The Last Human

by Zack Jordan

  The little girl does not care about these words; they go on and on and all she cares about is the pain and the thirst and the fact that here before her is all the light that is left in the world. The legends are swirling in her head, tangling in her slowed thoughts and the words of the demon, and they have all become the same story. Something received, or something purchased. Something given, or something won. And if there is more to it than that, she quite literally could not care less. All she understands at this moment is that she must do one thing.

  She must live.

  “Are you prepared?” asks the darkness.

  The girl gazes into the light. “Yes,” she whispers.

  “Can you face pain—” And then the voice breaks. “Can you face pain without fear?” it whispers.

  And now the little girl raises her eyes from the glow to the faceted eyes, because she has never heard that voice before. It has become so hard to focus, but with effort she can make out that gleaming face in the blackness. She licks rough lips with a rougher tongue and then sucks in a quivering breath. “Yes,” says the little girl.

  A tremor runs through the hard limbs all around her. “Say it,” says Shenya the Widow.

  “I am Sarya the Daughter,” says the little girl. “I face pain without fear.”

  Sarya the Daughter sits on the floor of a void-black cabin, legs crossed, the very image of stillness and calm. This is where she woke, sweating and screaming, to Ace’s concerned words in her ears. This is where she paced, reliving the dream again, as the tears burned her face. Because it was not just a dream, she is absolutely certain of that. It was as real as the filthy utility suit on her body. That was her mother. Her mind hid that memory from her just as effectively as a Memory Vault, but it was there the whole time. She has no idea how to react to this, no idea where to direct these emotions. But it doesn’t matter, because even in the darkness there is one bright and burning thought.

  “I am Sarya the Daughter,” she says out loud. And no one can take that away from her.

  According to her Network unit, she still has more than an hour until Riptide’s day cycle begins—which is good because now she knows: these sorts of things require darkness. The orange half-sphere of holograms lying on the floor in front of her is the only source of color in the room, and here in the center of the floor her Network unit doesn’t even bother simulating its dim glow on the walls. She considered turning its actual lights back on to more accurately re-create her dream, but she decided not to. Something in her tells her that this is the time for darkness, not light. And now she knows that there is nothing in the darkness that can hurt her. It wasn’t the darkness itself, after all.

  It was her own mother.

  And that brings thoughts that are confusing at best, but she has decided that they must wait. Now is the time for action, not reflection. Now, she feels her scars like lines of fire across her skin. Her mother said they would be her most precious possessions—and perhaps they are. But either way, she’s about to gain one more. Because she is Sarya the Daughter, and she faces pain without fear.

  She takes a deep breath and leans forward to pick up the Memory Vault. Its holos change to white as it examines its new situation. “Hello, new user,” it says. “Please identify yourself.”

  She brings the device to her temple. The holographic sphere engulfs her head, flashes as it measures her, then changes to blue. “Identity established,” it says for the hundredth time. “Hello, Sarya the Daughter. What would you like to do?”

  She opens her mouth as she has a hundred times before…but this time will be different. This time she knows what must be done. “Device,” she says quietly. “I would like to unlock you.”

  “Very good,” says the Memory Vault. “Where will you be transferring the memories contained herein? Before answering this question, please refer to my user’s manual.”

  But Sarya has practically memorized the user’s manual. It is a spectacularly dry read, but obsession can make anything fly by. In particular, she has spent a lot of time on the segment titled [Section 105—Advanced Capabilities]. The first ninety percent is a lengthy piece of legalese that boils down to a simple message: the user agrees that the manufacturer is absolved of all liability if said user is stupid enough to try what follows. The last ten percent is what she’s about to do.

  “To me,” she says. “I want…I want the memories.”

  “To clarify,” says the Memory Vault. “You would like to attempt a cross-species memory transfer?”

  Sarya takes a deep breath. “Yes,” she says.

  “Mandatory warning number six hundred: this device is legally obligated to inform you that even same-species memory transfer carries a substantial probability of error, the likelihood of which is dramatically exacerbated by cross-species transfer. Among the possible outcomes are permanent personality alteration, confusion, temporary difficulty forming new associations—”

  “I understand,” says Sarya, ignoring the small voice in the back of her mind that says wait, actually maybe she doesn’t. It says that maybe this isn’t such a hot idea, that maybe it wouldn’t be such a big deal to let Roche help her. Or Eleven, at least. Maybe it was a dream. Or maybe, says that part of her mind, grasping desperately, maybe it’s just useless recollections and she’s risking her own sanity for memories of a vacation—

  Yeah. Because that’s the kind of stuff that Widow mothers hide in encrypted Memory Vaults, locked with the blood of their daughters.

  “Furthermore,” continues the device, “the memories in question have been stored with the highest security available on this device. They will be erased after this procedure, whether it is successful or not.”

  So. She has one all-or-nothing shot and a decent chance of coming out brain damaged. This is stupid.

  “Your response to the following questions will be recorded and notarized,” says the device. “Do you absolve AivvTech of all responsibility in the following operation? Please state your consent as a complete sentence.”

