The Last Human IV - Ch. 16 - If the Android is Right (Patreon)

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***

Rust tarnished the soft angles of her face. One of her eyes was dimmer than the other. Gashes ran down her metal torso where something had tried to claw at her, revealing hints of flexible pistons, and something clinked with every word she spoke. The android that stepped off the Gate, and onto the Cauldron’s central Vium was a broken, disheveled machine.

But she was also the first thing to come through the Gate in years—the first since the fall of Cyre.

Drawn by the light burning off the Gate, a loose crowd gathered in the middle of the night, huddled and blinking blearily and staring at Laykis with a mix of curiosity and suspicion.

“I have seen Him,” the android declared. Her head jerked, as if to shake off some insect that had landed on her face, “I have listened to His word. Poire has ascended this world, and yet lives in another.” Mechanisms in the android’s shoulders ground together and clicked dryly as she lifted both arms, “I tell you all, the Savior Divine lives.”

Agraneia frowned. As did the Queen, and the rest of the crowd. Poire was gone. Five years ago, he stepped through the Mirror, and into wherever the gods went when they died. Everyone knew this. Apparently, this Laykis must be suffering from a bad case of machine rot.

A shame, Agraneia thought. Eolh had spoken so highly of Laykis, when Agraneia first met him in the prisons of the Cyran warcamp on Thrass et Yunum. And Poire, too. Even Khadam said she had never met a machine as sophisticated as this android. Made in the image of the gods themselves. At least, that’s what the others said.

All Agranaeia saw, however, was a slumped wreck of a construct—one leg dragged behind her, dead and useless, rust pitted her armor, and corrosion edged the smooth, interlocking plates, making them scrape with every movement. Mossy things clung to one side of her body, so she seemed to stand in perpetual shadow, and when she spoke, her voice (which came not from her mouth, but from the sides of her neck) dipped at sudden intervals.

Even so, the android spoke with the certainty reserved for the devout … or the mad. “It is true. Though shrouded by the Light, I have seen His face. My unworthy sensors have heard the reverberations of His voice.” The android bowed her head. Her chin jerked to the side, and she fought to pull it back.

A damn shame. Metal rot was the most common cause of decay in constructs.

…but if she’s so deranged, how did she get through the Gate?

Idiot, a voice hissed in her ear. She had to resist the temptation to turn her head, for there was no one there. This android is a child of the Makers. Of course, she can open the Gate.

And another voice asked, who are you to call her deranged?

And others still, as if a hole had opened, just large enough to allow their laughter and spitting insults to spew forth.

Something pinched at Agraneia’s side. Yarsi’s arms were wrapped tight around her waist, her claws digging into Agraneia’s shirt. The girl’s eyes were glued to the android.

“Laykis,” the Queen rushed forward, slipping past her guards, fussing over the android,“Guards, wake the Chief engineer. Tell him to get his best tinkers—I don’t care if they’re asleep.”

“I bring a message from Poire,” Laykis said.

“We already heard his message,” Queen Ryke said. “Five years ago. He told us all … he said goodbye.”

“He lives.”

“You poor thing,” Ryke said, touching gingerly at the rough, rusted scars on the side of Laykis’s head. “What happened to you? Poire is dead, Laykis.”

“I spoke to him.” The android jerked her head to the side, and something clanked in her neck.

“I see,” Ryke said, her voice saddened with grief. “A dream, then. I didn’t know that constructs could dream—”

Laykis’s eyes flickered. The left one didn’t turn back on. “Not a dream. I sat before his Mirror. And I prayed. For five years, at the dark core of that world, I whispered his name. And he answered.”

Ryke clucked her disappointment. The crowds stared, worried by this ghost from the past, whispering among themselves. But then, Agraneia saw Khadam’s face.

She was frowning, and chewing her lips so that the golden line running down her lip glinted in the moonlight. Her dark eyes narrowed, wrinkling the skin around her implants.

“Perhaps,” Khadam said, “She saw his final image.”

“He spoke to me.”

“Agraneia?” Khadam said.

Agraneia shook her head, shook away all the voices she knew weren’t there. “Hm?” she grunted.

“You said you heard Sen, even though she was on the other side of the Mirror, right? You and Yarsi both.”

“Mm. Sen spoke to us. Though she said she was already dead. The Mirror stretched her across time.”

