Onliest

by J Daniel Batt

  “It’s too late!” Blip shouted back.

  Syn cried out, “No!” but she knew Blip was right.

  The wall of water reached the figure, and it disappeared in the wave. Moments later, the rushing water slammed into the two straggling bots and washed them away.

  Syn pulled back her hand, and the Jacob doors shut swiftly with a slight whoosh. First the inner doors and then the outer doors shut, followed by the slam of the wall of water. The entire Jacob tower shook under the impact. Blip was already at the control panel, and they began to ascend. The entire Jacob rocked again. Inside, its lights flickered in and out.

  The outer glass windows of the Jacob tower spider-webbed as the water slammed against it. The tower rocked, and the Jacob bounced around inside even as they lifted off.

  The water rose around them, nearly as fast as they were moving. They lifted up and soon crested above the wall of water. Waves crashed as a new ocean lay out below them, blanketing as far as they could see through the darkened landscape. Under the heavy gray clouds, there was water—rolling, dark, and powerful. The water washed away all of the insanity of what was this Disc. Every dark thought, every dark action, every trace of what Neci had twisted was under those waves. The bodies of the Madness-succumbed dead lay somewhere far below the dark, churning waves. Memories of lives that would never be spoken of again were buried around the weight of the new water. Somewhere in that floated the bodies of Kerwen and Taji.

  Syn breathed out, “I’m sorry.”

  From one of the small bots inside the Jacob, a tiny voice cried, “Mommy, I’m scared.”

  A family. Syn had rescued a family.

  The bots were smooshed together as if cradling for warmth. They couldn’t be cold. They were frightened, however.

  Blip looked at her and then glanced at them.

  Syn spoke, even as the Jacob rocked again. “It’s okay. We’re going to the needle.”

  The other eye-bot spoke, “Where’s that?”

  Syn remembered her conversation with Arquella. “The Gates of Paradise.” She hated to say it. She hated lying. But he was a child, and she had to calm him. But it was not a child, and it was not truly paradise. There were so many layers of truth wrapped in lies in that small cabin, Syn thought she might drown just from them.

  The outside tower creaked and something rumbled far below them.

  Blip muttered. “The base has broken. Water’s in the tower.”

  Although she wasn’t sure why she did it since the other bots’ hearing abilities were likely as perfect as Blip’s, Syn scooted closer to Blip and whispered, “Will we make it? Will the Jacob survive?”

  Blip paused and said, “I’m not sure this Disc will survive.”

  “What?” Syn’s voice was louder than she wanted. She spoke again, quieter, “What?”

  “There’s nearly an ocean of water slamming into this Disc. The weight and forces could destroy this entire Disc. Snap it off at the needle.”

  “What do we do?”

  “Neci said she was going to eject the Disc.”

  “Can we do that?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. It makes sense that the builders would’ve considered that perhaps one of the Discs might need to be removed.”

  “How would we do that?” Syn was shaking her head. This was absolutely insane.

  “Olorun would know.”

  Syn grabbed Blip with both of her hands. “Neci said Olorun was alive. You said it was, too. Can you talk to it? When we get up there?”

  Blip answered quickly, “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me this?”

  “Because you would’ve kept running to it for answers…It’s not like me. It doesn’t care.”

  “What is it like?”

  “You don’t want to know. She’s cold. Insane. Old.”

  Syn glanced at the bots. “Did Olorun wake them up?”

  Blip sighed, “Maybe.”

  “Do you talk to it?”

  “Her.”

  “It’s a girl?”

  “She wants to be called a her. Olorun is a she.”

  Syn nodded. Neci had insisted that Olorun was female. “Do you talk to her often?”

  “Not if I can avoid it.”

  “But it…She has all the answers. She can tell us what happened to the colonists. She can tell us what's going on with the fuel. She can tell me who woke me up. Who woke the Sisters up? Why were separated? She can answer everything!” There was an excitement in Syn’s eyes fueled by equal amounts of anger and hope.

