Onliest

by J Daniel Batt

  Even though she had studied this scene countless times in movies while sitting in the darkened theater, Syn had never expected to actually experience a family dinner and had no clue how to act.

  “No! That’s part of your problem. Not mine. I didn’t touch the cat at all when it snuck in the room.” Taji leaned back and laughed.

  “What was the name of that cat?” Neci asked, picking through the charred meat in front of her.

  The food wasn’t spectacular, but it was good and warm. The plates were clean. This wasn’t the spread Syn had seen in the movies. There was some type of meat that had been charred on the outside. There were some leaves chopped up as a vegetable. Were the round things cookies? Or crackers? She couldn’t tell from sight alone.

  It didn’t matter. It was a dinner. With sisters.

  Kerwen chewed and, between gulps of water, answered, “Cosmos?”

  Pigeon whispered, “That was the gray one.”

  “Oh, ya! That was the one you made me bury cause you thought it was dead!” Kerwen said.

  Neci shook her head. “It looked dead.”

  “Up until the part I started putting dirt on it. Woke up fast and scared me to death.”

  “What was the name of the one that kept sneaking back in?” Neci said. She directed her question at Kerwen and Taji but ended it with a slight nod toward Pigeon.

  Without any response, Pigeon pushed her chair back, picked up the jug of water and walked over to Neci. She took the other girl’s cup, filled it, then walked back and sat back down.

  As this happened, Kerwen waved her fork in the air. “Docile. We had named that thing Docile!”

  Neci smiled. “Yes. That was it. Docile.”

  Pigeon picked up her fork and speared a piece of meat. “It was a sweet cat.”

  “It had snuck its way in and pretended to be part of the rest of the cats,” Neci explained, “I’m still not sure how long it had been living here.”

  “At least a week,” Kerwen took a gulp of water.

  “Pretending to be normal. Pretending to be something it wasn’t.” Neci finished the last bit and leaned back in the chair. She smiled at Syn and then glanced at Syn’s plate. “You seem to not be hungry.”

  Syn looked at the meat in front of her. She was hungry. She was aching of hunger. But she was distracted by the moment. Real people. Real conversations. “I’m hungry. I just…”

  “Oh. There’s no insistence. You are free to eat or not,” Neci twirled her fork in the air, then stabbed it in Syn’s direction. “You seem a little shy.”

  Syn stammered, “I just…”

  “You just want an explanation for all this,” Neci waved around her. “For each of us?” She pointed her fork at each of the others around the table.

  Syn nodded. “Yes.”

  “Any specific question you’d like to start with?” Neci asked.

  Syn fought with what to say. So many questions. Why do you all look like me? Where did you come from? How long have you been living like this? Were there others? Where are your companion bots? Where is Blip?

  Neci sighed, “Choose one.”

  “Why do you look like me?” Syn blurted out.

  Neci laughed, and Taji slapped the table. Taji barked, “You look like us. Don’t confuse the order of things.” She jammed her dinner knife in Syn’s direction. “Don’t forget that. Real important.”

  “Well?” Syn asked.

  “What do you remember, Syn?” Neci asked.

  Syn held her hands out, palms up, gesturing at the others all together. “I need answers. Please. Can you explain this?”

  Kerwen leaned over and placed her hand on Syn’s shoulder. “She’s not trying to pry information out of you.”

  “I’m trying to figure out what I need to explain and how much you’ve pieced together on your own. But I’ll start at the beginning.” Neci leaned in toward Syn, “My first memory was throwing up when the cover to the crèche bay opened up. The lights and the sound. Just a bit too much.”

  “I puked too,” Kerwen said and Taji nodded in agreement. A mutual experience.

  “The crèche? You woke up in the crèche?” Syn asked. Her eyes were wide, and she was leaning forward. They had described a hidden part of her life. Of the ship. She remembered waking up alone. There had been no one in the white room at all. No one there when she left. “Before me? How long have you been here?”

  Pigeon spoke, “In our own crèches.”

  Neci gave her a sharp look, and Pigeon sat back in her chair, falling into shadow.

  Above them, the clouds rumbled. Each of them looked up. There was no rain, yet, but a timer had just been set for their conversation.

  “Does it rain here?” Syn asked.

