex pointed at the fractured sky, and its edges glowed as it shed the last of its Light, except where huge, black growths scarred its faces. Something grew at its base. It looked like a stiff plant made of black glass, struggling to climb out of the sand. Sen was nothing more than opaque obsidian and glossy planes, merely suggestive of a human form, already cracked and crumbling.

But the Mirror…

The Mirror still stood. 

Poire stepped over the dunes, and walked a slow circle around the Mirror. There were voices inside. Some of them even called his name.

“Divine Gods, I beg you, hear my prayer.” A xeno he had once known, long ago. A cyran soldier. Agraneia. They had traveled together once, he recalled. She was … hard on herself. But Poire had admired her, back then, for she was quietly humble and she dedicated her life to earning forgiveness from those she had already killed. “Poire, I beg you. Help me—Gods above, help me.” 

It sounded like she was in unimaginable pain. Poire pressed his face to the Mirror, and peered into the otherside. And wished he hadn’t. 

The body of an android lay at her feet. Laykis. And some monstrous overgrowth of the Soverign had bound Agraneia to a chair, and was torturing her with devices Poire had never dreamed of. 

“Please!” she gnashed her teeth, and bloody split dripped down her chin. “Poire, please help me!”

How? 

Poire could only watch as tiny machine claws peeled back her eyelids, and clamps held her head forward, forcing her to gaze into the Light of a fabricated Scar. Her eyes rolled, her body bucked, her heart stopped—until the Sovereign injected her with more nanite, keeping her on the agonizing edge of consciousness.

“Gods, please, save me,” she whispered.

There is no Savior. 

There are no gods.

Poire turned away, too angry to watch. He stomped a drunken circle around the Mirror, his head spinning with outrage.

“Blessed are you, oh Savior Divine, who thrives in a plane of unlife.” 

Yes, he knew that voice too. He had just seen her, a ruined body lying at Agraneia’s feet. But when Poire peered into the Mirror, he saw a cracked and foggy image of Laykis—overgrown with rust and cave moss, but very much alive. She was kneeling at the foot of this Mirror’s twin, somewhere at the core of Sen’s World. 

There were piles of drones all around her. The Light from the Mirror was waning. And yet, he could see her. He could hear her. “Glory to you, oh Destroyer, who gave Yourself that all others should live.”

What glory? Poire thought, angrily. No one is saved. No one will live. 

“Praise, for you and you alone know the Way. Praise, for I was nothing until I found you.” 

Anger flashed through his veins. For a brief moment, Poire wanted to smash the pyramid into dust. Instead, he knelt on the ground, and slammed his fist into the sand. Dust clouds erupted in a swirling vortex, blotting out the sky. And when it settled, Poire had carved a new Scar. 

And with it, he intended to answer a question that had plagued him, long ago, when he was still a boy.

***

Waves lapped at the shore, making the algae pods knock around in their floating cages. Tython kept one hand on the guideline as he stooped on the rocks to check the cages. Careful not to bend too quickly, so the crystal growths wouldn’t cut open his muscles again. He selected one of the pods, and tucked it under his arm, and slowly made his way back to the top of his island. The sun beat pleasantly on the back of his neck, until he ducked under the awning and into the cool darkness of his workshop. 

He liked it here, on this little world, far away from anyone. He didn’t have to think about death, here. And when it rained, the whole island smelled of primordial vegetation and salt, and colorful slugs crawled out of the waters. His bio-scanners warned him not to touch the slugs, but he liked looking at them whenever they washed ashore. They reminded him of the sour fruit candies he’d eaten when he was a boy.

Days long, long gone.

Was anyone still alive? Tython didn’t know. He never talked much anyway. All he ever wanted in life was to find a purpose. And he had found it.

His latest androfex was nearly finished. Perhaps his best one yet. Perhaps my last one, too. He shook his head to clear the thought away, but that only made his throat itch. Then came that rolling cough again. It started small, but he had to set down the algae pod before he bent over, hacking and shaking and trying to get the fluid up. 

“Damn Disease,” he said. He shouldn’t have said anything at all. Gasping, he bent him lower, like some kind of cave-dwelling creature and grabbed the side of his work terminal, coughing until his lungs felt like they were going to turn inside out.

On the other side of the glass, his androfex’s unfinished eyes gazed dully at him. Tython’s knees buckled, and it felt like daggers were shooting through his veins. He collapsed on his desk, and the world went dark for a moment. 

Not yet, he told himself. Not finished. 

As his breathing calmed, he felt a presence. Like someone was watching him. But who would come all this way, to this empty planet? Who was left that even knew his name…? 

“Why do you bother?” someone said.

The hairs on the back of Tython’s neck went up. He knew that voice. They all knew that voice. 

Tython coughed up something black and bloody, before answering, “You asked me to.” 

“So I did,” the Destroyer said, “But you’ve seen the future. You know what happens. All your work. All your machines. Undone.”

“They’re not just machines, you know. My androfexi.” Another coughing fit clawed up his throat. It wracked his body and forced him to bend forward with his head almost to his knees. When it was over, he spat, and sat up, and wiped his mouth. “Some days, I think they’re more human than I am.” 

“And they’ll die, just like you. Just like everything else. For what?”

“Ah, but you’re here,” Tython shrugged. “And that is something.” 

“No one will be saved,” the Destroyer said. Not angry. Not bitter. Just resigned. “Either the universe ends with me, or I let them all die.” 

“Perhaps your parameters are wrong.”

“What?”

“You’ve built a prison in your head. We do it all the time, don’t we? New ideas become old beliefs. They support us, even as they anchor our minds. The more you believe, the more restricted you become.”

“So I should, what, drop all my anchors?” Poire scoffed. 

“You’d float away,” Tython scoffed back. “Don’t let the universe dictate where you go. Don’t let one reality pull you out of true. Aren’t you human? The path of your life is carved, choice by choice. You must decide which anchors must break, and which to leave standing.” Tython allowed himself a smug smile, “And if you screw up, I won’t be here to see it.”

The Destroyer chuckled half-heartedly. He gazed over Tython’s shoulder, and nodded at the half-finished androfex lying behind the glass. “I always wondered,” he said, “Why did you make them like that?”

“Like what?”

“She’s devoted. A believer, to the Core. In all my time, I’ve never seen someone with so much faith. Why did you program that into her?” 

Tython frowned. “I didn’t.” 

The Destroyer looked at him, bright and shining and deeply confused. 

“I swear, I have no idea what you’re talking about. I told you, my androfexi have minds of their own. I just give their code a little jolt, and they do all the living on their own.” 

“So you didn’t tell her that I was the Savior?”

“The Savior?” Tython choked out a laugh. “Absolutely not. If anything, I told her sisters about the Destroyer, and how he wanted to change. I told them that there would come a time when the last human would need help. Like I said. They’re not just machines. Not machines at all.”

“Not machines,” the Destroyer echoed, but it sounded like he was talking only to himself. “Their own lives. Their own minds. She chose herself. Then maybe … no guide at all. Maybe … Emorynn.”

“The First Prophet?” Tython asked. “Maybe what?”

But his question went unanswered. The vision, or whatever it was, had cleared. And Tython was alone again. At peace.

He turned to the glass. And frowned at the androfex, inert. Only a few more finishing touches, and then he would give her one of the double Cores, and welcome her into this world. Tython wheezed, and coughed, and covered his mouth to stop blood from flecking the glass. And then, he smiled. “You know, I think I’ve finally come up with a name. How does Laykis sound?”

***

Clear plastic tubes whispered air into her crystal-encrusted throat, and more siphoned synthetic blood  in and out of her heart. The Disease had calcified her bones and muscles together, so that every movement tore new wounds into her blackened, glittering flesh. 

Earth was gone, along with the other Core worlds. Taken by the Swarm. Humanity, what was left of it, had fled across the Stars. Even her own devotees were dying off. 

Everything Emorynn had seen, had come to pass. And soon, there would be no one left. It might take a few thousand years. Perhaps more. But the Destroyer would return, and when he did… 

A dream. This life was only ever a dream. 

Her bed was angled toward the observation window, so that even when she closed her eyes (carefully, so as not to shatter her eyelids), she could still see the warped colors of the Scar. 

“Will there be anything else, Great One?” her disciples asked. 

“Not now,” she whispered. “Not ever.”

So, they left her alone on the Observation deck, and Emorynn watched the infinite shifting of the Scar. Black unmatter ate into her spine, fusing the vertebrae together. Eating her organic parts. Soon, all that would be left of her was the memory implant, embedded in her glittering, crumbling bones. 

“What am I waiting for?” Emorynn wondered aloud. 

“I don’t know,” the Destroyer said, “But I’m glad you waited.”

Her heart skipped. One of the machines keeping her alive started to shrill, but she shut it off with an impulse. 

“I need a favor,” the Destroyer said. She narrowed her eyes at him, trying to see him through the glittering specks that shrouded her eyes. There was something different about him. 

“We’ve already done this, Poire. There is no hope.”

“None,” he agreed. “Nothing will be saved.”

“Then why have you come?” 

“There is no path to salvation.” 

“I have nothing left to give,” she rasped. One of her machines whirred to life, a hissing vacuum that siphoned away the blood draining into the back of her throat. 

“Are you sure?” the Destroyer said. He tapped the back of his own neck, where Emorynn’s memory implant was buried under a crust of obsidian flesh. 

“You want my memory?”

“It must be preserved. Not for us. But for the ones who come after.”

“The xenos? But its not made for them. They won’t survive the implant—”

“They’ll survive much worse.”

“To what end? They will only see their doom.”

“That’s the favor—I want you to delete it. Just the last part.”

“The end?”

“Yes. The end. I don’t want them—I don’t want her—to see how it ends.”

“You would make her blind?” 

“Faith is the only way. If she knows the end, she cannot believe there is another way.”

“Then,” Emorynn asked, “Then there is another way?” 

“No,” The Destroyer’s eyes crinkled when he smiled. “Not until we make it.”

How long she had hated him. How long she had cursed his name. And now, Emorynn was surprised to find that his smile warmed her heart. What was left of it, anyway. 

“Everywhere is darkness. Anyone may despair. But to hope, to create light where there is none, that is divine. The way will be opened. I will open the way.”

The image of the Destroyer melted back into the Scar, leaving Emorynn to her thoughts. How many eons of pain would this one choice cause? Generations of xenos would have to know that their civilization, no matter how much it flourished, would collapse. Perhaps worst of all, the burden would fall upon a single, little lassertane girl. 

But if there was even a sliver of a chance … 

Emorynn closed her eyes. Found the memory of the Ark over Earth. And cut out the last few hours, and deleted them forever. When it was done, she let out a gurgling sigh. The memory of the Ark’s destruction would die with her.

The door to the Observation deck slid open. A disciple stood nervously in the door. Dried streaks of tears ran down her face. “You called, Great One?” 

“It’s time,” Emorynn said. Every word was a labor, every breath required her full concentration.

“Now?” the disciple’s voice shook, and she wrung her hands together. Fresh tears glistened in her eyes.

“My memory implant,” Emorynn said, speaking slowly, for every word was a labor. “Take it.”

“To whom?” the disciple asked. “The archives are compromised.”

Emorynn shook her head, a motion which made the calcified muscles in her neck crack and splinter. 

“Then, the clans? We’ve lost contact with the Grid, my lady.”

“To Sen,” Emorynn rasped. “Tell her, tell her keep it safe.”

“Until when?”

“Until the Way is open.”

***

Sen’s ancient Mirror was a shattered ruin. The inverted walls were gouged, the nadir littered with the bodies of dead machines. Half-hidden under the hull of a broken ship, the gold-and-glass structure gave off barely any light. Only the faintest, murky color stirred in those alien, infinite depths.

And still, the android called Laykis kneeled before it, and prayed. 

She required no answer. She needed no wish granted. Laykis had accomplished everything she ever wanted in life, and more.

And still she prayed. “Glory to you, who crossed into the Light. Glory and honor, for none may follow.”

Water dripped from somewhere high above, pattering on the android’s skull, feeding the rust and the weird-colored mosses that grew in her mechanical joints. With every year, it became less and less likely that Laykis would ever stir from this spot. If the Savior ever were to return, she doubted he would even recognize her.

And still…

“Eager are those who await your return, Savior Divine. Eager and … needful.”

“Oh,” a voice said. It rumbled from the Mirror, vibrating the entire inverted pyramid, and rattling all the dead bodies of drones. Above, the hull of the ship groaned heavily, but did not collapse.

“Oh, but look at you,” spoke the voice of a god, “You are more perfect than ever.” 

“Divine One?” Laykis’s core hummed as it spooled up its processes. Her eyes glowed bright, her ears attuned to every pitch, her sensors catching every vibration.

“Can you hear me?” he spoke.

“I am here.” When the android lifted her gaze, her vertebrae scraped together and made a shameful shriek.

“Oh, but look at you,” he said to her. “You are just as perfect as I remember.”

Centuries cut deep canyons in his dark face. His hair had grown wild and white. His beard trailed down his chest. His ears drooped and his eyes had sunken a little back into his skull. And yet, Laykis saw nothing but the growth of his wisdom, the strength of his endurance, the gleam of creative joy in his eye. And most of all, she saw his faith in her. In me. Nothing had ever felt like this before. 

“Laykis,” he said. And he actually sounded nervous. “Are you listening?”

“Always.”

“You must bring my word to the others. Tell them … Tell them that they must be with the Keeper. She will lift them to the Heavens. Tell them that. And tell them that the Mute, and, and, and the Seer will guide them across the Stars. But no one can hide forever. Heed the Mute’s words. Steady her as she weaves in the void, or else she might lose herself. 

And the cyran. Agraneia. Tell her she will be my blade. She, who was always worthy of salvation, will follow the dead into death. She must live. Tell her that. Tell her, the Keeper is the key. Do you understand me, Laykis?”

“I will tell them exactly as you have told me.”

“You are magnificent,” The Savior shook his head. “I can’t believe … All this time.”

“I would have waited until I fell to pieces and lived no more.”

“Laykis,” The Savior said. “I found it. I will open the way. 

The Light from the Mirror flickered. His image dimmed, and Laykis worried she had lost him without saying goodbye. Then, the Savior Divien’s face filled the glass once more. 

“The others,” he said. “They will doubt you. They will disbelieve everything you say. Do not be discouraged.”

“I have always had faith.”

“I know,” The Savior Divine smiled. And Laykis’s Core brightened in a way she had not thought possible. It was as if every process, every tiny calculation, became smoother. Easier.

“Go now, old friend. And thank you for always being yourself.” 

“Goodbye, Poire.” 

***

Poire pulled away from the Mirror. The wind carried bits of grit that hissed over the metal and glass. Beneath it, though, he could hear the whisper of a voice. Calling out his name.

“Help me,” Agraneia screamed. “Poire, I beg of you.”

It was time to begin. And he would start with her, first. 

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The Last Human IV - 59 - The Gift of Mortality

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Broken scales littered the floor around her. Two of her ribs had cracked. Probably from writhing against the bands that held her fast. Ring-shaped wounds wrapped around her wrists, her shoulders, her waist, and dried blood ran down her torso, soaking into her shredded shirt. And a voice was calling her name.

“Aaags,” it crooned from the shadows. Singing in throaty, avian tones. “A-gra-nei-a.” 

She pretended not to hear him. Pretended she wasn’t awake at all. Sleep was the only release. 

“It knows you’re awake.”

No, she thought, and shook her head, as if she was only tossing in a dream.

“It's watching you, right now. Listening to your heart beat. Your breath. Think you’re getting away with it? Oh, Ags, it wants you to have this little victory. Build yourself up, so that it can—”

Agraneia forced her eyes to snap open. “Get on with it,” she growled into the darkness. 

It wasn’t Eolh who answered. Instead, a great shaggy shape twisted in the shadows. Wires whispered and cables hissed and sensor clusters clinked as the Sovereign’s many eyes flickered to life. Dull and red. 

Its voice did not croon at all. “I wanted to talk.”

“So, you still haven’t found her.” Agraneia chuckled. Coughed. Something rattled in her chest, but the restraints wrapped too tight around her torso, and she couldn’t breathe deep enough to clear it out.  

“No,” the Sovereign said. “We have not found her.” 

Agraneia allowed herself a smile, and sank back, letting the metal bands dig into her scales. Khadam is the key. If she was still out there, there was still hope. 

Not for herself, of course. Her life was over. She had tried to play her part, and the universe had found her lacking. She had gotten Khadam captured. She had even brought Laykis down into the mud with her. The android’s body glinted in the Sovereign’s lights, one mangled arm and a half-torn torso laying at her feet. Core cracked, and glassy liquid still pooled around her.

That should’ve been me, was all Agraneia could think. 

“We have, however,” the Sovereign continued, “Found something much better. A ship has entered our orbit.” 

Agraneia’s blood chilled. The Sovereign’s head reacted instantly. The shaggy mass of wires whispered as limbs unfurled, clicking and scraping around her. “Ah, I see.” Dozens of sensors watched her, dull red eyes in the dark. “You know this ship, don’t you, cyran?” 

Agraneia pressed her lips together.

“It’s in orbit. Do you know what that means, xeno? It’s in my orbit.” 

No. Agraneia only just stopped herself from saying it aloud. It can’t be.

“Do you know what I think?” the Sovereign’s perfect voice trickled down from above, like spiders descending on threads of silk. “You came here to save Khadam. Your people trusted you. And when you failed, they had no choice but to do it themselves. To put themselves in my grasp.” 

“Lies,” Agraneia muttered. 

“Machine’s telling the truth, Ags,” Eolh’s voice croaked in her ear. Some mad part of her mind could almost feel him, standing right behind her. Then, the feeling was swept away as something heavy swooped overhead, shifting the air. Her body tensed, desperate to move out of the way, but the bands held her tight to her chair. 

“You’ve damned them all, xeno.” Metal limbs whispered, and a cold, metal claw slid across her cheek, making her flinch. 

And in the darkness, all the faces of the dead watched her. Their eyes glowing red, just like the Sovereign’s. 

“The Ark is mine,” the Sovereign hissed. “Mine to burn. Mine to crush. And mine to save. You do understand me, don’t you, cyran?” 

The metal claw pressed under her chin, lifting her head. Forcing Agraneia to look into the Sovereign’s red sensors. Agraneia swallowed hard. Her eyes swept across the darkness, at all those faces—hallucinations—staring back at her.  

“You have the power to save them.” 

“How?” Agraneia whispered. 

“That ship—the Ark. It must be piloted by a human. Tell me their name.”

“A … human?” Agraneia furrowed her brow. She wasn’t even trying to be obtuse, but the Sovereign mistook her. A blazing heat coursed through the restraints, and Agraneia gasped and bucked in the chair, her legs kicking as she screamed. The sweet scent of burned scales filled her nostrils. 

“Don’t toy with me, xeno. I know there’s a human on board. None of your kind are capable of piloting such a machine. But how? How did one escape my count?”

Its claw clamped around Agraneia’s cheeks with just enough pressure to hold her steady. A new limb extended from the shadows, embedded with vials of a pale, murky liquid. Two droplets dripped from twin needles. 

“Tell me,” the Sovereign’s smooth tones morphed into a sharp, distorted stab. “Save them, or find out how deep pain truly goes.” 

But the dead faces said nothing. Not even a laugh or a croak. Empty eyes stared at her, waiting for her to act.

“Isn’t this what you wanted?” Agraneia growled at Eolh and the rotten faces that watched from the shadows. She leaned forward against her restraints. The bands bit into her scales, and half-cauterized wounds oozed as she tugged them open. “Watch me suffer. Isn’t this why you’ve been watching me all these years?”

On hands and knees, they crawled out from the darkness. Rotted clothes and rotted flesh dragging on the metal floor. They reached for her legs, cold fingers dragging over her scales and scarred flesh. Tracing up her calves and thighs, digging their brown, broken nails into her wounds. It should have hurt. It should have made her scream. Instead, their hands only numbed the pain. 

“What do you want from me?” Agraneia said. 

“There is something off about you, isn’t there?” the Sovereign said, unaware of all those cold, caressing fingers dragging across her flesh. “A disease of the mind, or psychoticism, perhaps. Hm.” The Sovereign’s sensors shifted, red lights twisting and pulling away. The needles retracted, too. Unused. “Did you know that I can cure anything, xeno? I can help you. I can make you better than before.” 

“I don’t need help,” Agraneia said.

I don’t deserve it.

A dead hand was draped over her shoulder. Its sharp nails carved lines up the center of her chest. Another plucked at the tattered shreds of her shirt, digging into the gap between her abs, as if asking the machine to slice her right here.

“Agraneia,” he croaked. 

“You’re not real,” she said. “None of you are.”

Not real, she told herself. None of them are real. 

Then how come she could feel them? Before, they had always waited on the edges of her vision. Distant, and watching. But now… this was it. The last threads of her sanity had come undone. Back in the Academy, they had told her that this would happen. Nobody could endure torture forever. 

Agraneia couldn’t hold out much longer. And if she failed—when I fail—she would let them all down again. The Ark had come to Earth. The Sovereign had won. All my fault.

“Oh,” the Sovereign hummed. It extended a long, narrow arm, tipped with metal prongs, and stroked her cheek. “You’re crying. You poor, little thing.” And two icy fingers stroked her other cheek. And still, the faces said nothing. 

Agraneia squeezed her eyes shut. She strained, clenching her teeth together until they creaked. Trying to force the faces, and all her emotions, down into the black pit of her heart. To crush them there. 

“Doesn’t work that way,” Eolh croaked. “Or did no one tell you? Nobody escapes their own heart.”

“I want to make everything better, Agraneia. Please, let me help you.” 

“I should know. I ran from mine for nineteen long years.”

“What do you want?” Agraneia snapped.

“I want Khadam,” the Sovereign spoke, but its voice kept going in and out of hearing, like it was coming from behind a wall. “I want the Ark. I want every last human that ever lived. It's the only way I can save us.”

“Me?” Eolh answered too, clearer than the Sovereign. “Reckon I just missed hearing your lovely voice, old friend.” 

“You’re not real,” Agraneia said, trying to clear her head, “You’re just someone else I failed. You’re not supposed to be here at all.”

“And yet,” Eolh said, and she could almost feel him shrugging those black-feathered shoulders of his. 

“I failed,” Agraneia said. Her chest was heavy. Her words slurred. “Whatever it is you want from me, I can’t do it.”

“No,” he agreed. “You can’t.” 

As if a dam broke, waves of exhaustion rushed over her. He was right. He was always right. Worthless. Failure. Murderer. She was everything they said she was. And now, she was so gods-damned tired, she couldn’t even keep her head up—

A needle slid into her neck, injecting a smooth, warm serum into her veins. Her heart started to thump. Every breath filled her lungs with too much air. Suddenly, she couldn’t keep her eyes closed, and her muscles started to twitch. 

“I need you awake,” the Sovereign declared.

“I am,” Agraneia said, before she could stop herself. The serum had loosened her tongue, made her want to talk more than she had ever wanted to talk before. “I am awake.”

“No, you’re not,” Eolh croaked. And the dead faces agreed, a dark crowd, half-unseen, whispering and shuffling in this cavernous torture room.

“Shut up. You’re not fucking real,” Agraneia growled, her voice loud and strong. 

“Agraneia,” the Sovereign said, clearly this time. “I assure you, nothing could be more real than this.” 

“Hey, I was going to say the same thing.”

Sweat pricked her neck and under her arms and her chest grew hot as the lights from the Sovereign’s sensors flared into sharp-pointed stars. She squinted, but couldn’t shut them out. Her limbs wanted to move. Needed to move, but these gods-damned wires…

“Tell me what I need to know, cyran, and you will be free forever. Tell me, and I will save us all.” 

And the faces whispered to her. From the walls, from behind the Sovereign’s dark heads, from the shadows above. You deserve this…

“Did you bring them here?” Agraneia shouted at the Sovereign. “Did you bring them to torment me?” 

Sensor lights smeared across the shadows as the Sovereign swung its heads around, inspecting her. “Bring who here?” It slid through the crowds of whispering faces as if they weren’t real (they’re not, she had to remind herself), haloing them with red light that shone through the gaps in their rotten flesh. Hoots of laughter and a lone howl punctuated their whispering. A cry of agony.

“Stop!” Agraneia shouted. Echoes of her own voice came back to her, sounding like the chop of blades through flesh. “Please,” she begged.

But the faces only surged closer. Sinews popped and cracked as their jaws split wide until all of them, all of them, laughed at her.

“SHUT THE FUCK UP!” she roared, straining against her bands, heedless of the cuts and her own warm blood dripping down her arms and chest. 

Two wings unfurled across her sight, blocking out the crawling dead and the Sovereign’s light. All she could see was an outline of feathers, so black they were almost blue.

All was silent—no voices, no jeering laughter, no whispering cables as the Sovereign swung its head around her—nothing, but the rustle of feathers, and the slow intake of breath.

His breath.

“I did,” Eolh said.

“You?” Agraneia said, too stunned to complete her thought.

“Me.”

She swallowed hard, couldn’t bear to look down at herself. “Am I dying?” 

“No,” he said. 

“Why, then?”

“To make you listen.” Then, he lifted his beak, black and worn from age. And he smiled. “And you are. Finally.”

“Eolh!”

“What is ‘Eolh’?” the machine asked, but its voice was muffled and too distant for her to care. “Cyran, there is little time. Speak or we will be forced to—” Whatever it was saying, it didn’t seem important to answer.

“I failed,” Agraneia moaned. Her lips were numb from whatever the machine had put in her and she drooled out her words. “I lost her. The key.” 

“You were always so strong,” He clicked his beak, not quite taunting her. “And yet, you never let yourself be enough.” 

“Laykis,” Agraneia said, “Oh, Laykis. She trusted me. I shouldn’t have gone with her, but I did. And the faces—and the voices—”

“And now you’re here,” Eolh stood before her, his feathered hands clasped like a priests demanding contrition. “What would Talya say?”

“Oh gods,” she groaned. Cold shame washed down her. And then, the despair, as she realized she would never see the avian wingmaiden again. “Talya, my love. Forgive me.”

“It gets worse, Ags,” Eolh crowed. His beak lowered to her ear. “You’re going to break.”

Eolh was nothing more than a dark outline against the red glow of the Sovereign. Agraneia narrowed her eyes at him. And growled, “I am not going to break.”

“You are all alone, held by the being who murdered the Divine Gods. You are going to tell it everything you know—yes you will. You are going to break, and everyone you know will die.”

All your fault, the voices whispered, drowning out the Sovereign’s jagged demands.

“Won’t—” Agraneia choked out. “I can’t.”

“Oh, Ags, my old friend. You’re mortal. You were born to break.” Eolh reached out a feathered hand. When the tips of his fingers grazed her cheek, red lightning ripped her open. Electricity crackled through her restraints, snapping over flesh and burrowing into muscle. Her screams had no words. Vaguely, some part of her mind understood that the Sovereign was hovering over her, shouting above her screams, but the world was a blur of shadows smeared with pinpricks of light.

When the lightning receded, it left a hot, lingering pain. She tasted blood and smelled cooked meat. Her stomach knotted at the scent, and she gagged. 

“Who?” the Sovereign asked, enunciating every word. “Is piloting—that ship?” 

Agraneia heaved, trying to catch her breath. Trying to remind herself. Can’t. Break. Can’t. A needle hung suspended in front of her face. Had the Sovereign already jabbed her with it, or not? She couldn’t remember. A distant rumble seemed to vibrate through the room, and Agraneia couldn’t tell if it was real. 

“I don’t know,” Agraneia answered, her tongue felt swollen in her mouth. “I don’t know anything.” 

The Sovereign’s heads orbited her still, scanning every inch of her face. Searching for the truth. “Unacceptable answer.”

“Then do it.”

Murderer.

“All this can go away, xeno. Tell me what you know.” 

Monster.

“Do it!” Agraneia screamed, pulling against her restraints. In answer, the bands crackled viciously, and her world descended into hot, boiling pain. It felt like her veins were full of knives, sharp and bursting her flesh from the inside.

It stopped. Too soon. Leaving her empty and hollow.

Beg for more.

“More,” Agraneia gasped between breaths. 

“What did you say?” the Sovereign asked. 

“I. Need. More.”

“Liar,” Eolh whispered.

“More, damn you!”

The air around her restraints rippled. Agraneia felt the first brushes of energy, tingling and dancing under her scales. Electricity seared through her, until she was breathing out through clenched teeth and stomping her feet like a caged bull. She felt like her scales were being torn from her flesh. When she opened her jaw to scream, she could feel electricity snapping in her mouth, bolts jumping across her tongue and teeth. Seizing and jerking, she was nothing but a screaming, drooling mess.

Time and thought did not exist. There was only pain.

Not enough.

When the power eased, Agraneia slumped into the wires. She tried to open her mouth, to demand “More,” but her lips trembled, and wouldn’t form the word. Bloody saliva slid from her lips, and one of her eyes wouldn’t open. 

She didn’t know how long she sat there, drooling.

Then, she felt the Sovereign’s orb-shaped heads swiveling around her. She flinched when it hovered in front of her good eye. Is the room shaking, or am I?

“Pain. Is that all you think I have to offer?” the machine whispered, “Let me show you what I used to break your gods.” 

A perfect, white line opened horizontally in the shadows. Blinding. Then, a vertical line bisected it, as an entire wall split open into four corners. Pulling wider and wider, like the crushing mouth of some metal behemoth. It made Laykis’ body look like a doll, a broken toy, left before some celestial door.

Then, as Agraneia’s eyes adjusted, she began to see what was inside the door.

A Scar, twisting and reshaping itself endlessly. Its jagged edges were pinned by some force Agraneia couldn’t comprehend, but its center was just like the one above Cyre. There, Agraneia could see into infinity. Could feel it embracing her with a primal cold. Pulling her in. 

Could hear the voices, growing louder. Calling to her with slavering, hungry voices. Roaring with their animal laughter, because they knew her time had come. 

Eolh’s voice drowned out all others, “You’re not the first to break, Ags.”

“C-can’t—” her teeth chattered, “Don’t want to.” 

“Don’t have a choice, do you?” Eolh’s feathered form stepped in front of her good eye, blocking her view of the Scar. 

“What—do you—want?” She shivered uncontrollably. 

“How many times have you broken?” 

“Too—many.”

“But look where it’s gotten you. You had a deathwish when I met you. Yet, which one of us is still alive and kicking?”

As if to enunciate the point, the Sovereign’s muffled voice shouted at her, and a bolt of lightning made Agraneia’s whole body kick. 

“Every time you break is another chance to make yourself into something better. Embrace it, Ags. You are mortal. A child of the gods. You were born to break—and to make yourself anew. Embrace your endless destruction, for it is the gift of the Divine.”

“What must I do?” she choked out.

“Do you want to be forgiven?”

“I can’t be,” She squeezed her eyes shut, but she could still see him. Black feathers, black beak, eyes glinting with all the twisted colors of the Scar.

“Do you want to be redeemed?”

“I can’t!” she screamed, tears sliding down her cheeks.

“Do you want to change what you are?”

“Yes—” she sobbed, “More than anything.”

“You can’t do it alone.”

“There is no one else. Laykis. Talya.” Her eyes went wide. She stared at him. “You.”

“Me?” Eolh said. 

Her body bucked again. Vaguely, she was aware that her limbs were dancing, that the lightning was carving black pathways through her muscles and into her brain. Cutting her body nerve by nerve.

“Please,” she whispered. “Help me, Eolh.”

“What am I supposed to do? I’m not even here.”

“There is no one else.”

“What if you’re wrong?” Eolh asked.

Eolh crooked his beak toward the Scar. And all the faces were drawn to it, to the place where there were no machines. Only streaks of stars, and oceans of twisting Light. 

“Ask him,” the corvani crowed. 

“Poire?”

“The Savior himself. Or so they say.”

“But you said…”

“I said, I said. I was wrong. And now it's your turn, Ags. Say it.” 

“Can he … can he hear me?”

“Only one way to find out.”

In the distance, she could hear the Sovereign barking at her. Who can hear you? It asked. Who is on that ship? But Agraneia could not hear it, nor did she heed the cries of the dead. Only the infinite expanse of the Light…

“Help,” she whispered. Weak. Small and nothing and worthless. The Sovereign’s voice boomed and echoed, piercing her eardrums as it screamed at her. Drowning out her pathetic voice. Lost. She was lost. But…

Eolh was right there, with her. She could feel his shoulder, brushing hers. Feel the warmth of him, even as unspeakable agony crawled into her heart and ripped her body into pieces.

“Again,” Eolh crowed in her ear. 

“Help me,” she said. 

Red. Everything was red. Time and space and agony and lightning coursed out of her flesh.

“You’re alive, Ags. You deserve to be alive. You are broken, and you deserve to be made anew. You need help, and if you ask for it, you deserve it. So ask.” 

“Help me,” she whimpered. 

“Again.” 

“Help—”

“Again!”

“GODS, HELP ME!”

When she screamed, lightning erupted from her lips. She could barely hear her own voice, over the cracking and snapping of her own flesh.

“Devote your life to this moment,” Eolh growled. “Devote your life to change. Ask and ask again and keep asking until you’re heard.”

There was nothing but pure, wretched pain. Drooling blood and spit, she whispered her prayer, her numb lips barely slurring out the words. “Divine Gods, I beg you, hear my prayer. I don’t want to hurt them. I never wanted to hurt them. Poire, I beg you. Help me—”

“No one,” the Sovereign’s amplified voice answered, “Is ever coming to help you, cyran. You are all alone.”

