The doors were nearly closed. She let go of the spear, but her momentum was sending her out. Blip slammed into her from the side, diverting her trajectory. She hit the inside of the door just as it shut, her spear slid from her view, and the second burly jammed his arm into the gap. The heavy doors slammed shut, severing the arm. The burly wailed from the other side. Something began to beat against the other side of the door. The severed forearm and hand floated in the air around them, blood draining from the sliced end, splashing against Syn, and Blip, and the hanging corpse.
Syn shouted, “No!” at the loss of her spear and started to pull at the seam of the shut doors. “No!”
The Jacob descended, and Blip shouted, “It’s over!”
Syn spun, her eyes wide. “His arm! The doors aren’t to do that…” Her words came out in a stutter. “They’re not supposed to… It’s safe. There’s…”
“That subroutine must have been deactivated,” Blip said and floated up toward the window.
Syn wasn’t finished. “My spear. He took my spear. They have my spear!” She beat against the door, “That was mine! I made that!”
“We’ll get it back.”
“No! I made that. That was mine!”
“Get ready,” Blip said.
This statement brought her pause. “For what?”
“Gravity.”
As he said it, she noticed a slight tug. They were still kilometers above the base of the Dark Disc, and gravity was only a faint pull against them. The blood floating through the air, the droplets that hadn’t clung to Blip and herself or the walls, were starting to descend.
She knew the routine and maneuvered around to place her back against the wall and aim her legs straight down. The gravity would increase incrementally until her feet were flat against the floor. She did have to refer to the window to confirm she was heading downward. She had made that mistake once before, aiming her head down because she was in a hurry and then being too caught up in her thoughts or what she’d discovered to right herself before gravity grabbed hold, and she’d slid to the floor.
She was safe now. But without her spear. She slammed her hand against the wall.
“What were those things?”
Blip did that small move with his head that communicated a simple I don’t know without saying it.
“Well, what do you know?”
Blip turned.
Syn pressed, “Seriously, you’re supposed to be the brilliant mind around here. For years we’ve been in our Disc. And before that, in the white room. And you didn’t know there were people over here! You’re lying, Blip! Lying!”
“I am not!”
“You were!”
“You’re just angry over your stupid stick.”
She pushed off from the wall, although, as gravity was taking hold, her expected charge fell short. She screamed at him, irritated at his words and at the poor effort in charging him. “It’s not a stupid stick! I made it! That was my spear!” She yelled at the top of her lungs. Her face was red, and her freckles stood out, dark like her eyes and hair. Sweat beaded on her forehead and she ground her teeth together. “Arggghhh!”
“Shut up!” Blip said. “You don’t think they’re listening?”
“What are you talking about? We’re in the Jacob!”
“There’s microphones in here. There are sensors all over this ship. I could hear everything you did over there.”
“You spied on me?”
“I watched you! I protected you! I’m your guardian. It’s what I’m designed to do.”
“Was lying part of your program? I want the truth, you tiny zit!”
“I’m telling you the truth. I didn’t know anything about what was happening over here.”
“How is that possible?”
“Can you shut up? Can we have this argument later?”
“No!”
He hushed her with a sharp, “Shhh!”
“You little brat. No!” Syn yelled back.
“They’re listening. What don’t you understand about that? They can hear us. Every word. We are stuck in here, and they’re coming for us!”
“Then don’t go all the way to the ground.”
Blip did not supply a retort at this. Instead, after a moment, he turned away from her and floated to the control panel. After a few seconds, he said, “Oh.”
“You stupid little robot.” But the fury had left her voice. Irritation laced the words, but there was also the sound of amusement.
Along the back of his frame, letters formed—a scrolling message aimed at her alone: I HAVE ASKED IT TO DROP US OFF AT THE TOP OF THE SETTLEMENTS.
Syn nodded. That was smart. Whoever was listening, whoever was waiting, would soon discover where they had exited, but there was far more hiding space in the settlements than at the base, at least right out of the Jacob. If they could get to the version of Aja here, they’d have a thousand places to hide. If there was a version of Aja. They’d yet to spy the ground and the thick dark clouds were coming up fast to meet them. Perhaps the jungle had been burned down. Or perhaps the designers had chosen another landscape to fill the surface. Maybe this had been a desert, or maybe a prairie, or maybe lake after lake after lake. For the first moment, she was eager to see the bottom. The Dark Disc still smelled like the pits of Hell, but there was the possibility of seeing something new.
The sense of gravity hit her, and she slid down to the ground, her feet striking the floor only moments after several large droplets of blood did. “Ewww!” She lifted her foot up and strings of thick, coagulating blood dripped off. “Ugh. Stupid burlys.”
“Burlys?” Blip asked. She smiled—she had been calling them that but only in her own head.
“Those two things up there. Ya, they’re, you know, burly and all. Burlys.”
He smiled for the first time since they’d crossed over to this side, and the sight stilled her heart. He was still Blip, and she was still Syn. We can do this, she decided. To herself, she nodded her head and grinned.