  The interior Jacob lights went dark. One of the child bots whimpered. There was a hush from what Syn assumed was its mother.

  “She won’t.” Blip pulled back to the control panel. A moment later, the outer edge trim of the Jacob lift glowed red.

  Syn noticed that she was already lifting off of the floor. They were over half-way up, and gravity was losing its hold.

  “Why?” Syn was not letting go of the topic of Olorun.

  “She’s a bitch.” Blip’s voice was as matter-of-fact as Syn had ever heard it. He had used the same word Neci had. So maybe Blip wasn’t an agent of Olorun as the Crimson Queen feared.

  “What?”

  Blip floated around the Jacob and moved to peer out one of the windows. Syn pushed up and floated next to him, putting her hands out to stop her momentum against the side. The other bots were moving around—the eye-bots didn’t seem to be bothered by the low gravity at all.

  Syn looked at the cleaning bots. They were spinning in place as they lifted up. Crap! she thought, they’ve never been in zero gravity. Syn left Blip’s side and grabbed ahold of one of the bots. “It’s okay,” she said, “This is part of it.” She looked at the child bots. “You’re going to have to help.”

  Blip spoke up, his gaze still out the window, “Tell them to increase their gravs.”

  “What?”

  “All bots move by grav resistors. Like the hover bikes. They can increase their gravs and be pulled down to the surface. Or they can use their gravs resistors to push against the metal and float around. It’s how I do it.”

  Syn shook her head. “I know that, Blip. Who do you think fixes them?”

  “Then why did you say, ‘What?’”

  “Cause you told me to tell them. You could tell them yourself.”

  “Oh,” Blip said.

  Syn shook her head and looked up at Huck, who had not left her side, “Did you get that, Huck?”

  He nodded up and down.

  “Help me tell the others?”

  He nodded again and zipped toward the other eye-bots further away.

  Syn looked back at the frightened cleaning bot. “What’s your name?”

  The cleaning bot said, “Margaret.”

  Syn wanted to laugh. That was such an old name. “Margaret, did you hear what Blip said?”

  Margaret said, “Yes.”

  “Can you do that?”

  “Yes.”

  Syn turned toward the child eye-bot, “What’s your name?”

  Without hesitation, it answered, “Joey.”

  “Can you help your mom, Joey?”

  Joey’s voice became excited, “Yeah! That’s easy.” The ability to do something his mother struggled with buoyed him. Joey flitted around the inside of the Jacob shouting, “It’s easy mom. Just try it. Look, we can fly!”

  Syn left Joey and Margaret and the other bots and sidled back up near Blip. Outside the window, the ocean grew. The water was rushing around the edge of the Disc, and they lost its progress in the clouds.

  Syn said, “Why won’t Olorun help?”

  “She doesn’t think like that. She’s not like you or me or even the Sisters. She really doesn’t care.”

  The light of the sunstrips increased, and a tension hit Syn. They were nearing the top. They were nearing the waiting Neci.

  The Jacob rocked again, but the turbulence was less, or perhaps it was the lack of gravity that buffered the impact.

  “We need to get th
rough the gate,” Syn said.

  Blip nodded.

  “She’ll be waiting for us,” Syn continued.

  Blip nodded again. “Neci’s forced us. We’re going to have to open the gate. We have to get through.”

  “I’m not letting her in.”

  “You’ll have to fight.”

  “I’m not sure I can stop her.”

  Blip glanced at the bots.

  Syn took in the sight of the floating bots. They were chaotic, but they were learning. The younger ones had mastered the zero-gravity flight perfectly. The others were getting it. There would be others on the way up. She was sure that many had died. There just hadn’t been that much time from when Blip sent out the call. But there would be more than this.

  “I’m not sure she can stop you,” Blip said, with a smile.

  The two stared at the bots for a bit more, knowing they were minutes from arriving in the needle.

  Syn spoke, “Why did you shut down when they first grabbed you? I mean when we came down the first time. You knew they were there. You shut down when they came. Why didn’t you run?”