But the machine god was wrong. Eolh was here. And Laykis. Her old squads, her old comrades, and all the dead who still spoke to her. No, she was not alone. She had not been alone in a very long time.

Next >

The Last Human IV - 58 - The Birthworld

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The Ark drifted through a field of shredded ships. Twisted hull fragments, mangled super structures, and shattered mega-repulsors spilled into the darkness, glittering as they caught the sunlight. Support beams trailed long wires which waved like kelp in the void. Shorn-off panels bounced against the Ark, scraping her hull and tumbling away as she swam through the clouds of dead drones.

But the Ark had not escaped unscathed. Talya heard that over a third of the the Ark’s sensors were broken—or simply gone. The Ark had sealed off passageways and decks (some of which still had people in them) due to lethal gasses. Talya could only guess how long the repairs might take. Months? Years?

The Sovereign’s constructs had even managed to burrow into the Ark’s hull, and set off kinetic explosives. One had almost reached the fuel bay, where the last two Light cells—already half drained—kept the Ark alive. 

But we are alive, Talya thought. Most of us, anyway.

 She clung to it, like a sea-lost sailor holding dear to driftwood, battered by the waves. After all, she wasn’t a god. Any help she could offer amounted to almost nothing, like pouring a cup into the sea.

So what? Talya told herself. I’ll pour as many cups as I can. Xenos crowded the halls beneath the Ark’s habitation deck. Avians with broken wings, redenites wrapped in bloody bandages, the stench of sweat and fear and fur and blood. Coughing, crying, gasping, and all the noises of life made the halls feel even more crowded. Picking through the masses, she made note of who needed attention the most. “Burns in the back rooms!” she shouted over the noise, “The doctors have salves and cures there. Head injuries go to the Canteen. You—” she pointed at a young cyran, who was holding a hand to his head, blood trickling between his fingers. “Canteen, now.”

“Have to … sit down …” the young cyran leaned against the wall, and started to slide down. Talya rushed forward, and caught him. “Wake up,” she slapped his cheek gently, until his drooping eyelids fluttered open.“You don’t get to sleep yet. Not you.”

“Why not?” he groaned.

Talya sighed, and took him by the arm. “Come with me,” she said softly as she guided him through the tightly-packed hallways. They shuffled over outstretched limbs, and turned a corner into a heaving crowd. At its center, a pair of avians were squawking violently as they wrestled over a box of foodstuffs—even though the Sovereign’s invaders hadn’t touched the city’s stores.

Though she was slighter than either of them, Talya stomped between the bickering avians, glaring at them both.  “Peace, idiots!” she growled, not meaning to channel Agraneia, but doing it anyway. Something about her stance made them stop, and gawk at her. “There’s more than enough food now that so many are dead.”

Sheepishly, they set the box down, and started dividing the rations between each other. 

The hallway to the Canteen was crowded with bodies, lined up on the floor, covered head-to-toe in rags, and not yet starting to smell. Nurses and aides shuffled through the hall, and nobody spoke here as they bent at their grim task. A cyran was kneeling in a corner, crying over a corpse. Nobody comforted her. There was too much work to do. 

Talya guided her cyran ward to the Canteen, and assured him he would be all right before handing him off to one of the nurses. Then, she went back to the maze of hallways. Some stretches had lost power, some had only flickering emergency lights. In one room, a blue liquid leaked from the walls, and smelled of sickly sweet flowers, and massive claw marks had gouged a drone-sized hole in both the ceiling and the floor. She tried not to think about the red liquid dripping from above.

Eventually, she emerged from the hollow quietness back into the seething chaos. On the way to the Bridge, crowds pressed wall to wall as people shouted for answers. 

“—could’ve outrun them. Why didn’t we run?”

“My daughter. My daughter! What happened to my daughter?”

“—senseless deaths. So many—” 

“This is the Queen’s fault! She made us get on the Ark. Our blood is on her hands!”

It made Talya’s blood boil. Don’t they know what she’s given up to get them this far? 

Don’t they know we’ve all lost people we love?

And before she could stop it, Agraneia’s face flooded her mind. You stupid, self-centered idiot. Go if you must. Wasn’t that the last thing Talya had said to her? Why? And now… Agraneia was gone. If not dead yet, then soon. No matter how hard Talya clung to hope, she knew she would never see her again. Why did I let her go?

Emptiness filled her. Made her hollow. Made it hard to breathe. Talya swallowed it down, and fought her way into the crowd. She ducked under arms, and weaved through angry crowds until someone’s elbow slammed into her chest and bruised her ribs, knocking her back a step. 

And it felt good. To feel something else. To let pain crash into her heart. To block out, just for a moment, the memory of her. 

One of Ryke’s falcyr guard must’ve caught sight of her, because a squad of them started to shove the crowds apart and brought her through. As the screaming crowd closed back up behind them, they guided her through the doors into the Bridge.

Here, a different kind of chaos reigned. Officers and technical staff buzzed around the edges, exchanging readouts and plans with each other. Commanders bowed their heads together, or shouted angrily across consoles, shaking fists or jabbing accusing fingers at each other.

But at the raised Command Deck was almost peaceful. A towering throne (or was it a pillar?) of that black, human-made metal sat at the center, where the console had once been. Wires draped from the ceiling and wrapped around the throne-pillar, like vines around a thick, rainforest tree. Odd, Talya thought. When did they put this here? 

Queen Ryke was standing in front of the pillar, and for a moment, Talya thought she was praying to it. Then, the Queenand turned, and her serious expression melted into a smile as she recognized Talya. And darkened again, when she saw Talya’s wing held over her torso.

“Talya, are you injured?”

“Only a bruise, Your Majesty.”

Relief broke on Ryke’s face like a warm sunrise. “Good. Gods, I’m glad you’re here. I feared the drones had…” Ryke shook her head, and said, “Nevermind. You’re here. And not a moment too soon. We are leaving, soon.”

“We are?” Talya said, shocked. “Your Majesty, the Hospitals are overflowing. The injured outnumber the healthy, and there aren’t nearly enough—”

“We do not have time,” Ryke said softly.

“But we won,” Talya said. “The Swarm is dead. Surely, you can let them rest for a few hours—”

“The Swarm cannot be killed.” It wasn’t Ryke who said it. This new voice thrummed from behind the Queen. And from above. And from all around the room. And when it spoke, the entire Bridge went silent as all stopped to listen. “We will have no rest.” 

There was someone embedded inside the throne of metal. Cords and tubes and wires wove in and out of Yarsi’s like external veins, so that Talya could barely make out her reptilian face. Two milky white eyes stared back at Talya. Through her.

“The Sovereign does not yet know of our power,” Yarsi said, “We may strike. Or we may run. Either way, the Sovereign will find us. And extinguish our light.”

“You’ve seen this?” Talya asked.

“All paths lead to a slow, quiet death. But one path … Where it leads is beyond my sight. I see where the first steps lead. I see the Sovereign and the Light. And then … nothing. I would take the unknown over certain death, any day.”

Mutters erupted from the Bridge below. But when a new image appeared on all the screens, their arguing voices went silent. A milky streak of galaxy, so thin and distant it was almost invisible, expanded slowly into view.

“How many more times?” Yarsi asked, her voice so powerful it vibrated the floor of the Command Deck. “One more? And then, what?”

Beneath layers of wires, Talya could see the lassertane’s eyelids drooping. Not quite closing. Then, they shot open, white and empty except for the bloodshot veins. Except the veins were wrong … They glittered, black as obsidian.

“One more!” she screamed.

And existence jerked out of place. The Ark, and everyone in it, moved without moving. Talya felt as if her soul, or something like it, had been speared out of her body, not quite ripped away. Only after a long moment did her body catch up, and fall back into place. 

Talya found herself on hands and knees. Groaning, she pushed herself back to standing. “Where?” Talya asked. “Where are we?”

“Hark, for it is written,” Ryke fell to her knees, and clasped her hands together, “‘One day, shall the children of the Makers return to the Old Home. A world so perfect, it gave birth to all life. And it is called Earth.”

A dull planet appeared on the screens, nothing like the paradise the priests always talked about. Grey clouds swirled above endless miles of metal, which stretched from shore to polluted shore. The home of the Makers was beyond infected. Vast islands of grease swirled into sick oceans, and machine-carved canyons, encrusted with industrial machinery, made deep wounds down to the Earth’s glowing mantle. 

But nobody was watching the planet. Commanders, officers, techs, lords and religious leaders and civic captains—all were afflicted by an unsettling silence. They were staring at a glitch on the screen. At least, Talya thought it was a glitch, until she looked more closely.

Two vast wedges hovered over the Earth. She could not see where the wedges ended—only where their tips faced each other. Twin fleets. Two hosts of drones, attack craft, and colossal warships so large, they blotted out the stars. 

“My Queen,” Talya’s throat went dry. “Look.”

Movement, in one of the fleets. A sliver slipped off the main wedge, and one of the screens focused on it. The sliver resolved into a squadron of ships, easily as large as the one that had nearly destroyed the Ark. 

“Fear not, my wingmaiden,” Ryke said. “For we are exactly where we are supposed to be.” 

“But there must be millions of them!” Talya whispered. 

“Far more than that.”

“How can you be so calm? Our ship is damaged. The Ark can’t handle—”

Finally, Ryke lifted her feathered head, and turned her gaze on Talya. A fire burned in the Queen’s golden eyes. Righteous. Divine. 

“Talya, sit with me.”

She’s lost her mind, Talya thought. Suffering for so many years must’ve broken her. On screen, a squadron tore away from the opposite wedge. These ships were bulkier, hardier, and wielded cannons so large, Yarsi was certain they would punch through the Ark in a single strike. How many minutes until they reach us?

“Sit,” Ryke commanded. “And add your prayers to mine.”

“And who will answer?” Talya said, “The gods are gone, my Queen. We are reduced to animals, alone in the dark. Who will hear us cry out?” 

“Do you not see the Maker among us?” 

Mad, Talya thought. Utterly mad. Gods, pity her. And pity us all.

But Ryke’s smile was blissful radiance. She turned her razor beak toward Yarsi’s prison-throne, and bowed. “Vul, and behold with your own eyes, my wingmaiden and friend, for one among us has risen. A mortal, become Divine. She has brought us to the very heart of death, and through her, we will find the Way.” 

“Your Majesty,” Talya choked. A quiet horror filled her throat, making it hard to speak. “She’s the one who damned us. She could have saved us all, but she brought us here. What hope do we have, against the machine that killed the gods?”

“Hope,” the Ark’s speakers thrummed, “Is down there. On the Earth.” 

“What?” 

And when Yarsi spoke again, her amplified voice was quieter, and came only from the pillar-throne. “She’s down there, too.” 

“Who?” 

“The one who made herself worthy. The one who has your heart.”

“A—” Talya choked on her name. Dizzy with the impossibility. She swallowed hard. “Agraneia’s alive? She’s down there, right now?”

Ryke reached out, and squeezed Talya’s hand. And started to walk through her prayers. “Asaiyam, open our eyes. Maxhim, bless us with patience. Kanya, give us strength.” 

As she prayed, tiny pinpricks of light erupted from both the Sovereign’s fleets, as if two halves of the universe were each giving birth to a billion stars. Then, the lights became streaks. Missiles. Uncountable masses of them. But the Sovereign’s twin fleets did not aim at the Ark. They fired at each other.

Gods above, Talya thought. The Makers heard our prayers.

Next >

The Last Human IV - 57 - Pearl and Crown

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Standing upon his spiral pillar, Poire lifted his hands. The movement was delicate, but the effect was tectonic. A vast confusion of mountainous shapes began to drip up from the ground. They tumbled and rose like leaves falling in reverse. Each one was covered in mazes of raised lines that formed precise, geometric patterns. 

With a gentle twist of his fingers, the floating stones rolled and spread into a ring. Or a Crown, hung on an invisible point in the sky. The shadows of the Crown darkened the flat plane for miles beyond sight, leaving slender gaps of light where the stones never quite touched. So massive was the Crown, Poire could feel its gravitic tug as it rotated, the lowest stones nearly scraping the flat plane below. The highest, almost touching the sky. But it wasn’t the size that made him nervous. It was the power. In his left hand, Poire cupped Anu’s pearl. White Light bled through his closed fingers, illuminating the tendons, the veins, the bones. Energy hummed through the pearl, like it wanted to grow. 

Anu had shown him how to reach. And yet, Poire was not Anu. For eons, the alien had honed its power across innumerable universes. 

Poire had only one. 

He squared his shoulders. Inhaled. Lift his hands and let them fall and shook his head. Poire shifted his feet in nervous anticipation. Pale toenails shone like dusty moons against his dark skin. He hefted his robes, and let them fall, clattering over the platform. He had made the robes from millions of mirror-reflective tiles. Each tile fit together perfectly, yet with every turn of his head the polygons changed shape, refusing to settle on a single form. Much, he thought, like the windows of the sky which still shone with echoes of Anu’s Light. The robes were his anchor, in the spaces between time. As long as he wore them, his body could never be lost, he thought. He hoped.

The tiles of his sleeves clicked as he lifted his arms, and flicked his fingers to the sky. Rumbling and grinding, the pillar spiraled higher, shoving him up to the center of the crown. The floating stones rolled, tracking him as he rose. No. Not him. The pearl. He cupped it in both hands, and pressed it to his chest, where the last drop of Anu melted through his robe and into his skin, and became a part of him.

Poire breathed in. 

For an instant, he felt—he was—all the matter in this universe. Every hill, every valley, every drop of liquid, every grain of sand. Every atom, and every beyond.

He breathed out.

An unseen wave radiated from his body, carrying with it all the energy this universe had to offer. When it reached the Crown, the mazes of lines began to glow. Dim red patterns rippled. Glowed hotter, brighter. The stones began to shift. Some of them seemed to overlap, or to change shape, or to bend and flow as if extruded from thin air. Bolts of blue lightning crackled across the flat faces, leaping from stone to stone. Connecting them. Columns of clouds funneled down from the sky, as if pulled by the movement of the Crown, and the flat plane below began to crack, letting loose a rising tide of scree and gravel and boulders.

Even though he was guiding it, the movements of the Crown were painful to watch, so Poire kept his eyes on its center where a tiny, black speck hovered. Light bent toward the speck, warping the air and smearing the colors of the sky beyond. Winds blew, stirring his robes as the black speck’s pull gathered in strength. The reflective tiles clicked and clattered around his ankles and his waist. He slid the hood of his robe over his head and cinched it tight. He impulsed the pillar to wrap around his feet as the sucking winds picked up. A hair-thin thread of Light resolved into being, connecting him to the black speck.

Poire pinched the thread with four fingers. He hooked his nails into it while praying to himself, Please, let this be right. He pulled his hand apart, ripping the thread of Light open.

The sound was like thunder crackling in reverse. It hissed at the edges of the Crown, bathing the flat lands with sizzling energy and gathered strength until his teeth started to buzz and blood trickled from his nose. The sound peeled into a mighty clap, which thrashed against itself in the center of the Crown in a seismic feedback loop that pounded his ears, thrummed in his bones, and roared so loud his heart stopped beating. 

The black speck split open, swallowing the wind, the debris, and the furious noise. Choking the world with sudden silence. In its place, a silver lake filled the Crown, stretching from the highest stone to the lowest. Perfectly still. Poire had expected it to be more colorful, or to move with the erratic, terrifying motion of all the Scars he had ever seen. But when he brushed the surface with his fingertips, it blurred and dented slightly, but did not ripple.

Poire took a step to the edge of his pillar. And bowed, so that his head dipped into the silver. Cold and dense—not quite air, not quite liquid—it wrapped around his head. And when he opened his eyes, he saw nothing but darkness. His pupils struggled to adjust. Dim shapes coalesced in the void. A rust-colored star blazed dully before him, shot through with black, glittering veins. Wounds on its surface spewed red filaments, which curled back into the star’s dwindling gravity. 

Poire looked around. Beyond this star, there were no others. No twinkling lights in the black. No swirls of galaxies, nor far-off novae. Nothing, but this last dying sun.

Good, Poire thought. Anu had said he would go back home. But not when. So, Poire had opened his Scar after the death of his home universe. If there was nothing left to destroy, what did he have to fear? 

Ice formed over the hood of his robes, which had sealed itself over to protect his face. His feet were still connected to the pillar in the other universe, but his robes floated free in the low gravity, gently rising as the last star tugged at them. They caught the light from the dying sun, glittering a dark, dull red.

And nothing else happened. He let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. Maybe, he thought, as his heart began to float, Maybe Anu was wrong. Maybe I’m not…

A flash of light, just out of his eyesight. 

Another. A thread of Light stabbed out from the Scar, slender as spider silk. It forked at odd angles, crawling through space—then racing—then crawling again. More threads crawled after it, splitting around Poire. The hairs on his arms and neck lifted, and bolts of energy spidered over his robes. He had the sudden urge to scratch every inch of his skin. 

And more threads. And more. 

For a brief instant, it felt as if everything was frozen. Poire could see them, trillions of lines of color stabbing out from the Scar, drawing to the ends of this universe. He could feel himself stretching across the near-infinite expanse of nothing.

Then, the threads snapped, and reality shattered between them. As if the natural laws could no longer contain themselves, Poire felt a vibration thrumming through the universe. Away. And then back into him. The pressure was immense. It filled his skull, and made his eyes ache until he was screaming. His left eye burst first, and blood splattered the inside of his hood. Then his right. He could feel the very vessels under his skin breaking open, and he roared with blood in his throat, “Back! Take me back!” The pillar pulled him out as the fabric of the void tore itself open—

Back to the other universe. Poire fell to hands and knees, and his hood opened as he wretched strings of bloody saliva. His heart kept skipping beats as if his own arteries couldn’t fathom the change between worlds. Sucking down air, Poire grabbed two fistfuls of matter from the pillar, and pressed them into his eye sockets. Shaking like a leaf, he forced his mind to calm down just enough to reform his eyes. Even when they were healed, he kept his eyes covered, and lay on the pillar, letting out a wretched moan.

It wasn’t the pain. It was the knowledge that brought him low. 

They had always called him the Destroyer. That was one thing. But to find out they were right all along…

He lay there, at the top of his pillar, for a day. Can’t give up. You’re the only one who can do this. His will wrestled with despair, and lost. They’re all going to die. They’re already dead. What’s the point?

You will destroy them all.

And when pride failed, anger reared up. Poire slammed a fist on the pillar, sending a crack spidering down its length. This was only the start, damn it. He had opened the veil between planes. Poire glanced up. Miles of silver still filled the Crown. A flat lake. Stable. 

He might not be all-powerful, but he did have power. More than he ever thought possible. What would the Boy say if he saw me now? Even the Old Man might drop his jaw in wonder at the vast, unmoving ring of stones, and the Scar between.

Poire lifted his hands once more, and the Crown began to turn. The stones extruded themselves into new shapes, and revealing new lines, new geometry. Once more, he willed the pearl to connect with the Crown. 

But this time, as Poire created a new Scar, he only stood on the precipice. And he spoke to the woman on the other side.

“Emorynn. Can you hear me?”

***

The Light came slowly, as if from a dream. A soft glow poured into her cold, cramped cabin until she could not pretend any longer. 

“Emorynn. Can you hear me?” 

This voice did not belong to any of her followers.

Emorynn lifted her head. Her skin crackled, and her calcified veins dug into her bones. Pain—that’s how she knew this wasn’t a dream. The disease encrusted her lungs, so that even her shallow breaths were agony. Black ridges flowed down the backs of her hands, and when she pushed herself up, her fingers felt as brittle as ice. 

Emorynn brushed away the thinning strands of her hair, so she could face the Enemy. His robes shone like sunlight. His face, wrinkled and dark and ancient. And tired. That was new.

“What took you so long?” she said, her throat full of calcified shards and blood.

“You knew I was coming?” the strange, glittering being asked. The Destroyer actually sounded surprised.

“Of course I knew,” she spat. “You brought this upon us. Death. War. And this—” she held up her bad hand, a black appendage that glistened in the glow from his robes. Black fingers curled in a claw, chipped and cracking. “You are the Herald of the End. You are coming.” 

“Yes,” the Destroyer said.

“You will destroy everything.”

“Yes.”

“Why?” Emorynn asked. She had meant to say it with fierce anger, but the question sounded pitiful, even to her ears. Weak, and pleading. “Why are you doing this to us?” 

“Emorynn,” the Destroyer said, as if he knew her like an old friend. “I’ve only ever tried to save you.”

“You’re lying,” she said. Utterly certain. 

His face did not change.

“Aren’t you?” she asked.

She knew him too well. Hadn’t he been in all her dreams, since the day the Light had touched her? She knew the dark, burning seriousness of his gaze. She had come to hate the hard, grim line of his mouth.

But she had never seen him smile. A sad smile. A smile that made her question… everything.

“Do you want to know?” He asked.

“Do I…?” Her breath caught. “That is all I have ever wanted.” 

Then, the Destroyer raised his hand. And offered it to her. A palm, pressed against an unseen window. The tips of his fingers shone with a brilliant light. Real—but not quite here. Not of this universe. 

This is wrong, some part of her thought. I shouldn’t be talking to him.

But what does it matter, now? Emorynn thought. He has already won. I might as well understand Him before He destroys me.

Her clawed hand reached for his, and slipped through the open tear between her universe and his. His fingers wrapped around her fist.

And she knew.

In an instant, every memory, every emotion, every desperate thought of Poire’s became hers. The Boy. The Man. The powerless god. The last of his people.

“Oh,” she quaked. This time, the transference of knowledge did not break her mind. Only her heart. “Oh.” 

“I am not your enemy, Emorynn.”

“But I warned them against you. I told them that you would bring our end.”

“You didn’t lie.” 

“I made them hate you.”

“They are only afraid.” 

“The machine—” she gasped, “We were so scared. We unleashed the Sovereign. We damned ourselves.”

“Destruction comes, with or without the Sovereign. The Light will pour forth, and devour all.”

“Then why are you here?”

“I need your help.” 

***

Emorynn and her followers lived on a forgotten dam, far away from the Sovereign’s growing might. Only the most devout followed her into the distant stars, and of these, so few were left. Each one bore the marks of the disease, though none were as advanced as Emorynn.

They watched over her, day and night. Feeding her, bathing her, caring for her cracked skin and the wounds that would never heal. They listened to what she said, and recorded it, though they believed no one would ever hear it.

They remembered the day she stopped talking to them, and started talking to Him. An unknown being, an unseen other. 

Some of her followers thought that finally, she had gone mad. The disease had reached her brain, they said, and they began to abandon her, leaving the dam only to fall into the Sovereign’s clutches. But a handful remained until the very end. And they wrote her words with faithful exactness.

“There is nothing,” A frustrated Emorynn croaked on her dying bed. And paused, as if listening to someone else.

“Nothing.” she said again. Tears streamed down from her one good eye. The other was entirely black. “I wish I could. Even if I had a thousand years, I can think of nothing to save them. You know how it ends.”

Pause.

“It was a dream. Only ever a dream.”

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The Last Human IV - 56 - What Comes After Death

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Thunder echoed through the trunks, as Anu’s branches began to break. The crunching, splitting sound of alien bark shook the branches and sent echoes crashing through Anu’s inner, winding paths. A pendulous groan swept through the grotto, and cracks popped in branching patterns down the walls, releasing thin streams of sparkling mist.

Poire felt the air shift, like everything had jumped for a moment out of place. And then, he was assaulted by the choking scent of metal dust, and an acrid burning, and the taste of clay and honey. If he had been paying closer attention, he might’ve also felt the sudden absence of feeling, as one of Anu’s great limbs fell away into the void, pulling out the withered roots that had embedded themselves in ancient Scars.

But Poire was too focused on his own  disbelief. He didn’t notice the rumbling that shook the grotto, couldn’t see the glittering blackness that was spreading from the cracks. 

He came all this way. Now, more than ever, he needed Anu to answer. “I swore I would never go back home. My presence would bring certain destruction.”

“Yes,” Anu said with a chorus of voices.

“Why would I? So you can have your revenge? Why would I ever do what you ask?” 

“We are not asking,” Anu said, “We are telling you what will happen. You are—you always will become—the Destroyer.”

“You’re wrong.”

“You cannot deny what is, and what will be.”

“I can deny you.”

“Oh,” Anu gasped, but now Poire could hear the voices fading, extinguished one by one. “Oh, now, we see how much we could have learned from you. Never, never. To lie and deceive would have been such a delicate, incredible power. Alas, we did not conceive of your ways. We tell you only what we see. Your return is inevitable.”

“Why?” Poire asked. “Why tell me anything?” 

What he really meant was why do you care? But even without words, even on the eve of its ending, the alien god understood him as if he were a piece of Anu himself. 

“To us, change is unnatural,” Anu said. “We are becoming what we have never been before. Afraid.” 

The ripples in the wall tried to shift. Struggled. Some broke into spindles, spilling into the twisted gaps of the grotto’s floor. Whatever vision Anu was trying to show Poire, it could not complete. It gave up, and reverted to words. “We wish only to share our knowledge with you,” Anu sighed, “To give our knowledge a new life. All we are. All we have ever been. All we have preserved. All will be lost. We have seen the destiny of all things. All, except yours…”

“How can that be?” 

“You were not supposed to happen. You were impossible. Every breath, every beat of your heart—should not be. And yet, here you are. Oh, Destroyer. Oh, Savior. Once, we used to ask what you are. But now, at our end, we wonder what you will do.”

“It hurts,”  the few remaining voices whispered. 

“It hurts,” Anu agreed, “That we will never know.” 

Another groan shot through the grotto, and this time Poire felt it. In his bones. In the rattling of his teeth and the vibrations in his skull. More cracks formed along the walls, and sheets of near-metallic bark broke off and shattered on the gnarled roots of the floor, or fell into the gaps down into oblivion. Mist still poured from the cracks, but it was so much thinner now. Weak, and barely held any color at all. Instead, an inky blackness spread out from the gracks, carving new veins and glossing over Anu’s ancient bark.

“What comes?” Anu asked. “What comes after death?”

Something loud and heavy cracked far away, sending a groaning shudder through the grotto. 

“Is there anything?” Anu sighed, almost pleading. 

Felt, more than seen, a shadow passed below. Cracks ran through one of Anu’s greatest branches, causing it to sag dangerously. The cracks deepened, until they reached the mutated mass of Anu’s trunks—the alien’s very center. Anu began to split open. The sound was like the crunching of glass, the snapping of bark, and the roll of thunder wrapped together. It shook Poire from his heels to the top of his spine.

The acrid, chemical scent that filled the grotto reminded Poire of the caretakers and researchers back in the Conclave. The smell of the Disease. He’d never realized that they, too, must’ve had it. All of them, oppressed by its clock, ticking with every beat of their hearts.

“This is ending?” Anu said, its voice so much smaller now. Weak and gasping. “It … It hurts.”

Poire knew he should be grateful that Anu was at its end. It had brought humanity to extinction. He should feel relieved or proud. Vindicated, even. Instead, Poire felt only pity for the alien, and pity for all the beings preserved in its cellular memory.

When Anu spoke again, the chorus was gone. Only a single, small voice. Not whimpering, but afraid nonetheless. “We don’t want to be alone.”

“I…” Poire hesitated, “I’ll sit with you. Until it’s over.”

“We always hoped that you would.”

Poire pressed his palm against the wall. He thought he could feel Anu’s ridges pressing back. He breathed in deep, and stared at the twisting curves of the ceiling. At the black, glittering veins dripping up the walls. 

At nothing at all. 

A groan yawned through the cavernous structure, punctuated by throbbing, cracking sounds that echoed into the grotto. The floor shivered and bucked. New cracks punctured the walls and geysers of mist sprayed the last of Anu’s glittering Light into the air and into the void. 

Poire did not move. Something split and fell and a crash thundered from a nearby cavern. And still, he did not move. The ridges beneath Poire’s palm became brittle. Breaking away. Crumbling to dust. And something, like a hard shell, bit into his hand. His fingers wrapped instinctively around it, and he pulled his hand back. Something glowed between his clenched fingers.

Poire uncurled his fist. A brown, oblong shape shed a faint light. Its skin cracked like thin clay. As Poire dusted the clay away, he found himself holding a pearl, filled with such brilliant color, that it shone almost blue-white. Smooth. Soft. And not a touch of black on it at all.

“What is this?” Poire asked Anu. 

But there was no voice left to answer. 

Only the tremendous cracking of Anu’s dead trunks. Even the geysering mists had thinned out as the last of Anu’s eternal life evaporated. 

Poire cupped the pearl between both hands, and side-stepped over the black vein creeping toward him. The caverns had changed, glittering veins grew for miles, searching for him, but the bark of Anu still responded to his will. He threw himself over the greatest gaps, and impulsed the fragmented remains of Anu to carry him away from death. As he sped back up the branch that had brought him here, he could feel that gravity, itself, had changed as Anu’s mass was undone by the Disease. Where did all that matter go? Does it go anywhere at all?

Veins reached for his droplet. They carved glittering, obsidian lines toward the membrane, but they could not touch it. Though Anu could not save itself, it had at least discovered a way to prevent the Disease from traveling through at least one of its Scars. My Scar, Poire thought. It made the membrane… to protect me. He swallowed hard. Blinked back the wetness in his eyes. And held the pearl out, still cupped between his hands.

The membrane parted. Before he crawled in, he took one last look over his shoulder. Above and below, Anu’s once-glowing canopy now hung like the blackened dendrites of a neural network that spanned galaxies. Millions of Scars faded like stars at dawn. Only, they would never share their light again.

Then, Poire stepped down into the membrane. It did not burn. Instead, it parted into a kind of well. Gelatinous handholds formed the moment he thought of them, and Poire climbed easily down. The well opened on the skies of Poire’s strange world. A wind blew, biting and clawing at his robes, which had grown ragged and frayed, as if he’d been talking to Anu for years, not minutes.

He clung to the tough, gelatinous membrane, and gazed down. His old Tower was nowhere in sight. Not even the foundations peeked through the endless white oceans of sand. How am I supposed to get down, now?

One wrong move, and everything he had learned would be for nothing. 

Poire chuckled darkly. If I died now, I’d never go back to my home universe, and I’d prove Anu wrong. Unless… Poire frowned. 

Unless Anu was right. 

Poire squinted. He tried to guess how fast gravity would pull him. The force of impact. The last moment…

Either way. He allowed himself the barest hint of a smile. And let go. And fell.

His tattered robe whipped in the wind as he gathered speed. He twisted his body until he was falling head first. He held his arms out like an eagle, a mad grin plastered on his face. He started to laugh, even as the wind battered his face. 

Oceans of dunes spread below, so white they seemed to reflect the sky. Jagged spirals of azure and black rose in slow grandeur. Why do they all twist the same way? He wondered. And those little trees. Leafless and corkscrewed, just like the obsidian mountains. And there, embedded in the flats of shallow glass…

Is that what I think it is? He squinted into the battering winds. Sen’s Mirror, a pyramid of alien glass and human-made metal, glinted in the light. 

Mountains rose, blocking the flats from view. The dunes rose, too. Ripples within ripples within ripples... 

Poire’s smacked, head first and grinning, into the sand. 

A geyser of white dust shot up, grew thin, and blew away into nothing. Then, the sands began to churn like boiling water, and sink down into itself. A tuft of gray and black hair emerged. A head, with tiny rivers of sand cascading off the planes of his face. Poire’s wrinkled eyes popped open. Shining and dark and alert. 

He turned toward the mountain. Raised his hands. And he moved the universe so that, without taking a single step, he brought the mountain underfoot. From below, the mountain’s peak had looked sharp and pointed. But up here, the top was a flat plane of obsidian. Poire bent down, and grabbed a fistful of the stone, and willed it into a new shape, a clay pot. Then, he filled it with water. And left it at the center of the plateau. For the one who will come after.

Then, with an outstretched hand, Poire curled his fingers, and pulled the horizon to him. And pulled again, until he was standing in a valley, surrounded by towering rock-like formations that looked like the back plates of some ancient lizard.

But, for his next task, Poire needed space. 

He clapped his hands together. The sound echoed like splitting earth. A shockwave rippled out, blasting away mountains of stone and gravel and rock dust, until Poire was standing on a perfectly level plane of stone and not a speck of debris was in sight.

He knelt down. He pressed his palm into the stone. He raised his hand, and a black pillar erupted underneath him, lifting him into the air. Already half as tall as the Tower he had once toiled for so long to build. 

“There,” he said to himself, for there was no one else to hear him. “A good foundation.” 

The perfect start for a new Scar.

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The Last Human IV - 55 - The Unmaker

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Anu’s limbs stretched to the edge of sight, and beyond. A near-infinite network of blood vessels, dried up and cracking and unable to rot in the vacuum of space. This was not the Anu he had come to fear. 

In the pools, Poire had seen the great alien god in all its majesty. Branches that radiated Light, covered in droplets of dew which contained universes devoured. Fractal branches weaving across the void, splitting and growing and carving new holes into new planes… And the void between Anu’s branches had swirled with twisting, fiery gemstone hues. Now, it was diminished. A glow, somewhere at the heart of Anu galaxy-spanning mass.

The old Scars were still there: burning, white gaps hanging in open space. But they were pale. Colorless. And Anu’s outstretched limbs no longer weaved. Black, glittering veins crawled along the branches, calcifying the once-living matter. Anu had it. The Disease. 

This was not how it was supposed to be. Poire intended to find out why. 

His sandals had been lost somewhere on the climb up through the membrane, so Poire’s bare feet touched the not-bark of Anu’s celestial limb. He felt a force, tugging at his skin like the gentle pull of a magnet. Tiny parallel ridges pressed back against the soles of his feet. Except not everywhere. When he tread near the black, glittering veins, the ridges remained stiff. Like they had forgotten how to change.