“Perhaps,” Khadam said, “It’s the same with Poire, then. Echoes from his final—”

“The Savior Divine lives,” Laykis said. “No false image. No echo. I waited for him, only to discover that he—” and here, the android lifted her gaze to the sky, as if to smile with the mouth that she did not have, “He was waiting for me.”

Ryke croaked uncertainty, not wanting to stoke the android’s delusions. “What did he say to you, then?”

“That he has seen the future.”

Yarsi’s claws dug in to Agraneia’s side, sharp enough that the cyran had to pull her arms away. A tremble ran through the lassertane girl, and she could not take her eyes off the android.

“Then he is cursed with the same disease all humans once had,” Khadam said, crossing her arms in front of her chest. “We’ve all seen the future.”

“Only one of them. The Savior Divine has seen them all.”

“Uh huh,” Khadam said. “Then tell me, Laykis. Did he tell you how this conversation would end?”

“With doubt.”

Khadam scoffed.

Laykis struggled to lift her arms, and clasped them together, as if giving a sermon. “They will not believe you, so he said. They will ask for proof, as they should. Tell them of the dam.”

Khadam’s eyes widened at that. She shifted from one foot to the other. “What dam?”

Laykis’s head jerked. “The one to which you plan to go. You,” Her gaze fell upon Agraneia, “And the cyran.”

Agraneia’s gut clenched. Someone must’ve told her. But how? Nobody had seen, or spoken to the android since the day of Poire’s passing.

“And,” Khadam’s voice was low, and quiet with uncertainty. “What will we find there?”

“The dam is dead.”

Khadam shook her head. “We chose this dam because it’s still operating. Sensors are giving a signal, and the reserves still have a few drops of power.”

“Forgive me, Divine One, but you are incorrect.” Laykis jerked her head in an apologetic bow. She started to lean dangerously to one side, before lifting one stiff leg, and jerking back into place. “The dam is dead.”

It’s dead. It’s dead! Go, anyway. Go, and die with it! Where you belong—

Agraneia grimaced, and pressed a hand to the side of her head, as if she could shove the voices out. It didn’t work.

“Laykis,” Khadam was saying, “I was slow to trust you once, and that was a mistake. But this? Perhaps I should take a look at your core. And how long since you performed maintenance on yourself?”

“Fear not, Divine One,” Laykis’s voice clicked low, almost as if there was another construct living behind that faceless mask. “I know you will go to the dam, anyway. It is not my intent to stop you.”

“Then what?”

“The Savior Divine said you must take courage, and follow this path. Even though the dam is dead, you will find what you seek. And more.”

Khadam raised an eyebrow, and looked back at Agraneia. Agraneia shrugged.

“What, then?”

Laykis’s eyes dimmed, and she clasped her hands together once more. “And there, she will discover that which she refused to hope for. That which she buried in the most secret corner of her heart. That, which she thought she lost, long ago. So said the Savior Divine.”

Khadam pressed her lips together, and narrowed her eyes at the android, as if trying to see through the construct’s scarred faceplate and into her inner workings. For all Agraneia knew, that’s exactly what the god was doing.

The crowd grew restless, but no one dared speak.

The whispers, cutting at her thoughts, were only in her mind. And the longer that silence stretched, the louder the voices became. Braver. More vicious. More … real.

Insects, buzzing, began to sound like the distant roar of burning fires. The clicking of tree branches, swaying in the breeze, like the crackle of gunshots. Somewhere, someone started screaming. No one is screaming, she had to remind herself. No one is saying anything.

Finally, Khadam broke the agonizing silence. “What else did Poire say?”

“The way forward is unclear. There will be a time where even his infinite gaze may not pierce. But he knows this one thing—that you, Divine Maker, are the first—and the last—hope. You are the key.”

Screams. Bloody screams. Of battle. Of death. Of murder, of innocents. At her hands. Oh, gods. Oh—

Then, the android turned one flickering eye on Agraneia.

“And you, cyran,” Laykis said. “The Savior Divine sent me with a message for you.”

And when she spoke, a strange thing happened. Her strange, crackling voice calmed all the sounds, washing them away like waves in the ocean. The jungles, the screaming, the thunder of cannons, the smell of black powder, and blood, and things rotting in the mud. She dared not to hope, but hope found her anyway. It gripped her heart with a cool, light touch. Tender and weak and thin as a new root.

“What,” Agraneia swallowed hard, trying not to choke. “What did he say?”