  “I knew what they wanted. I figured it out. The explosion. The debris on the other side of the gate. I knew the other Eves were getting through. I thought they’d try to reason with you. I shut down so they couldn’t force you to use me.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me about this?” Syn raged.

  All sensation of gravity disappeared. They were moments from stopping.

  The Jacob lift rattled again and went into complete darkness. The red strips blinked out. The small bots chirped and whined.

  Syn shouted, “Quiet.”

  The bots ignored her as the entire lift shook.

  Blip flew to the window and then back to the control panel. “No!” he cried, “It’s collapsing.”

  “What is?” Syn asked.

  “The tower! The tower is collapsing!”

  “Aren’t the Towers the spine of the Disc? What happens?”

  “I don’t know. I really, truly don’t know.”

  From far below there was an awful sound—something like the world being torn open. It reverberated through the Jacob. They bounced around the inside of the lift, smacking into each other. Syn put her hands to her ears to block out the sound.

  “Will we make it?” she screamed at Blip, hoping that he could read lips. She knew he couldn’t hear her over the metallic rending below.

  Blip heard her, and she saw him waggle in the zero gravity, but she didn’t understand his words. He raced to the control panel. The awful sound died in an instant.

  Everyone was screaming, but Blip’s shout came through. “The hull is rupturing! I think other Jacob towers are falling.”

  Syn glanced out of the window to look at the world below, expecting a mass of clouds to block her view. There were no clouds. There was no water. There was a massive hole a third-way up the arc, where Zondon Almighty had been.

  Through the hole the stars of space twinkled. The unmoving titans peered through as small dots. They were constant, ageless, unbothered by Syn’s plight.

  Syn snapped her gaze away. The entire atmosphere was being sucked out into space. The billowing, pitch-stained clouds swam in urgency to the widening gap, tumbling past the scenery in a rush to escape. The water itself that had flooded this world drained away in a huge maelstrom. Now, the loose dirt was being pulled through as the endless vacuum sucked it all out.

  From far away, she could now see the other towers clearly. The haze and smoke and clouds were draining away. It was all clear. Across the Disc, the next tower over was buckling. Its base was splintering, and the Disc itself was tearing away from it. From inside, large flashes of light went off—explosions. She could see the light but couldn’t hear it.

  Another tower a few kilometers away did the same thing. At its base, its Jacob lift was yanked through the opening tear and sucked through the widening hole into empty space, shot out like a bullet.

  “Oh, no!” Syn whispered.

  Their Jacob came to a sudden stop. Blip shouted, “Go!”

  “Where’s Neci?” Syn asked.

  “No time!” Blip opened the doors and both sets—the inside and the outside of the tower—slid open.

  “Go!” The bots raced out, led by Huck. Blip screeched again, “Go!”

  The tower shook, and the Jacob lift slipped down a foot. Syn was still inside and saw the opening of the entrance shrink. She crouched against the pull and pushed forward, darting through the open space as the last bot ahead of her and Blip moved out into the needle. Syn sped through, and the Jacob lift lurched down again. The gap narrowed and Syn slid through only a foot of space.

  The tower rattled. Blip pushed toward the control panel. The outer doors shut fast, and inside the needle, through the glass panes, they saw the Jacob fall straight down, sucked by the vacuum opening inside the Disc.

  Syn was still moving through the needle and slammed into the wall, falling into a cradle position to bounce around. She was breathing heavily. The entire Disc itself was gone.

  Blip moved toward her and nudged her to halt her tumble. “Are you okay?”

  After a moment, she calmed her labored breathing. “Yes.”

  “We have to go,” Blip urged, “I don’t know what this will do to the needle.” He moved on ahead and then turned back to Syn. He said, “Or Olorun herself.”

  The trek through the passageways to the gate room was slow. Syn took every meter with apprehension. She knew Neci was here. She knew Neci was expecting her.

  “She’s at the gate,” Blip said as he noticed Syn’s hesitation.

  “How do you know? Did Olorun tell you?”

  “No,” Blip pulled back to move along with her as she swam through the zero gravity tunnel. “It’s a guess.”