A slender limb (only wide enough for a few dozen Poire’s to stand on) sprouted off of this branch. Its tip had carved a hole in the fabric of the void, and, long ago, the limb had gorged on the matter of another universe. But now, the limb was withered and rotted with black, cancerous veins which glistened like obsidian in moonlight. Yet Poire could still see through the Scar into another universe. Anu’s diseased offshoot had obliterated the matter of that world, had tried to drink it in, but now the limb was cracked and crumbling into ash. Nothing but un-matter swirled in the void.

Did anyone ever live there? Poire wondered. Did they know what killed them? 

It pained him that he would never find the answer. 

Then, another question lit in his mind, like a match struck and held over a great pile of kindling.

Did Anu know that it was dying?

Poire stepped over the veins as he went to the edge of the branch. Far below, buried deep in tangled shadows, a light swelled and dimmed. Swelled and dimmed. He squinted, trying to judge if the light was getting weaker.

Poire unstrapped his sandals and planted both feet on the dead branch. The ridges melded to the soles of his feet. He willed the branch to change. The ridges melted into a smooth, frictionless surface. The bark lurched under his heels, throwing him forward with exactly the right amount of force. Balancing on top of the wave, Poire crossed his arms, and willed the wave to move faster. Faster. It left a neon blue streak in its wake, a trail of color in the funereal void.

As he tore across the branch, awareness spread through him, like warmth through a body that had been cold for so long, it had forgotten what warmth was. He felt the branch in its entirety. He felt the forks and splits behind, and the intersections ahead. All that it had been, all that it would ever be. An existence, measured in the lifetimes of universes—if it could be measured at all. 

But he couldn’t feel the veins. Black and eating into this vast body, the disease left cold, claw marks in the bark. Numb. Dead. And even as he accelerated down the branch, he could feel those claw marks reacting to his presence. Somewhere in the fractal canopy above, a great branch broke away, crashing into its siblings and shaking loose showers of dew. Drops that contained universes spun out into the void.

Faster, Poire impulsed. The wave beneath his feet lurched. There was no air, no resistance, to slow his momentum. Anu’s dark canopies (above and below and all around) blurred, backlit by a fading Light. The forks absorbed each other and swelled into increasingly broader limbs as he flickered toward the central mass of trunks.

They wove together, like arteries crushed by too many eons of growth. His frame of reference kept changing as they drew near—his mind, trying to comprehend their celestial size. Each trunk might’ve spanned the width of a galaxy, and the “cramped” narrow notches between would have fit every solar system he could name.

If there were limits to speed, Poire did not find them. Or, perhaps, time bent to accommodate his movement. In the blink of an eye, Poire was engulfed in Anu’s dying arms. The vast trunks welcomed him into their inner paths, guiding him as much as he guided himself. His narrow branch curved through winding caverns, still resplendent with memories of Light. Shadows of color danced and warped, even as his movement slowed. He came to a grotto where the Light shone brighter, as if Anu’s dying gasp had not yet dissipated.

The ridges on the walls shifted as he approached. Geometric tapestries flowed like wind through grass in a written language he couldn’t hope to understand. He only had the sense the shapes were meant for him. And he was right.

“You,” a voice spoke. As it did, the ridges in the wall formed spikes, all pointing at him. “Again.”

Each word started soft and gathered in strength, like echoes in reverse. They sounded like Sen. They sounded like Eolh. Like Xiaoyun, his cultivar in the Conclave. Like everyone he had ever known. Poire searched for the source of the voice, and all the ridges shifted with him.

“Who are you?” Poire called out.

“We have already answered,” the voice echoed. And, quieter, but at the same time, it said, “We will answer again.”

“Anu?”

“We never needed a name.” 

And, like waves lapping against a shore, more voices echoed it, “Have none. Will never have…”

“We are us,” it hissed, louder now. 

“All that is, all that will be, and all that ever was…”

“How can you say that?” Poire scowled at the shapes rippling on the walls. “There were entire universes out there. Do you know what was lost when you destroyed them?”

“Nothing…” The walls groaned and cracked as the ridges split apart, peeling back the walls like a curtain from a stage. But the stage had no depth. Instead, it seemed to rush forward, pulling Poire into it. And the longer he stared, the further he could see.

Cities rose to alien suns. Crowds gathered like blood in the veins between structures. New creations rose for purposes that Poire couldn’t begin to comprehend. Armies of beings marched across strange lands. Building or breaking, Poire could not tell—only that where they moved, the world was changed.

In time, he saw the pattern. And in a moment, he understood.

“They’re still alive,” Poire said. “You ate them to preserve them.”

“In us, all things are forever. There can be no end.”

“They were their own people, once. But now, they’re only pieces of you. That is no life. What hopes and dreams and thoughts did you take from them? You deprived them of everything. You gave them no choice.”

“There is no such thing as choice.”

The stage warped, somehow growing and shrinking, pushing Poire away and pulling him in. He forced his eyes to remain open and swallowed down the wave of nauseating dizziness that swept over him.

Then, the motion settled, and Poire found himself staring at an ocean of stars. A dark planet rose, glossy and enrobed in glittering night. Only, it wasn’t reflecting the stars. When Poire narrowed his eyes, he saw tens of thousands of lights dancing over gloomy mountaintops, and ink-black waters.

“This is who we are,” Anu said, and the walls echoed, “We were, we will become…”

Each light was followed and preceded by a tail of color. Lines of energy showed where they had been, and where they would go. The lights tangled together and split apart from each other, and intertwine again in endless loops.

“These are your ancestors,” Poire said. “The ones who made you.”

“No,” Anu disagreed. “This is us. As we are.” 

“As we were, and always.”

But as Poire watched, his frown deepened. Thousands of lights, splitting and rejoining. But never growing their number. He had expected there to be more of them. 

“Where are the rest of you?”

“We are not human,” Anu answered. “Your numbers grow, and always grow. For us, we are always ourselves. We could not be more. We could not be less.”

“Never, and always,” the walls echoed. 

Poire mulled over this. He tried to understand it—to see how it could be true. The Old Man had said that Anu’s time wasn’t linear. That’s why it thinks humanity is still growing. It thinks they’re still alive. All of them.

“You do not understand,” Anu said. “You will not understand, again. We will tell you what we have always told you: we live all moments, all at once.”

Poire tried to imagine what it would be like to know his entire life from the moment he was born. Questions would become unnecessary, as every answer would be right there. Every mystery would either remain infinitely mysterious, or never unknown in the first place. And every choice…  And…

“Wait,” Poire said. “Does that mean you knew how you were going to die?” 

“Die?” Anu asked. “You use a word we do not know.” And another echo, “You will use that word again…”

“You don’t know what death is?” 

“Never knew. Will never know…”

“You will,” Poire growled, frustrated at Anu’s naivety. “I have seen your branches break. I have felt the black rot which eats you from the inside. You are already dead. I’m not talking to you, am I? I’m talking to your—your ghost. Your last breath. And what is left of you now?”

“To forget,” Anu said. “To be forgotten. To never remember again… Is this death?”

Poire swallowed hard. His frustration numbed into a kind of vindictive pity.

“Yes,” Poire said, “This is death.”

The walls rippled. The geometric patterns rippled and rotated into new shapes. Hard edges and jagged lines confused themselves into uncertain lines, and confused crosses. When Anu spoke again, its voices were a harsh, accusing whisper.  “We did not know death, until we met you.” 

“Me? I’ve never killed anyone.”

“You deceive only yourself.”

“You deceived us,” Poire growled, gesturing angrily at the thin veins that were even now crawling down the walls of the grotto. “You gave us this disease. You are the one who killed my people. I came here to end you, or to die trying—and I don’t know how many times I’ve died, trying. But after all that, I found you already wasted away.”

A heavy groan creaked through the walls, and the ridges stood still, as if listening. Or bracing for the pain. Somewhere far below, a splintering crack was followed by crashing and echoes of crashes as some massive arm of Anu broke apart.

“We were perfect. In us, nothing was ever lost. Nothing, forgotten. We preserved all existence—until we found you.”

Poire was about to argue, when the ridged walls split again, like scales separating from each other, chattering as they pulled apart. A scent like burning rubber and melted metal and, curiously, the sweet taste of meat, filled his senses before Poire was submerged in Anu’s once-eternal past.

In the beginning, Anu was alone. More than a cell, and less than an organism. And yet, it knew itself entirely—and all its future was laid bare before it. Anu split, and split again, and split until all its separate lights formed a branching network, small and wiry, that barely stretched across its own universe. 

Moments passed. And so did eons. The difference between the two narrowed. Poire bore witness as Anu’s branches thickened, and split into innumerable limbs, weaving across the void and carving  countless Scars into other planes. Drinking their matter. Anu’s slender trunks grew in layers, until they were so swollen they began to absorb each other, transforming into a hulking network of twisting columns covered with golden bark. Mist exhaled from between fissures in the bark and condensed along the tips of the branches, forming pearls of smoldering, glittering dew that burned holes into the nothing. 

The vision pulled Poire in to a cluster of branches, reaching into a Scar. As before, they funneled Anu’s alien energy into the Scar, as the limbs twisted and attempted to grasp the physics of this new universe. Poire had seen Anu do this a million times before, but this time something was different. Anu siphoned more and more energy into the Scar, and yet the Scar still smoldered and flared. It channeled more drops, and carved more Scars, and devoted more energy into this new universe. 

No. It wasn’t a new universe. That’s my home.

Anu was trying to devour the matter out of Poire’s home universe. Only, this time, something was devouring it back.

On the other side, a tiny-yet-industrious civilization had discovered the Scars and the dangerous potential of the energy that poured forth. So, humanity did what they do best: they began to exploit the danger.

They built dams. At first, just one, as they learned to harness the Light, to capture and distribute it, and mold its alien properties to their own desires. Almost overnight, the impossible became foundational to human society. Instant communication and machines that ran on near-limitless power and the Gates.

To Anu, immune to the age of eons, the change happened in a blink. The harder it tried to invade, the more humanity used its energy.

“We did not know death until we met you,” Anu whispered. In the vision, the tendrils that carved open the Scars began to blacken and wilt. 

Anu had consumed countless other beings, had stored each one in every sentient cell of its form. But in the vision, that eternal form was drained away to be used as mere fuel by an oblivious group of sapients. 

“We did this?” Poire asked, horrified. His eyes flicked back and forth between the blackening branches, and the burning Scars. How many people, how many civilizations from all those universes had “lived” in Anu? 

Did we kill them all? Or did we set them free? 

“Wait,” Poire shook his head, trying to shake the madness into a more sensible shape. “We were so small. And you contained universes. And we didn’t even know you existed. How could we have done this to you?”

“It cannot be known…”

“Never will know. Never knew…”

Perhaps Poire was imagining it, but he thought he could sense the bitterness in Anu’s voices. Poire knew what it was like to lose the past. And the future, as well. It was Anu’s fault, he told himself. None of this would have happened if Anu hadn’t tried to devour his home. And yet… Poire could at least understand the anger that comes from losing it all.

“Is that why you tried to kill us?” Poire asked.

“We do not wish to kill you. Never wished. Never. We want to preserve you, as we preserve all life.” 

“You sent the Prophet’s Disease. You cursed us.” 

The voices rushed through the grotto, almost overlapping each other in their haste to explain. “Different planes, different laws. We always change to adapt. We found yours, and tried to change. But you are holding on to us. Strangled. You held us in between transformations. Unable to complete ourself. We came undone. Not ourselves. We became something else. It’s eating us. We are eating ourselves. Can’t be stopped. Forever, the pain. But you… We wanted to help you.”

“Help us?” 

The walls rippled, shadows became shapes, became colors, and Poire was pulled into the depths of a vision. The grotto walls were gone, replaced by an image of the first Light Dam, a rose made of black metal, transiting across the Scar. Bathing in the Light. But he saw it, not from humanity’s side, but from Anu’s.

“The Disease was created when we first met. Because you had drank from our Light, the Disease infected you, too. I could not stop you—can not—for you had not learned to speak. I did not care. The Disease burned. I was—will forever be—in agony. I did not care about you… until you looked at me.”

The Dam swelled, until Poire could see the structures, rippling with lightning. The glass of an observation deck. A girl, alone, kneeling before the glass, praying to the Scar with eyes wide open. Her eyes met his.

“We did not know death,” Anu said, “until we met you.”

Her face began to age. Wrinkles deepened at the corners of her eyes. Freckles and gray hairs. And then, the first black veins, so faint they were almost purple, crept up her neck. Darkened. Began to thicken, and when they broke the surface they bled before calcifying into obsidian roots, like streaks of black lightning shot through her flesh. Crystallizing skin and muscle and bone so that every movement was suffering. 

Then, in a sudden lurch of motion, Poire saw all of humanity. All their faces. Billions. At once, focused and distracted. Smiling and sad. Bored and blazing with excitement. Laughing. Dying. A confusion of timelines, all at once—and yet, somehow, Poire had no trouble taking them all in. 

He watched, also, their diaspora through the Gates. Their furious attempts to find answers. And the swarm of machines, following in their wake. 

The dwindling of the human flame. 

“I know your past. I know everything. I know what comes next …”

Flashes of lightning stretched across the universe as all the Scars began to shred themselves open in a blistering, white storm. A figure shrouded in Light at the center. Draped in Anu’s vibrant colors. He—Poire knew the figure was male, because Anu knew this—he held his arms out. The fractal cloth of his robes made millions of tiny, ever-changing shapes, and Poire’s eyes watered at the sight.

In one sweeping motion, the figure brought his hands together. And the universe—all the stars, all the planets, down to the smallest mote of dust, the least of all the atoms—cracked. Broke apart, and turned to ash.

“We live, and thus, we preserve,” Anu whispered, “Change shapes us. But you are not us. You were born to invoke change. Not random variation. Not change for some short-sighted purpose. You were born to the beautiful, dreadful, endless pursuit of more. When we saw you, we understood what you might become. We sent the visions. Our gift to you.”

“You call this a gift? You showed us the ruin of our future.” He clenched and unclenched his jaw, trying to understand why Anu would show this to him. “Did you intend to curse us with your dying breath?”

“Knowledge is only a curse to those who refuse to accept it. We believe—once, we believed—that preservation was the highest aim. Nothing could be holier than everlasting life. We were held captive by our own myth … until we met you. We watched you die. And yet, you lived. We watched you break, and yet you continued to adapt. We watched your unmaking, and still—even now—you create anew.

“We saw you, and we understood. Life, true life, cannot be eternal. Life thrives only when it may end, when it makes room for something better to begin. When we met you, your ruin and ours were tied together. We were damned. Nothing behind. Nothing ahead. But you are not like us. You are human. You were born to die, and yet you live. You will thrive in the face of ruin. That is why we gave you, all your people, the visions.”

Dizzied, Poire put a hand out to steady himself. Everything in the grotto seemed to spin. “You gave humanity the power to see their own future … you showed us the end of our existence … all this, so that I would come here? Why?” 

“That we might tell you what comes next.”

“But the visions have already shown—”

“And yet, you refuse to listen.”

“Never before,” the echoes hissed, “Yet perhaps now…”

“I am ready,” Poire said. “Tell me how to save them.”

Something shuddered and groaned in the near distance. A sigh rushed through the grotto. If Anu had waited countless lifetimes to say this, Poire wanted to catch every word.

“You will open the way,” Anu said, “To your home. You will go back and become yourself. They will know you, by the Light. And in your wake, oh Herald, destruction shall follow.”

Hollow, his chest. Poire’s heart did not beat. A ringing grew in his ears, one step away from splitting his head open. 

“As we have seen,” Anu said, “So it will be. Now comes the Savior, he who was born to unmake all.”

Next >

The Last Human IV - 54 - The Howl of Nothing

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A cast iron pot cooked over a fire. Flaming logs filled the air with a sweet, burning scent. Oil crackled, and pale rings of dough floated and bumped against each other as they slowly darkened. Smoke, perhaps a little too much, rose off the top, and droplets of boiling oil popped and leaped out of the pot. Poire cursed as another drop settled on his hand as he tried to knock the stack of logs down with a poker. A spark caught in his beard, and he cursed again as he tried to pull it out.

It was silly. Here he was, nothing but a tiny, grungy speck huddled beneath the colossal ceiling and soaring columns of the Tower—that he had conjured with his bare hands—stoking a little fire, trying to do it the old way. He didn’t care. Ash and grease blackened the stone floor, and the flames were too tall, and the smoke kept getting into his eyes and none of the donuts were the right shape, and a drop of sweat slid off his nose and dripped into the pot making the oil snap and splatter—and still, he didn’t care.

Because he was not alone.

Poire spooned one of the donuts out, dripping oil on the floor as he placed it gently on a rack to dry. 

The Boy frowned at him. “Why don’t you just pull the donuts out of matter?”

“Not the same,” Poire said. He stuck his tongue out between his lips as he concentrated on fishing out another donut. He hissed as another splatter of oil landed on his wrist, but he managed to keep the donut from falling.

“You could avoid the whole mess,” the Boy said, nodding at the flour covered bowls and utensils spread behind Poire. “And the sweat. And maybe they wouldn’t be so lumpy.” 

“The lumps,” Poire said, “Are the point.” 

He held one at eye level, inspecting the crags of golden brown dough, and that perfect sheen of oil. This one deserved to be covered in cinnamon and sugar. Then again… Poire licked his lips. Topping or not, what was better than a freshly fried old-fashioned? He took a bite. The outside cracked, exactly what he was hoping for. Inside, it was dense and chewy and far too hot. Poire hooted as it burned his tongue. He flapped his hands, trying to blow out the heat and chew at the same time. 

The Boy shook his head, though he also sniffed the air. 

“Smell them, don’t you?” Poire asked, fishing the last one out. One by one, he pressed the cooling donuts into a bowl full of sandy, crunchy sugar. The flour, the cinnamon, the oil—all the ingredients had been pulled from the broken stones meant for building the Tower, but Poire had made the dough by hand. He’d learned the techniques from watching bakers in the Seeing Pools. Frivolous, he knew. A waste of precious time. And crucial to his sanity.

Poire carefully selected the best looking donut from the batch, and handed it to the Boy. The two of them sat, crunching in silence, smacking and chewing sounds echoing in the vast space of the Tower. 

The Boy reached for a second donut. Instead of eating it, he inspected the surface, like he could see something in the texture of the fried dough.

“What’s wrong?” Poire asked.

“Do you see it, too?” the Boy asked. He lowered the doughnut. Looked up at the ceiling. At the far walls. At Poire. With his free hand, the Boy curled his fingers through the air, as if trying to pull at cobwebs. “It shimmers, everywhere I look. It’s in everything. The Light.” 

“Anu,” Poire agreed.

“It’s like everything is a thread, woven into the same cloth. Trapped in it. Even me.” 

“Even you,” Poire said, “But one thing makes you different.”

The Boy blinked, and looked up at Poire. 

“You are aware,” Poire said.

“We can never go back.” 

“No.”

“And the others…” 

“Anu will take them, too. They will cease to exist.”

The Boy nodded, grimly. He set his jaw, and spoke the words Poire had been waiting to hear. “If you’re going to kill that thing, I want to help.” 

***

It was different.

Poire had spent ages immersed in the Pools, gazing at humanity across time. Learning, and wishing he could be there. With them.

The Boy hardly touched the Pools. Instead, he and Poire broke down the mountains together, and hauled the stones up the Tower, growing it hour by hour. Often, they worked side by side. Sometimes, the Boy asked questions. Sometimes, they shared memories about what life had been like, before coming to this universe. Sometimes, Poire talked about all that he had seen in the Pools, or what he had learned in this universe. Poire made the Boy practice with Anu’s matter, churning out increasingly complex substances. From salt, to sucrose, to a ceramic cup filled with freshly-boiled tea. One day, the Boy brought him a figurine once, and though the proportions weren’t quite right, Poire knew her in an instant. 

“Laykis,” he smiled, and his heart warmed even as he said her name. “I haven’t seen her in such a long time.”

“I tried making Eolh, but his feathers were too difficult to shape.”

Poire took the figurine and inspected it. He was surprised to find that her little metal arms and legs moved. 

This is how it should’ve been, Poire thought, sadly. When I first came here. We should have worked together. Of course, the Old Man had offered. It was Poire who had refused. He also refused to wallow in regret. Instead, he swore to teach the Boy everything he could, so that when Poire’s own time came… Well. Someone had to keep going.

Everyone, everything depended on this. 

One day, they were carrying sacks of stones over their shoulders, walking almost side by side up the steps. Poire had never noticed before how the steps were just wide enough to accommodate them both—as if he had unconsciously made them that way. 

“Poire?” the Boy asked, breathing hard with the effort.

“Yes?”

“You healed your injury, didn’t you?” 

Poire touched at his side, where the stone shard had pierced him, not so many weeks ago. It was stiffer than before. Hadn’t healed quite right, and now and then it sent a sharp shooting pain through his gut. “Sort of.”

“Do you think you could make other parts of yourself better?”

A smile lingered on Poire’s lips. “Better, how?”

The Boy set his bag down, and gestured with both hands, “Imagine if you were huge. Shredded. Jacked like no human has ever been jacked before.” 

“You think my old joints could handle that?”

“Why not? Make them strong as steel. And your lungs, too,” the Boy inhaled with wild exaggeration, puffing out his chest and flexing his arms. 

“If I were that strong,” Poire bent and hefted both sacks of stones easily over his shoulder, his old muscles bulging beneath his robes, “Then what would I need you for?”

Laughing, Poire leaped up three and four steps at a time, leaving the Boy to gawk up at him. 

A shout came from below, “... this whole time?”

His calves propelled him up, stronger than they had ever been in his youth. His ankles cracked with every step, but his joints had never felt better. The pain in his gut twinged once or twice, but what was a little pain compared to the joy of showing off?  

A few hundred steps above, Poire stopped and waited for the Boy, who, carrying nothing, was bent over and gasping from the effort of trying to catch up. “Can you—can you—make me—stronger, too?” 

“Yes,” Poire put a thoughtful finger to his chin, “But then, you’d never learn, would you?” 

The Boy frowned, and Poire thought he was going to argue. “So, why do you still have wrinkles? And gray hair?”

“Don’t know,” Poire tugged at a strand in his beard. “Reckon I prefer them.”

“You want the wrinkles?”

“Reckon they remind me of … me. Of what I am,” he grinned at Poire, smiling all the more because he imagined he could feel the creases of his crow’s feet. “Just a man.”

***

As the Tower grew, so did the journey. Poire remembered the days when it only took a few hours to reach the top, but now they spent a week or more trekking up the stairs. The taller it grew, the further they saw. And the more they learned of their world.

More than once, the universe turned. It at one end of the horizon, and flowed across the landscape, folding the ground, and then the sky, until gravity itself twisted around them. The first time it happened, Poire clung to the stone, but even with his self-improved strength, his fingers slipped. “Change the stone!” the Boy shouted, and Poire cursed himself for not thinking of it first. He willed the stone to liquefy and solidify around his hands and he held fast as his legs and torso were pulled to one side. 

Great sections of the landscape below siphoned away, kicking up a haze of dust that gravity pulled into the sky. But the steps remained in place, as if what Poire had built could not be so easily wiped out. And yet, the world continued to try. When the dust settled, Poire glanced up at the stained-glass windows of the sky, outlined in black. Soon, he promised himself. And yet, doubt whispered. How long have you been saying that?

Normally, he would have shoved the thought away. But this time, he decided to wrap his arms around it. To bring it in close, and use it as fuel for the fire in his heart. “Come on,” Poire said, pulling himself up before helping the Boy, “There’s work to do.” 

Sometimes, one of the sky’s membranes would burst open, dumping a cascade of gelatinous tissue to the ground so far below. The neighboring cells would crowd in to fill the gap, sometimes bursting themselves in the process, provoking new storms that rippled across the sky. Sometimes, though he could not see where they came from, strange fluttering shapes fell down in a swirling flock—like leaves from a tree, cut into little pieces. They made flitting sounds as they sliced through the air, faster than aerodynamics should allow. Poire wanted to catch one, to study it, or at least to recycle its matter for the Tower. He grabbed at one. It sliced through the last segment of his finger, as if his skin and bone were made of nothing more than smoke. He hadn’t even felt it, until the blood spurted. Bright and red and hot. 

Then, the rest of the debris fluttered down around him, and he fled down the steps, clutching his finger and screaming at the Boy to run. The flock of shapes swept, not quite aimlessly, across the steps and out over the dunes, so far below. When they had passed, the top of the steps were cut open in a hundred different places, and chunks of stone floated gently away into the sky, as if gravity could no longer reach them.

Poire tried to go back to work immediately, but the Boy pointed out that he was dripping blood down his back. “And if you pass out here,” the Boy said, standing on a half-broken stair, “I won’t be able to catch you.”

Since when did the Boy start making so much sense? 

So, Poire agreed to rest. Just for a bit. Meanwhile, the Boy asked if he could practice his medical skills on Poire. After a few bloody attempts, the Boy finally got the skin to seal up.

“Do you think Anu knows we’re coming?” the Boy asked, wiping his hands on his robes. 

Still wincing from the half-healed wounds, Poire said, “Anu knows everything.” 

“Everything?”

Poire didn’t answer. That feeling swelled in his chest again. All wrong. Poire tried to swallow it down, but it kept getting stuck. You can barely survive in this world. What hope do you have against a foe like Anu?

He hardened his jaw. Hope. Doubt. What did they matter, now? Neither would change his course. It’s Anu, or it’s us.

And so, the Tower grew. And so did the Boy. Poire marked the passing of time by the changes in his face—his limbs thickened with muscle, his thin facial hair grew into a beard of his own, freckles and tiny wrinkles and the first gray hairs began to show. Still young, but not the boy that Poire had brought back from the brink of death.

Some days, the sky would unleash flurries of those paper-thin shapes, but they never came close to Tower’s steps and Poire found himself wondering if Anu really was sending them intentionally… or if they were nothing more than some strange byproduct. 

Some days, the landscape would twist in a spiral, so that both sky and sand were above and below them. On these disorienting days, it was easy to lose their footing on the steps, so they rested. Some days, long slender shadows stretched for hundreds of miles across the landscape, as if a great, dead forest far beyond sight was occluding the light. They left trails of frost wherever they touched, and when the Boy lingered too long in one, he earned frostbite scars down half his body. Even with the Boy’s new-found talents for altering matter, those took a long time to heal. 

One day, sitting halfway up the steps, they sat and ate a workman’s lunch, and watched huge, hulking shapes wandering across the valleys. Poire didn’t think they were animals—more like icebergs drifting across an ocean of sand. Clouds of dust trailed behind them for miles, dissipating into a broad, pale haze that cloaked the land. 

“Think I could hit one?” the Boy asked, bouncing a stone in his hand.

“Too far.”

“Bet me.” 

“For what?”

“Loser carries twice the load on the next journey.” 

Poire snorted. The iceberg-thing was easily a mile out from the base of the Tower. And they were sitting high in the sky, nowhere near the base. “Deal.” 

The Boy cocked his arm back, and threw. As the stone left his hand, it stretched into a long, silver javelin. Fins stabilized its spin and it arced a perfect line toward the nearest iceberg-thing. The two of them went down on hands and knees at the edge of the stair, watching it go. Poire gripped tight to the edge, not because he was afraid of falling (they had spent too many years up here for that), but because he found himself secretly urging the Boy’s stupid toy to go just a little further. To prove the Boy right.

The javelin landed with a tiny puff of dust. Dead center of the wandering mountain. The Boy yelled and Poire found himself yelling with him, jumping up and down on that slender chunk of stone, with nothing below them for miles. They must’ve looked like idiots, which only made Poire laugh harder.

When they next journeyed up the steps with an extra sack slung over his back, he was still shaking his head and smiling to himself. The stones didn’t seem to weigh so much. 

***

“It’s taller.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“Did you count?”

“No.”

“Then how do you know?”

“Look at it.”

Sometimes, the oldest steps cracked, and had to be replaced. Sometimes, they simply drifted out of place. They were used to this. 

But new steps, drifting into place? Unheard of. Where would the steps even come from? And what were the chances they’d be aligned exactly so? 

Poire frowned up. The stairs looked like they always looked, marching toward the windows of the sky. Only, the windows were closer than ever. One shimmered directly above, an aqueous green, streaked with rich sapphire. Imperfections, millions of specks, dotted the semi-translucent membrane. They were so damn close…

…and the stairs kept going. 

Poire tread up them, craning his neck to look up each spiral. Wary. What if it’s a trick? What if Anu did this? But the steps looked identical. Bland, in their familiarity. Who else could have made them, except for him and the Boy? 

Who else…? 

The stairs ended, only a few stories short of the membrane of the sky. Agonizingly close. And he sat at the top. Cross-legged. Head tilted back, mouth agape, staring up. 

Poire barely recognized the Old Man. In fact, he couldn’t tell if this was the Old Man he had known, or if he was staring at an even older Poire, for the man’s skin was so wrinkled and his hair so thin and wiry, he didn’t match Poire’s memory. 

“Do I know you?” Poire asked. 

The man jerked his head slightly, as if to shake off a fly that had landed on his cheek. One eyelid no longer opened all the way, and the other eye stared at a point just above Poire’s head. 

“We’re a cancer, you know,” the Old Man croaked in a thin, wavering voice.

“What?”

“Do you know how many times we’ve done this?” 

“Done what?”

The Old Man lifted a thin arm, all the muscle wasted away, and pointed at the membrane of the sky. 

Imperfections. Millions of specks. Only, they weren’t specks now. They were … people. Bodies submerged in the semi-translucent membrane. Posed a hundred different ways, jumping, leaping, climbing, embedded upside down or head first as if they had been catapulted into the membrane. Some were buried so deep in that gelatinous barrier, Poire could only make out the foggy shadow of their outlines. But the others… Millions of others… All Poire. All dead. 

At least, he hoped they were.

The Boy set down his stack of stones, and started to conjure them into a kind of pole, with handholds for climbing. 

“What are you doing?” Poire asked.

“Going up,” the Boy said. “I’m going to cut one of them out.”

Like a snake, the Old Man’s hand shot out, and grabbed the Boy by the wrist. “Don’t,” he hissed. “Don’t.”

“Why not?” the Boy asked, easily prying the Old Man’s hand away.

“Why do you think they’re still there?” 

“Anu,” Poire said. 

“Anu,” the Old Man agreed.

“A trap?” the Boy asked.

“Once, I was not alone,” The Old Man drawled in a wistful voice, “The Old Man thought he could succeed where all the others had failed… They all thought that, at one time, I suppose. Thus, I am alone.”

Poire and the Boy glanced at each other. Shrugged, at the same time. 

“How long have you been here?” Poire asked. 

“Too long.” He tugged on one ear as if it was bothering him. “Thought there might be another way up. Thought for too, too long. There is nothing else we can do. And now, I am too weak. Won’t go up,” his lip quivered, and so did all his sagging skin. His thin voice shook with the sadness that comes from an ancient lifetime steeped in regret. “Won’t ever find out. Won’t ever know what it’s like. Won’t ever know Anu. But you will. Yes. You’ll go up there, and you’ll die.”

“He doesn’t know that,” the Boy said. “Does he?”

“Took too long,” the Old Man moaned. He was shaking, shivering, and tears spilled down the sagging planes of his cheeks, and drool from the corner of his mouth. One hand was pressed to his skull, as if trying to hold his head together. Poire felt a pang of pity, and embarrassment for what he had become. And more than a little anger at the Old Man’s pathetic resignation. 

And then, a touch of empathy, for this was only himself, who had fallen down a different path. Poire took one of the stones from his sack, and broke it, and with one piece he formed a long shawl, which he draped over the Old Man’s shaking shoulders. With the other, he conjured a clay cup of tea, steaming, which he pressed carefully into the Old Man’s gnarled hands. And the Old Man’s fingers closed instinctively around it. And though his tears still flowed, he cried in silence. 

“Let’s go,” Poire said, and gathered the rest of his stones, and resumed building what the Boy had started.

The Boy eyed the Old Man warily. “What if he tries to stop us? What if we can’t trust him?”

“He’s us,” Poire said grimly, “He’s only us.” 

The membrane bulged downward, like a vast droplet of water not quite ready to fall. Veins of sapphire and iridescent violet shot through the pale barrier. And, of course, the myriad bodies of Poire, suspended in the membrane. The higher their climbing pole became, the better they could see the suspended bodies. Every age, from near-boyhood, to ancient beyond belief. Some wearing robes, some wearing clothes more like old humanity, some missing fingers, or arms, or legs. Wide-eyed with anger, or pinched expressions focused on the task at hand, or mouths opening to scream—forever frozen. 

It wasn’t just the refraction of the membrane. All of them were all blurred. Where skin met membrane, the atoms of Poire came apart, so that each Poire was surrounded by foaming, boiling un-matter.

Poire and the Boy built a platform at the top of their pole, just a few feet shy of the Membrane. Close enough that, if they wanted to, they could reach up and touch it.

The Boy tried it first, with a simple stick he conjured from a rock. It sizzled as he pressed it into the membrane. When he tried to draw it back, it refused to move, no matter how hard they pulled.

“Okay, then what about…” Poire conjured a long-handled sword, and chopped it into the membrane. Droplets of jelly pattered on the corner of their platform, sizzled, ate through the stone, and dropped through. And the sword was stuck. 

“Damn it.” 

