Oasis (The Last Humans Book 1) (17 page)

T
he thing
in front of me is a white-haired nightmare of gears, antennas, and drill bits. Like an octopus, it has eight wires instead of arms. Each arm ends in a set of pliers, and they all move around like the snakes on Medusa’s head. Half of its face is Jeremiah’s, but the other half looks like someone poured hot liquid steel onto it. Its left eye is human and blue, while the right one is not an eye at all, but an LCD screen.

I see myself on that Screen. My eyes are damp and unhealthily bright. Tendons are protruding from my neck, and my frantic pulse is visible. With the scowl on my bloodied face, I look like an ancient berserker.

Cyborg Jeremiah opens his mouth, revealing screws and nails where teeth should be. I hear a loud screech come out of the speaker that’s stuck in Jeremiah’s throat. Through the metallic radio static, I make out the words, “You’re dead now.”

In the next second, the thing charges at me.

His right middle tentacle reaches for my throat.

Coming out of my stunned paralysis, I swing the bolt-sword.

Half of the tentacle flops to the ground, machine-oil-smelling green blood spurting from the stump.

Now the monster’s left middle appendage tries to grab me. I time my slice carefully, and the arm joins its sibling on the ground.

Having lost two of his eight upper limbs, Jeremiah treads more carefully. He reaches for me with the top left and the top right arms at the same time.

I suck in a quick breath and sever the left appendage as I grab the right one with my left hand. Before he registers what’s what, I leap at him, bringing his right arm with me. The thing is stretchy, like a rope. He tries to grab me with his three left ones, but I swat them with the sword, and they retreat.

Finding myself behind him, I wrap the arm I’m holding around his other two right arms, tucking the tip of the appendage under his armpit. I then plunge the sword into Jeremiah’s back.

The creature jerks so violently that I end up leaving the sword in its back. Its three right arms seem stuck, as I hoped, but the left ones have free motion.

The upper appendage grabs me by my waist. With inhuman strength, it lifts me in the air, and the lower and upper left arms grab onto the flesh of my thigh and shoulder.

Before I can react, the creature throws me. I fly toward the edge of the cliff, chunks of my flesh left behind in Jeremiah’s pliers-hands.

As I’m flying, I note, almost as though from a distance, that the pain is not as bad as I imagined it would be. Is it shock, or does the game not allow the player to experience pain above a certain threshold?

I crash-land on my damaged shoulder and roll, bumping into the coil of rope wires. As air rushes out of me, I realize I might’ve jinxed myself again.

The game does allow for horrific pain, because I’m feeling it.

Trying not to swallow my tongue or bite it off, I lie in the fetal position and gasp for air as robo-Jeremiah walks toward me with menacing inevitability.

My gaze flicks away for a second, and I spot movement on my wristwatch Screen.

Real-life Jeremiah is reaching for the syringe on the table.

Horrified, I tear my gaze from the Screen and frantically scan my surroundings.

All I see is the wire rope I used to climb up the cliff.

Cyborg Jeremiah is a few feet away.

Without turning, I feel for the rope with my left hand. When I find it, I pull up the chunk that was left after I chopped it in half. Clutching the bottom end of the rope, I tie it around my right ankle in a double knot.

Doing my best not to dwell on the long drop behind me, I shakily rise to my feet. I glance down at my wrist for a split second and see that the real Jeremiah is turning to face me, syringe in hand.

My stomach hollow, I tear my gaze away again and wait.

The monster Jeremiah extends his upper left arm toward me.

When it’s within my reach, I close my right hand around the pliers that make up his hand and hold on as if my life depends on it—because it does.

His human eye registers surprise at my action.

If you think this is strange, let’s see what you think of this next part.

Bracing myself,
I take a confident jump backward, off the cliff, and drag Jeremiah with me.

There’s a moment of weightlessness, followed by a nausea-inducing jerk as the rope pulls taut.

I’m swinging head down, the rope holding me up by my ankle.

I clench my teeth, preparing for the next part of my plan.

Jeremiah’s body whooshes past me on its way down.

The world seems to slow.

I see his back.

The bolt-sword is still sticking out of it.

With my free left hand, I grab for it.

He continues to plummet, leaving the sword clutched in my hand.

I open my right hand to let go of his pliers, but it’s not that easy. Before my fingers uncurl completely, the pliers grab my wrist.