  Kerwen gave the first laugh and the others followed. “Does it rain? Hell, yes, it rains.”

  Neci leaned in, “You said ‘here.' As opposed to where?”

  Syn felt her palms sweat. “I’m just new here. I…”

  “No. That was a comparison. When you’ve once said a thing, that fixes it, and you must take the consequences. Here versus there. So where is there?” Neci asked.

  Syn bristled. She pushed her chair back. If she was to run, she didn’t want her feet under the table.

  At the other end, the lumbering Taji noticed and shifted to spring after Syn if she fled.

  Syn stammered. “I woke up in a crèche. I watched the videos. Did you watch the videos?”

  Kerwen, eager to calm the moment, said, “The dolt Captain Pote.”

  Syn bristled at that. She had loved Captain Pote and his family. She could remember racing down to the Disc hoping to meet him and the disappointment that rushed in after. But this wasn’t the time for offense. “Yes. Captain Pote. They showed rain on Earth.”

  “Earth’s a myth,” Pigeon said.

  Syn turned to the girl. “No it isn’t.”

  “Back to the truth. Where is there?” Neci asked, her voice a bit lower now.

  “I meant Earth. Here versus Earth.”

  Neci raised her eyebrows. “Really?”

  Syn gave a slight nod.

  Seeming to accept that answer, Neci turned the question. “Then where have you been?”

  “The needle. I came from the needle,” Syn said, “Is that how you got here?”

  Neci stayed silent.

  Kerwen glanced at the Crimson Queen. “Give her some more answers.”

  Neci sat back and looked between Kerwen and Syn. She shot a look over at Taji. After a long, quiet moment, she said, “Yes. We came from the needle. All of us came down.”

  “The four of you?” Syn asked.

  “Forty-one,” Neci said.

  Syn felt her world disappear. Forty-one? She grew a bit dizzy with the information. “Forty-one? And they’re all…” She motioned between them, palms up, hands in a slow swirl.

  Neci nodded. “Like us. Just like each of us. I know the word for twins. Triplets. Quadruplets.”

  Taji said, “Quintuplets.”

  “What’s the word for forty-two copies of the same person?” Neci said.

  “Forty-two?” Syn asked and then realized they were counting her in that number. Syn answered, “I don’t know.”

  Neci smiled, “Eve. The word is Eve.”

  “Like in the Garden? Adam?” Syn acted ignorant, but she had heard the word before. In Captain Pote’s initial videos. She thought it was a term of endearment. She hadn’t realized it had a deeper meaning.

  “In a way. What do you know of that story?”

  “There was a snake,” Syn said.

  Pigeon snorted, “There’s always a snake.”

  Syn continued, “God was angry. They had sinned.”

  Neci shook her head. “Why were they there?”

  “In the Garden?”

  “In the Garden.”

  Syn thought. “They were to take care of it, I think. It doesn’t really say. It’s just nonsense.”

  “You may call it nonsense if you like, but it’s quite
informed nonsense,” Neci smiled and ran her hand across her abdomen, resting it below her navel. “They were to take care of the Garden. Just like what we were to do. But we never made it to the Garden. Instead, God decided to dump us into Hell. How do you think the story would’ve turned out after that? What if instead of kicking them out of the Garden he had sent them to Hell?” Neci stood. She snapped her fingers and one of the burlys behind her turned and left the room. She continued, “I wonder if we would think of Hell as Hell. Maybe it would’ve been a different place with Eve on the throne.” She walked around the table and picked up an apple then took a small bite. A bit of juice ran down her chin. “We’re in Hell, Syn. And we took over.”

  Syn shook her head. “I’m not getting it…”

  Kerwen sighed. “We are the Eves, Syn. Each of us. We were created to explore another world. Cast out of Earth. Shot into the void. You know what Olorun is?”

  Syn felt a bit of stress drain from her tight muscles. She nodded. “I know about Olorun. The ship. We’re on Olorun.” Without thinking about it, she leaned forward and picked a piece of meat up and chewed.

  Kerwen gave a look at Neci that said, See, I knew she was hungry.

  Neci picked up a chair that was off to the side, near a pole, and planted it next to Taji. She had moved to the other side of the table but had moved much closer to Syn who sat near to Kerwen. “Have you ever talked to Olorun?”