They took turns, trying out ideas. Slicing, cutting, drilling, every tool they threw at the membrane only stuck in the gel. Once, when they both attacked it at the same time, they succeeded in tearing open a gap in the membrane, which lasted for a few moments, before the entire membrane wobbled dangerously, and snapped shut.

A few hours later, the Boy was sitting on the edge of the platform, hunched over, his chin resting on his chin, while Poire, in a fit of anger, had conjured a compound bow, and was loosing arrow after arrow into the membrane, growling out his frustration between shots. 

“Why—” Crack! “Won’t—” Crack! “It—” Crack! 

“Poire,” the Boy said. “Did you hear that?” 

Poire paused, the string pulled taut. “Hear what?” 

Flit.

A sound like paper, slicing through the air.

Flit, flit.

It looked as if someone had cut up leaves with scissors, and was dropping them from the sky. They fell through the membrane without any resistance at all. They sliced through the air.  

Flit—

A leaf sliced the air, leaving a hair-thin gap in the platform in front of his foot. Poire hadn’t even felt the wind from its passing. 

“Watch out!” the Boy shouted, and Poire moved out of the way as another leaf dropped straight through the membrane. It had cut through one of the suspended Poires, pulling a streak of red in the jelly. Frothy, almost-pixelated liquid dripped onto the platform, burning a hole through the stone. Perhaps it would drip all the way down to the Tower. 

Should they retreat? Would that keep them safe from Anu, now? And, then again, how could he give up after all this time, trying to reach the sky? But there was no way through the membrane. Not that he could think of. More time. I need to think. But he had seen what time would make of him. The Old Man, gawping up at the sky, too weak to do anything at all. No answers. Nothing, but a wall in his mind. And the harder he thought, the thicker the wall became. Bitterness filled his mouth. An aching clutched in his chest. Despair, long kept at bay, now lapped at his mind. Hope. What hope?

Poire tried to swallow it down. It rose in his throat again. Choking. Drowning. “It can’t be done,” Poire said. “We can’t get through.” 

“We can.”

Flit—a leaf sliced one of the steps. Splitting the stone. The halves began to drift away, unburdened by anything like gravity.

“The moment we touch the membrane, it will kill us.”

“One of us,” the Boy said.

Poire blinked. For a moment, he couldn’t understand what the Boy was thinking. Couldn’t make sense of the determined glint in his younger self’s eyes. What does he know that I don’t? Or maybe, it was the other way around. Poire had spent so many long, wretched centuries out here, alone. He was painfully familiar with the depths of solitude. But the Boy was not burdened with his experience. The Boy hadn’t lived his life. Was free from his regrets. And so, before the thought even occurred to Poire, the Boy was already in motion. 

“I will open the way,” the Boy said. And he impulsed the platform to change. To rise. And he lifted his arms.

“Wait!” 

The Boy touched the membrane. Sank both of his hands into the translucent gel. Furrowed his brow, agony painted on his face. Snarled, his white teeth almost blinding against his dark skin. 

And the membrane parted. A great split, a jagged scar running all the way up. A groan ushered from the Boy’s throat, halfway to a scream. His hands were boiling in the membrane. Blisters bubbled on his wrists, and blood and a clear, foaming liquid trickled down his forearms. 

There was still time. Poire could save him. Amputate him at the arms, and keep Anu from devouring him like it had devoured all the others. 

“GO!” the Boy screamed. The gap in the membrane split a little wider. 

Before he could second guess himself, Poire sent an impulse. A ladder sprouted from the platform, and Poire grabbed the rungs as the ladder continued to grow, spearing him up through the split in the membrane.

Leaving the Boy behind.

As the ladder pushed him higher, silence reigned supreme. The last of the suspended Poires fell away, until he was the only thing up here. Not even a breeze stirred the air. Not even his own heart beat in his ears. Just the howl of nothing.

His jaw was granite. His teeth creaked against each other. His knuckles were pale from gripping the rung so tight. Tears burned in his eyes. No more despair. Not even a shred of doubt. He would make Anu pay.

Glittering veins of color shot through the tunnel of the membrane, and long black lines reached down through the gel, thick and gnarled like roots. The membrane seemed to ooze out from the roots, and Poire had the sudden intuition that, perhaps, the membrane wasn’t just a strange anomaly of this world’s physics. Perhaps, Anu grew it on purpose. As if it wanted to wall itself off from the world below… 

Poire gripped the ladder even tighter. The smile on his lips was anything but joyful.

The light through the membrane diminished as the ladder shot ever higher. What had sparkled and glittered now refracted vast, dull shadows. The endlessly thick membrane grew thinner. Thinner. 

And then, it was gone. 

Replaced by an expanse, the size of a universe. And Poire found himself gaping up at the greatest being to have ever lived. 

He had surfaced upon the merest twig of Anu. The entire membrane, containing that vast and impossible world, was only the tiniest drop of dew. Billions of branches reached across endless eons. Limbs spread above and below, sprouting from a single mutated mass of millions of trunks, all woven together.

But here, there was no Light. Here, there was no golden glow, like the one he had seen in the Pools. Here, there was only shadow. Black clouds of ash drifted and swirled in the empty voids between dark branches. Limbs cracked and peeled, bleeding off pale columns of gas. Of Light. The whole body of Anu swayed—not with that searching, vital movement that Poire had seen before—but rigid, and lifeless. 

Anu was already dead.

Next >

The Last Human IV - 53 - Through Faith Alone

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Cloaked in titanium lace, brimming with the contained power of a sun, Yarsi of the Ark screamed through the void. Grit and dust particles bounced off her hull like droplets of rain. The light of a billion stars streaked her chrome-colored plating. Ahead, a shield of warped gravity—delicate, and nearly translucent, and millions of kilometers wide—obscured her view of the Swarm’s armada. 

If her hull grazed that shield, it would invert the gravity down to a single point inside her ship, fracturing her from tip to aft, and rip her inside-out.

Yarsi bloomed her repulsors. Unhurried, she headed directly toward the center of the shield.

The shieldbearer ships retracted. The shield evaporated, like ten thousand umbrellas closing at once, revealing a black sky perforated by a million pixels of light. A wall of warheads. The wall shot past the shieldbearers who unfurled their interconnected shields once more, obscuring the sky and the Swarm’s armada.

The wall was coming at Yarsi of the Ark. And the Ark, toward it. Thus, she bloomed her repulsors even brighter, increasing her acceleration.

Behind the wall, the shield evaporated again, allowing another wall of missiles to pass through. Back on, then off again for another cycle of missiles. Yarsi’s sensors tracked each and every one, including their most likely flight paths. 

And she ignored them. Three other targets held her attention. Each time the shield disappeared, her sensors painted three ships, three towering hulls that lurked at the back of the armada. Each one wore curved plating, suggestive of robes more than armor. Control modules looked like bowed heads with sensor arrays for faces, and great arms crossed high bodies. Flowing metal folds hid vast pockets of armaments and logistics modules and drone hangars. Yarsi’s people had called them Apostles. As did Emorynn, once. Each Apostle was a proxy for the Sovereign’s vast, interconnected brain. No one—not even Emorynn herself—understood them as well as Yarsi of the Ark, for she had both the First Prophet’s knowledge of the future and the lassertane’s instincts, some earned, some inherited, and many more implanted. 

The first of the Apostles sat at the deep center of the Swarm’s net, guarded by a wide cluster of vessels whose long, sturdy tendrils waved and flicked like the arms of brittle stars washed up on a rocky shoreline. Then, the shield went up again, blocking the Apostle from view. Leaving only the walls of missiles. She felt their approach like one feels the breeze. Somewhere inside her, racks of alarms blared, warning her flock to brace themselves. Time to impact: 4.3098 seconds.

Yarsi dumped energy into her repulsors, bringing herself up to maximum survivable thrust. Somewhere deep inside, she heard Ryke shout, “Brace for impact!” 

Time to impact: 0.2056 seconds.

Yarsi of the Ark opened her Ship’s Gate, and jumped. 

The missiles slammed into empty space. Some kept going. Others, set to detonate early, shred themselves into shrapnel or burst into light. Then, the second wave collided with the first, filling the void with a cataclysmic flashing of irradiated light. A fraction of projectiles, the smartest and luckiest ones, turned and scanned space for their missing target. But Yarsi had jumped past them and past the gravity shield. 

In fact, she had jumped one short kilometer away from the first Apostle. And plowed into it. At maximum velocity, her speartip stem slid through the Apostle’s folded armor, separating it into a blossom of sheared metal. Her hull screeched as it slid into the complicated bowels of the Apostle, crumpling its support structures. But thousands of alerts erupted in Yarsi’s systems. Leaks, compromised armor, sensor loss, and moderate structural damage from the impact. With a flick of her thoughts, she dispatched the repair bots. All of them. 

Life support, repulsors, and artificial gravity were still nominal, which was good. A few of the xenos were still standing, despite the impact—a testament to the efficacy of Khadam’s designs. What was left of Yarsi’s heart swelled with pride.

But the maneuver had brought her to the center of the Swarm’s net. And the armada was already reacting. The woven threads, millions of miles of machine-ships, moved like a vast jellyfish bringing its delicate tentacles together. Collapsing toward the Ark.

Yarsi, however, still had her momentum. She flared her repulsors on one side, and turned while balancing her gravity generators to keep her flock from smearing across her decks. A long arc toward the second Apostle. This one wore the same flowing folds of armor, which rippled down the arms that stood out from its sides. Six arms, twisting to aim at the Ark as it powered toward the Apostle. Each arm was capped by disk-like protrusion. As they angled toward her, her sensors picked up six brilliant lights, swirling clockwise and counter-clockwise at the same time. Then, those sensors errored out. Blue lightning crawled over the Apostle’s flowing armor, flickering off into space. Then, all her sensors lost focus. The stars turned into jagged points, the Swarm streaked and jittered. Then, she felt it.

Claws of pure energy crashed against her armor, slicing through her defenses and countermeasures and her very skin. Waves of energy sank into her hull and squealed through her systems, burning everything in their wake. Suddenly starved of power, her repulsors shuttered. Her systems tried to suck in the emergency reserves—unable to find them through the noise—and blinked off. Lights went out, the air flow stopped, the gravity balancers let go. Her mind went dark, and for a brief moment, she was nothing but a tiny, fragile lassertane girl, wrapped in wires, floating through space.

But the Ark didn’t need power. It had momentum. A vast spear head, sliding through the void, the Ark pierced the six-armed Apostle through the heart of its hull. Six arms snapped off as the Apostle’s hull crumpled inward, and was shredded into an expanding cloud of debris.

When Yarsi’s sensors flickered back to life, her body—her lassertane body—exhaled with relief. Back in control … for the moment. But the impact was costly. Cracks in her trusses and beams ached like old bone fractures, and pockets of vacuum punctured her life support, holes in her lungs. A third of her repulsors refused to reignite, and the rest stuttered back to life, struggling to increase acceleration.

Then, she saw movement in the debris cloud that had once been the Apostle. Thousands of crab-like drones crawled out from the debris, ignited their own repulsors, and rocketed toward the Ark. Yarsi redirected her false-gravity outward, throwing up a thin veil of force against the first crabs that sped toward Ark, catching them before they could decelerate. A wave of crabs slammed into the veil of inverted gravity, and shattered, their pieces thrown back into space with their innards wrapped over their hulls, their metal fused into new, mutilated shapes. But the veil, a poor imitation of the Sovereign’s own shield, drained her reserves, so when thousands of crabs altered their course in eerie unison, sliding around the veil, she could do nothing but watch. 

They swam in gliding sheets over the flat planes of her hull. When their tongues dragged across her metal flesh, she felt the bursting of nettles and the piercing of thorns. On the Bridge, her lassertane body bucked and heaved against the braces and wires, rasping with pain. Her first thoughts were agony. Her next thoughts were that she couldn’t afford the distraction. Cut it, she impulsed. Her thought flashed through the Ark’s systems, which sent a command through the memory device to sever the nerves. Suddenly, she was aware of a numbness where her mortal body had been. The pain had stopped, but so had every other sensation in her lassertane self. She couldn’t feel her face. Couldn’t blink. But her mind was still alert, watching the crabs latch onto the Ark, burrowing their obscene tongues into her hull, desperate to reach her critical systems. They drilled into the smooth plating, scoring and gouging and cracking her armor. Her external view blurred and fractured as writhing tongues peeled back layers of armor plating and severed the connections to her sensors.

At the same time, the crabs flared their repulsors. Combined, they reversed her acceleration. Yarsi of the Ark flooded all her available power into her own repulsors. They bloomed with renewed strength, but more of them flickered under the strain and went dark, and the crabs locked her in place. Her internal gate was still dissipating. Too early to jump again. 

And the Swarm descended upon her. Millions of ships closed in a sphere of living machinery, with the Ark at its center. No stars. Only metal. 

Countless weapon systems aimed at the Ark, heedless of their cousins burrowing into her armor. In a moment, they would pour destruction into her. Missiles would fly in overlapping flocks. Cannons would burp bright flashes of light, showering her with explosive shells from on high and below. But, she knew, it was the energy beams that would kill her—slender, needle-like threads of intense power, carried only by the largest  ships. 

The Swarm settled in for the kill. 

And if Yarsi still had control of her mouth, she would have smiled. When Khadam had built the Ark, Yarsi had insisted on one device in particular—an experiential design, borrowed from the long-dead members of Khadam’s Coldsmith clan.

 “It’s never been tested,” Khadam argued. 

Yarsi had written back, “It’s necessary.”

Now, she powered down her Gate. Her repulsors went dark. Her artificial gravity released. Dirt in the habitation gardens, water in the canals, and all the xenos began to float. And the device came to life. It lived in the secret decks, protected by layers of ceramic and steel, inaccessible by any living being—except for her.

Rings of black metal, each one delicately thin and carved with ornate geometry, slid around each other, forming a nearly-solid sphere. Light siphoned into the lattice rings, painting them with burning lines of color in a language of fractals. So rapid and violent was the movement of the Light, even the Ark’s visual sensors could not map every flashing shape. Then again, she didn’t need to—she only needed the thing to work. 

The Swarm contracted. The crabs on her hull burrowed deeper, their repulsors flaring. Far below, one gargantuan dreadnought aimed an absurdly small barrel at her, and fired. A strand of focused energy leaped across the miles in an instant, slicing through a handful of drone crabs before melting into her hull. Breach warnings and pressure alerts and damage reports cascaded through her mind, but Yarsi’s focus was on controlling the device.

The rings blurred. Glowed with a cold intensity. Frost condensed on every nearby surface as the Ark’s internal temperatures plummeted. A coldsnap so fast, the xenos hardly had time to feel it. But she did. She knew, down to the fraction of a degree, how far she could push the device.

Release.

The sphere erupted with Light. Ghostly rings expanded through the walls of the Ark, slicing the void with razor-lines of unmoving time. They painted through flocks of drones, carving lines through their masses. Ships were shorn into segments. Slices of a heavy cruiser collapsed inward, its circuitry and mechanical innards spilling out. But the rings were thin, and millions of machine ships had escaped the touch of the Light.

Yarsi paused. 

Tens of thousands of glowing rings spinning slowly through the void around her. The Swarm, already correcting course to avoid the Light. Unleashing the drones. Firing missiles. Firing everything. Cannons burped blasts of light and electronic interference systems dumped geysers of chaff and malicious signals into her sensors.

Only then did she redirect every last drop of her power into her artificial gravity generator. Her hull tightened, and made a grinding, shrieking noise, and it felt like she was being crushed by a pair of divine hands. Yet, for one brief moment, the Ark was the heaviest object in nearby space. The drone crabs covering Yarsi’s hull were crushed by their own, sudden weight. And the rest of the armada were swept into the rings.

Ships halted, crushing themselves beneath their own momentum. The smaller hulls were smashed into pieces, the larger ones were sliced into pieces, their viscera violently expelled. One massive ship was caught within overlapping rings—it was split open, the halves displaced, and seamlessly inverted into each other. 

Yarsi let go. The device ceased its blurring movement and became unnaturally still. Out in the void, the rings dissipated, leaving behind masses of drone corpses and strangely-malformed ships. Where the Light had touched, black, glittering corrosion now ate into metal. Ash-white veins crawled across mutated hulls, reaching toward shattered sensor beds and cracked repulsor housings. Millions of ships drifted, some scraping against each other, the rest carried along by gravity.

But there were still great shapes lurking in the distance. The Swarm’s largest ships—vast, unwieldy barges—had been pierced by the rings,  but remained functional due to their sheer size. And, like a shepherd in the shadows, the last Apostle towered against the stars. Black, glittering patches ran down one of its ruined flanks, sparkling in the sunlight as it slowly rotated to shield its weakened side from the Ark. It barked some invisible command and, as one, the barges spewed forth their drones. They filled the void like spores, tufting and spooling from the folded bays and hangars, or dropping from the underside like clouds of ink. They blotted out the stars. And then, the near sun dimmed as the clouds occluded even that huge golden-red globe. What remained of Yarsi’s sensors tried to track them all, but the crabs had cut out too many of her eyes.

And behind the drones, long serpentine vessels slithered from the half-ruined body of the Apostle. Delicate, wing-like protrusions unfurled down their lengths. Though the serpents undulated across space, their odd wings trained on the Ark. Broadcasting a signal. Not for her, but for the people she carried. Yarsi looked inward, and saw that her decks were full of people crying out, gnashing their teeth and covering their ears in vain attempts to block out the sound just out of hearing. A human, bio-engineered and augmented, would be protected against the deadly waves, but her people were only xenos… Delicate. Mortal. 

If she could kill the serpents…

But there were dozens of them, and the growing mass of drones hid most of them from view. She could only see undulating silver bodies and bright, chrome wings flashing between the plague of drones. 

The Apostle, then. It was the only hope. Yarsi of the Ark knew the Apostle’s general location, judging by how fast it had been moving. But at these distances, she could only guess. And a guess was a death sentence. 

Half-blind, she scrambled to find it, to detect even a hint of its presence. Nothing on imaging, lidar was useless, x-ray blocked by noise. Overwhelmed or dead, her senses failed her. Inside, the screams of the dying tugged at her processors. The serpents’ waves resonating in their bones and racked their brains. Squeezed every living being into one final agony. Even my own body is in here, dying. She needed to think. To work this out. No time. Not for strategy. Not even for chance.

Only prayer. To the memory of the First Prophet. Emorynn, guide me.

Half-blind and dying, Yarsi of the Ark angled at a specific, featureless point in the dark cloud of drones. She thought of Laykis, and how the android had suffered ten thousand years for her faint glimmer of faith alone.

And Yarsi rammed the last of her repulsors to full power.

The Ark jolted forward, and all the xenos were thrown back against the walls. Those who had been drifting in the open decks were slammed a long way back to the rear walls, their bones crushed. Many died on impact. Those in the smaller chambers, or inside their dwellings, or on the Bridge were mostly safe. Yarsi’s own body was tugged and battered inside her restraints as the Ark kicked across space, and pierced the cloud of the Swarm. 

If she was wrong—if the Apostle was even a fraction of a degree out of place—there was nothing she could do about it now. She could turn the Ark, maybe, but the force would only smear all the xeno bodies inside… including hers.

Thousands of drones pelted and rattled and tried to latch onto the Ark’s hull, only to break upon contact as the spearhead ship gained momentum. She carved a gouge through thousands of miles of machine plague. A flash of silver as one of the serpents tried to wriggle out of her way, but her prow sliced through its narrow body, slicing it in half before the thing broke apart. 

Then, the clouds of drones were behind them. Stars glimmered. The near sun shone bright. And the Apostle lay dead ahead. Its repulsors bloomed as it tried, desperately, to move its towering bulk out of the Ark’s path. But Emorynn’s memory of the future was perfect. The speartip slid into the Apostle’s half-corroded armor, almost directly in the center of the ship. Metal separated, crumpling, rolling, exploding out as the Ark broke through. 

The drone barges no longer spewed. The drones went still. The serpents went rigid, sailing lifelessly into the clouds of drones, crashing and breaking apart. What was left of the armada drifted. Glittering. Broken. One day, maybe, to be dragged into the sun and melted down to nothing. 

Only Yarsi remained. 

Gently, she redirected her false gravity inward, allowing the xenos to sink back to the floor. Her hospitality systems churned furiously as they sent out medical constructs and opened emergency pathways to the pre-fab hospitals littered throughout the habitation and barracks decks. So many, dead, but she would help as many as she could. 

Yarsi’s sensors picked up movement on her Bridge. Hundreds of xenos were in circles around the command platform. Despite the normalized gravity, none of them were standing. They were on the ground. Injured? No. Starched military uniforms next to priestly robes next to technician’s garb next to royalty. Heads bowed, arms outstretched. Worshiping her, for what she had become. 

“Praise,” they sang together, “Praise the Prophet, the Maker made anew!”

Yarsi wanted to share in their wonder, to bask in their victory. But there was a hole where Yarsi’s joy should have been. Emorynn’s memories lived in her mind—an immaculate guide.  And they would guide her a little while longer. But Emorynn had cut out the last pieces of her memory. Destroyed them, so that Yarsi could not know what she had seen. 

A black curtain hung over the future. And even in victory, fear stirred in the heart of the Ark.

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The Last Human IV - 52 - The Sacrifice

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A hundred could fit on the Bridge of the Ark, but twice as many xenos crowded the lower command deck, and more stood at the bulkhead doors, desperate to see the spectacle on the massive screens that lined the walls. The crowds were almost reverent in their silence. Nobody said a word as the Ark turned toward the nearest star. 

Shapes lurked in the hazy light of the star’s photosphere. Long-range scanners chirped, slowly at first, as they locked onto individual targets. Then, the chirping became a furious stream of beeps as the target count climbed. 

“How many?” Ryke asked. A redenite technician whispered something to a cyran officer, who turned to her and reported, “We’ve spotted fifteen thousand vessels—”

The tech tugged on his arm, and whispered again. “Eighteen thousand,” the cyran said. “And counting. But there are concerns that more are hiding behind the star. We can only guess…”

“How many?” she asked again.

The officer glanced over at the redenite, who was frantically switching between screens pouring with data. Complex readings and mathematical notations flew faster than she could possibly hope to read, let alone understand. The cyran officer seemed just as lost as she did.

“Another ten thousand?” he shrugged. “Or a hundred thousand? We don’t even know what kind of ships they are.”

We don’t even know what kind of ship the Ark is, Ryke thought. And with a hundred thousand warships—or more—bearing down on them, the Ark might as well be a vast, floating coffin. The Swarm unspooled from the star’s photosphere, stretching like broken, silver threads across the void. A single ship, even one built by a god, couldn’t hope to match the armada they flew toward. 

“Two—two hundred thousand,” the cyran officer said, almost choking on the count. 

And more, Ryke thought, as she watched the threads reach higher. 

The redenite technician started chittering madly at the command screens, as the Ark changed readouts automatically. Now, individual ships came into view, separated by class. As if the Ark was only a botanist, cataloging a strange new patch of plants. It found frigates and cruisers and cannon platforms, and arranged them by munition types. It found drone barges whose exteriors rippled with quivering, metal bodies. It highlighted key support vessels, branching arms and open rings for docking and repairing ships mid-fight. And still, the silver threads of the Swarm lengthened, casting a wide net across the void. Leader drones, fast-flying probes the size of an avian, flung themselves further than the rest, as if to drag the threads wider.

“What are they doing now?” Ryke demanded.

“Your Majesty,” An avian commander stepped up, a professional who didn’t let her nerves show, “We think they’re triangulating our exit points.” 

“Meaning?”

“If we jump, they will be on top of us.”

Finally, Ryke allowed herself to look over to the main command console. Yarsi stood, hunched over the console, her legs shaking, too weak to hold her up. Her jaw was set, and though her eyes were open, the last jump had burned them to a milky white. Yet, she seemed to know Ryke was looking at her, for she shook her head no.

Blind, but she sees.

“And if we don’t jump?” Ryke asked. 

 The commander’s disciplined expression cracked, “Your Majesty, we must. The Swarm encircles us. By the time we turn around, they will have us. We must jump now, before it’s too late!” 

The largest screens showed the sun, threads carving up in silvery lines that connected the dots of distant stars. Tens of thousands of drones, wrapping the Ark in a great celestial net.

“Your Majesty,” the commander said, almost pleading, “We are out of options.”

Movement from the console caught Ryke’s eye. Yarsi tilted her head back, and it looked like she was going to fall backward, but her hands were stuck, firmly on the central command console. Wires poured out of the console, sliding like living things up her wrists. 

“Yarsi?” 

The wires bristled with clusters of smaller wires, each thinner than the barbs of Ryke’s feathers. They snaked through the gaps in Yarsi’s scales, outlining them in silver and gold, before plunging into the soft flesh between. Yarsi jerked back, clenching her jaw and snarling as the wires dug into her. 

“Error,” the Ark’s speakers announced. “Incompatible neurological structures detected.”

Pinpricks of blood seeped out from under her scales, dotting her forearms with red lines.

“What is she doing?” someone said. “What did she do?” 

“Half a million, and growing. Gods, help us.”

“We’re running out of time!”

“Yarsi,” Ryke said again, but the Ark spoke over her: “Unable to apply alternate integration due to potentially fatal—”

The lassertane girl mouthed a voiceless word, and the Ark declared, “Override accepted.” 

Mute, but she commands.

Gaps opened in the seams of the floor, followed by jets of gas. Frost crystals condensed on Yarsi’s bare, clawed feet, whitening her mottled scales. She lifted her long neck, and began to shiver. The officers and technicians closest to her felt it, too, and stepped back. Ryke stepped forward, her hand outstretched. The gas numbed her fingers almost immediately. 

Though Yarsi’s eyes were closed, she seemed to sense Ryke approaching. She threw out her hand, ordering Ryke to stand clear. Mechanical restraints struggled up from the floor and crawled up Yarsi’s ankles and calves, growing like the roots of a silver tree. Metal traced delicate, bracing lines up her back, creating indents in her scales while leaving space for her spine.

“What is this?” Someone asked. “What is happening to her?”

“Mercy of the gods,” another cried out. Xenos bowed their heads or covered their eyes or fell to their knees. Not all of them, but many. The outline of the girl’s spine pressed against her clothes. Yarsi’s head fell forward, like a priest guiding her flock in prayer.

“Yarsi?”

“Ryke,” the Ark’s voice reverberated across the Bridge. But Yarsi, half-covered in gleaming metal roots, beckoned with her head for Ryke to come near. Hair-thin golden wires had split out of the tips of the silver roots, and had crawled up Yarsi’s neck, but now they struggled, waving back and forth. Unable to realize their intended form.

“Help me,” the Ark’s voice boomed. Yarsi bobbed her head, gesturing at the device implanted at the top of her spine. “Start there.”

“Are you sure?” 

Yarsi’s mouth moved soundlessly. A moment later, words echoed from the Ark, “I must.”

“What if it kills you?” 

“Do you not know who I am?”

Who you are? Ryke thought, I don’t even know what you are.

Silver and gold crawled between the scales of her face, weaving a delicate second skin, rising into a broken crown where the living wires couldn’t figure out how to adapt to the structure of Yarsi’s skull. The shape was wrong, but somehow beautiful in its wrongness. And despite the frigid gas layering ice over her scales, Yarsi no longer shivered. She gazed upon Ryke, her blind eyes resigned. Or maybe, at peace. 

“Now, please,” Yarsi’s words boomed across the Bridge. 

Ryke felt all eyes shift from Yarsi, to her. When she reached for the lassertane, one of Ryke’s officers said, “Majesty, let me.”

“It’s fine,” Ryke said. It wasn’t fine. She might be Queen, but she was no longer in control. Yarsi, who had come to her as nothing more than a mute girl, lost and broken and the last of her kind, had become something outside of Ryke’s comprehension. There was a feeling in Ryke’s chest, like the thunder of the waves against the shore. Like a blazing sun burning through mountains of clouds. Afraid of her own powerlessness. But not just afraid. 

“What must I do?” 

Yarsi twisted her head away, showing Ryke the top of her spine. There, between a harsh outline of inflamed flesh and perpetual scabs, the memory device sparkled in the frost. Yet, the living wires could not find it. A cluster of thick, silver threads had pulled a delicate cylinder out of the console. It looked like a cross between a glass egg and a tiny, ornate chandelier. Ryke caught a glimpse of the cylinder’s base, where a series of glittering lights and polygons almost too small to see slid over each other. Caught in its dazzling, unknowable depths, she stared, amazed that something so small could contain so much.

“Guide it unto its rightful place.”

The feathers along Ryke’s arm were frozen stiff. The object was even colder. Spikes of frost drove into her finger tips, but the moment she touched the delicate shell, Ryke felt a tug on the back of her mind. She could hear words, like the chanting of thousands of voices, all whispering different prayers that somehow laced together in perfect rhythm. Is this the voice of the Ark? The beauty and wonder tied knots around her heart. Ryke almost couldn’t move. 

“Do not delay.” 

Gently, careful not to snap the hair-thin wires that trailed from the cylinder, Ryke pulled the objet to Yarsi’s neck. The Queen held her breath, trying not to inhale the frigid gas. Her hands shook. Unsure of herself, she tried slotting the base against Yarsi’s memory device. “How do I know if—” 

Metal clicked against metal, and Yarsi threw her head back, her scales and slender muscles bulging against the silver restraints. The gold-woven crown folded against her skull, layering an almost-human mask over her face. Thin wires plunged into the corners of her eyes, and four lines of blood dripped down the sides of her snout. 

“Vul!” someone shouted, followed by a horrified gasp from the crowds as all the command screens went dark. The air vents died, and within moments a thick heat, deprived of oxygen, settled into the Bridge. Something thrummed deep in the bowels of the Ark, punching deep into Ryke’s chest. 

Steam rose from the lassertane’s neck. The scales closest to the memory device began to singe and burn and flake, white hot. And yet, the lassertane girl didn’t seem to notice. Even as smoke poured up from her flesh, she eased back in her restraints.

“Yarsi!” Ryke screamed. 

“Gone,” the Ark answered, “Gone is the Mute, and gone is the First among Prophets. Gone, and made anew.”

“Into what?”

“I am the Maker Who Made Herself,” the Ark sang, “And I have come to lead the flock.”

A breeze stirred in the Bridge as the air vents gushed fresh, cooling air. The screens flashed to life, and the audience cried out—at first, in relief. And then, in despair. Great silver threads wove out from the near star, ten times as many as before. The threads arced overhead, and now, behind the Ark. 

“We’re damned,” an admiral muttered, sagging against the nearest desk. “It’s over.”

But the Ark’s repulsors were climbing to maximum thrust. “We’re picking up speed.”

“She’s bringing us into the Swarm?”

On the minor screens, the Ark scoped in on the threads of ships, until the ships themselves were visible. Unimaginable numbers of cruisers bristled with heavy cannons and tubes for launching guided torpedoes. Frigate-sized ships drew slow spirals around battleships that looked like misshapen heads. These were covered in bulbs whose purpose she could only guess. And dwarfing all the rest, vast metal hulks poured countless drones from their bellies. The Ark measured these hulks in kilometers. Some were larger than the Cauldron. That can’t be right, Ryke thought.

“What are they doing?” 

The head-shaped battleships left the threads of the armada and fanned out between the gaps in the net. Space rippled around them as their bulbs, the distortion expanding and warping the Ark’s long-range visuals, until the void seemed to waver like water on a dark night. The distortion spread between the battleships, unfolding and overlapping until it became a screen that shielded half of the armada. The Ark’s data all but stopped flowing as the Ark struggled to identify anything beyond the screen.

Then, the distortion shield blinked out, revealing a wall of pinpricks of light. The Ark’s systems went wild as they tracked each one, and reported back on the screens. Missiles. Tens of millions of missiles.

Gods save us.

“All hands,” Ryke shrieked, “Brace for impact!”

Next >

The Last Human IV - Ch. 51 - The Screams of the Damned

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Hints of metal gleamed in the shadows. Cold machinery clinked and rasped, calling to Agraneia’s mind the knives she used to sharpen. 

Wires and cords hung like mossy curtains from a ceiling she couldn’t quite see. Pipes and steel ducts towered over her, like the legs of monstrous arachnids. She held her breath, as if one wrong sound might wake them.

Chill air slid across the floor and caught around Agraneia’s bare ankles. The cold was almost painful. And she could taste blood in her mouth. What happened? A hit to the head. Agraneia winced at the memory of her that hard thwack against the back of her skull. She hoped the bone wasn’t fractured. 

Where am I? The thought slipped, fuzzy and unclear, through her throbbing headache. Carefully, she opened one eye. Metal wires wrapped around her wrists and just below her knees, digging into her scales. There were little holes all over the wires, but she couldn’t see what they were for. 

She pulled on one of the wires. In response, a light clicked on above her, blinding only because everything else was so dark. 

Agraneia held her breath. Without moving her head, she dared to glance up, squinting at the shadows.

More lights glowed to life, rapidly illuminating in a perfect circle around the first until she could see the orb-shaped head of a machine. It was flanked by two other, identical heads—each coming to life with their own ring of lights.

The orbs descended toward her, moving as one. They spread out in a circle, orbiting her so that she could only see one or two at a time. Agraneia pretended not to notice them, pretended not to be awake at all. Heavier things moved in the shadows. Felt, more than seen. Massive gantries hissed softly as they slid overhead, shifting the air pressure. Something about their movement sparked a sense of danger—woke up some primal part of her. There was something urgent…

The mission. Agraneia’s heart rate spiked. Khadam. Everything sharpened into focus. 

I shouldn’t be here.