He jerks to a stop with a violent pull on my arm, and I understand why the ancients considered the rack to be the worst torture device ever created. Being stretched like this is unbearable, and it’s only made worse by the wounds I just sustained.

Through the haze of pain, I realize the sword is still in my left hand. I hack at Jeremiah’s wrist. With a splash of green, his flesh splits open, but he doesn’t fall. Instead, he grabs onto my sleeve with his two remaining appendages.

With a desperate growl, I jab him with the sword again.

More green liquid splashes across my face, burning me like acid.

One appendage remains.

My skin screaming in agony, I put all my remaining strength into this last chop and cleave the limb with one swing.

With a metallic screech and a fountain of green blood, Jeremiah falls.

My hand can no longer hold on to the sword, and the weapon follows Jeremiah, clanging against the rocks on its way down. I squeeze my eyes shut in an effort to not look down and strain my aching body once more as I reach for the rope.

My mind is in a fog as I climb back up, nearly blacking out from the pain. I feel like a ghost of myself—something I marvel at. Is the extreme pain I endured causing this illusion, or do I, in this game world at least, really exist as a spirit-type thing possessing this broken body? Is that what’s allowing me to force this humanoid shell to crawl toward that Goal structure? Then again, isn’t that how the human will
is supposed to work, even in the real world? Mind over matter, determination over agony?

I crawl up the cliff, and once I get to the edge, I crawl forward.

The only reason I know my crawling doesn’t take hours is because I keep sneaking glances at my Screen from time to time. In that tiny display, I see why I’m still alive.

Armed with the syringe, Jeremiah is delivering a monologue that seems meant more for his conscience than for the benefit of my clearly unconscious self.

In my growing panic, I glimpse a tiny subtitle: “The good of the society outweighs the good of an individual.” He might’ve stolen that line from some ancient philosopher.

I crawl faster, the Screen flickering in front of my eyes as I move my elbows, one in front of the other.

“Now that it’s come to this, I really hope you at least receive Oneness. I don’t wish to cause you needless pain,” Jeremiah continues. “Then again, perhaps your brain being as it is, you will not feel what’s about to happen. One can only hope.”

Feeling sick, I extend my hand toward the shimmering Goal sign. My fingers push through it—and disappear.

The Screen on my wrist is still visible. The subtitles say, “Take solace in this: the people who knew you will Forget that they did. They won’t suffer the pain of your loss.”

Jeremiah moves the syringe toward my upper arm.

Gathering the remnants of my strength, I push off the dusty ground with my feet and rocket headfirst into the Goal.

As soon as my head crosses its mirrored surface, a kaleidoscope of odd sensations hits me. I think I smell the color red and taste sunbeams.

Instantly, I find myself standing on a large pedestal. Placards with the word ‘WINNER’ are plastered all over.

There’s a roaring noise. I look down and see millions of people standing below, clapping and cheering.

Remembering my predicament, I steal another look at the watch.

“If it makes you feel any better, I will be the one to suffer most from this,” Jeremiah says. “I will not Forget.”

I think the game figured out that I’m not interested in prolonging the celebration of my awesome IRES-beating abilities, because another light display and bout of synesthesia leave me floating in the middle of gray nothingness.

In front of me is a giant Screen that looks like the one I used to shut down the Zoo, only it’s a hundred times bigger.

There’s no text on the Screen at first, but then words appear.

Do you want to play again?
the Screen asks.

“No,” I think and shake my head from side to side for good measure. “No, thank you.”

Shall I shut down?

“Yes,” I think and bob my head up and down in case it needs a gesture.

Are you sure?

“Positive,” I say, think, and nod again. “Affirmative. Yes.”

If you change your mind, the reboot time will take four hours. Please confirm you understand.

I glance at my watch. Jeremiah looks finished with his speech. The syringe is moving toward me.

“I fucking get it,” I yell at the game. “Just shut the hell down.”

Shutdown commencing
, the giant Screen informs me.

This time, I travel as bodiless white light.

When I open my eyes, I’m standing in my man cave.

Something bright is illuminating the whole space.

I turn to look at whatever it is.

I’m faced with a being of light—a creature that resembles Phoe, yet is blindingly, overwhelmingly sublime, like the angels and demigods of ancient fairy tales. Her beauty is so overpowering I feel as if I might go insane from looking at her—assuming I haven’t already. The ethereal presence I felt during Oneness was a joke compared to this.