She reached over and pulled on a large piece of fabric draped over the hanging corpse’s shoulders. She tugged on it as it snagged on something behind the corpse, but the dead body was light and the fabric came loose.
She leaned down to wipe the blood from her soles but then paused, lifting the full piece up. It was a blanket, and while the one side facing the sunstrips had been bleached white and then stained with soot and dust, the underside showed pink cartoon ponies dancing and chasing about. She held it up to show Blip. “StarSnow and Gallopy.”
Blip smiled. “Looks just like the one you used to have.”
It did. Where had that blanket gone? They had lost it camping one week as they made a long trek through the forest and the hills, circumnavigating the base of the Disc. She had used it the one night they camped lakeside and curled up in it as the winds blew the mist from the rolling waves. They had left off early the next morning, and she had assumed she’d left it on lake bank, but when they had returned there, months later, it was nowhere to be found.
Blip must’ve grasped where her thoughts were headed. “It’s not yours. There were several of those left by the colonists.”
Syn wasn’t sure. She held it up, looking for small elements to confirm that this was or wasn’t hers. A tear. A stain. Something of indication. But she couldn’t remember the blanket well enough to know if that dark stain in the corners had been placed there by her or some other girl on this side. And the blanket hadn’t been hers to begin with. She had entered the Disc in only a white uniform and nothing else. She had found it in one of the Settlement houses, in some little girl’s room. No, that wasn’t right. She had found it bundled up on the side of a couch. The little girl who’d owned it laid dead next to it. The girl possessed dark skin and features, and the sharp, bulging eyes of someone who had been strangled to death.
Syn had stolen this from a girl that had been murdered. But, in truth, everything she had was taken from those that had been murdered. She was a robber of
the dead.
17
The Scratching Between Skulls
“Concrete objects can pull free of the earth more easily than humans can escape humanity.”
—Marcus Aurelius
The Jacob lurched to a sudden stop. Syn fell against the floor, splattering the pooled blood across her clothes and face. The lift jolted again, and she lost all balance, falling face first into the sticky crimson mess.
Blip rocked a bit and righted himself.
The doors to the Jacob slid open, and the lights running vertically along the interior walls sputtered out, and the entire lift went dark except for the glow of Blip’s blue face lights.
Syn stammered, “What happ—” She came up on all fours, her face hidden under the red mask of the blood. It was now smeared in her hair, and she glanced her own reflection in the metal frame around the open doors. Only her dark eyes stared out from the crimson disguise.
“I think we’re there.”
“We didn’t just crash?”
Blip shook his head. “I don’t think this Jacob is working quite properly. It didn’t decelerate correctly. Usually ours are a lot nicer and don’t just hit the brakes. But I think we’re next to the J Settlements.”
Syn stepped out. The path around them lit red as the lights along the edge of the walkway and the corridor turned on at her arrival. “No.” She waited for Blip to join her. “What do we do?”
“Keep walking. We’re not far away.” He moved ahead of her, turning his case red to match the corridor lights. “And red light is hard to see from far away. Be thankful it’s in emergency mode.”
With each step into a new section, the corridor lit up. The red light provided only limited illumination, and she still struggled to see into the thick, cloudy distance. By habit, she found herself running a finger along each wall and door they passed, marking them with an imaginary paint. She read the door numbers. “95. 96. 97. 98.”
Blip finished, “99.” They had stopped before two large doors positioned at the end of the corridor where the others had been to their right-hand side.
“J1302-99?”
Blip nodded.
Syn took two more steps and the access panel lit red at her approach. She stammered, “Open sesame.”
“You sure?”
She nodded and took another step forward. “Please.”
Blip signaled the panel, and a few seconds later, the doors began to slide open. The edges of the door grated against the dry runners then came to a grinding stop with a finishing clang. Only a meter of passable space opened before them. The doors weren’t moving any further.
Syn didn’t wait for Blip. She tried to grip her spear and then grunted as she remembered it had been stolen. “Dammit.” She stepped inside the darkened door unarmed and undeterred. Blip followed. He opened a small shaft along his top, and a brighter red spot lit the room in front of them. As this was a private room, Syn’s presence didn’t force the illumination to turn on automatically. However, she knew all she had to do was mutter a command and the room would light up for her. Syn blinked, and her eyes quickly adjusted. The light revealed a small room with several desks, plastic toys, and a reddish carpet. A few white balls glowed in the bright light. No, not balls. Syn saw the hollow insets on each of them where eyes had once been.
Skulls.
Small skulls atop small skeletons, scattered around the room, most huddled together, their clothes flat on the bones. Hollow eye sockets cased in bleached skulls gazed at her. Dozens upon dozens of small, empty faces, pleading with an unanswered desperation.
A mound of them were stacked nearly half-a-meter high as if someone had started to collect them all.
Syn grunted, "Did it have to be children?" She took a step closer but did not enter. "What is this? Is anyone here?"
Blip hummed, a sound Syn knew to be his attempt to fill the time as he searched Olorun’s records. "A daycare."
"What?"