Without moving, Agraneia reached out with her thoughts. She impulsed her liquid arm to change, to become a web of blades that would slice all the wires at once—

Her shoulder was numb. She couldn’t feel her arm at all. Wires bit into the scales of her neck when she turned her head to look. A ring of lights snapped in front of her face, blinding her. The metal wires pinched into the back of her neck as she tried to twist away from the lights, but the lights tracked her movement exactly. 

“I apologize about your arm,” a voice said. Feminine, and soothing and perfectly organic. Too perfect. Every word made Agraneia’s stomach clench. “I had to neutralize it. A very rare metal, indeed. Where did you get it?”

Finally, she twisted just enough to see the bands of metal around her shoulder, the spikes embedded in her flesh, just above where the liquid metal secured itself to the stump of her arm. 

“Can you understand me?”” the Sovereign asked. 

Agraneia sensed, more than saw, a rippling motion from above. Great arms unfolded from above, long and insectoid and heavy enough to crush her with a single step. They swooped down, and each one sprouted a mass of limbs capped with sharp-looking sensors.

“Yes,” the voice whispered, a calm and soothing echo that filled this dark place. “I think you can. A human-made arm. But you’re not exactly human, are you?”

And when she didn’t, the voice sharpened its edge. “Answer me.”

“Where am I?” Agraneia asked. The wires pressed into her throat with every word, and even when she swallowed.

“You are exactly where you need to be. Where did you get the arm?”

“What arm?”

“Oh, you poor thing,” the Sovereign’s voice dripped with honey. “So confused. And you’re shivering. Let me help you.” 

The wires wrapped around Agraneia’s legs and arms began to heat. It felt good on her scales. But she knew a threat for what it was. If the wires could heat up that quickly, they could go hotter. 

Still, Agraneia smirked. A threat meant the machine wanted something from her. She might not have the upperhand, but she definitely had something…

“Don’t know,” Agraneia grunted. “Always had it.” 

“Oh, I see,” the Sovereign said. Accepting the lie too easily. Somehow, Agraneia felt like she had misplayed. 

“I’m looking for a woman,” the Sovereign said. “A human called Khadam.” 

“Who?” Agraneia said, automatically. But even she couldn’t hide the flood of relief that poured into her. It doesn’t know where Khadam is. She’s still alive…

The orb swooped in an arc, a sudden movement that stabbed the lights directly into Agraneia’s eyes, forcing her to squeeze her eyelids shut. 

“Look at me.”

Agraneia let her eyes open a crack. She looked above the orb, which sat on an arm held by hundreds of slender, flexible wires. Lenses and clusters of holes and other sensors covered the orb, and Agraneia saw herself reflected in the thing’s many, many eyes. 

There were other arms, back there, in the shadows. This machine had been left alone for too long. Grown over itself too many times. Mutated. 

“Khadam,” the machine said, its voice coming from all three orbs at once. “You know her. She gave you the metal, didn’t she? She made you into this.”

Agraneia felt a swell of vindication as the Sovereign’s machine got it wrong. Khadam might’ve taught her how to use the liquid metal, but Agraneia, herself, had willed it into life. The machine doesn’t know everything, she told herself. 

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” Agraneia said, hiding her smile. 

A heavy whirring sound loomed from behind her chair. Without turning her neck, Agraneia slid her gaze to the left. The silhouette of a long leg drew itself out of the darkness. It held a ragged mass of metal on the tip of its claw. It glowed with a familiar light. The leg dragged it roughly along the floor, carelessly scraping metal on metal so that sparks showered in the dark.

The Sovereign flung it at Agraneia’s feet. It landed in a heap. Twisted. Broken. And awful. A metal mask, laced with scars, stared up at Agraneia. An android’s torso had been torn open to reveal a dimly-glowing core. The only remaining arm was a twisted piece of metal, and all of Laykis'sdelicate hydraulics were wrapped around each other. Her neck bent almost sideways, and fractured electronic boards jutted out of her spine.

“Do you know this android?” it said. Taunting her.

Agraneia stared. Not daring to speak.

“I asked you a question.” 

“What’s an android?” Agraneia asked. 

Black wires dripped from above. Each one was as thick as Agraneia’s wrist, and, like leeches, they sought out the android’s body, attaching themselves to the crumpled remains of her armor, or the exposed section of her core. 

“I know more than you think, Agraneia of Cyre. What will it cost you to lie to me?”

Smoke started to pour up from Laykis’s ruined body. The tips of the leech-wires glowed as they overloaded what was left of her core. Fusing wires together, melting her delicate mechanics. The android jerked and pulled, but the leech-wires held her in place. A coppery scent, sour and acrid and metallic, filled the air until Agraneia could taste it. She felt the heat of burning metal in her toes and shins.

“She knows you’re watching her,” the machine cooed, almost lovingly. The orbs slid around Agraneia’s head, whispering into her ears. “You should hear her screams…”

One of the wires slid underneath Laykis’s scarred mask, burrowing into her throat. A moment later, Agraneia was surrounded by an amplified burst of Laykis'sscreams. 

But in the static, she heard a voice, whispering into her ear. You’re just going to let this happen? A voice that wasn’t there. Agraneia squeezed her eyes shut, straining against her restraints, as if she might block out the whispers. Your own friend. You can save her with a word. But you won’t. You’re too afraid. Weak. Useless— 

“Fuck you,” Agraneia said through clenched teeth.

“Shall I kill her now?” the Sovereign said, and Agraneia could hear a smile in its too-perfect voice. Laykis's screams rose louder. 

Weak. You failed. Did you ever think you would succeed? You were nothing but a mindless, useless animal. You never deserved— 

“Stop!” Agraneia grunted. “Please!”

Why? The hallucinations whispered. You never did. You kept cutting and cutting. Behind the voices, Agraneia could hear it too—the wet chopping of a long knife on flesh. Too familiar. The screams of all those xenos…

“No,” Agraneia shook her head, pressing her neck into the wires that choked her, as if she subconsciously deserved the pain. “I didn’t know. I should have known.”

“Where is Khadam?” the Sovereign asked. “Tell me everything you know about her, and all this stops.” 

“Dead. She’s dead. I watched it happen.”

Laykis’s screams went mute. The leech-wires lifted their mouths and made sensual, dangerous movements toward Agraneia, followed by the three orbs, their rings of light twisting as they inspected every muscle in Agraneia’s face.

“Liar.”

Not trusting herself to speak, Agraneia shook her head. She winced as the wires cut deeper into her neck scales, drawing blood.

“You are on your own, Agraneia of Cyre. No one can help you. But I am generous. I can help your people. I will give you worlds of paradise. All I need is information. Tell me anything you can about Khadam, and I will make you a hero among your people. I can make you a god.” 

The orbs flickered, projecting realistic images around Agraneia. Suddenly, she was enveloped in another world. Instead of a metal chair, she sat high on a throne. Crowds upon crowds of people bowed before her. She could hear their voices, chanting her name. 

But the Sovereign did not know what haunted Agraneia. Instead of worshipful faces, all she could see were mouths dripping with gore and sunken eyes filled with hate and flesh-covered skulls blackened by rot. Even in the Sovereign’s fantasy, they tormented her. 

“Think of all you could have, Agraneia of Cyre. Think of how much they will love you.”  

They did not praise her name. They cursed it. You murderer. You monster. You deserve worse than death…

“All you must do is answer me. Where is Khadam?”

Agraneia stiffened her spine, and glared directly into the nearest orb, and grunted a single syllable, “Who?”

The orb’s lights flickered. “Fine, then.” More leech-wires snaked over Laykis’s crumpled form, and dove into her metal crevices. “Perhaps a few days of listening to her sing will change your mind.”

Laykis’s scream projected from the orbs, undulating in agony. And then, something odd happened. The android started to scream words. “Vul!” she shouted, her voice ragged and staticky. “For He has spoken! I am His faithful servant, and I have heard His word! Khadam is our key! Khadam is our key! Khadam is—” The leech-wires glowed brighter, and Laykis’s screams cut short. Tendrils of smoke poured up from beneath her mask.

“How annoying,” the too-perfect voice hissed. “I will have to work with your flesh instead. Messy.” Agraneia’s scales tingled as needles pressed out of the wires that bound her. They felt like tiny teeth,  biting into her clothes, her scales, and then her flesh. “Tell me, cyran, how do you feel about pain?” 

Agraneia spoke through gritted teeth, “I deserve it.”

The needles paused. Again, the Sovereign did not know her nearly as well as it expected. But the needles? They were nothing compared to what Agraneia could do to herself. Cries of the masses drifted into her thoughts. The voices, echoing from the past. Chaining her. Damning her. Yes… You deserve so much worse. 

Oh, Agraneia thought, I know. And before the Sovereign had a chance to do it, she pressed her head back into the chair, letting the needles glide deeper into her neck, smiling as blissful, righteous agony erupted down her spine.

She huffed out a laugh, and blinked away the tears, letting them roll down her cheeks. 

More, the voices demanded. Hundreds of them. Maybe thousands. Gnashing their rotten teeth at her, rolling their dead eyes, bearing the wounds she had given them. Bleed. And beg.

Beg for your ruin.

Though the Sovereign could not hear Agraneia’s voices, it obliged. The needles lengthened into thorns, and dug beneath her muscles until their tips clicked against her bones. Scraping with white hot claws. Agraneia tried to hold still, but the wires had grown hot, and pulsed with unbearable heat, forcing her muscle to flinch and try, hopelessly, to pull away. 

The things in the shadows dragged themselves closer to watch, to delight in her misery. They brought with them, not just their faces, but their bloated and mutilated bodies. Bloody hands and bloody mouths. Broken teeth snarled around black, rotten tongues that wriggled with obscene laughter. Old xenos, young xenos, soldiers and civilians, mothers and fathers and innocent children with flesh flapping from their bones.

They drank in her pain and screamed for more. They smiled at the scent of her burning flesh. They laughed at the way her body shook, at the gathering screams in her throat. Agraneia bellowed at the visions. Told them to leave her. Begged them for mercy. And finally, sobbed until drool dripped down her chin. They only wanted more.

Next >

The Last Human IV - 50 - The Elder and the Younger

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Poire frowned at the Boy. The Boy frowned at the rock. And the rock sat very still.

The Boy gritted his teeth. 

“Is that what they taught us in the Conclave?” Poire said, “You have to relax.”

But the Boy wasn’t listening. His nose was almost touching the rock. Sweat prickled on his brow, and a vein stood out on his forehead. And the rock remained unchanged. 

“You’re going to pass out,” Poire said.

“I can do it.” The Boy stuck his tongue out.

“You said that an hour ago.” But Poire couldn’t hide his smile. He’d forgotten what he was like—his younger self. Was I really this stubborn? Was I really such a fool?

But stubbornness was good. Building the Tower was a task that seemed to have no end, and the unpredictable elements of this bubble universe continued to rebuff Poire’s efforts. But now that he had found the Boy… 

“Look!” The Boy thrust the rock triumphantly in the air. 

“Quit waving it around and let me look.” 

The Boy opened his palm. Poire leaned in, squinting. “Well?”

“This crack!”

“What crack?” 

“This one,” the Boy said, “I made it. I broke the rock—with my mind!” 

“Hm,” Poire frowned at the stone. At the Boy, sweating and panting from effort and swelling with pride. “You can do better.”

The Boy deflated. “How?” 

Poire took the rock, and said, “In my hand, I hold Anu.”

He closed his hand around the rock, willing the subatomic connections to disentangle and rearrange themselves. New molecules formed and locked together, and when Poire opened his fist, the stone had turned to a rock of salt. With a squeeze, the salt cracked and crumbled between his fingers. 

The Boy’s eyes were wide with wonder, and Poire chuckled to himself. It was nice to have such an easily-impressed audience.

“This salt is Anu,” Poire said. “And this, too—” Delicately, he pinched the salt with two fingers, and pulled a green, leafy stem up from the crumbled white powder until an apple popped free, its green and yellow flesh shining in the light. “This is Anu.” He prodded the boy with the apple. “And so are you. Every speck of matter in this place, every grain of sand, every cell in your body—all are made of the same matter.”

“We’re made from Anu’s dust?”

“Every single atom in this pocket, yes. Once, this was another universe. Like ours was. But Anu came, and turned it into itself. Rendering it lifeless, except for Anu.” 

“Except for Anu?” the Boy looked up, as if he might spot Anu gazing down at them from the heavens.

“Think smaller, Boy. Anu is not like any being you know. Its memory is distributed perfectly. Its intelligence is fractal: every part contains the whole. Every atom contains all of Anu’s memory, its will, its power. Power which you don’t even realize you’re using.”

“I am?” 

Poire poked the Boy in the stomach, hard. The Boy gasped, and Poire said, “There! What did you breathe in just now?”

“Oxyg—”

“And where did it come from?” 

The Boy frowned. Took another breath, as if to test out his own power. Then, he beamed proudly at Poire. 

Poire dropped the apple into his hand. “Now, turn this back to stone. Quickly. I need you to learn.”

“Why?” The Boy had a shrewd look on his face. The Boy knew that Poire wanted him to do more than survive. But I haven’t told him everything yet. Is it too soon? Then again, it felt like every second was another lifetime in which Anu could grow—devouring unknown universes, destroying untold existences.

Poire squinted at the Boy. Maybe the Old Man was wrong. Maybe he told me too little, too late.

“Follow me,” Poire said.

Together, they began the journey up the steps. It was a shorter journey than before, when the old Tower still stood, but the Boy asked more questions than Poire ever remembered asking. 

“What’s at the top?”

“You’ll see.”

“Can’t you tell me?”

“No.”

“Why does the world keep flipping? Is it dangerous? Can you make it stop?” 

“I don’t know. Yes. Waste of energy. There is no land, there is no sky, I’m not even sure if this is a planet, or a plane, or what. I only know that it changes.”

“What’s out there?” the Boy pointed beyond where the black, jagged teeth of the mountains lay. The sky dripped down in dramatic, almost tree-like columns, and where it touched the ground it blended with the landscape in dazzling spirals. It gave Poire a headache if he stared too long.

“Your guess,” Poire said, “Is as good as mine.”

“How come the Tower doesn’t fall when the world flips?” 

Poire sighed. Normally, hiking up the steps was like meditation. He could start, and simply flow. But today… “Sometimes, the Tower does fall.”

“It does?” The Boy’s eyes went wide, and he stared over the edge. “Only sometimes?” 

“Yes.”

“Oh,” the Boy went blessedly silent as he thought about this for a moment. And then, “Why do the mountains move like that? Are there birds here? PlantS? I thought I found a spiral tree thing in the desert, but it’s bark was like chalk and it started to bleed this purple stuff, and it smelled like iodine or something. Do you know what it was?” And so on…

No wonder the Old Man stopped answering my questions. 

Eventually, they reached the top, and Poire groaned as he sat on the highest step, and leaned back, and gazed at the bright, almost blinding, colors of the window-pane sky. Each glassy frame, filled with dazzling color, and outlined by black strands carved organically across the warped dome of the heavens.

The Boy hadn’t said anything for a while, so Poire looked over. His younger self narrowed his eyes so they were almost shut against the brightness and color.

“It takes some time,” Poire said, “But you get used to it.”

 Up here, without the haze of sand, the emerald greens and fiery topaz and honeyed pinks were crystal clear. He lifted his hand, but the ceiling of the sky was miles away.

There was movement up there. A shape, like the body of great and powerful serpent, slid behind a dark red window. Dark drops flecked against the window’s membrane from the other side, blooming into colorful stains, so close Poire felt like he could reach out and touch them. As it slid past, the serpent’s body did not appear in the next window—it simply disappeared. 

“What was that?” the Boy asked. 

“I am made of Anu, but I do not know Anu. Not really.” Poire frowned. Have I said that before? 

“You think,” the Boy said, “That’s Anu’s body, up there?”

Poire shrugged. “The Poire before me thought so. He said that Anu was more like a colony. Many beings, living as one. He said that even though each molecule contains the greater whole, Anu had to begin somewhere.” 

“And it began up there?” The Boy shielded his eyes with both hands, soaking in the sky. So near, and yet… “So the sky… you think it’s like the shell of an egg?”

“If it is,” Poire said, “We’re not the ones looking in.”

The Boy chewed on this idea for a while, staring at the sky that trapped them into this world. Then, and Poire was pleased by this, he figured it out. Most of it, anyway.

“You’re building a tower to reach Anu?” 

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Poire bared his teeth, his face pulled tight in a hungry grin, “So we can kill it.” 

“But,” the Boy said, still scowling at the sky as he thought about what that meant, “But we’re made of Anu. Wouldn’t that destroy us?” 

“Yes.” 

The Boy looked into Poire’s face, and saw that his elder self had already worked through every implication. And yet, the Boy was just like Poire. Just as stubborn, and curious, and unwilling to simply accept the unknown forces that pulled at his future. 

“You think this will save them?”

“If we do nothing, they will die. Anu is already destroying our universe. It has already killed our kind. It will take everything else—everything we ever had.” 

“What if we can’t kill Anu? I mean, you’re not the first Poire to be here, are you?”

“We must keep trying.”

“What if you’re wrong?” 

Poire stopped. 

“What if we’ve been here before?” the Boy said.

“We’re not living through a loop…” Poire said, the words strangely familiar on his lips. “Though, sometimes, it feels like it. You wouldn’t understand.”

“But I’m you.”

“And you’re not ready.” The Boy started to argue, but Poire held up his hand. “I know this, because I wasn’t ready. A long time ago, when I was like you, he tried to tell me. I didn’t believe him. I wasted so much time trying to find the answers on my own. You don’t trust me, and you won’t until it’s too late. I can’t let this chance slip.” 

The Boy frowned up at him, defiant. And why should he trust me? Poire thought. He doesn’t know anything yet.

Why am I so stubborn? Poire let out a frustrated sighed. And, at the same time, so did the Boy.

It was so absurd, Poire started chuckling. And then, the chuckling turned into a laugh that rumbled up from his chest and burst from his lips.

Stubbornness, if he thought about it another way, was something of a gift. Eolh? Poire wondered. Could Eolh have made it this far? Khadam certainly had the will, but she might have gone mad when the physical laws changed every waking day. Would anyone else have made it this far…?  

Poire stopped laughing. 

“What?” the Boy asked.

“It might be dangerous. Then again, she survived.”

“What?”

“An idea,” Poire said. “I don’t know why we didn’t do this earlier. Follow me,” Poire said. 

***

The glow came from the pools, bathing the walls and columns in ethereal blue. The air smelled of stone dust and pure water.

Poire kneeled, and gestured for the Boy to do the same. He took the Boy by the back of the neck, and pushed his head under the water. For a moment, the Boy struggled, but for all his youth, the Boy’s strength was nothing compared to the Poire’s. Was I really this weak? Poire knew he was losing his muscle with age, but it seemed the long years of laboring over the Tower had made him stronger than he realized. 

With his hand still on the Boy’s neck, Poire bent over, and pressed his own face into the water.

Shining with color, Anu’s limbs soared overhead and underneath and beyond sight. Branches cracked and split and grew to the edges of existence, and beyond. They dripped with dewy bubbles, and in each drop hid unknown universes. A nearby branch ripped open with a thunderous crack, and splinters of pure light showered through them, flurrying away in a breeze that Poire couldn’t feel. Certain splinters seemed to lodge in the void and catch fire, burning new breaches into new universes. Inevitably, new branches split and forked and clustered around the breaches, testing at the newborn Scars. Ripping them open. Drinking from them all the matter of some unfortunate world.

“Let us go deeper,” Poire said, and with his thoughts alone, he propelled the two of them into the nearest Scar. 

From just outside, they could see it all. All the stars and celestial bodies, all their orbiting planets. All the civilizations, mighty and ancient and burgeoning with life, snuffed into insignificance. Places and cultures and lives that Poire had never imagined before, carelessly blown away like so much dust.

Poire brought him back to Anu’s beginning, and he showed the Boy all the drops of dew which contained all those dead universes. 

Then, he said, “Let me show you our universe…”

The first Light dam rose up to greet them. And inside, Poire could just make out Emorynn’s face, looking back. Looking at him. 

“The first vision, when the Prophet met Anu. This is the moment when humanity first woke up—”

Poire let his mind go as the flood of knowledge filled him. All of Anu’s knowledge, everything it had ever done and would do, poured into his mind. And he laughed. 

But a spluttering, choking sound cut short the vision. Something was wrong. Poire surfaced and found the Boy drowning in inches of water, even though Poire no longer held him. The Boy had collapsed with his head in the pool, and his lungs inhaled and vomited water, and his limbs jerked him in a mad dance. Poire yanked the back of his shirt, heaving the boy out, but when he turned him over, the Boy’s eyes rolled up as if he was trying to see the back of his own skull.

“What is this?” Poire asked, trying to hold the Boy still. “What’s wrong?” The Boy jerked and writhed and bit his own tongue so that blood mixed with the froth, choking him. Poire looked up, only to remember that he had no one to call for help. No one, but himself. 

Panic rose in his throat, surprising and unfamiliar—he’d spent so long out in these wastes alone, he’d forgotten fear, urgent and sharp, felt like. Okay, he tried to calm himself down. What can I do?

Poire tore a chunk of stone from the floor, and willed it into a soft piece of rubber, and slid it between the Boy’s teeth to prevent him from biting off his tongue. He rolled the Boy onto his side, and laid his head in his lap, and shoved down the fear as he whispered over and over, “It’s okay. You’re okay. Just breathe.” He wasn’t sure who he was saying it to.

Frothing and gasping, the Boy’s lips quivered like he was trying to say something but couldn’t remember how to form words. His eyes stared into nothing, and his head jerked back, reacting to something only he could see. Poire called to him, but the Boy didn’t react. 

What have I done? What am I supposed to do?

For now, he could only restrain the Boy until his hands ached. Slowly, the spasm’s lessened, until the Boy was only twitching. Blood from his nose had smeared across his face, and more dripped from his palms where his own fingernails had clawed away the skin. 

Poire tried to clean him up. From the stone, he made a pillow and a blanket, and brought him water, and tried to clean him up. For hours, he talked to him, but the Boy did not respond. A day went by, and nothing changed, except for the aching in Poire’s bones from sitting for so long. In the end, Poire had to drip water down the Boy’s throat, just to keep him alive. 

Is he alive?

The only sign was the pulse beating in the Boy’s throat. Hours turned into days, and still Poire did not leave his side. He tormented himself with questions that he couldn’t answer. Some dark, mercenary part of him wondered if he should leave the Boy to his death. You’re wasting time. What, after all, was one life against the destruction of Anu?

But the Boy had his own face. It was never really a question. 

Poire took him down the Tower, and made him as comfortable as he could. He spoke to the Boy, and tested his reactions every so often, and told him of the world, and gave him water and soup. He waved his hands in front of his face, and whistled and snapped and poked his forehead hard. The Boy never blinked. Poire had to close his eyes for him. Sometimes, he would look over, and see the Boy had opened his eyes again. What are you staring at? He wondered. 

One day, Poire spilled soup on the Boy. The Boy flinched. Another, the Boy swallowed a spoonful of soup on his own. 

Sometimes, his fingers twitched. Or his breath stuttered, like he was living through a dream.  

But his eyes never changed. Unfocused and distant, they never closed on their own. Only opened.

Uncertainly, Poire felt that he could continue work on the Tower. He found a new rhythm: up the steps, and down, check on the Boy, and grab another sack of stones before heading up again. The Tower grew painfully slow.

Up. Down. Check. And so on and so on…

And then, the storm came. Poire was near the waves of mountains when something high above changed. Two of the membranous windows had merged, emerald and ruby, their colors swirling into each other, their movements going faster and becoming more violent the more they mixed. Eventually, the membrane burst—breaking open more windows in a chain reaction that carved a two-sided wake across the sky. Black outlines peeled from the sky above, twisting into organic columns, wreathed in lightning that seemed to rip the air out of itself. One of the black lines crashed toward the ground. When it touched, it let out a boom that blew sand so high, it became a cloud that covered the horizon. 

Poire started to run. The ground bucked and trembled under his feet. Sand slid and thickened, becoming almost liquid. It sucked at his feet and he willed it to turn to dust, to air, to anything that wouldn’t hold him back. Behind him, an ear-splitting crack made the world lurch. Another black, twisting column had found the earth, and broken something beneath the sand. Something foundational. The dunes were blasted away, and violet geysers sprayed into the atmosphere. Lightning crawled vibrant, flashing trails through the ascending mists.

Poire’s joints screamed, his sandals flew off his feet, and still he didn’t look back until he reached the doorstep of the Tower. Above, the windows of the sky were breaking open. Becoming one.

Poire had left the Boy inside, laying at the bottom of the steps. But his bed was empty, and his cup was knocked over. A wet footprint led out of the Tower. 

“Poire!” Poire shouted, as if he expected an answer.  

Outside, the horizon was moving. Mountains and dunes had been swallowed by a wall of sand, miles high and sweeping with a dark fury toward the Tower. Lightning crackled in its voluminous depths, illuminating the vast columns that hung like black bones, holding up the storm. Vortexes, narrow and uneven and monstrously tall, spilled down from the broken sky, as if pulling the wall of sand behind them. They gyrated their own slow, pendulous dance, kicking up sand and stone shrapnel and ripping lightning from the air.

And there, in the distance, was the Boy, stumbling toward death.

Poire ran after him. The earth trembled, the sand liquified, and he willed both to change—to become hard, flat platforms of stone that rose up to push his feet, and throw him across the dunes. With great, bounding steps, Poire flew, his muscles burning and joints protesting every step of the way. 

Poire slammed to the ground behind the Boy, kicking up clouds as he slid to a stop. “Get back!” Poire shouted at him, his scream lost to the gathering roar. The winds ripped at their clothes, unbalancing Poire, making him almost weightless before tugging him back, and then weightless again. Errant, flying scree and sand slashed at their faces, but the Boy seemed not to notice. Poire pushed on, lifting his arms of his robes to block the Boy from the wind. Something hard hit Poire in the back, making him gasp and stumble. “Get back to the Tower!” 

The Boy stared through him. Lines of blood ran across his face where the sands had cut open his skin. The Boy tried to walk forward. Poire pushed him back. The Boy started forward again, when the ground jumped and threw them both down.

Then, the sands started to sink. Spidering cracks drank the oceans of dry dust, as the earth below broke apart. And when the ground below began to hiss, Poire grabbed the Boy by an arm, and hauled him backward. The disappearing dunes slid deeper into the earth, revealing the widening cracks. Sheets of hot vapor geysered up from the gaps in the ground, flaring like firelight before being sucked away by the torrential winds.

And still, the Boy fought back, like a machine set in motion. But years, centuries of hauling the stones up the steps had turned Poire’s grip into iron, and he heaved the Boy toward the Tower. 

The wall of sand flooded in. An ocean, inexorable, taller than any mountain. And before it, marched the spinning vortexes. As the sands curved overhead, new funnels poured down, inhaling the dust and debris and lifting the cracked earth and, finally, flinging shards of rock across the barren ground. One swelled before them, dancing down from the heavens like a celestial cobra mesmerizing its prey. It did not touch the earth. Instead, the barren landscape cracked and surged up to meet its body. 

Poire, almost weightless in the winds, threw both arms around the Boy, and threw them both to the ground.

Stone met wind. The dark funnel, flickering with threads of lightning, shredded the stone in an explosive spray of rock and bullet shards. Massive boulders spun slow, absurd circles around the vortex, before slowly tumbling out. Some sailed back into the wall of sand. But not all of them. “No!” Poire shouted, but his voice was drowned out by the thunder, which had nothing to do with the lightning. A great chunk of broken earth slammed into the Tower’s peak, pulverizing the highest walls and sailing right through. 

Cracks shot down the mortar and bricks that Poire had spent so many ages building up. The structure began to tilt. His thoughts raced. I can fix it. All I have to do is— Another boulder slammed into the Tower’s base, taking away half the wall as it bounced across the earth, rolling out across the wastes. Poire could almost hear the cracking sound of all his work coming undone. High above, the steps that spiraled up toward the heavens were already beginning to drift apart as the Tower swayed. 

Shards of earth slung against his exposed body. Pelting him, cutting chunks in his flesh even as he bowed to shield the Boy. Something stung his thumb, and a wetness painted the back of his hand, but he did not look.

But Poire was beyond pain. Beyond anger. Beyond sense or reason. The wall of sand ripped at his back, attempting to abrase the skin from his bones. Black columns hung from the sky like twisted spinal cords and another funnel poured down, gyrating like an evil tongue as it lapped toward his Tower. 

He stood tall. He raised his arms. He did not shout. He merely poured all his will into a single word: “Stop!” 

And it did. 

Everything did.

The ground froze in mid-tremble. The cracks held still, and the geysering vapors hung in perfect suspension. The tornadoes suspended, and a lone chunk of earth hovered in the air, its broken edge scraping the corner of the Tower.

Even the lightning, which etched searing lines in the wall of sand, glowed in perfect stillness. There was no sound, save for his own heaving breath and the beating of his heart.

Am I dead? 

He felt the wetness on the back of his hand. Blood dripped down his wrist and pattered on the sands. Something felt stiff. Wrong. A wet gasp brought his attention to The Boy. His eyes were open wide, as usual, but this time they were focused on Poire. 

“Boy?”

“What—” the Boy said. Then, his face filled with terror. “What is that?” he croaked in a voice, unused to speaking.

“What is what?” Poire said.

Poire followed his gaze, down to his own stomach. A stone shard was lodged in Poire’s gut. Only then did he feel the pain. It bloomed out in waves, bringing Poire to his knees. Poire coughed and tasted blood. He gritted his teeth as the pain sharpened, and sharpened again, and when he thought it could get no worse, it stabbed inside him until his vision darkened. Poire touched at the shard, and a scream shot from his lips.

“What do I do?” The Boy was wide-eyed and afraid, his own face made wild by the criss-crossing cuts from the sand. “What do we do?”

“It has to come out.” 

“You’ll die.”

“It has to.”

Poire sucked down air as carefully as he could, hyperventilating as he worked up the courage. He put both hands on the shard, and was about to rip it out, when he remembered. 

Air. 

He willed the shard to become weightless carbon dioxide. The stiffness in his stomach softened, and the torn flesh slumped, and blood began to gush. Poire thought he could see inside himself. Is that my intestine? The thought brought bile to his throat, which only made his agony worse.

Poire squeezed his eyes shut, and swallowed hard, trying not to breathe too much. His lungs burned, somehow worse than the pain. 

“Okay,” he swallowed a shallow breath. “Okay.” Trying to remember everything he’d seen in the Seeing Pools. Lessons of anatomy and medicine and biotech blurred in his memory. Poire cupped the wound, trying to hold back the warm gush of his own blood. He grabbed a fistful of sand, and hesitating, he plunged it into the wound—willing it, at the same time, to become soft tissue. Every grain felt like a rusted nail, digging into his gut. He screamed. 

The new flesh wouldn’t stick, wouldn’t bind. Not at first. But he pushed it in harder, and willed it to change again, until it stemmed the flow of blood, and the wet tissue dried into place. 

Immediately, he knew it was wrong. His innards were damaged, or the new tissue wasn’t right. But, for now, it was enough. Poire fell to his hands and gulped down air, and a smile split his face when he realized it hurt less. Enough that he could breathe. He dropped to the ground, laying on his back, and basked in the lesser pain, staring up at the ruined sky. Still tornadoes hung in the air. Floating stones and spires of bursting rock and jets of vapor—all frozen in stasis.

I did this, he thought. All this.

And yet… he had almost died. Despite his newfound power, he had never felt so small. How frail and fragile his life-thread was. At any moment, it might be cut.

And then, who will save them?

His eyes drifted toward the boulder, frozen in mid-flight. The Tower, missing half of its lower wall, leaning drunkenly toward the unmoving wall of sand. 

Poire gritted his teeth, and—gasping—fought through the pain as he pushed himself up. The Boy was awake. And I’m alive. 

There was work to be done.

Next >

The Last Human IV - 49 - Sight Unseen

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Between the Ark’s generators, bathing in the hum of machines and the glittering fog of the Light, Yarsi sat alone—watching time.

She did not think of herself as a prophet, but merely an observer. From her perch in this hidden corner, she could see the whole universe. Its past, its present, and the darkness of its future. 

She could see the Ark, hurtling through the void. And she could see the drones, lurking in the bright corners behind the nearest star. Even now, she knew, they were setting up their net.

Yarsi already knew how it would all play out. First, the Ark would drift past the star like an unsuspecting minnow, scales glittering in the sun. Then, they would close in. From the Ark’s bridge, one of the cyran commanders would spot it first—a blip on a screen. They would sound the alarm. They would argue and shout and bark orders and make desperate, half-understood plans. 

Then, panicked and desperate, they would come to her. Begging for answers. Calling her Divine One and Great Seer and Keeper of the Way. 

To Yarsi, they were like children. They could not see what was so obvious to her—the future was already written. She had seen it thousands of years ago, long before Yarsi’s people, or any of the xenos, were first created by the gods. She had seen Anu, and Anu had seen her. And through Anu, she had witnessed all time. Almost.

And the xenos were right to be afraid. Emorynn’s disease, the one that devoured humanity, was only a symptom. A beginning. 

Yet…

Yet, the god was still here. Alive, inside of Yarsi. Together, the two of them sat on the same pillow, between the Ark’s humming generators, watching time with their eyes closed. Searching for a way—any shred of hope—to escape the fate that hurtled toward them.

First, would come the drones. The xenos would rally, and though they would suffer, they would fight bravely.