  Syn was about to mention that Blip had but she hadn’t. That wouldn’t work. Instead, she said, “No. I didn’t know he could talk.”

  Neci stared at her and then whispered, “Liar.”

  Taji muttered, “She. The bitch above is a she.”

  A chill went through Syn. “I’ve never talked to Olorun. I promise.”

  Kerwen sighed. “Olorun is on its way to another planet. But the wonderful people who had inhabited this ship…” A look went between Taji and Kerwen and then both glanced at Neci. Only Pigeon kept her eyes forward. Syn thought she saw a brief tinge of disgust roll through Pigeon’s features, but if it had, it was fleeting and gone now. Kerwen continued, “They went a bit crazy.”

  Taji spoke up, “They killed each other. And burnt the place down.”

  Neci picked up a piece of meat from Taji’s plate. “This here is a gift, Syn. Do you know when the last time we had meat was?”

  Pigeon twitched and said, “There were five of us before that.”

  Neci ignored her and continued, “The idiots torched this place and then managed to wake us up. It was tough at first. The brutes who remained,” she nodded at the burlys, “were numerous and took many of our sisters. Disease. Starvation. One by one, they died. We are all that’s left of that forty-one. Until you came along.” She stood back up and picked up her chair from a notch on its back and moved it toward the far side of Syn, placing Syn between Kerwen and Neci. Neci continued, “Now I wonder if there are more of our sisters up there. In the needle. In other parts of the ship.”

  Syn said, “Have you looked for them?”

  Neci leaned in. “We looked real hard. Every room we could get into. We scoured this ship. We’ve scoured the Disc. We dug through the farmlands, picking through the burnt crops, for whatever was left. What’s interesting is that in all of our searches, we never saw you. So where were you hiding?”

  Syn glanced up, toward the needle, toward the sunstrips.

  “Holding to that story, eh?” Neci said. The burly that had exited returned to the room carrying a sack over his shoulder.

  “I woke up. I was in the white room a very long time.” That part was true. It was just not as long as she had hoped they would assume. She had to account for her age, for the years on the other Disc. “Then one day the door opened.” She found a lie and wrapped it around a truth. “I heard a big explosion and went looking for what happened. The door opened, and I came down here.”

  Kerwen and Taji shared a glance between each other.

  The burly placed the sack on the table in front of Neci and then stepped back to its post. Neci said, “You woke up. You came down here. You were caught by the Ecology. And you helped them, and then they pointed you here. You traveled over the Desert with three machines, stepped right into a thudder trap. Then sweet ol’ Kerwen found you and rescued you. Is that the whole thing? Is that everything?”

  Across the table, Pigeon stiffened. Taji leaned forward.

  Neci continued, “Did I leave anything out?”

  Syn shook her head.

  Neci placed a hand on the dirty, brown bag on the table. She grabbed it on both sides and strained to lift it up, dropping it from a couple inches up. The entire table rattled as the weight of the sack smacked down. Syn’s cup rattled and tottered before falling and spilling water. Neci turned the bag over and pulled it off of its heavy contents. Out rolled the white, porcelain-pure body of Blip.

  Syn jumped and put her hands out to grab the teetering, silent Blip. Taji leaned forward and snagged the bot and rolled him back, out of Syn’s reach. Kerwen stood up and put her hands on Syn’s shoulders, pushing her back to her chair. Syn settled back, but Kerwen didn’t let go. She stood over Syn like a sentry.

  Neci spoke, “So, you know this companion? Seems like you left something out of your story.”

  Syn gritted her teeth and growled, “What have you done to him?”

  Kerwen put pressure on Syn’s shoulders. Neci put her hands up in the air, a motion that declared she was blameless. “We did nothing. Do you mean because he’s turned off?”

  Syn’s voice grew fiercer, more determined. “Yes!”

  Neci rolled her eyes, “Oh, that. Nope. He switched to that mode when we found him.” She reached over and spun him around so she could look into his blank face. “Silent. No matter what we do, he won’t wake up. They tend to do that when separated from their sister. I was hoping he’d spring to life when you were brought near…but it appears as if that’s not happening.”