  “I—” says Sarya, and stops. The swirl of symbols fades through several configurations as the machine awaits the rest of her sentence. “I absolve AivvTech of all responsibility,” she says.

  “Consent duly recorded and notarized as per Network requirements,” says the Memory Vault, the glyphs in its holographic sphere shifting into a new configuration. “Do I have your permission to access your mind? Please state your consent as—”

  “Yes,” says Sarya.

  “Please state your consent as—”

  “You have permission to access my mind.”

  “Please assume the original mindset used for the lock procedure.”

  And it’s go time. Sarya runs her fingers over the two objects lying in her lap. One is a medical device, the kind with a sub-legal intelligence that is capable of basic cross-species first aid. The other, though—it’s cold and heavy when she picks it up. Roche let her borrow it when she pounded on his hatch and requested something that would, quote, hurt a lot. She should not have been at all surprised when he detached one of his own fingers and handed it to her.

  It’s an industrial grinder, he told her cheerfully. I’m told it’s excruciating.

  She thanked him, refused his too-eager offer to act as operator, and returned to her room where she began doing dry runs. This is all well rehearsed now—except for the important part, because she only gets one shot at that. It goes like this. Legs folded, check. Medical device here, in easy reach, check. Vault held to her temple, elbow on folded knee, check and check. She feels the manufacturer’s logo digging into her skin and resists the impulse to move it; she won’t care about minor discomforts in a few seconds. Her room is invisible; she could be outside the universe itself, for all she can see on the other side of those swirling glyphs. She finds herself trying to focus on the holos as they orbit through her line of sight, anything to take her
mind off the free hand that is bringing up Roche’s finger. It makes real light, unsimulated light, a flickering danger-color that merges with her Network unit’s own automated imagination. HOPE THIS HURTS, say the orange letters that follow it like a cloud of insects. Very funny, Roche.

  And then there are no more steps.

  She hears the sound of her own pain before she feels it, that strangled heave of a convulsing diaphragm. And then it comes, waves of it rolling down every nerve in her arm. A section of her skin has sunk under Roche’s disembodied caress, a wet rectangle ground half a millimeter below the level of the surrounding area. Her breathing quickens as she watches the blood begin to well up and drip down her arm, and she can feel the sweat begin to prickle her body.

  “Please assume the mindset used for the lock procedure,” says the tinny voice against her temple.

  Can you face pain without fear?

  And suddenly her resolution wavers. She is in pain, and she is not afraid…is she? Anger begins to burn at the foundation of her mind. Pain without fear, says the anger, that is what you told me, Mother, you said it a thousand times and you said you never lied but here when it counts—

  But then some other part of her mind speaks up, and Sarya is shocked to hear it speak in her mother’s voice. You say you are not afraid of this little tickle, says Shenya the Widow. How brave of you! How proud I am. A little dribble of blood and you are not cowering in fear!

  But this is not her mother. Her mother wouldn’t say such things. This is her, this is her doubts and fears laughing at her.

  You are adorable, says her shame. Why, if I didn’t know better—

  Don’t say it.

  I would say—

  Don’t fucking say it.

  You are no Daughter.

  From somewhere deeper than any voice, deeper than language itself, Sarya’s rage erupts, screaming. She is small again. She is staring into her mother’s face, its every dark surface gleaming and outlined with white light. She can feel that prison of chitin around her, those smooth-jointed limbs surrounding and crushing her, and she is furious. And once again she hears it before she feels it: the sizzle of her own skin being atomized into the atmosphere of the room. She does not pull away; no, she digs in. She watches that rectangle sink into her arm and smells her own flesh and clamps her jaw on the cry that has clawed its way up from her vocal cords. The mocking voice tries to make itself heard but it doesn’t stand a chance against the rage that burns like a sun within her. Her doubts and fears are garbage in an incinerator—no, in a supernova. I am Sarya the Daughter, says the anger. I was not given life, but took it. I wrested it from the jaws of death itself, and it is mine.

  And with this thought in her teeth, she crushes Roche’s finger into her arm and drags it through her flesh. Muscle rips and nerves vaporize into a spray of gas and sparks and now Sarya’s eyes are locked to the glistening surface of her own bone, set in a devastation so complete that she no longer knows if she is clutching the Memory Vault or if her fingers have fallen dead but she will hold this pain in her mind until the end of time if it will prove one thing.

  She is Sarya the Daughter, and she faces pain without fear.

  “Congratulations!” says the Memory Vault, its globe blazing a violent gold around her head. “Your key has been accepted. Transferring memories now.”

  The following is greatly abridged from the original Network article, in accordance with your tier.

  NETWORK FOCUS: HAPPY BILLION DAY!

  Fewer than a million years ago, the Network celebrated its one billionth Networked star system. Every Citizen species—nearly one and a half million species in total—took part in the festivities, from one side of the galaxy to the other. One billion Networked star systems, each one representing a disc of civilization over ten billion kilometers across. All together, these systems add up to an incredible eight cubic lightyears of Networked space.