  Syn thought about it. Of course, that’s where she would be. She had not destroyed her Disc to hang out in the passageways. She would be forcing the gate open. She had burned her world so that Syn would open the door. She would go through one way or another.

  She had won.

  Syn pushed ahead toward the vast space that was her first exposure to this twisted world. She remembered her own description of the space on the other side of the gate. “You’re right. Neci will be in the mirror room.”

  41

  Sisters

  Ekùn, Ògíní omo Ìyáyò

  Ekun Abìjàwàrà

  Eranko atoríméranje

  Alábelówó.

  “Tiger, Ògíní offspring of Ìyáyò

  Tiger who fights fiercely

  The animal that eats flesh from the head

  The one who has knife in its palm.”

  —Yorùbá panegyric

  The asteroids of debris floated before them, all under the red lights. In the center, bathed in red light herself, floated Neci, in front of the great gate itself. Every image of Hell Syn had ever seen rose up to her. A zero-gravity world of floating mountains engulfed in the heat of Hell, burning red-hot from ancient embers. The Crimson Queen stood before the gate to Eden itself, barring the way, her face as dark and terrible as the faces she had painted on the walls of Zondon Almighty. The Queen’s dark skin glowing under the scarlet light made her appear as if on fire herself, burning like an angel.

  Neci’s face was awash in crimson. Her white clothes glowed a hellish blood red. The ribbons that hung from her shoulders floated about like a billowing cape, like celestial wings.

  Neci stood, her arms crossed, defiance etched into her face. Her legs were straight, although she hung in zero gravity—a feat that Syn appreciated.

  The Crimson Queen at the end of the journey.

  Behind the Queen stood Pigeon, hunkered against the gate itself, her hands splayed out flat against the metal to steady herself. She glanced between Neci and then back at the others in the room.

  The others were the members of the Ecology. A cacophony of sizes and shapes. She had a flashback to the Theater and the great swarm giving their blessing. Hu
ndreds of them gathered now. Not the thousands she had hoped for. But so many.

  There, in the middle of the array, were Arquella and Bear with Huck orbiting them. They had lived. She wanted to race over to them and hug them. But she could not. She had to face Neci.

  Syn whispered to Blip, “They won’t fit in that passageway we came through. And we can’t open the iris.”

  Blip chirped, “There’s a secondary cargo passageway near the first. I can open that.”

  The bots were all focused on the Crimson Queen themselves. They all stood back dozens of meters from Neci’s fearless gaze, giving her a wide swathe.

  No, it wasn’t fearless. Neci was frightening them, but she was also frightened. The girl shouted at the bots. “Stay back!”

  Syn entered, and both she and Blip sidled along the outskirts of the room, in the darkness. They had done this path once before and knew it well. The debris floated in the space between them and her. In the wreckage were the large bodies of the burlys that had accompanied Neci. They were dead. The Ecology must have killed them in Syn’s absence.

  Syn’s stomach tightened. There was still the awful stench of burnt flesh lingering in the entire room—it was the smell that had made her recoil when she first slipped through from her side.

  “Neci!” Syn shouted from the darkness.

  Blip turned on her. “What about surprise?” he whispered.

  Syn pushed off and bounded from one chunk of rubble to another. She was used to the zero gravity, and her familiarity showed in her graceful speed. In seconds, she had crossed half of the room to float parallel to Neci, although she made sure to leave several meters between her and the red-hued figure. Syn shouted again, “You can’t stop killing!”

  “They’re the killers,” Neci cried, “You just missed your precious machines killing. Look at what they’ve done.” She pointed at the large floating corpse near her. “They killed Admiral! My husband! The father of our first child!”

  “What did you tell him to do? What reason did you give them?” Syn asked.

  Neci ignored the question as she glanced around Syn. She grimaced. “Where’s Taji?”

  Syn winced. Neci noticed. “So, you caught up with her. Or did she find you? Killed her, didn’t you?” In an instant, her tone changed from frantic to mocking. “Everybody’s so into that these days.”