  “What have you done to him?”

  Neci stood up and slammed her hand hard against the table, “Tell me the truth! Where have you been all this time? Where were you at when we were dying in Hell?”

  Syn narrowed her eyes, glaring at the long-haired copy of herself, but she didn’t talk.

  “You didn’t just wake up. Look at you. You’re our age.”

  Syn’s eyes widened.

  “Oh,” Neci continued, “Didn’t think I had thought about that? Think I wouldn’t catch that? We all start young, and we grow up. You woke up when we did. Seven years ago. You’ve been awake for seven years. Seven years in the white room? Bullshit. And look at you. Look at your skin.”

  Syn looked down at her bare arms and then at those of Kerwen by her head. Kerwen’s were thinner than Syn’s. They were also covered in scars and bruises. Taji’s were worse. Neci, herself, despite her poise and self-control, was still battered and sliced and burned.

  Neci held up her arms, so Syn could get a better look. A long scar ran from just mid-forearm down past her elbow toward her armpit. “That one was given to me by one of our sisters. She’s dead now. But you…you look like an angel.” She moved over to Syn and grabbed Syn’s wrist. Syn yanked it back, but Taji moved around to assist. Together, they pulled Syn’s right arm out and held it down on the table. Neci put her own arm next to Syn. The knuckles were the same. They even had the same moles, the same blemishes. But Neci was right. Syn’s arms looked bare. They were nearly absent of scars. There were a few, but only a few. Neci’s arms looked like those of a veteran. “What a soft life you’ve had.”

  With that, Neci spun and grabbed Syn by her jaw and drew close in. Her breath was hot in Syn’s face. Neci hissed, “We have lived in Hell. God sent us to Hell, and this is it. And somehow, you have managed to stay safe and clean and…” She pinched a piece of skin on Syn’s abdomen. “And fat.”

  She pulled back and pointed at Blip. “And that thing is never turning back on again. I know those things are her servants.” She was spitting as she spoke. Every word came o
ut with a rasp. “They aren’t our friends. They are our guards. They watched our every action. They pretended to be our friends, and they were feeding her the entire time. I know it’s true. Olorun told me that much. The Great Old Woman belched out that much before she locked us in here. But we blinded and deafened her by killing those bastards. She has no eyes, no ears, and no voice inside Hell.”

  Syn stared aghast. Like Blip, Neci was referring to Olorun as a real person. And she had talked to the ship. Called it a “she” just like Blip had. Was she telling the truth? Syn stammered, her eyes locked on Blip. “You killed your companions?”

  Then as if a switch had been turned off, the anger drained from Neci, and she stood there poised. The fury behind her eyes vanished. She spoke clear and confident. “Each of them. They were never ours. They were always hers. Pretenders. Just like you. Like it.”

  Syn sat with Taji still holding her right wrist and Kerwen pressing her thumbs into Syn’s shoulders. She was stuck between them. Across the table, Pigeon had disappeared. In the chaos, the little girl had left. Syn was jealous. Why had Syn come here? Why had she trusted Kerwen? Why had she trusted Blip? Syn started to cry. “I’m not…I promise…”

  “Then where have you been?”

  Syn’s mind raced. She did not want to tell them about her Disc. Something in her did not want anyone else in her world. She wanted these girls to like her, to accept her, but she could not trust them—not with the truth and not with her world. So she lied. “I’ve been with the Ecology!”

  Kerwen’s grip lessened and Taji relaxed her hold, but they still stayed where they were at, pinning her down.

  Neci turned and raised an eyebrow.

  Syn scrambled for the rest of the lie. “I lied! I lied!” Perhaps telling some of the truth might work. “I lied and said I just came down because I know how much you hate the Ecology. Rip…Kerwen told me. I’ve been with them. They’ve been nice to me. They’ve fed me. They’ve kept me safe. I’ve been with them.” If they are just like me, will they know if I lie? No! Just tell the truth! Another lie wrapped around a truth.

  Neci leaned over and pulled Kerwen’s hand off of Syn’s wrist. “This whole time?”

  “They’ve kept me up in the settlements. Hidden away. I’ve been fixing them. They’d bring me food, and I’d fix them, and they’d keep me safe.” All true. All true.