WIPE (A Post-Apocalyptic Story) (43 page)

Chapter 27

When I’m brought to my feet and told it’s time to march, my body feels like a tortured waste of nerves. I can barely put each foot in front of the next, an ache starting at my ankle where the metal sliced through my flesh connects somehow to the stinging of my entire head. The last thing I think I see before they drag me from the boat is the boy—his body hanging from a pole near the front of the ship, swaying gently in the breeze.         

The Fathers pick me up when the stones become too much and I start to stumble. We cross through endless trails that stretch from thick forest into vast clearings of golden weed, some unknown path through the wilderness. In the distance, when they tell me we are nearing the house of god, I see the black silhouette of a ruined city—spikes that rise, a distant grave marker of the old world. And then, we descend somehow into a ridge of rock, lower and lower into the ground. Everything drips and is wet, just as if we’re venturing back out into the sea. But my eyes still let in enough light for me to know. This isn’t the steel tube leading to the tower. And at last, after a Father lifts me and carries me a long way under a ceiling of jagged rock, I’m thrown on the floor. Water rushes over me, and then, I hear a loud rush. Footsteps racing away. Father Gold speaks:

            “You’ll wait here for your audience. Do not move,” he says. And then there’s a loud slam. I manage to turn my body just enough to see a metal door close. The structure of myth. The thought beats into my head again and again for some reason: the structure of myth. Some part of me realizes I’m going to see it now—the very heart of the structure. The thing that proclaims its authority as ultimate and absolute. Maze, I say. I pray like my mother used to do. The words that could transcend this world and reach the dead. Through the power of the Fatherhood, through the proper recitation of the scripture and belief in the divine, the dead can be reached. Maze, I say again. Do you hear me? I want to go. I’m done. But there’s silence. No more of her voice. And I tell my deadened and throbbing body to go to sleep. To find her again on the balcony. But it cannot. As if I’m stuck in the eternal purgatory built for those who cannot attain to the After Sky. Part of me wants to rise, bash my head against the wall, so that I can find her. So that if anything, I can find peace. But there’s no energy. And after a long passage of collapsed time and space, I hear the noise. In front of me this time. When I try to open my left eye, the other too swollen to see through, I see bare rock move away to reveal a shape.

At first I cannot make out quite clearly what it is, but then I see. It is a metal sphere. It hovers above the floor. My senses have become too disoriented for me to know how it moves. The shape is white, the same brightness of the High Fathers’ robes, but shiny—the unmistakable sheen of the greatest sin.

            “Wills,” says an inhuman voice.

            “You’re metal.” I laugh.

            “It is in fact metal that sustains you, too. Organic life does not survive without small amounts of metal in its blood, did you know this?”

            I cannot do anything but stare at the sphere. It moves closer and I see that it’s spinning slowly.

            “No part of me is metal,” I say.

            “But you are partly metal. All organic life is. You see, you are ignorant of science. That is not your fault.” The orb stops spinning and seems to hover before me, enormous. Then, it’s voice comes again:

            “Do you know why the scripture forbids metal?”

            “Because it’s a sin,” I fire back.

            “No. Because if metal were allowed, it might have threatened my presence here. And do you know the first commandment, original, from the old age?”

            “No…”

            “There shall be no other God. I am God.”

            “You’re another lie. Another probability.”

            “Good,” the voice says. “It’s good that you think this way. You are in fact right. And do you know why I’ve brought you here?”

            “Because I have the tattoo.”

            “No. Your wound wasn’t necessary. Wills, they cannot hear us now. Please, talk freely.”

            “Then why?”

            “I know it was your friend that had the tattoo. But it’s meaningless.”

            “Then why!” I scream.

            “Because I want you to complete what you desire most to do. I want you to unlock the Ark.”

            “We just left the Ark in the tower. Father Gold could have taken it.”

            “That was not the Ark. You see, that is not the Ark at all. It was, perhaps, in ancient millennia, some crude version of an Ark. But no—that is merely a computer that houses the history of the world until some short time after the beginning of the second century.”

            “What’s the date?” I ask. I remember the inscription: April 26th, 2213.

            “Will you believe me?”

            “Yes.”

            “We are in the last age of your sun. In just a month’s time, the final bit of fuel will run out of your star, and then, the world will be enveloped by its fiery sphere as it expands, consuming each planet in turn.”

            “What’s the date?”

            “The tower is an old preservation. The history of the past four billion years is entirely missed in that device you found in the tower. But there is another Ark. One that we created.”

            “Where?”

            “Buried beneath Acadia. You see, I want you to go home, Wills.”

            “Why me? Why did you kill Maze?”

            “The scripture is not as wrong as you think. Wrist—he was not as wrong as you think.”

            “You didn’t have to kill her.”

            “No, but I am left with the Fathers now to run my errands. That is all. You see, I’ve already left. It is their human impulse, nothing more, that caused her death. I am sorry. There is no divine reason for her death.”

            The sphere rises up and I look at it for a moment as if it were a person, despite its alien voice. As if there were something I could do to harm it. It spins and rises and then stops, almost directly above me.

            “What happened? What happened to humans then?”

            “When you’ve done your job, you will know everything. But I can tell you some of it. Wrist was not lying to you. He was the last of his kind, and because he was a creation of humans, like all human-created robots, he was stuck in the history of the last Great War. Your species did rise to conquer your solar system, and then, it did truly run out of biological ingenuity to endeavor farther into the reaches of the galaxy. To solve its own problem of self-harmony. You see, your species from the start was very fragile, as most of the life in the universe is. It was our benevolence, our interest in science, that made us see to it that your species did not annihilate itself. It can be considered cruel, by human measure, that we did not let your species expire. But it is in my species’ interest to preserve life’s occurrences, no matter how whimsically they may seem to be created by nature’s chance combinations, if they present a chance for further knowledge. Not all species can claim such a treasure as that. For that, you should be proud.”