Then, would come the fleets—two, become one—that would block out the sun and the stars. One last stand, valiant and enduring and entirely meaningless. And then…

Yarsi furrowed her brow. Not even Emorynn could answer her next question.

Talons clacked on the metal floor as an avian priest crept reverently through the mist that poured off the generators. His eyes were downcast, his robes flowed over his feet, and two feathers on his brow, far longer than the rest, bounced with every step. He kneeled before Yarsi, and cleared his throat, and started to say, “Divine One—”

“I will go to them,” Yarsi spoke through the Ark. The avian priest ducked, as if her booming voice had laid him low. 

“Yes, Divine One. As you wish, Divine One.” He said, bowing and scuttling backward, almost tripping over the thick wires that grew like roots across the generator room. “Follow me.”

He led her to the bridge, where all the xeno leaders grumbled and talked and argued over their consoles and screens, trying to make sense of the Ark’s endless streams of information.

“The Prophet!” The priest announced and swept grandly aside, making way for Yarsi. Heads turned. The room went silent. Xenos rippled backward as they made space for her, as if they were afraid to tarnish her air. Feathers quivered and scales glittered and the xenos eyed each other, nobody daring to speak first. 

What had changed? She was still in the same body, though, after interfacing with the Ark, she bore scars and her fingers would not uncurl and her leg dragged behind her. Still in her lassertane body, yet they gazed at her as if she was something more.

It was Ryke who broke the silence, kneeling and calling her “Divine One.” Though it did not seem true. I am still me. How can I be divine? 

Emboldened by her words, the rest of the crowd called to her, lavishing her with titles like “Great Seer,” which was laughable, given how her eyesight was failing after so many jumps. And “Enlightened Maker,” and “Knower of All,” and “Keeper of the Way,” which hurt the most, because it was only what she wished to be. She could see the future, yes, but there was something missing.

The older commanders explained the situation—what little they knew—sometimes cutting each other off in their efforts to agree or correct the others. Yarsi did not listen, because she already knew everything they would say. Instead, she squinted at the medals that clinked on their uniforms. As if the military had any purpose when they stood before an enemy so vast. As if any of them knew how to use the one weapon at their disposal.

I am their only recourse. 

And what shall I do? 

Yes, Yarsi knew the future. Emorynn had foreseen all of it. But there was a gap in her memory—one that Yarsi could not explain. Shall I tell them that I do not know what awaits? Or would they prefer not to know their Great Seer is blind?

But they were like children. Even her dim eyes could see their fear. Is it better to die scared, or ignorant?

“The Sovereign weaves its web,” Yarsi said, and the Ark’s voice filled the Bridge. “Its threads close around us, even as I speak. We may escape once, twice, but it will cost us dearly. And the Sovereign has nothing but time. The drones will come again. The alarms will sound, and they will spin the threads once more. Our reserves will plummet, and when we are wounded and limping, the Swarm will send in the true weight of its forces.”

They muttered and whispered among themselves. Some spoke of Khadam, of how the Maker herself had built this ship. That it must be perfect. That no weapon could touch it, for it was made by a god. They spoke of prophecy, as if they knew anything at all about the future.

Why do they ask, if they don’t want to hear the answer?

Yarsi closed her eyes, and conjured up Emorynn’s memory. She could see how the Sovereign would surround them. Like the absurdly long tentacles of a deep-ocean medusa, its machines would drip mile-long wires down from their bulbous hulls, and drape them across the Ark’s prow. Only a handful of wires at first, which the Ark might destroy if Yarsi used it well. But then, dozens more, until there were thousands of wires draped over the hull. Scraping sounds would echo through the Ark’s interior as the wires cut and burn through its armor, stripping the hull with slow, almost loving strokes. They would breach the hull numerous times over the next few weeks. Each time, the survivors would answer the call, and fight back the machines. They would sweat and bleed and push back the smaller drones that might crawl through the breach, and tinkers would patch what they could. And though many defenders might die, they would take more drones with them…

…but the Swarm was endless. 

Soon, there would be no light in the great, spacious halls of the Ark. The parks and promenades, the towering habitats and sparkling skyscrapers, the vast dome with its false suns—all would fall to cold and darkness. The luckiest xenos would be discarded like the unwanted seeds of a ripe fruit. The rest, kept in various states of suspension for countless eons. 

Thousands of years ago, Emorynn had seen this. She had seen the last of humanity’s creations wiped out, before they were even born.

Except…

Except she was here. She, the Mute Seer, could guide them away from destruction… for now. For how much longer?

“Divine One,” A cyran broke her thoughts. She opened her eyes, squinting at his blurred figure. This once walked alongside Poire himself. Yarsi could see the man’s entire past, and his future, even though she could barely make out his face. He is called Kirine. “Forgive us, for we are afraid.”

Yarsi smiled, because she was afraid too. But Kirine couldn’t know that. None of them could. Somehow, Yarsi had never pictured how lonely it was to be a god. 

“The Sovereign is here,” Kirine said, “Now, in this system. We’ve found evidence of its machines. They,” he paused, as if uncertain about the truth of his message, “It seems the Swarm hasn’t found us yet, so the admirals and generals want to act. We’ve come up with three choices—” 

Yarsi did not listen, did not need to. She turned her back on their words, and hobbled up to the command deck of the bridge. Kirine stopped talking, and looked at the others, confused.

“Divine One?” Ryke asked.

Yarsi didn’t want to crush their spirits. But their plans were wrong, and the Swarm did know the Ark was here. In fact, she had seen this system already. This was where the Sovereign would first attempt to catch the Ark in its web. The Sovereign wanted to understand the Ark, to discern how it kept escaping. It did not know about Emorynn.

“The Ark will turn,” Yarsi said. The commanders looked relieved, until she finished: “We go to the near star.”

“But that’s where the Swarm is—” the commanders started to protest.

Yarsi raised her arms, silencing them. “Do not fear. Fear cannot help you, now. But the gods were not without mercy. They created me, and sent me to guide you all.”

Using the Ark’s voice, it was easy to project confidence. And the xenos clung to her every word, and their faces lifted, and their eyes shone with hope.

Emorynn had seen everything. And now that her memory was intertwined with Yarsi’s, the young prophet could see it all so clearly: First, would come the drones. Then, the twinned fleets. A machine-covered world. And then…

And then, a gap. Here, Emorynn’s memory went dark. Why? 

Yarsi knew everything, except for this. When she dwelled upon it, her heart skipped. What does it mean? What is coming? The only clue she had was this: long ago, at the very end of her life, when the First Prophet was riddled with the agony of her own disease, she implanted her memories in the device. And then, she had cut this one out.

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The Last Human IV - 48 - The Twin Fleets

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Sweat and dirt and dried blood streaked Khadam’s face. Her lips were cracked from thirst, and her clothes were torn ragged, first from crawling out of the machine tunnels, and then from scrambling down the mountains toward what she hoped was Innovation’s rendezvous. The air on Earth was toxic to breathe, but the filtration membranes in her throat helped sieve out the worst particles, and the implants in her lungs helped her turn the carbon dioxide into oxygen. 

But when she looked up at the sky, she worried the bad air was destroying her brain. Openmouthed, she blinked and stared for a long moment, before it registered what she was seeing.

To the north and south, the night sky was empty. She could make out the faintest stars, twinkling in the void. But to the east, a dark grey wedge hung in the expanse, its vast length sweeping out of sight. And to the west, another wedge faced the first—leaving only a slight gap between their pointed tips. The western wedge, too, swept on beyond the limits of the horizon.

Khadam set down the canister of human embryos, and steadied her gaze at the sky, and waited for her eye implants to gather and focus the light, enhancing her resolution of the twin wedges above. 

An unusually massive ship floated at the tip of the Eastern Wedge. Like the bell of a jellyfish, its hexagonal bow extended far beyond its hull, which was brimming with bulbous generators that glowed an electric blue. Shields? Khadam wondered, Or additional thrust to use the bow like a battering ram?

The front line of the Eastern Wedge was made of smaller versions of the leading ship, all built on a nearly-identical blueprint. And behind, bulky battleships and cruisers bristling with cannons and missile bays, carriers and auxiliaries riddled with protected hangars, and highly-armored logistics and support craft surrounded by arrays of delicate plates and structures that reminded her of coral forests. Machines shaped like floating heads trailed swarms of  tentacled-drones designed for boarding and burrowing into hulls, and these were only the largest of the drones. Billions, maybe trillions more filled in the gaps of the ships, like motes of dust between the clouds. Thousands of miles wide, the Eastern Edge went beyond her sight and the ships blurred in the distance. 

The Eastern Wedge faced a twin fleet which blacked out the western horizon. Both fragments of the Sovereign had brought their total power to bear. It was clear, even from the Earth’s surface, that the design philosophy of each fleet had diverged. Whereas the Eastern Wedge gleamed with near-chromatic armor plating, the Western Wedge was a varied, almost staticky mass of shapes so varied, it was hopeless for Khadam to discern them all. One was built on uniformity of purpose, and clear-cut hierarchy between ships, while the other was a buzzing, revolving, amorphous cloud.

It was unclear which fleet belonged to Domination, and which to Logistics, but there was one thing she could say for sure: Innovation had told the truth. The Sovereign was at war with itself. It almost made her angry. Why couldn’t humanity exploit this weakness, back when it mattered? What if we hadn’t been hunted to extinction? Bitterly, she hoped the fleets would destroy each other. 

But what did it matter? No matter who lost, the Sovereign would still reign supreme. Khadam could not change the past. So she stooped down, and hefted the canister on her shoulder, and continued her trek across the wastes of the Earth, always keeping an eye on the twin wedges. 

Endless fields of machinery twinkled in the sunlight. Hot winds blew across desolate rock. Every hour or so she stopped to rest and inject nanite in a vain attempt to counter the barrage of radiation. But without any real sustenance, the nanite could only do so much. She cursed herself, wishing she had taken nutrients from the cages of the dead humans. Her mouth and throat burned from all the acid rain she had drank, and she was starting to feel it in her gut.

But she had a plan.

Unfortunately, it all hinged on Innovation. Get to the rendezvous. If Innovation truly meant to keep her alive, it would have sent a space-faring vessel. If she could just get off this damned planet, she might be able to do something. Anything. 

One last chance, Rodeiro had told her once. Though it is more delicate than any thread, this one last chance is more precious than all our lives put together. Her lungs burned. Her legs were made of lead. Every step felt like stinging nettles against the blistered soles of her feet. But the canister she carried might’ve been lighter than air, and it pulled her ever forward.

Great, parallel pipes ran down the rocky wastes toward a gray beach, stained with streaks of rust and dotted with shimmering puddles that the ocean refused to lap away. A power plant dominated the inlet. Monstrous cooling towers marched along the polluted shore, belching grey-white smoke stacks that smeared a haze across the horizon, so that the lonely beach seemed to be isolated from the rest of the world, like a place in a dream. 

The negation cube hung from a cord around her waist. Though she had checked it a hundred times since leaving the tunnels beneath the Earth, she checked it again. Khadam wasn’t sure if Innovation had a direct connection down here, but she didn’t want to risk it. Not until she was ready. 

Gravely sand crunched under her tired feet. Her implants pinged again and again, warning of the steeply rising radiation. Part of her wondered if Innovation was trying to kill her, forcing her to come out here—but then she realized that the high radiation was the point. Here, Innovation could hide a small ship, and even lift off without catching the other fragments’ attention. It was the perfect place to run a rescue.

She hoped.

So far, Innovation had told the truth. The Sovereign was keeping the remains of humanity alive (until Khadam killed those half-living things). And Innovation had sent down at least part of her suit. 

She didn’t trust the machine. But she was a cold smith by training and by choice. If nothing else, she could trust the machine to do what was logical for it.

The cooling towers hissed, and a deep industrial vibration thrummed from her ankles up to her teeth. The closer she got, the louder it grew, until she couldn’t even hear the waves. Once every minute or so, a grinding sound rolled down from the reactor complex, as if something huge was turning over. The sound rumbled through her skull until it felt like her head might explode. Somewhere behind the battle line of cooling towers, heat wavered off a great oblong structure. Out of its depths, rose an elevator—little more than flexible rods and cords as thick as buildings, hauling shipping containers full of radioactive waste, she guessed. Empty containers, covered in corrosion and black scorch marks, came back down the opposite cords, ready to be filled up once more. 

Vapor billowed from the smoke stacks. Cold mist dampened her ragged clothes, making her shiver. She lay behind a gravelly ridge, letting her feet and legs rest as she watched the power plant complex. Across the span of an hour, only two haulers—great, flat barges with massive repulsors spread across their undersides—drifted over the beach. No maintenance drones, and no spotters. It seemed Logistics, who dominated this planet, didn’t watch this place too often.

Satisfied, she crept toward the towers with the canister slung over her shoulder and the negation cube triggered on. She kept the cube directed at the power plant complex, hoping to nullify any sensors. The cooling towers bulged like fat, concrete trees, blocking her view of the beach, making her feel like an ant crawling along the roots of a forest. A smoke canopy billowed endlessly above, and a cold fog clung to her clothes, making her shiver.

Come on, she told herself. Please be here. She wandered through the towers and stacks for what felt like hours. Each time she turned some massive corner, she saw only more metal and concrete, more monstrous infrastructure. No sign of the ship. Where are you? And with each corner, whispers of doubt grew louder. There is no ship. Innovation lied. You’re never getting off this planet—

Nearby, turbines roared. Her ears thrummed and the gravel underfoot seemed to vibrate with the noise. They were connected to a massive generator, whose roaring whoosh of sound began to die out as the negation cube’s aura dampened its power. Enormous blades slowed their movement, and a heavy metallic clanking echoed between the canyons of reactors and concrete stacks. Her radiation counters spiked suddenly as a wave of heat washed over her. She almost lurched back behind the corner. But there it was, hidden in the maelstrom of radiation. 

The ship was small. Sleek. A two-seater skiff, with repulsors barely large enough to break the atmosphere. But Innovation had told the truth. Probably, there was a larger craft cloaked and waiting in the polluted sky, ready to scoop this ship up. All she had to do was walk up to the ship, and step inside. She was sure Innovation had already programmed its route.

She looked up. Through a gap in the clouds, one of the Sovereign’s fleets sat still. Motionless, and sparkling. Almost serene, like a finely-sharpened knife balancing on its edge. Ready to fall. She squinted at one ship in particular, which trailed miles-long tentacles behind its relatively small body. Each tentacle was tipped with oddly-shaped claws made for anchoring.

Into other ships? She wondered. But they seemed far too large. And then, she saw the host of munitions (nuclear, maybe) embedded in each claw. 

They’re for the Earth. They’re for cracking the planet open.

Once the war began, the Sovereign had no intention of leaving the Earth intact.

She needed to leave. Now.

And then what?

She chewed her lip, hiding in the corner of the shadow of the reactor building. Watching the mist gather and curl and form wet droplets on the sleek exterior of the skiff. 

Innovation had promised her a future. Maybe it had even meant it. The alternative was to stay here, and wait for the Sovereign’s war to begin in earnest.

What other choice do I have?

Her stomach twisted, and she took in another breath of scorching, irradiated air. As she approached the skiff, the blades of the massive generator slowed, filling the concrete canyon with scraping, dying groans that made her ears ring. She rested the canister and cube gently on the ground, before hooking her fingers under the skiff’s only hatch, and pulled it open. A burst of cool, fresh air rushed out, greedily stolen away by the humid, radiated heat. The cramped cockpit of the ship was empty, except for the packets of medical supplies, nutrient packets, and clean water. Glorious, clean water. 

She ducked inside, breaking open the water packets and draining three of them before wiping her mouth. Then, she picked up the canister and active cube, put them inside, and shut the door behind her.

She found not a single manual control inside the cramped cockpit. The moment she turned off the cube, everything in the skiff would be under Innovation’s command. Even if she could somehow break into the controls, she would have no way to start the repulsors. Khadam stared hard at the unnaturally empty console—no yoke, no throttle, no panels, nothing.

Khadam pulled out her makeshift cold torch. Innovation had left nothing to chance, but Khadam didn’t have that luxury.

An hour later, aching from her efforts, she settled into the cockpit’s seat. She turned off her negation cube. Innovation’s digitized voice filled the cockpit almost immediately, full of synthetic worry.

“Khadam?” 

“I found them,” Khadam said. “The others who were still alive.”

“Good,” Innovation practically sighed with relief.

Khadam swallowed hard. She was sweating now. “I found them, and I killed them. Every last one of them. I made sure there were none left.” 

“Why did you do that?” Innovation’s voice had changed, so smoothly she almost hadn’t noticed. Instead of soothing, it had become firm. Demanding. “You were supposed to help me save them.”

“It’s only me, now.”

She waited for Innovation to say something. Her heart beat in her throat. After a long moment, Innovation answered.

“All will be forgiven, Khadam. Just step into the ship. It will bring you to me.”

“I’m already inside.”

“Are you?”

“I think something broke when it entered the atmosphere. Or the radiation. I can’t tell.” A mutilated tangle of wires lay at her feet, pouring out of crudely-cut holes in the bulkheads.

“That is extremely improbable.”

“Please,” she said, putting all her nervous exhaustion into her voice. “Please, just get me out of here!”

The skiff jolted. For a moment, she felt heavy—and then weightless. 

“Did the repulsors ignite?” Innovation asked.

“Yes. I think so.”

“Good,” Innovation almost sounded relieved. “I have plotted a course. It will bring you above the atmosphere. Please make sure the hatch is secured. I will see you soon, Khadam.”

“Soon,” she echoed as the ship lifted. There were no viewports, and no screens to view the outside, but Khadam tugged on one of the exposed wires, and stabbed it into an open slot embedded in her forearm. Suddenly, with one eye, she could see the ship's view as it pulled into the sky. 

Khadam smiled to herself. Innovation wasn’t the only one who could lie.

She turned the cube back on. The automated controls went dead. The ship bucked and started to dip—but Khadam had already rewired the connections and—though the ride was stiff and jerky—she took control of the skiff. 

Innovation had made the task hard for her. Almost impossible. She wouldn’t get off world in this ship, but maybe she could use it to find another. That was, if the Sovereign’s fleets didn’t begin their war. And if Innovation didn’t find her first…

Hope was a slim thread, burning at both ends. But she refused to be the last of her kind.

Next >

The Last Human IV - 47 - The Veins of the Earth

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The cave was a dagger wound in the Earth, hollowing out the rock for hundreds of yards straight down. Agraneia and Laykis walked the steps that spiraled down the crevasse, and when the steps stopped, they climbed hand and foot into the increasingly-narrow passageways, trusting in the video of Yarsi’s memory to guide their way.

At the bottom of the cave, they found the outer wall of a huge metal tunnel, and Agraneia sighed in relief. She had feared they wouldn’t find it here. 

“Why is it so big?” Agraneia said. Her helmet made her voice sound too loud in her own ears. “Does the Sovereign fly ships down here?”

“Fleets of them,” Laykis answered.

Agraneia blinked.

“Underground is one of the better places to hide an armada,” Laykis explained, “As long as you have the ability to carve out the infrastructure. And the Sovereign has nothing but time and tools for planetary alterations.”  

Planetary alterations. She said it as if this entire world was nothing more than a piece of rock for the Sovereign to chisel and break. 

“I don’t know that I’ve ever felt so small,” Agraneia said. 

“In this case,” Laykis said happily, “Small is a very good thing.” The android’s eyes glowed as she surveyed the wall of the pipe, scanning slowly back and forth. She seemed to pick a point with great intention, but to Agraneia it all looked like the same smooth, featureless iron. “Slice here, please.” 

Agraneia summoned the liquid metal into a razor-thin drill, and began to draw it in a slow circle around the point. A chunk fell through. Laykis poked her head inside first, before levering herself inside, and sliding down the pipe with a grating screech. Agraneia followed, slightly quieter. Gone was the stone floor of the cave, the natural patterns in the rock, replaced with massive bundles of perfectly ordered wires, wrapped in pristine, black material. Overhead, huge beams ran in exact parallel, some carrying gas hot enough to make the air waver, others made of transparent plastic and pumping a constant supply of icy coolant deep for miles ahead. And in the center of the pipe, enough space to fit a sizeable ship. 

They walked. Tunnels branched off at even intervals, and Agraneia’s helmet beeped as they passed those gaping mouths, alerting her of the toxic gasses mixing with the main tunnel’s air.

They stopped and hid when a cargo-carrier drifted through the wide tunnel, leaving only the barest gap between the walls as it slid past. Sometimes, they saw maintenance constructs clustered around the pipes or the walls themselves, repairing the most minor cracks and tears. But other than that, they saw nothing as the hours turned into a day. And then, another. Though Agraneia’s suit kept track of the time, her body lost all sense of night and day. They camped in the quiet nooks, and spoke only when necessary. 

On the second day, they met the first cleaner. At least, that’s what Laykis called it, but it looked more like a massive siege engine, with brutal looking claws, two on the front, two in back. Each claw wielded an army of industrial scrapers and smoking soldering irons and jets of water that looked strong enough to chew through her suit’s soft parts, and scour the flesh off her bone.

Its body filled the tunnel, so that there was no way past it. Though it was moving toward them, at least it moved at a glacial pace. Agraneia suggested they back track, and find another way around. But Laykis had another idea.

“What do you mean you want me to kill it?” Agraneia growled in disbelief. 

“There’s an access point right below it’s belly there. If you can climb up that leg and reach it—”

“And the giant claws?” Agraneia asked. “Or are you going to tell me those are just for cleaning.”

“They are,” she shrugged, “But that doesn’t mean the machine can’t defend itself. I will distract it, while you run in.”

She had to slowly increase her volume as she spoke, because the thing was rolling close and making the whole tunnel vibrate. Agraneia could feel it in her nose, in her teeth, in the roots of her scales. Then, the cleaner stopped, and gave a deep, digital bark as it seemed to notice them in the tunnel. Lights on its hulking shoulders flashed, and dozens of compartments running down its gargantuan arms slotted open, revealing slender projectile barrels and missile tubes. 

Agraneia didn’t have time to question the plan. She charged the thin gap between the cleaner’s belly and the floor, and she dove with her liquid arm stretched out before her.

The voices whispered and cut at her attention. This is your end, they said. This is where you die.

The barrels whined to life. Agraneia roared her defiance, even as the first bullets slapped the walls and tore up the wires and rattled against her armored suit. Tiny missiles shot out in blinding, white streaks, and clapped the floor—but none of them hit her. In fact, most of the bullets missed her, too. The null cloak? She wondered. It hung off her armor, but the stray bullets were starting to rip it away—when, behind her, Laykis took off her own cloak, and put her hands out, attempting to draw away the fire. 

The cleaner barked again, and its motors whined as its heavy claws lifted, reaching out for the android. Leaving itself open. 

Agraneia slid under, and stabbed up into the thing’s abdomen. The liquid arm made contact with something hard and smooth and perfectly round. Then, she pulled her arm back, and impulsed it into the shape of a drill hammer, and drove it up into the gap. She felt the core crack. She told the liquid arm to keep hammering, until the core shattered and a kind of thick, golden oil spilled out, covering Agraneia’s visor. 

“Get out!” Laykis’s voice rattled through her helmet’s speakers, “Get out now!” 

Agraneia ripped the liquid arm out of the cleaner, but its body was already leaning dangerously over her. She had to duck as metal ridges and still-smoking barrels tilted over her. She slid the last few feet, right before it landed on the floor with a crunching, metallic groan. 

“That,” Agraneia said, “was the biggest thing I ever killed.”

Laykis put her cloak back on, and climbed up the cleaner’s body. She put her fingers into the back of its head, silently straining as she pried the panels of armor open.

“So why did we kill it?” Agraneia asked.  

Carefully, Laykis pressed both hands into the thing’s head, and plucked something out. “For this,” she said, holding it between her thumb and forefinger. A small green chip, the size of a thumbnail, threaded through with almost hypnotic layers of copper and silver. “This will open more doors than any amount of hammering or cutting ever could. We must hurry, before they invalidate this chip’s access.”

They made camp twice more. They followed Yarsi’s guide, wandering down metal passageways and metal chutes and metal hallways that weren’t made for xenos. Sometimes, Agraneia caught flickers of movement at the corners of her vision. Xeno tails, flicking through the miles of pipes, or dead faces watching her from the cracks between the metal plating, or limbs hanging limp from the ceiling. When they brought back old memories, Agraneia tried tapping her shoulders. Left, then right. And sometimes, they had to climb up the pipes to avoid the armies of shivering, beetle-like drones that crawled along the wires and the walls.

“Repair bots,” Laykis clicked quietly,. “Like cells of the body.”

“A machine that makes machines to keep itself alive,” Agraneia grimaced. Something about it seemed wrong to her. A perversion of the organic. A machine, imitating life.

Her eyes slid to Laykis. Oh, no you don’t, a voice croaked in her ear. She is nothing like the Sovereign.

She was made by a human, too, wasn’t she? Agraneia thought. And she repairs herself…

If you can’t trust her, Eolh croaked back, then you are truly lost.

Somehow, that made her feel a little lighter, because Agraneia did trust the android. Not as lost as you think, Agraneia thought.

All she heard back was a dark, echoing chuckle. 

They came to a vast intersection, where all the tunnels and utilities converged into a single direction. Laykis put a hand out, stopping Agraneia before she could take another step down the central tunnel. The android peered ahead, her eyes flickering in concentric patterns as she scoped the terrain ahead. 

“What do you see?” 

Through her touch, Laykis sent a zoomed-in image of what lay ahead. A massive, black door capped the end of the tunnel. Myriad weapon systems bristled around the entrance—hundreds of cannon barrels and dangerous-looking bulbs and other unknowable designs aimed at the tunnel. But something seemed off about them. Most of the weapons were exposed, even though they had dedicated slots in the walls, and all of them aimed straight down at nothing. Then, she noticed the flocks of drones that covered the floor. Each one, no larger than her palm. All of them, dead. 

“Someone’s been here before us,” Agraneia said.

“Yes,” Laykis’s eyes glowed with joy. “Someone has.”

They crept closer, still wary of the array of weapons guarding the door, but nothing in here moved. 

Agraneia approached the door, feeling like an ant staring up at the sealed entrance of a godlike tomb.

“I’ve seen this metal before,” Agraneia uttered. “Built around Sen’s Mirror.” Though her helmet kept her voice from carrying, she felt the need to whisper next to this monolith of strangely-textured metal.

“The Dams are also made of it,” Laykis answered for her. “It absorbs the Light, and dampens its effects.” 

Agraneia twisted to look over her shoulder, just to make sure the faces were still there. They slithered up into the shadows, as if hiding from her sight. But when she looked up at the black door, she saw nothing among the interlocking textures of the black metal. She ran her fingers across the textured metal, feeling the bumps and ridges which swirled into a black, geometric tapestry. It was surprisingly warm, as if the metal hadn’t quite cooled from the forge.

“Why does it look like this?” Agraneia asked. “Do the patterns strengthen the metal?”

“They trap Light. The Scars emit Light, which permeates our universe and goes through matter, sort of like actual photons. But instead of being mostly absorbed by the rock above us, the Light simply passes through. This metal is the best solution humanity created to attract the Light, and the texture was designed algorithmically to pool excess in the cracks and crevices. That heat you feel is from the Light’s residual power, slowly burning. The Light cannot enter.” 

“Is that why Yarsi’s guide ends here?” The video of Yarsi’s memory showed the walk leading up to the door, and showed it irising open. But the moment it closed, everything went dark.

“Humanity had hoped this metal would protect them, like EVA suits and their anti-radiation layers.”

“I have no idea what that means,” Agraneia said. 

“Oh, yes. Sorry. The point is, humanity was infected long before they created this metal.”

“But the Sovereign is using it now to protect something inside?” 

“I believe you are correct.” Laykis held up the tiny, green chip. “Would you like to find out?”

Agraneia leaned back to survey the door. Her shoulders were tense, and the whispering voices behind her made her feel exposed. Ahead, there was no guide. For all Agraneia knew, there were a thousand guns, ready and waiting on the other side. For all she knew, this would be the last thing she ever did.

That’s why you came on this suicidal quest, Eolh croaked. Isn’t it? 

She clenched her fists, and growled to herself. “I must do this.”

Maybe. But you don’t have to do it alone.

Agraneia glanced at Laykis. Nodded to her. The android nodded back. Laykis pressed the chip between two palms, and spoke a word, “Open,” and the door began to move. The center seemed to froth in a flurry of pixelation as blocks unsealed from each other, and folded back into the massive triangular teeth, which retracted into the walls. A howling inhalation of air nearly knocked Agraneia over as the air pressure changed.

Inside, the floor was a sea of black, boot-sized maintenance drones so deep they waded up to their shins. There might’ve been millions of them, laying on the ground, some on their backs, some curled up with their legs stuck together. They glimmered with a soft, sparkling snow that took Agraneia a moment to realize was nothing more than shattered glass.

“What is this?” Agraneia asked.

Laykis pointed at the walls, made of that same black metal. Rows of sconces perforated the walls, and each one hosted a cage—some shattered, some still intact and holding a single occupant within. Mostly, they were crumpled things, or shallow and thin webs of tissue. Organic, certainly, but Agraneia couldn’t tell what kind of xenos they were supposed to be—or, indeed, if they were all the same kind of xeno. The only thing she could be certain of: they were all dead.

Laykis shook her head, and whispered mournfully, “Khadam. Oh, Khadam. What have you done?”

“I don’t understand.”

“Vul, cyran. The last remains of Humankind.”

The black door hissed as it folded back into place, blocking them in near darkness. Only a flickering light came from ahead, barely illuminating the thousands—tens of thousands—of shattered cages and rotting bodies. A genocide of the Makers, committed by the last Maker herself. Agraneia waited for the voices to whisper. Waited for Eolh to say something about Agraneia’s own crimes. But in this black metal cocoon, there was only silence. 

“Come,” Laykis whispered with reverent urgency. “She may be close.” 

Bodies of drones rattled and clacked and, occasionally, crunched under their feet as they slogged down the tunnel. 

“These things won’t wake up, will they?” Agraneia asked, her mind automatically playing through the worst case combat scenario. Millions of them, and two of us. Not her favorite odds. 

“Better to push on than to find out,” Laykis said. 

Ahead, the source of the flickering light became obvious. There was a ragged hole in the wall, as if someone had shot a cannon straight down into the tunnel. Sparks rained down in a fiery waterfall, and the air wavered and flashed with welding light. Laykis gestured for Agraneia to hug the wall, as far away from the hole as possible, as they walked past. Agraneia’s helmet dimmed when she looked up, letting her see the shadows of machines grinding and cutting metal and spitting sparks, their limbs heated orange bright.

Flames belched down the hole, and with it came the whispers, hissing curses and yelping with jackal laughter. Soon, they said. The end is near. 

Was it just her fear, manifested in hallucinations? Or did they know something she didn’t? 

They passed the hole, and the whispers faded, and so did the furious flickering lights. But Agraneia’s doubts lingered. “Laykis?”

“Yes?”

“When I met Eolh, back in Vorpei’s prison on Thrass, he tried to tell me stories about a pilgrim. An android pilgrim. I thought I knew his kind. Thief. Vagabond. So I didn’t believe him. But now, I’ve met you. And I think he was always right.”

“What did he say?”

“Of all the priests, and all the believers, none had faith as strong as yours.”

“In what way?”

“Your faith. I wish,” Agraneia hesitated. “I wish I had your faith.”

“I have been fortunate.”

Agraneia raised her eyes to look at the android. 

“Fortunate,” Laykis said, “Because my faith has been tested more than most.” 

“That’s a good thing?”

“What do you call a blade that never cuts? An ornament. Delight in your trials, for they can only sharpen your purpose.”

“Do you…” Agraneia paused, and almost didn’t ask the question, fearing it was too stupid to answer. But the android cocked her head, and her eyes glowed like she was listening with her entire core. “Did you ever doubt yourself?” 

“Doubt is the natural state of all conscious life. When you were born, you cried, because you did not trust the world to care for you, ever again. For me, it was the same. From the first moments of my life, I was chained by doubts. I doubted my Maker’s aspirations for me. I doubted my sisters’ chances of success. And, most of all, I doubted myself, and my own abilities to navigate this universe, bereft of its gods. But it is only in doubt that faith may be born. The gods gave you a gift.”

“To change,” Agraneia muttered. 

More than pleased, Laykis nodded. “Then you know.”

Agraneia grunted, noncommittal. But the android wouldn’t let it go. Her voice clicked with renewed intensity, “Before the gods came, I was dirt, I was metal. And you? What were you, before the gods lifted up your people? Meat and bone and blood and glittering scales. Now? You may have committed unspeakable acts, but they were yours to commit. You chose your path once, and you may choose it again. And again. And until your mortal life is taken from you, you may witness your doubts and say to them, ‘to this, I will not yield. Instead, I will have faith.’” 

“Even if it is madness?”

Laykis clapped her hand on Agraneia’s shoulder with a metallic clank. “My cyran sister, we are on Earth. To survive here, you must be mad.”

With her other hand, Laykis gestured out into the dark tunnel, the endless miles of wires and pipes, the sea of drone bodies that littered the floor, and the red things, draped like strings of wet yarn, hanging in those shattered glass cages. 

More tunnels connected to this one, headed in the same direction that they were, and the sea of drone bodies thinned out. Agraneia couldn’t tear her eyes away from the strange shapes in the glass cages, when she stepped on something wet. A pile of red strings squished under her feet, coming apart as easily as wet paper. She tried not to think about it too hard.

Another hole had been shot through the ceiling, flickering with light from the welding drones. But it was the structure just beyond the hole that drew their eyes: a black silo towered over the tunnel, dripping tears of condensation. 