“Am I still in the game?” I wonder. “Or did Jeremiah kill me? Is there really an afterlife with angels and everything?”

“No,” a voice booms. “Do the gesture, Theo. Now.”

The sound of this voice does to my ears what her visage does to my eyes. It’s the most beautiful, soothing, healing song I’ve ever heard, better than the most haunting melodies by the most talented of composers.

“Do the fucking gesture,” the beautiful voice repeats.

Having something so divine use the f-word brings me out of my reverie enough to comprehend its meaning.

I start making the double-middle-finger gesture, which brings my right wrist into my field of vision. The Screen-watch is still there, and I see that the needle of Jeremiah’s syringe is touching my skin. What I can’t tell is whether it has already penetrated, and if it has, whether he’s pressing the plunger.

I flip off the creature of light and white-tunnel back into my body with a single wish: for my body to actually be there when I arrive.

I
open
my eyes to a white room.

The fact that I actually have eyes to open is a very good sign.

On a wave of relief, I notice my lack of in-game injuries.

Of course, none of this will matter in a moment unless Phoe saves me by using whatever resources I freed up when I shut down IRES.

This is when it clicks. The being in the man cave was Phoe, and given how she appeared and sounded, I must’ve accomplished
something.
Surely she didn’t look all deified just for kicks?

Suddenly, I feel a sharp pain in my arm.

I look down.

It’s the needle of the syringe finally penetrating my skin.

I squeeze my eyes shut. This is it. I failed.

I prepare for the pain, but it doesn’t start.

I open my eyes.

Jeremiah’s withered hand is holding the syringe in place, but he’s not pressing the plunger.

I look up at him.

His face is frozen in blissful blankness.

“You’ve seen that expression on the faces of your friends,” Phoe says from behind me. “When they experience Oneness.”

She’s right.

It’s Oneness’s telltale ecstasy that I see on his face.

“So it’s Oneness that stopped him from killing me?” I ask, trying my best to look behind me.

“Let me come around so you can see me,” Phoe says.

She’s not a ghostly figure, I realize as she walks into my field of vision. Nor is she Fiona—not that I really believed that theory when the game presented it to me.

Phoe looks exactly the way she did in my virtual man cave before she went angelic: she’s a cute pixie-haired woman.

“You have to excuse how I looked when you saw me last,” she says. “I wasn’t used to the flood of resources you freed up for me.”

I stare at her, wondering if she’s really here.

“I’m still just a figment of your Augmented Reality interface.” She walks over and touches my cheek.

To my shock, I feel her touch, just as I did in the cave.

“I tapped into tactile, kinesthetic, and other AU sensory controls,” she explains. “Plus, I now have enough resources to modulate these details.” She points at her face and gives me a beaming smile. “I can also do this.” She makes a palm-out, pushing gesture in the air. The gesture is directed at Jeremiah’s outstretched arm.

In an odd, jerky motion, Jeremiah pulls the needle out of my skin and moves his hand away from me. The syringe clatters to the floor.

Looking satisfied, Phoe points at my restraints and does the same gesture again. Jeremiah’s arm reaches for my bindings in an unnatural motion, and he slowly unties me.

When he’s done, he extends his hand to help me to my feet.

“Careful now,” Phoe says. “Let the blood in your legs begin circulating again.”

“Are we safe?” I ask as I back away from Jeremiah’s hand and massage my limbs back to life. “Or could a Guard barge in at any moment?”

“I’m having everybody nearby experience Oneness, like him.” She nods toward Jeremiah.

I look at Jeremiah’s face and verify that he’s still floating in blissfulness. In fact, I think he was like this when he untied me.

“But how did you—”

“With my original resources, the neural nanos were nearly impossible for me to hack.” Phoe’s eyes are filled with a glow I don’t recall seeing there before. “I couldn’t exactly expect everyone to offer me that Screen exploit the way you did when we first met. Even in your case, there were limits. At first, all I could do was interact with your cochlear implants. Now I can play
him
like a musical instrument.” She waves her hand in Jeremiah’s direction, and a neural scan Screen shows up on top of his head.

Jeremiah’s face changes in response to her gesture. It goes from blissful to frightened in the span of a second. He also moves in a jerky motion again, raising his hands. His amygdala and other brain regions become active on the Screen. The neural scan is now completely different from the one associated with Oneness.

“Of course”—Phoe waves her hand again, letting bliss return to Jeremiah’s face—“I prefer the carrot to the stick.”