“Khadam is the key. And through her, he will open the way. Guard her with all your life, and you will find your redemption.”

Agraneia had kneeled in the temples of Cyre, had fought in the Emperor’s wars of Sacred Conquest. She had listened to the choirs of avian voices singing in the High Towers of Gaiam. But never, until this moment, had she felt such a powerful urge to pray.

My redemption?

By all the gods, please let her words be true.

***

The next evening, after the avian priests ended their holy songs and the sun fell below the Cauldron’s ridge, the creaks and croaks and rhythmic snaps of jungle creatures drowned Khadam in the furious song of life. Many of them had once been earth insects, or frogs and toads, genetically engineered to survive alien conditions, and given one last chance to thrive.

Their song washed over her in waves, but Khadam barely heard it. Instead, she scraped through the Gate’s readout for the hundredth time, her eyes flicking back and forth as the floating text, visible only to her implants, refreshed again.

“Air quality: 32%.” Unhealthy with prolonged exposure, but technically breathable if absolutely necessary.

“Temperature: -14.5 Fahrenheit.” That was no colder than the dam had been above Cyre, and there had been Historians living up there for milenia. It was certainly feasible that there were Historians, or something like them, living on this dam now.

But all the operations and habitation modules returned high structural marks. And the power reserves—the part that Khadam truly cared about—showed a few percentage points above zero. Which should be more than enough to siphon off and power the Ark, until they could find a better long-term source of energy.

Unless the readouts are wrong, and Laykis is right about the dam.

And if it is dead, then what? There were other dams, but the list was already growing thin.

Heavy, clanking bootsteps pulled her out of her reverie. A towering powersuit stood in the doorway, a monstrosity of pressurized fabric, covered by armor and hydraulics. Agraneia’s head looked too small, sticking out of the top.

“You’re late,” Khadam said.

“Mm,” Agraneia tugged at the neck ring of the suit with one finger. Her liquid metal arm blended seamlessly with the rest of the suit, though its shape was far more natural. “Never wore armor like this before. Hard to get suited up.”

The cyran’s suit was twisted where the torso met the legs, so the seals weren’t closed. Khadam clicked her tongue, and told her to stand still while she fixed it. She couldn’t help but notice the flush on Agraneia’s scaled cheeks.

“Talya couldn’t help you with this?” Khadam said as she closed the final seal, and gave Agraneia one last look over.

“I—” Agraneia’s scales flushed darker, “How did you know I was with her?”

Khadam reached forward, and grabbed a small, downy, white feather caught in one of the servos on her oversized shoulder, and held it up.

Agraneia winced, as if the sight of the feather hurt her. “Sorry,” Agraneia mumbled.

“Why are you apologizing to me? I’m the one who told you to see her again.”

Here stood one of the bravest, most experienced warriors Khadam had ever met. There were stories about Agraneia running heading into cannon fire, scaling fortress walls in the midst of raining bullets. When risking her life, Agraneia was fearless, yet she dreaded to risk her heart… Or to risk Talya’s?

“In the Cyran Academy, they warned against distraction, especially in service of the gods—”

“Is that all she is to you? A distraction?” she smirked at the cyran.

“No,” Agraneia stammered.

“Then what would you call her? A lover? A companion? Or something more?” Khadam laughed at how deep and blue Agraneia flushed. “At ease, soldier. We won’t be on the dam for long. Either we find the Light cells or not. Consider this a test run for the suits, in and out. We’ll have you back with your whatever you call her in no time.”

“Good,” Agraneia said. “I mean, uhm, good that we are ready to go.” She cleared her throat, embarrassed.

Their helmets were vacuum-sealed, with interior oxygen generators, and backup atmospheric filtration in case they needed to breathe local air. No visors, just sculpted metal plating, and as many sensors as Khadam could shove in. Khadam showed Agraneia how to secure the helmet in the neck ring, and Agraneia grunted with surprise as the helmet locked into place.

Her voice came out in a magnified, metallic bark, “I can see behind me.”

“Sensors arrayed in for 38,000 square degrees of visual input,” Khadam answered.

“How do I control it—oh,” Agraneia said. And then, with deeper appreciation, “Oh.”

“Feels good?”

“Feels very good.”

Khadam couldn’t help but feel a swelling of pride. She was especially pleased with the sensor suite. “I had trouble with the blindspots on the rear, so we’ll just have to watch each other’s gear, but you should be able to see almost everything else as long as the sensors remain uncovered. Don’t forget to flick through the visual spectrums.”

