The Last Human IV - Ch. 26 - Logic and Faith (Patreon)

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***

The Sovereign, gestating in the deep labs of a once-great corporate hive.

Humanity, crumbling into ruin.

The rise of xenos, mere echoes of the human civilization that had once been.

The Herald of Destruction himself, a grand, glittering being pouring himself through an open Scar, trailing behind him a yawning darkness that would bring the end to all things.

Emorynn had seen it all. And when Yarsi inherited her memories, Yarsi remembered everything Emorynn saw. Yarsi could remember ever detail of this moment—Agraneia collapsed on the Council Chamber floor, bloodied and burned. Ryke, demanding the doctors. The herd of whispering Councilors, many of them lingering, necks craning to see the fallen cyran.

But the android? Tython’s last creation? This one should be dead, Yarsi thought. This one should be rust beneath a black lake.

And yet, there sat Laykis. Still alive.

Yarsi had heard of the android, but their paths never crossed. Yarsi had only been on Gaiam for a short time, before Laykis left to seek Poire. As was her highest purpose. Her thousands-year quest, they said, brought her across countless worlds and endless trials, which she had endured all for the chance to give her life at the time of the Savior Divine’s awakening.

They said, after Poire went through the Mirror, she went—alone—to Sen’s dead world, and prayed at the foot of that ancient device. For five years, she whispered into oblivion, her vocal unit breaking down from use.

Laykis claimed the Savior answered her. But this, Emorynn had not seen. And thus, Yarsi could not recall.

You sank into the void. You drowned, broken and alone. Yarsi could even remember Laykis’s unerring joy. That sense of completeness, even as her half-eaten body sank into cold, muddy depths.

And yet here the android sat. Alive, as she should not be.

Yarsi’s claws clicked on the hard stone as she kneeled in front of the android. Scars from a hundred separate eras decorated her smooth, featureless mask. Where did she get them all? How did she survive so much? But the android did not move, did not recognize her presence.

This was not the iron-faithed android they spoke of.

Yarsi scratched a question on her tablet, “Are you well?”

The android lifted her chin, rust crunching in her neck. There was light in her eyes, tiny pinpricks, twinkling like the dimmest stars in the sky. After a long moment, as if it took great effort, Laykis spoke. Her voice clicked weakly, barely audible above the bustling from the Palace halls. “I am stuck between belief and truth.”

Yarsi scratched another question. “What is wrong?”

“I know what is right. I know the Savior Divine watches over us all, and the gods will return, and all living beings will know their salvation. I know this. And yet, it cannot be.”

My mind is locked between logic and faith. I know what should be, I have always known, from the moment I was created, that this was our path. But it cannot be. Have I come so far? Have I suffered to live on, where all my sisters perished, only to discover that we were always damned? It cannot be—I am certain. My faith tells me so. But logic tells me otherwise.”

“What logic?”

“I will open the way. As the machine descends, and the Keeper lifts her flock to the heavens. So said the Savior Divine. But Khadam is gone. The Sovereign has taken her, and killed her, as it has killed every other human but one. We are lost. The way cannot open without the key. The flock cannot ascend without its keeper. Poire commanded us to follow her, for me to act as a living guide. But Khadam is gone, and my mind is torn in half. I believe, and I do not. How can it be both? I wonder if I am nothing more than a set of instructions and desires encoded into a core.” She lifted one hand and gazed at her metal fingers, “We have failed. And yet, I still believe in our salvation. Is this truly faith?”

“And what if she’s not dead yet?” Yarsi wrote.

As if thousands of years of frustration were bursting through the cracks in her armor, the android shouted, “Khadam is gone! Even if by some miracle, the Sovereign has not killed her, how would we ever find her? We have only the Gates, which the Sovereign guards for all time. Even if we found her, and even if all the peoples of all the last worlds would march through as one—there would be no victory. Khadam is gone.”

Yarsi erased her the slate, until it read, “And yet?”

Laykis crackled out a mechanical sigh, “And yet, I am still convinced. Utterly. The Savior Divine will save us all. The way will be opened.” She covered her ear sensors with both hands, and shook her head. “How can this be?”

Yarsi wrote on her tablet. “Another way.”

“What other way?” Laykis clicked acidly, “Poire has spoken, and we have failed. It is over.” The android slumped back into her position against the wall. “I live, and yet, I will never live to see His truth made real. Then, what was my purpose?”

Yarsi sat back on her heels, and frowned at the android, thinking. Not even Emorynn could remember a machine showing so much emotion—so much life. It gave Yarsi a great sense of comfort to know that there were things even the First Prophet couldn’t account for.

“Do you know me?” she wrote.

Laykis looked up at her, her eye-lights narrowed, as if taking her in for the first time. “He … did speak of a mute. He said that you and another would play your part together. But…”

Yarsi bowed her head in front of Laykis, and the machine started to protest. “Isn’t it too late to pray now, young one—?”