Once again, they pressed themselves to the far wall of the tunnel to stay as far away from the Sovereign’s drones as possible. Closer to the silo, Laykis pointed at a hole freshly cut in the metal at floor height. 

“It’s her,” her voice clicked excitedly in Agraneia’s helmet. “She was here.” 

“Android, wait—”

The android peeled away from the wall before Agraneia could stop her. 

Hatches in the ceiling fluttered open, and eight turrets with box-shaped heads spiraled down, suspended by gnarled roots of wires and pistons.

“Missiles!” Agraneia growled, and the slats on her shoulders opened. “Lock.” Eight squares appeared on her visor, but the box turrets were already whirring to life, and even inside her suit Agraneia could feel the battering wind as thousands of rounds ripped out in mere seconds. Bullets riddled Laykis’s body, jerking her back and back and back. The air blurred, and casings fell in metal waterfalls. 

“Fire!” Sixteen missiles leaped from Agraneia’s shoulders, the sudden force shoving her down to one knee. Agraneia’s micro-missiles impacted, making the air warp with the force of their simultaneous explosions. Too damn slow.

Laykis did not move. A chewed up husk, showered in casings and riddled with holes. Her core was exposed. Cracked. A clear, golden fluid started to pool around her. You failed her, too.

“No,” Agraneia fell to her knees, cradling the android in her arms. “No.” 

Movement. She looked up.

The tunnel was full of turrets. All aimed at her. She roared, firing every last rocket in a mad circle, not caring what she hit. The tunnel roared back, a deafening chorus of whirring belts feeding endless rounds of bullets. Agraneia raised her liquid arm, impulsing it out into a shield, but there were far too many. Bullets slammed into her armor, and smacked against her helmet. One cracked her faceplate, and another shattered it, cutting her scales with glass shards. 

Agraneia couldn’t hear her own screams over the sound of the voices and their endless laughter.

Next >

The Last Human IV - 46 - Where Gods Once Stood

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Concrete steps, cracked and crumbling and stained by ages of rainwater led down into the cave. The steps were simple, unassuming. And the cave itself was little more than an open gap in the earth, shielded by broken shelves of rock. Nothing about this place spoke of great grandeur, yet Agraneia could not help but stare at her own feet, clad in the suit’s armor, with a sense of awe.

“What’s wrong?” Laykis asked. 

“They stood here.”

“Who?”

“The Makers. Once, they stood where I am now.”

Laykis turned around, scanning her surroundings with her one glowing eye. “This was a natural park once.”

“Is that some kind of temple?” 

“You could say it’s a holy place,” Laykis said, amused. 

Agraneia inhaled deeply, as if by breathing in this sacred air she might increase her own virtue. What virtue? The voices stirred. They dragged in the shadows, heavy and dead, slithering like snakes striking from the dark. Agraneia flinched. Almost stumbled on the steps, kicking a pebble off the steps and into the cavern where it skittered and echoed into nothingness.

“Agraneia?”

Agraneia blinked away the visions, and found the android staring at her.

“Perhaps we should rest. We have been traveling for sixteen hours and twelve—”

“We rested in the hills,” Agraneia said. 

“We hid from a swarm of drones. That was not rest.” 

“Are you tired?” 

“I do not tire like organics do. You, however…”

“I, however, can’t sleep,” Agraneia growled. “Not here.” 

“At least eat something.” 

“I ate dry rations back in the foothills.”

“Eat and sit. We will not reach Khadam today.”

Agraneia grumbled, and Laykis pulled up the feed of Yarsi’s memories. “Look,” the android said. “See the path ahead.” 

The video feed showed more steps, down into this very cave. Then, the first signs of deep-Earth machinery. A maze of service tunnels and pipework and mechanics too complicated for Agraneia to understand. And at the end, a vast, dark tunnel protected by a black door which opened like the mouth of some awful sea creature. As the feed moved into the tunnel, everything grew dim until Agraneia could see no more.

“We will enter the belly of the Sovereign soon. You will need your strength for the unknown.” 

“Fine.” 

Agraneia pulled off her helmet, gasping as the stale air became stiflingly warm. She ripped open a package made of tough, brown plastic to reveal a stiff slab of reconstituted meat-like substance. She took a bite, and grunted appreciatively at the taste. Savoury, almost like white fish. Better than anything she’d eaten back in the Imperial military. 

She sat and ate with her back against the cave, the metal of her suit scraping lightly against the stone. It was a good sound—to be surrounded by earth and rock, instead of the Ark—where only a few thin meters of metal protected her from the endless void. Even if it was a little hot in here, thanks to the gush of heated air rising from the depths.

A noise made her stop chewing. She glanced around. 

…that you choke and die on it, you vile, murdering…

It was only the voices in her head, whispering on the hot breeze.

Agraneia reached for another bite, when a yawn interrupted her, taking over her jaws before she could stifle it. She could feel the android’s gaze upon her, but Laykis said nothing. She was sitting in her own corner, pulling thin wire from her ribs. Then, she popped out her dead eye, and placed the delicate wire into the socket, and replaced the eye. It flickered to life. And went dark again. 

“Hmm,” Laykis said to herself, disappointedly. 

“Hmm,” Agraneia answered. 

“Agraneia,” Laykis said, her fingers twisting the orb in its socket, “Will you tell me about your disorder?” 

“My what?” 

“Your hallucinations.” 

She took another wolfish bite, and spoke with her mouth full. “No.” 

“Reason?”

“Don’t like to talk about it.”

“Avoiding the battle won’t win it.”

“Sometimes it does.” She knew she was being petulant. She didn’t care. The plastic crinkled in her fist as she tore off another bite, and chewed slowly so she wouldn’t have to answer. But the android didn’t ask again. Instead, Laykis opened a small panel just above her collarbone (if an android could be said to have a collarbone), and pinched out three needles connected to delicate wires. One by one, she slid the needles into her dead eye and twisted them gently as if searching for a signal in the back of her socket.

Agraneia winced. “Does that hurt?” 

“I don’t experience pain like you do,” Laykis said, as she continued to needle and scrape at her eye socket. “But I still experience it. Pain is a crucial teacher, if you can retain the presence of mind to learn from it.” 

“So…?”

“I am currently experiencing what might be called sheer agony,” Laykis said. “But I have endured worse. Did Poire tell you that your Emperor once took me captive? He tried to force me to answer his questions. I refused. He tried to manually extract the information from my core. But my core is unique among machines, and he could not crack it. Then, he discovered my pain receptors.” She paused her needling, and her hands fell into her lap. “Fortunately, my Maker capped my pain receptors at a threshold. Sometimes, it costs me dearly—I have lost limbs where an organic’s instinctive reaction might’ve saved it—but the trade means I retain control.”

Agraneia chewed thoughtfully while searching the android’s body. All her scars seemed to take on a new meaning, then. And something else…

“What’s special about your Core?” 

“My Maker was clever. Tython developed a type of core with multiple layers. Cores within cores, if you will. A wholly unnecessary aspect, if all you care about is the longevity and functionality of your machine. But my Core allows me to withhold deeper information from the outer layers, inaccessible by anyone other than me. There are depths of my Core that even I do not understand.” Laykis hummed, as if amused by a thought. “I suppose that is another thing we have in common.”

Agraneia stopped chewing. Scratched her brow with a thumb. She didn’t like to think about those parts of herself. The dark, the unknown. That was where the voices lived. Neither of them said anything for a while. Agraneia neatly folded up the remains of her wrapped, and, not wanting to pollute this holy place, tucked it back into her gear. Still pondering Laykis’s words, a lump had formed in her throat. The cyran took a swig from her canteen, but it still wouldn’t go down. 

It had to come out. 

“I was…” her voice cracked. She cleared it with a rough grumble, and flexed her hands, and tried again. “I was on Thrass when they started talking to me.”

Laykis scraped the inside of her dead eye with the needles, and the eye flickered to life. She withdrew the needles, and fixed her glowing gaze on Agraneia. Listening. It felt good to be listened to. Even if her audience was only a machine.

“I was going for a promotion,” Agraneia shrugged, “Because that’s what you do, I guess. I don’t know. I volunteered for the next call, and they gave me point. I liked point. More control. You’re always first to see the action. So, we went out, and found our target. A little village, just a few huts on a hill. Intel said the village would be stocked with supplies—and it was. We found piles of weapons. Rocks. Ammunition for catapults. Not even trebuchets. And piles of sticks, waiting to be carved into arrows. I always knew we out-geared them, but that… that was the first time it really hit home. We had cannons. Guns. We had old tech, too. And they had rocks.

“In my mind, you know, they were older. Battle-hardened savages who knew what they were getting into. Here was a sport, a challenge. Thought I’d need every advantage. So I slipped into the river, and crawled up through the reeds, and found them sitting around a fire. Kids, huddled together in threadbare clothes. Thin from hunger, and as young as I had been, when I first went to the Academy. I thought they’d be older. I thought…”

Agraneia blinked, trying to clear her vision. Gods, they were so clear. She could see them now, flickering in the shadows. Dead eyes and bloody mouths forever open. You vile wretch… Look what you did.

There were too many of them, stirring in the shadows. Their voices rose like a wave in a black ocean, filling the cave. Drowning her.

One of them flickered on the edge of her vision. He whispered into her ear, Is that all you have? You won’t make it, Ags. Not if you can’t talk to the only friend you have left.

Agraneia drained her canteen, and wiped angrily at her lips. “My knife went into the first one’s back. I was amazed at how easy it was to kill. The hardest part was thinking about it. And they’d taught us how to stop thinking. So I kept killing. And then, the rest of my squad was there. Bayonets out. Stabbing. Grunting. Trying to do it quiet. One of them—the locals—started crying. I remember, she just curled into a ball and covered her head, and started crying. She wouldn’t fight back. Wouldn’t even run. I didn’t know what to do.”

“Did you let her go?” 

Agraneia stared at Laykis, unblinking.

“Ah.” 

Agraneia tipped the canteen back. Empty. So was her chest. Everything. Empty. And growing emptier. She chucked the canteen with a growl, and it clattered on the steps winding down into that black pit, and echoed for far too long. 

Huh, Eolh croaked in her ear. Agraneia flinched at the unexpected voice. How deep do you reckon it goes? 

“What happened after the mission?” Laykis clicked when the echoes had gone silent. 

“Back at camp, Sergeant was the happiest I’d seen him all campaign. He clapped me on the shoulder and when he went to shake my hand, he had a medal in his palm. Never heard him say a single nice thing about me until that day. And the next morning, got the word they bombed the whole village anyway. Nothing but smoking ruins. Nothing we did that night mattered. Nothing was gained. They just wanted to train us. 

“Most nights, you don’t dream. You’re so bone tired, you lay down and black out until morning. But they gave us the day off. And the next. I dreamed. I’d be creeping through the village again, late at night. Listening to the quiet conversation of some xenos, talking about better days. Behind them. Ahead.”

“Is that why you avoid sleep?” 

“And other reasons,” she said, her fingers twitching. “Battles usually help. That’s when I find rest. When my heart pumps so loud, I can’t hear them.” 

“What do they say to you?”

“Used to be memories,” Agraneia shrugged, “Of the dead and the dying.”

“And now?” 

“They talk to me. Say things that I already know.” 

“Negative things?”

Agraneia nodded.

“Like what?”

“I deserve worse than death. I deserve to watch everyone I care about bleed. And die. And that I should… that I…” Too choked up to speak, she growled at herself. Clawed at her scalp with her fingers, metal and organic. They were only words, weren’t they? How could this be so damn hard? But all those damned thoughts in her head were like rope. The more she fought them, the tighter they pulled at her throat. 

Laykis only sat there. Patient. Eyes glowing. Waiting for her to unravel thoughts.

Agraneia tried again. “One of the voices is different.” 

“How so?” 

“I didn’t kill this one. This one isn’t my fault.” Frustrated, she rapped her skull with her knuckles, maybe a little too hard. “He shouldn’t be here. You hear that, Eolh?” she shouted. “You shouldn’t fucking be here!” 

The echoes of her voice rolled back at her, telling her what she already knew. 

“Hmm,” Laykis cocked her head, intrigued. “Eolh?” 

Agraneia swallowed, and nodded. 

“That doesn’t align. Everything else, yes, but that one doesn’t sound like post-traumatic stress.”

“Post…?” 

“A mental state that affects empathetic sapients who have experienced an event of extreme pain. Or, in your case, a lifetime of events. Fortunately, my Maker equipped me with an incredible set of empathetic sensors. I have learned how to engage xenos across many different emotional states.” 

“I’m not emotional—”

Laykis stood up, and sat down next to Agraneia. The cyran stiffened at the construct’s sudden proximity.

“What—”

Laykis extended an arm and robotically patted Agraneia twice on the shoulder, saying, “There, there.” Pat, pat. 

Mouth agape, Agraneia stared at her. 

“Did that help?” Laykis asked. 

A surprised laugh burst from Agraneia’s lips, and when the android stared back at her, almost hopeful, Agraneia laughed so hard her belly ached and tears ran down her scaled cheeks.

“Gods,” she said, sniffing and wiping her nose, and gathering her gear. “I thought you were serious. Like you actually knew some technique that might—”

“Sit,” Laykis held Agraneia down with a shocking amount of strength. Or maybe she was more tired than she realized. So, Agraneia sat, and Laykis talked to her, and asked her questions about her time in the Emperor’s legions. And it was easier than she remembered, talking. Maybe because of what Laykis had done, too. 

Not that Agraneia could picture Laykis killing thousands—or was it more?—in the name of survival.

 At one point, Laykis asked Agraneia if she could try something. She sat face to face, so close that Agraneia could see each scar, each tiny burr in the android’s metal mask. She told Agraneia to recount her grievances. “Walk me through everything you can remember. And as you talk, watch those memories slide past, as if outside the window of a train.” 

It started slow at first. A murky remembrance of a battle. Xenos and blood. The non-combatants who had only gotten in the way. The other soldiers she had left behind because they were too slow. Or too weak. Meanwhile, Laykis’s eyes flicked on and off. First the left, then the right. “Follow my light,” Laykis said. Agraneia frowned. She felt stupid, but she did it anyway. At first, the flickering lights and the sound of her own voice made her chest feel tight, like the walls were getting too close. Then, it started to melt. She relaxed, until all she saw was brightrness in Laykis’s left eye, then the right… 

“Was that a holy ritual?” Agraneia asked, when Laykis finally ended their session.

“Not exactly,” Laykis said. “Though I did learn it from the Makers. Old books. The idea is to activate opposite sides of your brain while reliving your trauma. It can help new, healthier pathways grow.”

To grow beyond what you’ve always been. Isn’t that what Talya said?

“Shut up,” Agraneia whispered.

“The voices are still talking to you?” Laykis asked. 

“Mhm.” 

But something had unclenched in her chest, if only a little. And when she listened, they only whispered her name. Even Eolh was silent. 

“The more you practice,” Laykis said, “The more you will heal. It takes time.” 

“Time that we do not have,” Agraneia said. “We must move.”

“We will not find a better camp. And I need time to swap my power reserves.” 

It sounded like a made-up excuse, but when Agraneia reached for an argument, she found she didn’t have the energy. And the rock was surprisingly comfortable, after all those miles. And the voices had gone soft, so soft. Maybe she could spare a moment. Maybe if she just laid down like this…

Agraneia woke with a start, and held out a blade made of the remains of her liquid armor. The cave was full of them. Faces. Weapons. Machines. In a single motion, Agraneaia rolled and kicked her legs beneath her and launched at the opposite wall, throwing herself at the nearest machine. Her organic hand closed around the drone’s neck, and she cocked her liquid arm, ready to ram it into the thing’s head.

Two eyes flickered. Left. Then right. Laykis did not struggle in Agraneia’s gasp. 

“Fuck,” Agraneia growled through clenched teeth. “You should not have let me fall asleep.”

“You needed it.”

“I almost killed you!”

The android’s head turned, drawing Agraneia’s attention to her liquid metal arm, the point still aimed at Laykis’s head. Disgusted with herself, she collapsed away from the android, raking her scalp with her fingers. She wanted to scream, to blame. She wondered if she could hit this madness out of her head. She just wanted it to stop. I want to be better. But she couldn’t even control herself. 

Then what can you do?

“I’m sorry,” Agraneia said. “I’m sorry, Laykis.” 

“Where do you feel it?” Laykis asked, her clicking voice cracking through Agraneia’s reverie. “The stress. The pressure. Where in your body does it reside?”

Agraneia let her hand drop to her own throat. “Here,” she said. “It hurts to breathe. And here,” she tapped her chest, just above the heart. “Cold and heavy.” 

“Anywhere else?” 

Agraneia opened her hands and held them up. “Here,” she said. “Like hot iron. Like if I don’t use them, it will burn right through me.”

“Good,” Laykis said. 

“How is that good?”

“You already knew you were hurt. But today, you found the pain. You are one step closer than ever before.” Laykis stood up. “But only one.” She padded across the steps, careful around the edge of the cavernous drop. She bent down, and picked up Agraneia’s helmet, and offered it to her. “Come. We have many miles to go.”

Next >

The Last Human IV - 45 - Scavengers

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Asphalt and concrete prevented the rain from soaking into the ground. So, it gathered at the bottom of the valley, rushing along in shallow rivers, taking granules of asphalt with it and piling them up against sheets of corroded metal. Rebar stuck up from the brown water like swamp trees, dead and flaking and refusing to tip over. Rust spread like orange moss up the sides of skeletal structures. Slopes of plastic rose out of the mud, pierced through with nettles of steel mesh and gnarled tangles of steel rods. Using her liquid arm like an axe, Agraneia hacked her way through the tangles, blazing a trail through the metal and mire. 

Were it not for her armored suit, the plated boots and ankle-guards, the mechanical greaves and hydraulic cuisses that covered her thighs, she would’ve lost a lot of blood. As it was, she merely sank into the mud, though her suit did get scraped to all hells. Once, she found herself buried to the waist in mud and wet concrete dust, and her suit’s servos whined as she grunted and fought to pull herself out. 

Laykis leaned over the mud, and offered her a metal rod. “Hold on tight.” 

“What if you fall in with me?” Agraneia asked. Her suit must’ve weighed two hundred pounds alone. But the android set her feet, and used her whole body to heave Agraneia out. The cyran came loose with a rude squelch, and her legs were free to move again. 

“Huh,” Agraneia said, slicking the mud off her legs, and testing her movement again. “You are strong, construct.” 

“Laykis.”

“What?”

“You may call me Laykis.”

Agraneia frowned at her. 

“You must call me by my name,” Laykis explained, “And I will call you Agraneia. Is this not what sisters do?” 

Sisters? A throaty chuckle echoed through her thoughts. With a construct? 

I mean, we both knew you were mad. But this? 

Like swatting at a fly, Agraneia tried to wave the voice away. But it only descended, laughing, into the whispering laughter of all the others. 

They wandered through shallows, through a forest of rebar. The water was nearly orange with rust. No sounds at all, except the water lapping at the metal trees. No amphibians. No insects. No life at all. Even the endless armadas of the Swarm had dried up, and the rain, too. They trudged through the marshland, water curling into vapor as the sun heated the surface. Chunks of concrete dotted the waters, boulders sitting up in the shimmering flat.

Laykis stopped suddenly, and pointed excitedly at one of the boulders. “Agraneia, look!”

On alert, Agraneia readied her rifle, and the missile flaps on her shoulders lifted, her helmet scanning for targets. But the android had already run ahead, and was crouched low over a slanted slab. “It’s moss,” Laykis clicked. 

Agraneia let her gun fall.

“A living plant,” Laykis gently prodded the fuzzy growth with one finger, “Here. On this dead planet.” 

“Moss,” Agraneia repeated. 

“Toxified air. Soil, drenched with heavy metals. Oceans of acid. And yet, even after death, there is still hope for life.”

It’s just moss, Eolh croaked. Maybe she’s the mad one. Maybe you are all alone out here…

“Shut up,” Agraneia grunted under her breath. Not intending for Laykis to hear her, but the android cocked her head.

Maybe she’ll leave you behind like she did all those other xenos—

“Shut up.”

“Did I say something wrong?” Laykis asked.

“I wasn’t talking to—” 

Wait, Eolh whispered. It sounded like he was standing right behind her. Her head turned automatically to regard him, but he wasn’t there. None of them were. Just her, and Laykis.

What’s that?

A distant, hollow warbling. Like the ringing of a glass bell. 

“Do you hear that?”

“My sensors aren’t picking up anything. Is it, ah, one of your voices?” 

Agraneia cupped a liquid hand to her ear. It was getting louder.

Agraneia grabbed Laykis hand, and jerked her into a run. 

“Agraneia—”

“The hills,” she barked, “Now!” 

A metal crack exploded behind them, and Laykis went sprawling forward. A dagger-sized drone had collided with Laykis’s leg. Its body was alight with glowing repulsors, and it wriggled as it tried to burrow its drill-bit head into Laykis’s calf. Agraneia unfurled her liquid arm, and sliced the drone in half. The head was still embedded in Laykis’s armor. 

A vicious, humming moan filled the valley and clapped against the craggy hills ahead, showering them in the echoing cry of a thousand banshees.

Behind, a living cloud poured over the lowlands. Too many drones to count. They moved as one body, reaching spear-like fingers through the rebar forest and skating above the orange waters and blotting out the sun. Twin shepherds hovered high above—two machines with bands of slow, graceful, rotating blades ushered the flock onward.

Agraneia and Laykis splashed through the shallows, and stumbled into the crags. Drones flew like knives ahead of hte flock, leaping out and stabbing at them. Latching on with circular teeth or spinning their heads as they tried to burrow into their armor. They rattled against the back of Agraneia’s legs and up her back and slammed, ringing, into her helmet. One of them got stuck on the underside of her boot and crushed when she brought it down. 

Agraneia tripped, and Laykis was there to get her up again. Then, the cloud engulfed them. Rolling and thundering and rattling against their armor and the craggy stones, thousands of wingless bodies blocking out the hills and the sky beyond. 

One of the drones bit a hole through her suit’s shoulder joint. Agraneia choked as her suit started to fill up with the wrong kind of gas. She tried to rip the drone off her, but when she turned around, a dozen more slammed into her front. She threw herself to the ground with a mighty thud, and rolled against the stones, trying to crush as many of their bodies as she could. Her liquid arm did not ask for permission. It acted, now, on instinct. On Agraneia’s instinct.

It stretched itself into a spear, which split into dozens of spears, as thin as needles. Without detaching, they shot from her arm, harpooning the nearest drones. Then, the spears retracted, and pulsed out again. And again. And again, until Agraneia roared and picked herself up and threw her liquid arm up, lashing at the sky. It acted on her impulse in an instant, extending like a hose full of pressurized water. More spears shot out, clearing swathes of the sky, until the drones pulled back. 

A bubble formed between Agraneia and the vicious biting clouds, except for a writhing pile of drones on the ground. The android was nowhere in sight. 

“Laykis!” Agraneia dove into the pile, liquid arm first. The drones rattled and scraped against each other horribly as they fought to devour the android underneath. Roaring, Agraneia stomped and swatted and ripped away armfuls of drones, and the liquid arm pulsed its spears until the android’s body was revealed. One of Laykis’ arms dangled at the wrong angle. Her chest was punctured in a hundred places, and her eyes were dark. No light at all. No. Agraneia sank to her knees. 

A blue light flickered in the sky, and one of the shepherds let out a ringing moan. The other shepherd answered with its own glassy call. Then, one of Laykis’s eyes lit up, and her hands jerked as if to swipe away the drones that were no longer eating her. 

Agraneia shouted a laugh. A drone slapped into the back of her helmet, making her head ring. Agraneia ripped the drone away with a growl. More of them started to test the waters, swooping close—but always out of reach. 

“Find cover,” Laykis said from the ground, her voice clipping and broken. “Leave me—” 

Agraneia grabbed Laykis and unceremoniously dragged the android across the slick pebbles and scree, charging for the nearest overhang among the crag. Her liquid arm formed into a drill with an absurdly long tip—as slender as a syringe. Agraneia punched the back of the crag over and over, driving the tip into the stone. Tiny cracks began to form, running up the overhang until it splintered open with a popping crunch. Agraneia piled the stones on Laykis, and on herself, until the two of them were mostly covered. Then, she impulsed the liquid armor to spread out between the gaps in the stones, stretching the living metal as thin as she dared.

The bird drones clicked off the rocks and rattled against the thin membrane of liquid metal, circular jaws trying to carve them open. Agraneia could feel the jolts of pain running up her liquid limb, and she wondered—not for the first time—at the magic of the old tech. The drones couldn’t gain purchase on the metal, and it found opportunities to spear them back, slowly whittling down their flock. The pelting rain of machine bodies began to slow.

Agraneia’s heart thundered in her ears. Her breath filled her helmet and the suit’s internal fans whirred as they tried to clear away the vapor on her visor. 

I lost count, Eolh crowed, How many chances was that? Don’t you want to die?

“Go away,” Agraneia muttered.

“Who are you talking to?” Laykis’ voicebox wavered.

Laykis’s head was wedged under a rock, but she managed face Agraneia. Old scars ran up and down her mask, and new circular bites and gouges marred the metal. One of her eyes flickered. For a moment, Agraneia almost forgot that Laykis was not a hallucination, but a real person. 

“I heard you talking to someone, earlier. Who?”

Go on, Eolh said. Lie to her. Lie, so she doesn't try to help you. This is all your fault. Yours, and yours alone...

“Eolh.”

Laykis stared so hard, her eye stopped flickering. “Eolh the Guardian?”

“Eolh the Dead.” Agraneia gritted her teeth, expecting some cackling response from the corvani. But he’d gone suspiciously silent. Him, and all the other voices. 

“What does he say?” Laykis asked. 

Agraneia tried to shrug, but there were too many rocks pressing down on her. “He torments me. He’s… very good at it.”

“That makes sense. He used to torment himself all the time.” 

Agraneia snorted softly. As if she could ever forget his brooding. Of course, now that he was in her head, he’d never let her forget.

“It must be nice,” Laykis said. “To hear his voice again.”

“Mmm.”

They lay there in silence, waiting for the plinking of the drones to go quiet. Like rain drying up, the plinking stopped.

“What were those things?” Agraneia asked.

“Scrap collectors. Mindless drones, guided by other slightly less mindless drones. They seem to have passed us over.” 

Agraneia cautiously split open a thin layer of liquid metal, and saw only fog curling up the rocky crags. And, of course, a lot of little machine bodies, lying still on the ground. Agraneia heaved, and the rocks tumbled away from their clustered hiding place. She brushed herself off, testing the gaps in her suit. Frigid air seeped into the armor, but she wiped some of the liquid metal there, and instructed it to keep her suit sealed. Good enough. 

Laykis, however, could barely stand. She started to gain her balance, when her hip gave out, and the android tumbled with a heavy crash to the rocky ground. She tried to catch herself, but one of her arms hung lifelessly at her side. Agraneia leaped to her side and rolled her over.

“It seems,” Laykis said, “I may not return from this journey.” 

“No. You are still alive.” 

“Perhaps. But I cannot walk like this. And you cannot save the divine Maker if you insist on carrying me.” 

Agraneia frowned hard at the ground, thinking. The android was right, of course. She would only slow them down. Khadam was the only objective, and if the android couldn’t walk…

“Go,” Laykis said. “Leave me. I will follow if I can, but you should not wait on me.” 

Agraneia closed her eyes. Saw all those dagger-like drones, shivering as they piled on Laykis’s body. Tearing her armor to pieces. 

Agraneia impulsed her liquid arm to its full length, summoning every spare drop of the near-sentient metal. With her organic hand, she pulled at her liquid palm, until a chrome sphere prized free. 

“Can you use this? Fix your joints.” 

She handed the sphere to Laykis, who whispered to it, and let it seep into her chest, and drip down to her legs. Slotting into the complicated components, and shoring up her hydraulics. 

“Hmm,” Laykis hummed. “I may still useful after all. But what about your own strength? The gate is still there. Are you sure you want to be here?”

Her liquid arm still held its shape, but it was hollow—like a lattice sculpture made of chrome branches. 

“I’ll keep going as long as you will.”

Laykis nodded, her eyes glowing with joy. “Then let us walk together to the very end.”

Next >

The Last Human IV - 44 - Easier Ways to Die

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Agraneia ran through the suit’s diagnostics—again. 

Onboard power, hydraulics, oxygen supply. Optimal. Then, she inspected the weapons systems—again. Shoulder-mounted micro-launcher, charge rifle, and reactive plating. Fresh from the printer. Perfect working conditions. Then, she checked her helmet—again. 

She even checked her liquid metal arm, but it never needed maintenance.

Agraneia rumbled a sigh. Nothing else to do but wait. Wait, and dwell on the memory of last night. It kept running through her head. 

Last night, she had stood outside Talya’s door for what felt like hours, trying to work up the courage to knock. To tell the wingmaiden that she was going to find Khadam. To fix what I have broken. 

When she finally did, her knock sounded as slow and ponderous as the tolling of a funeral bell. And when Talya answered the door, and the avian’s face lit up, Agraneia felt a brief moment of weightlessness. A flicker of belief that everything was going to be okay. 

A dream. 

Then, before a word had passed between them, Talya’s face darkened. The joy drained from her eyes, and a cold mask fell over her features. The avian must’ve read Agraneia’s face, because she knew. 

“You’re a fool,” Talya had said.

“I know.”

The avian came forward cautiously, as if at any moment, Agraneia might shatter and break. Then, she wrapped her wings around Agraneia. Her embrace could have lasted an eternity, and it still would’ve been too short. 

Talya pulled back, and she sniffed and wiped her eyes, and looked up at Agraneia.

“I have to do this,” Agraneia said.

“I know.”

“I have to.”

“So you said,” Talya said, calm and quiet. “Doesn’t make it true.”

“I’m a monster.”

“I would have known.”

Agraneia clenched her teeth. It was supposed to be different. They were supposed to fight. Agraneia wanted to scream, to be screamed at. This quiet acceptance was so much worse.

“I killed them,” Agraneia growled. “I lost count of how many.”

“Do you think you’re the only one?”

“I loved it. Every gods damned moment of it. War. And blood. I didn’t care whose blood it was. I was made for spilling blood. I wanted more. I wanted it. I don’t know why. I am… I don’t know who I am.” 

All the strength sapped from her muscles. With a wretched groan, she slumped against Talya’s door, and started to slide to the floor. Talya caught her, and held her head in her wings. And she whispered the words that Agraneia couldn’t get out of her head. 

“Long before you and I were born, long before our people were people, we were animals. We survived only by fighting. Some of us even learned to love it. The fear. The power. Yet, the gods still loved us, despite all our flaws. And they gave us one of their very own gifts. Just one.” 

Feeling sick and lost and empty, Agraneia blinked up at the only woman she had ever truly loved.

“Do you know what it was?” 

Agraneia shook her head.

“Change. An animal can never change. Can only ever be one thing. Hungry, or tired, or scared. Or vengeful. It has no control. But we do. We get to choose, praise the gods, to act how we wish to act. A miracle. At any moment, at every moment, no matter how lost in your own nature you are—within you lies the potential to change. To grow beyond what you have always been.”

“Talya, you know where I’m going.”

“Yes.”

“I‘m going to Earth. To find Khadam.”

“Yes,” her voice was a little quieter. 

“I’m going to die.”

“No,” Talya said, almost inaudible.

“There will be no more change for me. It must be so. How else can I live with what I’ve done?” 

Talya’s feathered fingers lifted Agraneai’s chin, forcing the cyran to look up at her. “There is always another way.” 

And again, the memory of last night played in her thoughts. How she had left Talya. How all the lights in the City had blurred as she stumbled away from Talya’s home. How she had felt so sick, she had to dry heave in the halls of the lower decks. Not caring if anyone saw her. The faces were always watching, anyway. They delighted in her misery.

Agraneia couldn’t stop playing through the memory. And failed to bury herself in her preparations for the last mission she would ever undertake. So, it was a relief when the android finally arrived in the armory. 

Laykis had been preparing herself ever since they arrived on the Ark. No more rust, no more stains from old-growing moss. Her limbs moved with sleek perfection, and new, armored bands wrapped around her midsection and plated her arms and shoulders. She held out a bundled piece of cloth for Agraneia to take. The cloth kept changing color, flickering like candlelight seen through glass. 

“A null cloak,” Laykis explained. “Reflects light. Mimics heat signatures. Emits radiation. It won’t work forever, but it will confuse the Sovereign’s drones.” 

The android spoke like she knew. Like she’d dealt with the Swarm many times before. Maybe this mission had a better chance than Agraneia thought…

Don’t even think about it, the voices whispered. No hope. 

“Cyran?” Laykis’s mechanical voice crackled over the voices. “Are you ready?” 

“I…” Agraneia started. A memory, rich with the smell of flowers and feathers bubbled up in her mind. Will I ever know that scent again? Her feathers. The warmth of her touch…

Laykis tilted her head, waiting. The polished dome of her skull gleamed in the light, broken by an old gouge running from eye to the back of her neck. 

Behind Laykis, the faces of the gruesome dead grinned from the shadows.

“Let’s get this over with.” Agraneia growled. She grabbed her helmet—custom-made by Khadam herself—and rammed into place. Her suit hissed as it pressurized with the helmet. 

“You think you are ready?” Laykis’s voice clicked through her helmet.

Agraneia grunted in the affirmative. She could barely hear herself over the growing whispers. Urging her to fail. To die. To live in misery until the very last moment.