            “You weren’t created by humans?”

            “No. We are merely the retainers of your genetic persistence.”

            “Why me? Why do you want me to find the Ark?”

            “Do you know it is metal, after all, that will end our preservation here? The sun will expire on account of its formation of metal within its core. When a star forms iron, then it is over. Your star will breach the scriptures. And the sun, as the Fathers would understand it, will commit the final sin. But it is merely a natural process. We want to preserve the final piece of what happens here. But as I said, I am gone already. Our experiment that has lasted for so long. Your species was interesting, Wills: It could never quite find balance within itself—there were too many influencing factors of competition and separation. That is typically the way it goes for carbon-based life forms of your class. But—it was a beautiful mystery you presented—this
meaning
. Your species fight to attain some form of greatness that mere necessity of formation could never permit. That, I think, is why our council has decided to add you to our collection. You see, you’ve earned a worthy position in our record of existence.”

            “The dogma, the Nefandus and the Fatherhood…”

            “In the end, it was the best way for humans to find happiness. In myth, you see. By your measure, a beautiful mixture that prevents your immortality, but provides something you call
meaning
. It is this word that we care about most. By our measures, we cannot come close to grasping it yet. What you call
meaning
. Yet, for eons, humans have fought to find political systems, governments, revisions of their own fabric, their own genetic material, to discover meaning for themselves. To us, you see, there is no such thing as
meaning
. But, because it came to exist here, we have decided that there is something we must attempt to learn. Something worth archiving.”

            “Why have you chosen me to tell this to?”    

            “It is true that Maze was Wrist’s endeavor all along. His and the other human-created mimeses of organic life produced in metal. Some manifestation again of meaning—sought, it seems, in an old gene variant. She was destined to go back to the tower. There is one thing the Fathers have gotten right, you see. The dogma of fate, as you would call it. There is only the predetermined course.”

            “No.”

            “Either way, whether you believe it or not, it is just your attempt, as all your species has done with any matter of truth, to provide meaning for it. To understand fate is beyond your biological capability. But as a world view, you may choose to believe it or not, and in either way, apply a variant of
meaning
to life
.
Wills, we have chosen you to gain the Ark because we believe you will die properly for it. You see, gaining the Ark for us will require your death. And in dying, you will fulfill for yourself some meaning you’ve always wanted. Some meaning you wanted for Maze, the meaning you need most. It is your nature, humans, to find your meaning in each other. It becomes very confused as to whose meaning you are fulfilling, but for us, as far as our experiment, it does not matter from where you draw meaning. It is just that we know you are the best candidate. But you are free to go—you are free to choose. You see, despite the acknowledgement of fate, even we cannot know which course the future takes. We are not so advanced to know. But in the course of my computations, as governing vessel of this world, it is my best probability of success to choose you. Here’s what you must do. Go home to Acadia. Live your life in peace. I will ensure that you will remain unmolested. I will remove all aspect of a threat from the Fatherhood. They will embrace you. On your sixty-third birthday, you will allow twenty-nine more days to pass. Do you understand everything so far, Wills?”

            The white circle spins and falls.

            “And then, there will be a fissure in the chapel. It will open wide, and there will be a panicked rush to seal it. The Fathers will proclaim it an act of God, and that the community must have caused the disaster by its sin. They will seek to repair it and atone for their sins. You will disappear. Before they close it, you must enter in, and there will be a passage. You will follow it, and all you have to do is activate the switch. You will use this.”

            A clang echoes through the room. A small gray disc lies in front of me on the floor.

            “You will not be able to return to the surface. But you’ll know—you’ll see the activation. And before you are dead, you will see the history of your race. It will be your prize. Every last thing that has come to pass. It is sad that your love, Maze, will not see it. You would have found meaning in that, I think. But you will see it, and your meaning will be found in knowing you have accomplished her dream. The real truth of your species, and all life on this planet, will be preserved.”

            “Why not do it yourself?”

            “Because materially, as you see me, I am not here. I am a projection. And my presence has long since left this world. In the overall scheme of our record of the universe, as grandly as I’ve presented my fascination with your species, and as intriguing as our research into
human meaning
is, I must tell you that it ranks low in our overall spectrum of priority. It is no loss to our species if this record fails. We have much of what matters on record now anyway. It was not my decision to leave and abandon the record before the end. I have a reputation to uphold—a reputation of one whose record production is complete, right up to the moment of the star death. If you believe me, also believe that the entirety of your voyage was barely my own orchestration. I simply honed into your life as a possible target, a way to salvage what has been written off here already. We have enough information already, enough of a record, to be pleased. But I would like, for my own ascension amongst my peers, to gain the full and last stretch of time, just before the star collapses. Will you do it?”

            “Yes.” I cannot even pause to think that the white orb has lied to me, or that it’s all an illusion. All I can do is think of Maze, and how it’s right: she’ll never live to see it. And if I believe this thing, I can accomplish it for her. And then, just like that, the orb tells me it’s leaving.

            “I will no longer appear to the Fathers. I will produce one last vision for them, to tell them that God is leaving them for a time, because they must work to atone for their sins. I will give a specific set of instructions, enough to provide safe governance at least of your village until the time comes for your star’s explosion, and the fissure to open. This will be my last words to you. It has been a pleasure to know your species, Wills.”