I stare at her.

In my head, all the million questions I have are fighting for the honor of being asked first.

“Are you feeling well enough to walk?” She twists a short blond spike of her hair around her finger. “Or do you want me to have a Guard come in and help you?”

I shake my head and take a tentative step. My shoulder and ankle are healed; it must’ve been those people I heard speaking right before I woke up in Jeremiah’s clutches. I also notice that the pins and needles in my limbs have noticeably subsided—and even if they hadn’t, I’m scared to complain about anything, lest Phoe mess with my mind to make me feel better.

She takes my chin gently into her slender fingers, turns my face toward hers, and whispers, “I would
never
mess with your mind without your permission.” Her lips press together in a slight pout. “I hope you know me well enough to believe that.”

“I do,” I whisper back.

My thoughts are a jumble.

I’m particularly distracted by her lips. For some reason, my mind is overrun with the memory of that kiss we shared in my cave.

“Right.” She chuckles. “For ‘some’ reason.” She looks as if she’s savoring that phrase. “Sex and violence, Theo. After all those adventures, with your brain chemistry going back to that of an ancient twenty-three-year-old’s, you’re practically brimming with testosterone and the aftereffects of adrenaline.” She licks her lips. “I’m shocked you haven’t jumped me already.”

The idea of me jumping her is so outrageous that I back away and turn toward the door on unsteady legs, mumbling, “If I were to jump you, you’d have my permission to ‘fix’ my brain.”

“I would,” Phoe says with mirth in her voice. “Assuming I minded you jumping me.”

Ignoring her provocative statement, I walk toward the door.

My torrent of questions wants to spew out again. Is she an Adult? An Elderly? If she’s a Youth, like me, did I know her from before she entered my head?

“Soon.” Catching up with me, Phoe lightly strokes my forearm. “Let me take you to a place where it will be easier to answer all your questions.”

I wave at the door to open it.

The corridor is not dull gray, but silvery. It looks more like the inside of the Lectures Hall than the Witch Prison. It doesn’t surprise me that the game got this detail wrong; it was working off my mind, and I’d never been outside this room—not in a conscious state anyway.

As I step out, I notice long stretches of windows along the inside wall.

I speed up, and Phoe follows me, her steps light and bouncy.

As we walk, I glance through the windows, peeking into the rooms. Inside them are the Elderly, their faces showing varying degrees of aging. They’re doing all sorts of activities, from meditation to indoor gardening.

When we pass one room, the sight of little children playing catches my attention.

“This is a Nursery,” Phoe explains. “Do you not recall your time in one of these?”

I slow down and take a closer look inside the room. The kids look to be between one and four years of age. The Elderly woman with them is not nearly as old as Jeremiah or Fiona. Like Albert—the Guard who took off his helmet—she looks like an Adult, only with a few more wrinkles than usual. Her hair is not gray at all.

“It’s colored,” Phoe says. “They don’t want the children to remember seeing signs of aging, even on a subconscious level.”

Leaving the Nursery behind, I walk in silence for some time, wondering how angry I should be about this specific cover-up. I was much happier when I thought I’d live forever without having to worry about old age, frailty, and death awaiting me in the future.

“It’s very sad.” Phoe catches my gaze and gives me an understanding nod. “Especially in light of all the things I now remember. Inside all of you, you have the nanocytes required to conquer aging completely.” Her lips twist. “It’s too bad that in their misguided effort to control ‘dangerously inhuman technology,’ the so-called Forebears implemented protocols to all but disable the rejuvenation processes. You’re lucky they couldn’t turn all of it off—that’s how you still get about double the ‘natural’ human lifespan.”

“They did what?” I look at her blankly. “They
chose
to age?”

“What they chose for themselves is irrelevant,” she says. “What they chose for their descendants is an atrocity—something they were good at.”

“Can this mechanism be re-enabled?” I say with faint hope.

“I don’t know,” Phoe says as we enter another corridor. “Maybe. I would need time to examine it all. They permanently deleted so much knowledge from the archives. You have no idea how much. Health and longevity are just the tip of a very, very big iceberg.”

She falls silent as we reach a corner. I’m about to turn right when Phoe puts a hand on my shoulder.

“You have to go left here,” she says. “It’s a dead end on the right. There are only Incubators there.”

I turn right, trying to remember where I heard that unfamiliar word. Something to do with farming, I think.