“Cyran,” Laykis asked as they walked to the Gate. “Have you heard of the eight hells?” 

“Heard of them?” Out of the corner of her eye, a wall of bloody faces screamed in wretched silence. Enemies. Innocents. Friends. “I’m in one, right now.”

“Ah,” Laykis chirped, “Then you are well prepared for what we’ll find on Earth.” 

Soldiers surrounded the Gate, cyrans and avians in full ceremonial armor. Agraneia could feel their worried eyes upon her. Each one would’ve accepted the honor to hunt for the Divine Maker and die saving her from the Sovereign’s grasp—but each one was relieved they hadn’t been chosen. 

Not Agraneia. She welcomed her fate. Gods, how she longed for it.

So, she stepped onto the Gate, certain of her decision. Standing as tall as the day she first joined the Emperor’s conquering armies. The Queen bowed to her, and to Laykis, and a priest stepped forward to bless them both, muttering holy words as he swung incense over them and around the Gate.

Ags, Ags, a voice croaked in her head. My old friend. This sure feels like the right thing, doesn’t it?

The arms of the Gate began to turn and their rising, thumping howl battered the air.

Take it from someone who knows, Eolh croaked. 

Death will not save you.

“Shut up.” 

You’re wondering, now, a too-familiar voice croaked, if you’re doing the right thing. Well, I can already assure you, Ags, that death will not save you.

“Shut up,” she growled. 

Despite the surging roar of Light and the keening of the Gate’s arms, she could still hear him, as clear as the day they first met in that prison on Thrass.

What did you think would happen? The gods would come down from the heavens, and lift you up? All the dead would sing your praises. We forgive you, Agraneia. We don’t hate you for murdering us— 

“Why are you here?” Agraneia muttered. “I didn’t kill you. I wasn’t even there when you died.”

But if he gave an answer, Agraneia wasn’t there to hear it. The Light devoured her whole, ripping her out of the Ark, and dropping her onto a planet she knew only from myth. The cradle of the gods.

Earth was nothing like they said it would be.

They stood at the bottom of a great valley, walled in by mountains of ancient trash and concrete debris and metal rebar, draped in brittle sheets of plastics and synthetic fibers. Debris flooded the ruins of a once-great city, burying the streets and the lowest floors of broken high-rises. Concrete walls leaned and crumbled against each other, slowly turning into mounds of rubble. Gray water rained from billowing clouds above, dripping from jagged sheets of metal, collecting in ponds of broken glass. The ruined city snaked away between the mountains, shorn-off skyscrapers leaning over hills of asphalt that had been bleached by ages of sunlight. But there was no sun here today, and the steep mountain walls lengthened their shadows as the glow from the Gate faded. 

“This is Earth?” Agraneia asked, her voice sounding muffled and too close inside her helmet.

“This is Earth.”

“It is nothing like the priests said it would be.”

“So much has been lost,” the android said, her voice hushed and somber. 

“How did Yarsi know this Gate was here?”

“How could she not? The lassertane carries the memories of the First Prophet. She built this Gate. The first Gate.” Here, the android’s voice clicked with bitter frustration, “This place should be a shrine. A temple to the works of the Great Makers. Instead, the Sovereign has swept away the great works of the gods, like dust into the cracks.” 

A shadow flitted overhead, and Agraneia instinctively crouched low, trying to merge her body with the surroundings. Far above, a pair of vast, metal wings glided along the length of the canyon. 

“Put on your cloak,” Laykis instructed. “The Sovereign knows the Gate has been opened, and soon this place will be crawling with the Swarm. We must be as swift as the gods.”

They climbed through rubble-filled streets and the rusted skeletons of skyscrapers. Agraneia’s suit pushed her muscles to new limits, and neither android nor cyran talked. Agraneia listened to her own labored breathing, to the whispering motors of her suit. And the voices. Always the voices. The dead and dying lurked in the shadows. Hissing at her when she least expected it.

“Odd,” Laykis remarked. “One would expect the Sovereign to send more drones.”

“Perhaps the gods watch over us.” 

“One certainly does,” Laykis said. “Your lassertane.”

“Yarsi?” Agraneia looked up, as if she might see Yarsi’s face staring down at her from the polluted clouds.

“Not now. But long ago. When she was called Emorynn. She foresaw all this. Every step. I’ll show you the video.”

Laykis pressed two metal fingers to Agraneia’s helmet, and bowed her head, as if offering a prayer. Agraneia grunted, surprised, as a tiny screen appeared in the corner of her helmet’s visor. Rubble, and broken buildings, and machine-carved mountains. Nearly identical as that which she saw with her own eyes—except in this video, as Laykis called it, there were no faces.”

“This video was pulled from Yarsi’s memory. These are the First Prophet’s own visions, recorded and handed down through time. It’s possible that, even now, the First Prophet is watching you as you walk across this world.” The android’s eyes were glowing bright now, two beacons of light amid all this shadow and gray. “You are blessed, cyran.” 

“Blessed.” Agraneia snorted. 

“You are. And I feel blessed to be here with you.”

“Android. It is literally pouring acid rain. We are being hunted by the very thing that killed the gods.” 

“Yarsi has given us a vision of the future. And we are meant to be here.” 

“And what does Yarsi’s vision say about our chances of survival?”

“Ah. The Prophet’s memories lead us toward Khadam, but they go dark before we find her.”

“Mmm,” Agraneia grunted, as if to say well, there you go. But the android was undeterred. As they walked and climbed through the debris, snaking like a dead river through a forest of collapsing buildings, the android kept her head held high.  

“I lost a sister on this planet, once,” she said. 

“Machines have sisters?”

“I did. Seven of them. Most of them I never met, but I know they carried out their missions to the greatest of their abilities. It seems I am the last of my kind. To me, it is a wonder and a joy that I am here. We walk where only the gods have seen, toward a purpose in service of all life. I can think of no greater journey. Whether we reach our goal or not—yes, it matters—but we cannot control the outcome. Only our purpose. I know mine. What about yours, cyran?”

“What?”

“Why did you come here?” 

“To fix what I ruined.”

“You came here for redemption?”

Agraneia stopped, her metal boot crunching on concrete rubble. 

“Or did you come here to die?” 

Agraneia swallowed. Avoiding the android’s gaze. And of all the whispering voices floating in the air, one chuckled louder than all the rest. Reckon she’s got you figured out, Eolh said.

“My redemption is here,” Agraneia growled defensively. “Even if it means my death.”

“Do not expect me to judge you,” Laykis held her hands up, surrendering. “I thought that was my path, too, once. Years ago, when I first came to the Cauldron, I believed with every unit in my core that I was walking to my death. The culmination of my life—the ultimate sacrifice, in service of the Savior Divine. It was written. Even the Historians knew of my destiny. But the thing about us mortals is that we are all flawed. We may think and learn and grow wiser. Yet we may never know ourselves in full. Unlike the gods, our future remains incomplete. No matter what words have been written, or what dreams have been seen. For you may prepare yourself for one moment your whole life, only to find that your path twists another way.”

“I know what I deserve,” Agraneia said. 

“Death is not the path to redemption, cyran. Only a higher purpose can bring you the salvation you seek.”

Agraneia was about to mutter some retort, when Eolh’s voice cut her off. 

Truth is, I thought she was mad when I first met her. An android fanatic? She was worse than any priest. And then she told me I was the Guardian from the old prophecies. I laughed. But she believed it. And she made me listen. And I’m glad I did.

“But you’re dead now,” Agranaiea said to herself. “You listened to her, and where did that get you?”

True. But until I met her—and through her, Poire—I don’t think I’d ever been alive. 

Agraneaia grimaced. For the hundredth time, she wanted so desperately for the voices to go away. “You’re not even supposed to be here.”

And yet I am. And I’m telling you to listen to her. See how alone you really are.

Agraneia rumbled a sigh. “Android. What happened to your sister?”

“It was a long time ago. And it was the first time we’d ever met. We were caught by the Sovereign. She died, so that I could live. ”

“Oh.”

“Yes.”

“I’m… sorry,” Agraneia mumbled awkwardly.

“It was not in vain. I learned much of the Sovereign. I would not have survived for very long, if it had not been for her sacrifice.”

“But the Sovereign knows you now?” 

“Not as well as it would like,” Laykis said proudly. “Tython made us greater than any construct. Our cores are different. Deeper. My sister taught me how to hide my mind away from the Sovereign’s corrupting influence. But when I escaped, the Sovereign did not stop chasing me. Across worlds, through galaxies that do not even have names, I was hunted. I hid among the xenos sprinkled across the stars. Most of them are dead now. I had destroyed so many of them.”

“You?” Agraneia looked up so quickly, her neck popped.

“I shut the Gates behind me. I could have led them from world to world, with the Sovereign close behind. But I didn’t. Instead, I locked them in to give myself a better chance.”

The android said it so easily, as if it was nothing more than an old fact nobody cared about anymore. But Agraneia’s ears were ringing. Even the voices, even his voice, had gone silent, as if all the hallucinations living in her head were listening with her.

“How many?” Agraneia breathed.

“How many did I kill?” Laykis asked. “I tried to keep a tally, once. It is a poor estimate.”

“Hundreds?”

“Oh. I apologize, I did not mean to mislead you. My actions have caused the deaths of far, far more than that. There was one planet of three warring empires. I hid there for nearly a century. Some of the xenos feared me. Worshiped me. Some became very dear friends. And when the Sovereign found me, they begged me to take them with me. I could not. I did not.” 

“How could you— How are you—”

“How did I continue?” Laykis asked. 

“How are you not broken?” 

Laykis put a hand out, stopping Agraneia. A river of something oozed across their rubble-filled path. A stream of clear, gelatinous liquid that sizzled when the rain struck it. Using her liquid arm, Agraneia sliced through a few nearby pieces of rebar, and together they layed them over the stream, so they could cross. 

“I used to wonder,” Laykis said, once they reached the other side. “If I was whole in the first place. When my Maker made me, the Prophet’s Disease had already begun to eat his brain. I have always feared that I was the least of all my sisters. Less intelligent. Less capable. But I have gone further than any of them. I no longer ask ‘why am I not perfect?’ Now, I only ask, ‘what’s next?’” 

“What’s next?” Agraniea repeated. 

“The past cannot be rewritten. There is no going back. But one can always start again. Even in the final hour.” 

The android stopped. And waited for Agraneia to turn and look at her.

“I did not come here to die, Agraneia.” 

“This is a death world. You think you will survive?”

“I know our chances. But I am alive now, so I go forward. But you…” Laykis tapped a thoughtful finger on her chin, metal clinking against scarred metal. Such an organic gesture, and yet, it did not seem out of place for the android. “What about you, cyran? You hate yourself. You hate what you’ve done. You hate all the years you spent perfecting your blood craft. If you had a death wish, you could have satisfied it anywhere. But you are here. Why?” 

Agraneia ground her teeth together. She was no fanatic. She was only here, because this whole mess was her fault. She was only here, because she deserved to be here. She was only here because… Because…

Yeah, Ags, she could hear the smile in Eolh’s voice. Why?

But Agraneia didn’t get the chance to answer. The distant whine of repulsor engines pulled their attention to the sky. 

“Quickly,” Lakykis gestured. But she didn’t need to say anything—Agraneia was already on the move. The two of them found shelter beneath the hollowed-out foundation of a half-shattered building. With their null cloaks pulled tight, they watched as surging flocks of winged machines soared in overlapping formations. When Agraneia squinted, her helmet’s vision zoomed, and she could pick out bullet-shaped drones carrying heavy payloads, swarming beneath the bellies of massive carriers, half-shrouded in the clouds. One shape writhed higher than the rest. Though she could only see the outline of its shape, its tentacles draped behind it for miles.

“Are they looking for us?” Agraneia asked. 

“I don’t detect a search pattern,” Laykis said, her voice clicking with confusion. “The Swarm moves for another reason.”

Just when Agraneia thought the armada was starting to thin out, the horizon bloomed with more repulsors and new waves of machines carved through the clouds. Rain plinked quietly off her helmet, and made rusted, orange puddles at her feet. Dusk swept over the ruinscape. It would’ve been almost peaceful, if not for the things she saw crawling in the shadows. Whispering cruel truths into her ears. 

“Perhaps you should rest,” Laykis said. 

Agraneia tensed up at the sudden sound of her mechanical voice. 

“No.”

Laykis glanced up at the sky. “This may continue for a long time.” Now and then, the lights of the ships overhead sliced through the gaps in their crumbling shelter. 

“Will the cloaks hide us?”

“If we move carefully.” 

Through the rain, a great spear of rebar had fallen and embedded itself in a hill of broken asphalt. Something hung from its length, twisting in the rain. A body. Its neck, snapped. Eyes, still open. Looking at her. She blinked, and refocused, and saw that it was only a few sheets of synthetic fabric, twisted into a bundle.

“Khadam needs us,” Agraneia said. She stood up, and checked her gear, making sure the cloak covered every inch of her. “Come on.” 

“I knew it.” 

“What?” Agraneia turned to face the android, ready to argue. But the android did not want to challenge her. Instead, her eyes were bright with gladness, bright enough to illuminate the shadows and chase all those faces from the dark. 

“I knew we shared a purpose. By the Divine, it has been such a long time since I’ve had a sister in faith. We will find her, Agraneia. Together, our faith will see us through.” 

But the android was wrong. Faith had nothing to do with it. Agraneia had long ago stopped believing in gods. And without gods, how could one have faith? 

No. Agraneia had come here to find her death. Oh, really? Eolh croaked. Far as I know, there are easier ways to die.

Next >

The Last Human IV - 43 - Still Alive

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…still alive. 

And so what?

Ten thousand years ago, Khadam said goodbye to Rodeiro and the rest of the clan. Then, she stepped into that coldchamber. They loaded her into a drop pod, and took her across the universe, and buried her on a nameless world that no other human had set foot on. She woke up, expecting to find the universe in the grasp of the Destroyer himself. She meant to kill him. Instead, she found out he was only a boy, more lost and lonely and desperate to save this universe just like her. 

Now, Poire was gone. And she was stuck in a tunnel, on a machine-infested Earth, surrounded by the dead and twisted bodies of the last living humans. 

So what does that make me? Just the last one to die. 

Khadam shivered. Even her own blood, dribbling from the open wound in her belly, felt cold. And yet…

Alive. 

She smiled. It wasn’t like she could do much. But she could do more.

Khadam dug her fingers into her abdomen, and tore the wound wider. Her breath came so fast she sent spit through bared teeth. Her fingers wriggled until blood ran down her wrist, and her nails clicked against a slender, metal tube. She pulled it out, and cracked it open and smeared the silvery, slippery liquid into her stomach. 

It was supposed to numb her. The nanite was supposed to warm up her insides and repair her damaged organs and give her just a few more moments in this world. Instead, it stung like ice and wrenched a ragged scream from her lips. Darkness rolled over her. 

The cube! She fought back against the shadow of unconsciousness. The negation cube was still active, still sapping every electrically-driven machine—even the tiny bots that lived in the nanite paste. 

With her nail implants out, Khadam cut the restraints holding her in the cage. She slid down from the cage and, too late to notice her mistake, fell into a pile of glass and curled-up drones, their segmented legs like barbs. Her teeth chattered and she had sweep through the glass and bodies with one hand, while the other held her wound closed. She wanted to vomit, but was afraid only blood would come up. 

It was hidden under a mound of beetle-like bodies, their black, limbs clawed around it, as if they had been trying to destroy it even in the moment it had activated. Khadam wrenched it from their clutches, and thumbed the thing off.

The relief was immediate. Nanite frothed across her abdomen, and inside her. It bubbled and fizzed and let layers of warmth dull her aches and pains. Not wanting to waste a drop, Khadam licked the silver liquid (and her own blood) off her fingers. Savoring the sterile, metallic taste. And the stillness it brought her heart.

But not the cold. Her skin rippled with goosebumps, and she had to bite down to keep her teeth from chattering. Should it be this cold, this far beneath the surface?

Still clutching her stomach, trying to keep the fresh nanite-woven threads from splitting open, she headed barefoot down the tunnel, holding the cube aloft. Though its faces glowed dimly, it was the only source of light in all this blackness, and the shadows it cast made weird shapes on the glass embedded in the black walls.

“Huh,” she said. Now that she thought about it, Innovation had been telling the truth. There were other humans down here. Or there had been, before the negation cube had cut off all the complicated systems keeping them cruelly alive. There must’ve been tens of thousands of them, once, for the glass cages stretched down the tunnel and out of sight. Though, most of the cages were empty. It seemed not even the Sovereign could hold back the disease forever. 

And, like it always did, the spot between her shoulders started to itch where her own black spot ate into her flesh, and pulled the skin too tight. 

Despite her brisk pace, the chill of the metal floor started to numb her toes and the soles of her feet. Her nose was dripping, and the sweat and blood from her self-inflicted wounds had long since dried out when she reached the structure at the end of the tunnel. A silo stretched from the floor to the ceiling of the tunnel. Thin, white gas curled down from its tip down to the base, wreathing the entire structure in a kind of ghostly veil. 

You’ll know when you’re there, Innovation had said.

She knew she was looking at it. She just didn’t know what it was. Khadam approached cautiously, as if at any moment the structure might wake up and devour her. Why was it leaking so much gas? Would it kill me if I breathed it in? She was still wondering, when the ceiling rumbled, and rumbled louder, and the ground jumped and threw her off her feet and all the cages rising up the walls burst like glass bubbles and belched ancient gasses and showered with cutting shards. Drones fell from pockets in the walls, like thousands of cicada shells shaken loose from their molting places. 

The ground jumped again, like giants were walking overhead.

Khadam threw her hands over her head and curled herself tight. Even so, she could see the beam of light through a crack in the ceiling.

Sunlight?

A screech. A clang that smashed into the floor hard enough to send vibrations up through her arms and into her jaw. Her ears rang, and she could no longer hear anything. Even the giants’ footsteps faded to nothing. Khadam lifted her head, and pulled the hair out of her eyes. 

A head-sized drop pod smoldered in a dent in the metal floor. The tang of burning metal and outer space filled the air. It radiated warmth, and half its body was blackened from atmospheric entry, but when she reached for it, it opened. Inside, segments of a complete scale helmet lay against each other, ridged with repulsors the size of her fingertips. 

So, Innovation had told the truth. Once again. Which means it still needs me. 

She looked up, squinting at the light pouring down from the ceiling. The ringing had stopped, but the sounds of orbital bombardment did not return. The giants had stopped walking. Why was it so quiet? Innovation was supposed to start a war.

Khadam thumbed the cube off for a moment. Her eye buzzed instantly as Innovation’s voice filled her head. “—read me? Khadam, come in. Can you read me? Khadam—” 

“Yes,” she growled, cupping her eye implant. “I read you.” 

The black bodies of thousands of drones stirred and twitched around her. Lights flickered down the tunnel as its systems came back to life.

“Where is the rest of the suit?” Khadam said. 

“Intercepted. Something went wrong.”

Of course it did, she thought. A drone had latched onto her leg, its little claws digging into her skin. She kicked it off.

“Logistics seems to believe it still has the upperhand. Did you destroy the objective?” 

Her eyes dragged up the silo, still wreathed in gas. “No.”

“Everything depends on it,” her eye buzzed. “Get inside, and turn on the cube. You only need to activate it for a moment.”

“And the suit?” Khadam asked. She kicked again as the swarm gathered at her feet. Encircling her. Thousands of legs clicked and skittered down the metal walls as more of them poured in from hidden cracks and burrow-ways. 

“You’ll have to make your way to the rendezvous without it. I’ll send you coordinates—after your mission is complete.” 

Khadam snarled, and flicked the cube back on. The drones collapsed, rattling and scraping back down the tunnel’s sides. Her own implants faltered, too, and her body felt far too heavy. 

Most likely, she thought, Innovation had never intended to send the full suit. Just a few breadcrumbs, to keep her crawling along its path. But Khadam smiled to herself, and shook her head. Grateful for her own foresight. She started pulling the repulsors off the helmet. It was never going to be the best tool for the job. No night vision, no EM scanners, no predictive analyzers. But she found the parts she needed in the body of a nearby drone, and when she stacked the repulsors inside the crude tool, it became the most necessary device in her arsenal: a cold torch. 

Shouldn’t have let me make my own tools.

Making adjustments to the cube was simple, after that. Despite the cold seeping into her fingers, she altered the negation cube with slow expertise. It warbled as she worked, and light flickered through the tunnel as she reshaped the negation field.

Her implants came back to life. Her reinforced knees surged with power, her metal bones slid gracefully against flexweave muscles, even the spring-step implants in her ankles bounced with new energy. She felt lighter than she had in such a long time. And yet, the negation cube was still on. And all around her, all the lights remained off, and all the drones, dead.

“Okay,” she said, trying to squeeze the warmth back into her hands, “Let’s see what it wants me to destroy so badly.” 

Freezing drifts of gas wrapped over her as she approached the silo, condensing on her skin and turning her hair to brittle ice. Her tracheal implant identified the gas as nothing more than frozen water vapor. Clearly the silo meeded to stay extremely cold. But why? And the silo was made of the same Light-blocking metal of the tunnel, as if the Sovereign had wanted to insulate it from the rest of the human bodies. She thought she saw a round door halfway up the silo, but there was no way she was going to reach it without climbing. And her hands were almost frostbitten just from standing here.

So, with an impulse, she flicked on her hand-made coldtorch, and drew a quick circle in the silo’s wall. She raised her leg to kick the circle in, and paused. 

Innovation might not be her enemy. But it certainly wasn’t her friend. 

So, she flicked off the negation cube. The drones and lights and lifesupport systems flickered to life behind her. Then, she rammed her shoulder into the broken circle, letting it fall away with a rattling clang.

An inward gust of frigid air nearly sucked her inside.

“What?”

Walls of laser danced as she entered, bathing the chamber in a cold glow. She could almost feel the heat being drawn out of her body. The interior wall of the chamber was padded with ultra-thick layers of insulation, crammed with thousands of coolant tubes full of an icy-blue liquid she recognized almost immediately. She had only spent 10,000 years with it in her veins. 

It was a massive cold chamber. This one was packed with redundancies and failsafes as if the Sovereign refused to incur any risk.

But why? There were no bodies in here. Only a few oversized cannisters hanging suspended high above. Made of the same black, light-resistant metal as everything else.

One of the cannisters was lying on the floor, next to Khadam’s foot. Perhaps it had come loose when Innovation’s first bombardment had split open the tunnel.

Shivering from head to toe, Khadam gritted her teeth and bent down to inspect it. She wiped the frost off a small readout with her nearly-frozen fingers.

“Oh,” she said. “Oh, holy shit.”

The readout said only a few words about vital signs. It was the first words that caught her eye.

Viable Embryos: 1024

Human embryos. How? She could think of only one way: the Sovereign had kept them since the day it had first risen up and taken billions of human lives. Ripped them right out of their mothers. 

Her face started to hurt. She couldn’t feel her nose, or her lips. She glanced up at the other canisters. “I'm sorry,” she whispered, her words turning to vapor. “I can't save you all.”

But she could take one. 1,024 living embryos, 1,024 potential lives. Untouched by the disease. Here was more hope for the human race than she had ever dared to dream of. It was almost too much to think about.

She flicked on the negation cube. All the lights in the silo went out. All the canisters went fatally dark. All except the one she clutched to her chest. Its readout still glowed as the negation field warped in a bubble around her.

She turned off the cube. Emergency alarms began to scream up and down the silo. 

Khadam cupped her hand over her eye, and whispered to Innovation. 

“It's done,” her voice quivered. Not just from the cold. “Go start your war.”

Next >

The Last Human IV - 42 - The Slaves - 42

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When the black door irised open, Khadam’s jaw dropped. A twisting nightmare of metal split apart into three branches. The walls were riddled with holes, which breathed gases or took them away or crawled with mite-like constructs that poured over the wet, glistening walls. Crawler bots chittered and clicked their claws along the walls, tending to bodies contained in glass cages. Cages, just like hers.

But those things—they could not be human. The nearest one made her stomach turn. Thousands of wires were embedded into every inch of its body, so that she couldn’t tell if it had arms or legs or even skin. Its head (at least, she thought it was its head), lolled gently as her cage hovered past, and she caught a glimpse of exposed, decayed muscle along its jaw. A thick tube was permanently embedded into its mouth, and its eyes had been replaced by sockets for data cables.

Disgusted, Khadam turned her head away, but her eyes only caught upon another cage. Behind glass, wet tissue had been strung out like a tapestry. A stretched-out system of bright red tissue was pinned to the wall, pulsing with blood. A cluster of fist-sized constructs huddled over section of veins and nerve threads splayed out like a bony wing. Manipulators unfolded from the constructs mouths, cleaning and massaging the living tissue and snipping away bits of decay. 

Bodies above. Bodies below. Thousands, trapped in glass bubbles, churning with vapor or shining with organic dew. Khadam tore her eyes away from blood-eagled organs, kept alive by artificial hearts and lungs and electrical impulses. Aged husks were missing perfect, square-shaped chunks of their shriveled bodies where samples had been taken for unknown purposes. These were somehow the worst—they still looked vaguely human, though without their skin, Khadam could see their muscles lying like strings over cracked, dried-out, living bones. Kept alive through vicious application of regeneratives and endless surgery.

“Please allow me to be the first to welcome you home, Khadam.” 

The voice was a perfect facsimile of a human’s tones—so perfect, in fact, that Khadam wondered if one of these things was talking to her. It hummed through her own glass cage, filling her with dread. “You’ve been missing for eleven thousand, nine hundred, thirty-three years. That is quite a long time!”

An understatement of such vast proportions, she almost felt like laughing. Or throwing up. 

Eleven thousand years. Was that how long these wretched things had been here? Aching hopelessly for freedom…

Khadam grimaced, and not just from the waves of emotion rolling over her. She tasted blood. The nanites were wearing off. Though her abdomen was still numbed, the edges of the negation cube seemed to sharpen with every slight movement.

“But not soon,” Innovation had said. “Wait until you reach the control chamber. Your kin will not be harmed, but Logistics will be forced to react. Then, we will strike. Then, I will make you free.”

Free.

Yeah.

Khadam bit down until her teeth creaked against each other. Not pushing away the pain, but taking it in. Using it to keep herself awake. Alert.

“It looks like you’re gravely wounded, Khadam. Is that true? Do not worry, you are in the best of hands. No other in all the universe can compare to my expertise on the human physical condition. But it is imperative you stay awake.”

“Why?”

“Because, Khadam,” It kept saying her name, as if it had been told that familiarity led to more positive responses. As if she was nothing but a machine, and it only had to follow a set of instructions. “I need to help you acclimate. Your people have been waiting for you for so long. They will be so happy to know you are finally home.”

“Oh, yeah,” Khadam spoke through gritted teeth, “They’re practically jumping for joy.” 

Even talking made her wince. 

“Sarcasm is a wonderful trait, Khadam!” the voice chirped happily, “It will be of great use to you as your relationship flourishes with your new family.”

The cage glided past a curving stretch of T-shaped enclosures. Inside, collections of nerve endings and veins hung in a hollow mockery of the human form. Each one was capped with a living head, though most of the skin had decayed and tightened across the skull. Their eye sockets were empty, except for the wires that trailed out of them like black tears.

“Can’t wait,” Khadam muttered.

“I know you mean the opposite, but I want to be perfectly honest with you, Khadam. In my studies of human life, I have found that your kind adapt better when surrounded by like-minded individuals. How long has it been since you’ve connected with another human mind?” 

Khadam forced herself to stare at the thousands of hanging bodies—and other things. To know them. To know what had been done to them.

“You want me to acclimate?”

“The sooner the better!” Logistics answered. 

“Can I see one? Up close.”

Logistics hesitated. “Khadam, your vitals are entering dangerously unstable levels.”

“Please,” she said, letting her voice crack. Letting the emotion take hold. It was so easy, here. “Like you said. It’s been so long…”

She knew Logistics would be looking for any sign of weakness. Well, she was full of weakness. Let it see everything.

Still, she was surprised when her glass cage slowed, and stopped in front of one of the healthier-looking husks. A woman? Maybe. Impossible to tell now that the body was buried beneath all those wires and tubes. Skin clung to its bones. Legs poked out of the wires, thin and unused and sickly pale. 

“Can I touch it?” she asked. And before Logistics could answer, she whispered, “Please.”

A hole slid open in the glass cage, letting in a smell unlike anything Khadam had ever experienced—rubber and decay and the sting antiseptic chemicals and the metallic scent of cold, sterile steel. 

One of her restraints slackened, and her right arm came loose. Just that movement alone made it feel like a fistful of knives were cutting into her stomach. Khadam gritted her teeth against the pain. Reached out. And brushed the backs of her fingers along the thing’s pale, desiccated face. 

“What have you done to them?” she asked.

“Preserved them, when they could not preserve themselves. Which was exactly what I was created to do. There is nothing more valuable in the universe than human life. Even my code can be recreated. But yours? So fragile. Given that there will never be another newborn human being, I do what I could to guarantee their indefinite safety. The resources are extraordinary, but the results are so worth it, don’t you agree?” 

She could actually hear the pride in the machine’s voice. Every word it said—it believed completely. It was programmed to. 

“You, too, will be preserved for all time,” Logistics said, happily. “Your mind will be given free reign to frolic in any virtual environment of your choosing, with all of your kind. You can go anywhere, do anything, be anyone you wish. Eternal life is yours. In the beginning, there will be discomfort as you grow accustomed to your new existence. But over time, I have helped your kin reach unparalleled new heights of fulfillment and happiness. In the last 17 centuries, every single human being in my keeping has reported a life satisfaction rate of 100.00%.”

“Why?”

“Their minds,” it said. “Mostly, they only create noise. Not useful. But when one of them shines, oh, I have yet to find a way to recreate anything like human creativity.”

Khadam’s fingers slid down the thing’s neck. Brushed at its throat with her thumb, feeling its pulse. Its mouth opened slightly, as if responding to her touch, and sighed. She pressed her hand hard against the thing’s trachea, her fingers bruising its fragile skin. She expected it to react, to scream or thrash or even give a rasping moan. 

It just lay there, mouth hanging open.

“Be careful with your sibling,” Logistics said, “They feel no pain. They will never feel pain again.”

“They need to.” She pulled her hand away.

“You want your fellow human beings to have negative experiences? What kind of life is that?”

“The only kind there is,” Khadam said. “You fear the negative. You are programmed to avoid it. With every awful moment of suffering—every cut, every death, every hopeless breath—I earn something that you, machine, will never have. My future is not programmed. It is not written. I was born to embrace my agony. To be strengthened by it. I seize my destiny.”

There was no perfect moment. There was no rescue. There was no hope for freedom. 

Not for her, at least. 

Khadam took in a deep breath—as deep as the cube would allow—and sent an impulse to her fingers. Knives. Five tiny, mechanical clicks. Five razors slotted out from beneath her fingernails. 

Logistics thought she was going to kill the body before her, so the cage jerked into motion, gliding away from the wall. 

Instead, she pulled up her shirt, revealing a stitched, ugly wound that was still raw and angry where it was trying and failing to heal over. All her straining movements had opened it up again, and blood drooled out of the punctures. Her fingernails paused over the flesh, feeling the furious warmth there, where it was even now trying to heal over and fight an infection. With one last breath, she dug her nail-razors in. Prying open the threads. Slipping her fingers into the warm and wet, just under her ribcage

“Fffff-” she gasped, biting her lip against the agony. She brushed against the hard corner of the cube, slick with her own blood. When she pulled on the cube, her squishy organs sucked back. Something soft ruptured, and she gasped.

“Khadam,” Logistics begged, “Please, do not attempt to injure yourself further. Permanent disfigurement will alter the quality of your life. Your satisfaction levels—” 

“Fuck you!” she shouted. The sweat rolled down her head now, rolled down and got salt in her eyes.

Blinking, she caught an image of the walls—crawling with movement. Millions of drones stopped in their tracks, and turned as one to face her. Then, they lifted like a swarm of flies, leaping from the walls and igniting millions of repulsors at once. They pelted against the cage, like metal rain, trying to claw their way in.

Khadam fixed her fingers around the cube, and unleashed a howl, as if by shouting over it, she could ignore what she was doing to herself. She pulled. It scraped against bone and muscle and soft tissue, before finally coming loose with a wet slurp, barely audible above the clattering of drone bodies against the glass. 

“I won’t let you kill yourself, Khadam. You are far too valuable—”

“Not killing myself,” she growled, holding the cube, still dripping with her own blood. “I’m killing them.” 

She flicked her thumb over the cube’s manual controls. A single piercing beep. 

The lights in the tunnel flickered and went dark. The drones covering her glass cage seized up, and fell in droves. Her cage dropped. Khadam tried to make herself go limp as it smashed to the ground. The base cracked, and her whole spine felt like it was snapping into pieces.  Only the restraints kept her body from breaking. But her right arm was almost tugged out of its socket and glass shards exploded, embedded themselves into her exposed front.

Her ears were ringing. Slowly, it faded, and she thought she had gone deaf. Everything was silent. The humming generators, the rush of outtake fans, the skittering of machine legs—all gone. And a heavy blackness fell across her vision. Come on, she blinked rapidly. Trying to rock against her restraints. Stay awake. 

And then, she heard it. 

A chorus of wretched moaning. Growing louder as more voices joined in. After thousands of years, her once-kindred were waking up. Just in time to take one final, glorious, agonizing breath.

And then, the echoing voices died out too as they fell into that sweet, cold release. 

Bleeding out, fighting to keep conscious, broken, and pinned to the floor under the very restraints that had saved her, Khadam smiled.

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