  That’s one heck of a party!

  It’s difficult to imagine exactly how large eight cubic lightyears is.*1 The best comparison is the one we have already made: eight cubic lightyears is enough space to fit one billion solar systems. Therefore it may seem counterintuitive to your limited mind that this massive space is actually a very small percentage of our galaxy. It’s stunning, really: for every one of those eight cubic lightyears of Networked space, there are one trillion cubic lightyears of non-Networked space—and that’s just in this one galaxy.

  Now that party doesn’t seem so big, does it?

  CONSIDER LIGHTSPEED

  In order to fit this massive idea into your limited mind, let us approach it from another direction: lightspeed.

  When a photon leaves any one of the stars in the Network, it is traveling rather quickly: nearly three hundred thousand kilometers per second!*2 And yet, at that speed it still takes more than eight minutes to reach the orbit of the average Type F terrestrial planet. In another four hours, it will reach the edge of Network coverage in that solar system. There it begins its interstellar journey. In a few decades, it could reach the nearest of the more than one billion Networked solar systems.*3 If these neighbor systems are near the galactic edge, that same fragment of light will take fifty thousand years to reach the galactic center and twice that to reach the far edge. And if that doesn’t impress you, consider that it still has a twenty-million-year journey ahead of it to the next galaxy of comparable size, and nearly fifty billion years to reach the edge of the observable universe.

  Four minutes to your planet. Fifty billion years to the edge of the universe. Feeling small yet?

  The scale of reality is yet another reason that Network Citizenship is so vital to every species within it. Within the Network, threats to an individual species are small, understandable—and most important, easily avoided. We know what lies within the eight cubic lightyears of the Network. But what lies outside that, in the vast darkness of the universe? The answer is simple.

  We don’t know.

  *1 For tiers under four.

  *2 Don’t get any ideas: this is far more quickly than the highest legal speed in Networked space.

  *3 Of course, if light traveled via Network it could be there nearly instantaneously.

  [AivvTech Mnemonic Restoration]

  [Stage 0]

  * * *

  #

  [Welcome to the AivvTech Memory Vault mnemonic restoration process! I am sub-legal intelligence name not set and I am here as your guide to the past. I will be observing your responses and crafting your personalized transfer process to give you the best possible experience. My goal is to keep emotional trauma to a minimum.]

  [We will begin with a random memory, and I will use your responses as a baseline to order the rest.]

  * * *

  #

  [Initiating memory transfer…]

  * * *

  #

  Shenya the Widow crouches on a forest floor, a sharp and gleaming shadow in the warm half-light. She is surrounded by giant plant life that her implant identifies as trees, listening to the rustling of their red and gold leaves as they fall, one by one, to the ground. The place is a tumult of color…and surprisingly beautiful.

  [See this, Shokyu?] she says internally. [My mother told me that happiness is made of moments like these.]

  [I’ve never heard you mention your mother before], says Shokyu the Mighty, the small intelligence in her Network implant. It chose its own name some years ago, and Shenya the Widow has always found its choice amusing. It is her own jest, of course; a sub-legal Network implant cannot earn a title. But one may be lenient when dealing with small intelligences.

  [I would not expect you to understand the complex bond between Mothers and Daughters], says Shenya the Widow, heading off her implant’s analysis before it happens. She imagines the hard-edged face of her own mother as she says it.

  But the
little intelligence cannot be stopped. [I wonder why you’re reminiscing so much], it says. [Perhaps you’re getting old. Or lonely.]

  Shenya the Widow has had much practice in ignoring her implant’s impudent questions, and she does so now. She is not old, she is barely in her second century. And she is not lonely. She is relaxed, she is carefree, she is lightyears from the pressures of civilization, and she is doing what she loves. And she is being paid for it! What more, quite honestly, could any Widow ask for?

  “Hello?” gurgles a muffled voice beneath her. “About done here?”

  [Uh-oh], says Shokyu the Mighty. [It’s intelligent, and it speaks Standard. This means paperwork.]

  Of course it is intelligent, little idiot. Its obvious intelligence is the reason Shenya the Widow visited it like a thunderbolt from the treetops. And of course it speaks Network Standard; in all her travels Shenya the Widow has never met an intelligence who does not. Even out here, lightyears past the frontier of Networked space, one should expect to meet Standard speakers—if one meets anyone at all. No, there are stranger things about this creature than its intelligence and its language. The fact that it has only four limbs, for example: two upper and two lower. The fact that it is disgustingly soft, inside out from a Widow perspective, with the skeleton on the inside of its horrible pale flesh. Look at it, small and defenseless, not even a meter tall when it was standing. It stares at her with gleaming golden eyes under the white tuft of hideous growth atop its head—

  —TRANSFER INTERRUPTED—

  [Unexpected memory collision. Adjusting parameters…]

  * * *

  #

  “Oh, hello,” says Observer from two mouths. “It’s you.”