Yarsi grabbed the android’s hand, guiding the joints of her metal fingers to the back of her neck, where the crescent shape of the memory device sunk into her scales.

“What is this?” Laykis sat up a little, metal fingers whispering over the device’s metal casing.

“A blessing,” Yarsi wrote, “from the gods.”

Laykis’s pupils shrunk, a doubting look. “Khadam did not make this. And the Savior Divine is many things, but he was never a Maker. What is this?”

Yarsi wrote, “Come and find out.”

Yarsi did not wait for the android’s answer. She grabbed her by the arm, and pulled her to her feet, and away to the Palace’s airdocks—for time burned short.

***

A belching furnace blasted heat into the rig’s balloon, and cheap repulsors ignited on the stern, shoving the flying ship forward. The jungle sped below them, not quite blurring, but moving too swiftly to pick out the interlocking details of the canopy.

Mists rose from the treetops, showering them with a humid rain, as clouds as thick as ocean waves roiled above, dipping down as if to taste the rig’s slick decks. Four Falkyr guards stood on the midship, their cloaks steaming in the clouds, and a redenite pilot stood at the helm, wiping his goggles again and again.

It seemed that all this white violence should have made a sound, but all Yarsi could hear was the creaking of the rig and its heavy balloon, and the unearthly thrum of the repulsors. Now and then, a hoarse roar came from the burners as the pilot nudged the balloon ever higher.

The android was leaning over the portside railing. Yarsi sidled up next to her, quietly admiring the ancient beauty of the android’s mechanics and curving, almost delicate plates of armor. Laykis had been quiet, hadn’t said a word since they boarded the rig. But now the two of them stood alone, it seemed the android had much to say.

“It isn’t there. All my life, I have been full of knowing. The gods were always watching. But now, my devotion rips in the wind,” she held her hand over the deck, her fingers slicing through the rapidly-moving clouds, “I am a flag without a pole. I am an altar without an offering. I am lost. I am empty.”

“What if Khadam is alive?” Yarsi wrote.

“How can it be?” Laykis’s eyes glowed a dull red now, and her words were clipped with anger, “The Sovereign devours human life. Without another human, we will have no hope of saving her. We cannot even try to save ourselves. And yet… yet, I still feel it. The urge. I feel that I must do everything in my power to try. Something. But what?” She turned to Yarsi, her eye lights bright with need, as if she yearned for Yarsi to tell her the answer. “What can we mortals do?”

The flaming jets that fed the balloon burst in a steady stream, sending blasts of heat across the deck that stole the breath from Yarsi’s lungs. The torn tufts of clouds fell away from the deck, revealing the iron-gray jaws of the mountains, where great slabs of rock and white-capped teeth loomed up from the fog, threatening to slice at their ship, but the pilot kept them just out of reach.

Swiftly, the mountains tumbled away, revealing a valley winding like some great, green snake through the range. Vast black shapes lay, half-sunken in the grass, fringed with orange weeds or run over by little blue streams glinting in the sunlight.

At her side, the android let out a painful, disappointed “Oh.”

Yarsi frowned up at her.

“To see the Maker’s last divine work,” Laykis explained, “Forever unfinished. It might’ve been our salvation, and this knowledge cuts all the deeper.”

“What of your faith?” Yarsi wrote, frowning harder.

“It kept me alive, in my darkest times. Even when I knew my path ended with my own death, it gave me the strength to take the next step forward. I always knew someone would take up the burden. I always knew the gods would return, to deliver us all into salvation. But now... See the last work of the Maker—undone. I trusted my faith.” Her face fell, “How could I have been so wrong?”

Laykis remained silent as the rig sailed over the valley. They headed toward the last mountain in the range.

Yarsi didn’t need the android for this. But when they bumped against the balcony that Khadam had carved into the mountain, Yarsi pulled on Laykis’ arm, urging her to follow. She motioned at the Falkyr guards, and the four of them went below decks, and returned with an entourage of redenite priests in crimson robes and sacred masks. One of them held a velvet-lined case reverently in both hands, and walked with slow, steady steps across the plank, and onto the balcony.

A cool breeze blew down from the mountains, carrying with it flecks of ice that didn’t quite melt before they glued themselves to Yarsi’s scales. She shivered, and pulled her arms around herself. She nodded at the redenite, who gingerly opened the case with his careful paws, and bowed his head as the glow burst forth. Two Lightcells, one scratched, the other pristine, shone blinding bright in the broad daylight.

The redenite chittered a soft prayer, and with the holiest care, he lifted the first Lightcell out of the case, and slotted it into the balcony’s main console. Then the second. He stepped back. Nothing happened. He looked around nervously, fearing he had somehow performed the ritual wrong, until Yarsi walked up, and pressed her hand to the slot.

The word dredged itself up from her memory. Initialize.