Blip paused and then said, “Like your crèche.”
Syn remembered the pristine white room she woke up in years before—the place she had been educated through video. The room she had been locked away in and met Blip in. The room she had lived in for nearly two years until the door to Olorun opened, and she stepped out.
Blip continued, “Like that but for many kids. A place for children to be watched as their parents worked. There were at least eight on our Disc. This seems pretty small.”
“You could’ve just said a school.” Syn rolled her eyes as she crossed the threshold. "Just kids. Where are the parents?"
Blip floated beside her, illuminating each of the skeletons with the red of his scanning laser. "Don't know. But I can tell you these all died at the same time."
Syn leaned down and picked up a tired looking teddy bear in the middle of the room. "How?"
"Every one of them has decayed at the same rate. All identical. They all died within hours or days of each other. Maybe minutes."
Syn tapped one of the skeleton's shoe. "Why?"
This was new. Most of the others they had encountered on their side of ship, on their Disc, had died violently—it was easy to realize their cause of death. The weapon would often be nearby. A hammer. A shovel. A length of rope. Often at the hand of another member of the crew.
“Maybe suffocation,” Blip said.
“They were locked in here and left to die?”
“Maybe they were forgotten about. Or maybe those who knew were killed.”
Two mysteries. The fallen companion bot the day before. And now this.
Syn shook her head. Three mysteries. Was Blip telling the truth?
And how would she find that out without sending Blip away? How could she discover the truth and still keep Blip? Three mysteries and one problem.
“I want answers,” she said. She looked around the wide space—there were no back rooms, just a closet and a bathroom—and shouted, “Anyone here?”
Only silence answered.
She searched behind the doors into the closet and bathroom but shook her head when she returned. Nothing. “So why did he send us—”
Blip’s light shut off sharply, and he floated back in front of her in a blur. “Shhh,” he hushed.
“What wrong?”
“Someone’s coming.”
18
Three-headed Thieves
Eni to way daran.
“Whoever comes into the world, comes into trouble.”
—Yorùbá Proverb
Syn felt frozen. More of the burlys?
As if knowing her thoughts, Blip shook his head. “No—it’s three smaller people. But they are fast. They’re running here.” He rotated around, his eyes wide and commanding. “Hide!”
“Where?”
He circled around and then pointed to the hill of skulls and skeletons built up against the wall.
“No. Not there. I’m not—” she stammered.
“Do it! Hide!” She glared at him until he beckoned, “Please.”
“Fine,” she said, moving to the pile, and getting down on her knees to burrow inside the mound.
“Stay there. I’ll look around.”
Blip floated toward the partially opened front door at a snail’s pace. He was far more cautious now than he had even been when they crossed through to this side. He turned around once more, “Promise me, whatever happens, keep quiet and hidden. If that other bot was in this room, they may think I’m him. They don’t know about you.”
Syn whispered after a moment’s hesitation, “I promise.”
As he moved ahead, she did her best to pull her full body under the child skeletons, positioning as many as possible to cover her up. They rattled and clacked, a disturbing, hollow sound. A small skull, that of a toddler, rolled down the pile and smashed against the ground. A broken egg shell will no yolk. She stared through the small gap between two skulls at Blip’s receding form. “Be careful,” she mouthed without speaking.
He moved to the edge of the doorway, and she couldn�
�t see anything past his gray frame.
From the outside, from the inky darkness, several small hands shot through the doorway and grabbed hold of Blip.
Something outside grunted, “Got ya!”
Syn started to jump up to pull him back, but she remembered her promise. Within the second of deliberation, the hands pulled Blip out and disappeared.
“No!” Syn whispered.
She jerked back as two dark eyes stared out from the darkness at her. Eyes that she had seen a thousand times. As if staring in a mirror. But these were fierce and angry, and they frightened her. Then they were gone, retreating back down the unseen space outside. They scanned across the darkened room and swept past her, missing her hiding place. After a moment, the eyes disappeared, and the room was left quiet, and Syn was alone again.
Frozen in wait, Syn struggled to move. “No.” She kicked and punched and pulled herself free. Syn scrambled to stand and chase after Blip, but her clothes and jewelry were tangled in the bones around her. She staggered back to the ground against the skeletons, and her impact shattered the frail joints underneath her. She threw the skulls away from her and heard them shatter against the walls. One by one, she tossed aside the skeletons of dead children, freeing herself from the tangle of white bones. Finally free, she stood and raced after Blip, into the darkened corridor. She slid to a halt an inch before the doorway—if she exited now, the pathway would light up. They’d see her. They’d come back and then…
Outside the daycare room, everything was dark. Her eyes struggled to see what light there was, her pupils opening wide to navigate the darkness. She stood motionless, debating crossing the threshold. Who was that? Finally, her fear for Blip overwhelmed her caution, and she raced into the darkness, ignoring caution. “Blip!” She shouted, but she heard nothing. She did not hear the footsteps of the thieves. She did not hear their shouts. They made no sound, and she was lost in the red light of the pathway strips that announced her as she ran.
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