They ran through a final diagnostic, both of them testing out their movement and triple-checking their communications. Then, they stepped onto the Gate. Khadam hesitated before she impulsed the startup sequence. She wasn’t sure why.

“I guess we’ll find out.”

“Hm?”

“If the android is right.”

“A dead dam,” Agraneia asked, ”How dangerous is it?”

“Depends on the structural decay. If it’s still in orbit, though, it shouldn’t be too bad. Even if it’s shattered, though, the suits should protect us from the vacuum for days, at the least.”

Agraneia hummed thoughtfully. “Send me through first.”

“What? Alone?”

Agraneia nodded, the sharp chin of her helmet dipping slightly.

Bravest, and most reckless, Khadam thought. But on the other hand, the cyran was right. This way would be safer—for Khadam, at least. Then again, if something happened on the other side, Khadam wouldn’t be able to help her. Agraneia wasn’t a human. She didn’t have her knowledge, nor even a drop of her experience. In the past, the Swarm avoided the dams and the Scars, because raw Light wreaked havoc on their instruments.

But the Sovereign was nothing if not innovative. Even without the Swarm’s presence, the dam was ancient. There was no telling what dangers lay inside.

Am I really going to let her go in alone?

Khadam remembered waking up from Cryosleep, only a handful of years ago. She remembered that disorienting emptiness, as she opened the hatch, and dug through the sand, and stared up at an alien sun—believing that she was alone, for the last time in her life.

She thought of Poire. If he really was still alive on the otherside of the Mirror, then he was truly alone. No one but himself to depend on. No one, but himself, if he got into trouble. Forever.

Khadam suppressed a shiver.

“Khadam?”

“We’re doing this together.”

“But—”

“You watch my back, and I’ll keep us both out of trouble. Sound fair?”

Finally, Agraneia’s stony expression cracked into a smile. The cyran nodded, and Khadam nodded back.

When the Gate’s arms spun, they became a blur, whooping as they beat at the air, rising faster and faster until the whoops became a single, battering whine that made the visor of Khadam’s helmet buzz.

The Light began to tug at her senses. Pulling her along with it, pulling old memories from the depths of mind. A hand, closing the door to her cryochamber. Rodeiro, crouched before her chamber, mouthing the words, “Good luck,” as the liquid ran through the tubes and into her veins. Millennia of cold, dark cryosleep.

And the Light.

Khadam gasped. Tried to blink away the blinding flash. Her skin prickled with a sudden heat, and her suit’s cooling kicked on with a high-pitched whir. Her suit blinked a warning: external temperature, 200 degrees Fahrenheit.

So, at least one readout was wrong already.

The Gate opened onto a smaller Gate in the middle of a grand foyer. Her sensors illuminated black walls that towered up to a black, vaulted ceiling, and hallways radiated around them. Identical. No emergency lights, no virtual signs or anything to mark which one was which.

Next to her, Agraneia swayed heavily. One of her legs buckled, and the cyran kneeled with a grunt.

“What’s wrong?” Khadam asked.

“Fine,” Agraneia said, picking herself back up, and shook her head, making the helmet wiggle in place.

“The voices?”

“They’re… heavier. In here.”

Khadam didn’t have to look far to see why. A fog of mist, sparkled and crawled through the hallways, rising up from the floor like steam in a sauna. There must be structural defects somewhere in the dam, because raw Light leaked everywhere. No telling what it might do to a xeno’s brain. Or mine, for that matter.

But raw Light was the whole reason they were here.

“Let’s take a look around,” Khadam said.

Agraneia nodded, but said nothing.

There was a welcome desk along the wall of the foyer. Four basic androids, with facial features so smooth and simple, they seemed to belong to a different species than Laykis. Metal dripped down their skin, as if they were standing in a blast furnace. Their arms had fused to their sides, and their feet looked like puddles of superheated lead, but 200 F was nowhere near enough to do that. Perhaps ages of standing in the Light…

Khadam reached out with a cerebral impulse, in case any of the androids were still alive. No response from any of them. She expected that much, but when she widened her search, it was like wearing a blindfold and trying to find your way through the void of space. No systems answered. Not even an emergency ping.

“I’ll be damned,” Khadam said. “The android was right. This place is dead as hell.”

***

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