The console unfolded in the middle, and a small drone popped out. Its tiny repulsors ignited, and the drone shot out from the balcony fast enough to make Yarsi’s breath catch. It careened over the vast valley until it was little more than a speck of dust, lost among all that green and yellow grass, gray rock, slabs of black ship hulls.

The redenite priests shuffled uneasily, twitching their snouts and glancing back and forth at each other. The guards shuffled. Laykis and Yarsi waited, side by side. A cold wind blew, dragging with it flecks of snow from the mountains above. And in the valley … silence.

“Oh,” Laykis clicked, disappointed. She turned to Yarsi, and lowered her head until they were eye to eye. “Thank you, young one. For a moment, I believed, again. My two halves were whole. But without the hands of a god to build—”

Yarsi showed her the words already written on her slate, “The Ark was not made for her. It was made for us.”

“What Ark?” Laykis cocked her head, not understanding. “Poire has spoken. The Machine Swarm will descend upon Gaiam. Days, or weeks, it matters not, all will burn.”

“You still believe?”

“I do,” Laykis said, “Though I do not know why.”

“What were His Words?”

Laykis pondered the question, her eyes glowing. Then, she let out another sigh. “This, said the Savior Divine. I will open the way. When the machine descends, the Keeper offers her flock to the heavens. Heed the words of the Mute and the Seer—”

“I am the Mute and the Seer.”

“But—no. Poire spoke of two people. The Mute, you. And another—the Seer.”

Yarsi lifted her slate again, tapping the words with deliberate intent. “I am the Mute and the Seer.”

Laykis’s eyes glowed with disbelief. But there was something about the way her head froze, her body leaned forward, and her metal hands clasped together. There was something burning there. Not just disbelief, then, but also a desperate desire to believe.

“You were right to trust your faith,” Yarsi wrote. “Your faith guides you well.”

Yarsi turned back to the console. Placed a hand in the notch where Khadam had always placed her own hand. She took a deep breath. And closed her eyes.

Behind closed eyelids, her vision was aglow with ancient text. Symbols she should not be able to parse, words that she should not be able to understand unfolded before her in cascading menus. There were hundreds of steps, and though she had only seen Khadam run through them a handful of times, she remembered them perfectly. It didn’t matter that she couldn’t make sense of their meaning, she knew the proper order.

Begin startup sequence.

All power plants, online. Generators one through twelve, operational. Distributing systems.

Ignite propulsion.

It started at the roots of the mountains. A great thrum, like the world was a hollow drum, and a mallet rumbled the first note. The grass rippled. Birds erupted from the fields below, thousands of white wings wheeling in circles, whole flocks crashing through each other, directionless and panicked.

The thrum deepened, and rounded out, and rolled up the steep mountain sides, reverberating back and forth through the valley, until Yarsi could feel it in her snout, her fangs, even the sockets of her eyes. Guards and redenite priests fell to their hands and knees, covering their heads, praying soundlessly beneath the crush of that single, deepening note. Laykis’ fingers dug into the stone railing, trying to steel herself against the strength of the sound.

It called to Yarsi.

It told her, this is what you were born for. This body, these memories. She had come all this way, lost everything she had ever known … all for this. These xenos from such distant worlds, these were not her people. But she could be their prophet.

And yet, as the rolling thunder deepened, it carved open that fracture deep in her heart. The taste of fear flooded her mouth. You know what happens next. You have seen it.

Yarsi shoved the fear down, hoping it would be lost among all the other memories bubbling inside her. Right now, the Maker’s last work was waiting for her command. Somehow, she felt that she had done this countless times.

Wake up, she thought.

The earth trembled. And the mountains shook. And the valley cracked. A chewing, wrenching sound echoed across the mountains as the vast plates of Khadam’s machinery ripped themselves free of the valley floor, hovering. Rising. Moss and grass fell in great clumps, and clods of dirt dripped from the edges of sweeping metal. Streams pooled in the pockets of torn-up ground, and avalanches shook loose from the mountains as the plates vibrated and held steady in the air.

Be joined, Yarsi thought, and the plates obeyed. They rolled and yawed, they pitched forward or angled to the side. They hovered closer, impossibly huge pieces of metal, defying gravity, pulling at the currents of air as they lined up, like the black skeleton of some mythical behemoth, undulating and knocking against themselves until, finally, the hull took shape.

A blunt, spearing cone stretched for miles, gradually tapering toward the middle, swirling with contours like the lance of a god. Geometric patterns—complicated shapes connected by intersecting lines—decorated the hull, so that no segment could be distinguished from another.

The massive shape hung perfectly still, as if it had always been, and always would.

Yarsi blinked. And turned to find Laykis kneeling before her. The android’s dark eyes were now filled with light, bright and shining even in the afternoon sun.

“Forgive me,” Laykis clutched at her hand, “For my faith was tested. And I was found lacking. How can I ever atone?”

Yarsi took the slate, and wrote for a moment. And handed it back.

“Help me,” she wrote. “To be half as worthy as you.”

***

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