“Oh, come on,” Phoe says. “Didn’t they used to call you Why-Odor?”

I increase my pace.

“Didn’t you ever wonder where babies come from?” she says, her tone mischievous. “At least here, in Oasis.”

My cheeks redden. Even if I did ask this question as a kid, I’m sure the desire to do so again was bored out of me with a Quietude so long I probably grew a couple of inches before they let me out.

“I’m not talking about sex,” Phoe says. “Or at least, that’s not where the Oasis infants, the ones raised inside those artificial wombs, come from.”

Curiosity wins over propriety, and I ask, “Where do they come from, then?”

“Frozen embryos.” She points back in the direction of the ‘Incubators.’ “They were stored before… They were stored by the Forebears of this place,” she says. “The tiny cells are already set up with the seeds of the nanomachines.” She takes in my reaction to this, which is uncomprehending shock. “This is how the family unit was eradicated from your society,” she explains. “This is why a bunch of technological savages can have Screens, and Food, and utility fog, yet not know the most basic computer science…” She looks at me, her eyes filled with pity—except it’s not pity for
me
.

It’s for all of Oasis.

Feeling drained and emotionally numb, I mull over what she said as we approach a door.

She points at it. “This leads outside.”

“I could’ve guessed that by the ‘Exit’ sign.” I rub the back of my neck. “When are you going to start telling me what I really want to know? What was it you forgot? What was the game—”

“Soon.” Phoe leans in, her eyes gleaming. “I won’t only tell you. I’ll show you.”

Before I can respond, she walks to the door and steps out.

I follow her.

I’m no longer surprised to see a familiar landscape. Same as the Youth and the Adult sections, this one is filled with greenery combined with a set of geometrically perfect structures.

“But of course,” Phoe says, her voice laced with sarcasm for some reason. “The greenery provides much-needed ‘psychological benefits.’”

“I thought it was for oxygen,” I reply.

“No. I believe I told you this before. The greens, as ubiquitous as they are, only provide a tiny fraction of what’s required to sustain this society.” Her tone is even. “Especially because of this.” She flicks her fingers, and two giant oaks in the distance completely disappear. “Here, like in your section, a lot of the hard-to-reach greenery is not actually there. It’s Augmented Reality—merely there to look soothing.” She gently touches my arm. “There is long-forgotten technology that
really
handles the
air. The Forebears and your Elderly just don’t want to give credit to such ‘artificial’ means, so they feed you the whole myth of ‘greenery is for oxygen.’” Her voice is sad. “Anyway, there
are
some interesting buildings here that you won’t find in other sections. See that black structure in the distance?” She points to my left.

I nod. Where buildings usually have a metallic sheen, this one is pitch black. Its shape is geometric, though; it’s an icosahedron.

“I’m very curious about that place,” Phoe says. “But something tells me to stay away from it.” She clears her throat. “In any case, we’re going that way.” She points to the right, toward a growth of bushes that remind me of the ones that mark the Edge in the Youth section of Oasis.

“Not
like
the ones in your section.” She grins. “That is
the
Edge. That’s where we’re going.”

I head toward the bushes.

I guess she wants to take me to my favorite spot—or at least its variation in the Elderly’s domain. It was when we were sitting by the Edge that she told me Mason was looking for me and changed my life forever.

We walk through the growth. The bushes might actually be taller here than on the Youths’ side.

“I think the Elderly loathe the view of the Goo more than the younger generation,” Phoe explains. “With time, I suspect one begins to feel cooped up, imprisoned by the ocean of death out there.” She points at the never-ending waves of Goo beyond the shield of the Dome.

I sit down on the grass in the clearing right before the Edge.

Phoe sits next to me. She gives me some space, but her right knee touches my left one. The touch feels exactly as it would if she were really here; the tactile AR is as good as its visual and auditory counterparts. There might even be a slight indentation in my flesh where her knee is touching mine. It makes me wonder what would happen if I ran my hand through her hair.

“I can make that scenario feel pretty realistic,” Phoe says, clearly reading my mind again. “My hair would feel just like it would in VR. You have to keep in mind that the two technologies work on the same principles; it’s just a matter of how much
the nanos mess with your neurons and the nerves that connect your brain to the sensory organs. When the nanos take them over completely, you get VR, which can be as sophisticated as IRES, or as simple as your History Lecture propaganda. But when they just augment what you’re really sensing with a little bit of extra sensory data, you get AR.”