"We've been looking for you ever since,” Bird interjects.
“I don't buy it," I snap.
Truth is, I do. But I don't want to. I don't want to believe that the Survivalist set me out on this wandering road, that Jak and Bird have been looking for me all their lives, that there's some greater plan and we've just been puppets in the Survivalist's hands.
"It's true. Look."
Jak stretches out their palm toward me. Burned into is the same scar. I lean in, touch it with my fingertips like I always have. It's similar, but different. The lines are familiar, but strange. A different pattern but the same shape.
“Together, Bird thinks they're the code to open Safe Haven.” Jak explains.
Oh. I knew it couldn't be true. My face goes dark. "You're wrong."
And here I was ready to fall for all this woo-woo hoo-ha. They almost got me to believe. Almost got me to hope again. Oh, but I know better.
I fling my arm out at the dirty lake.
“That is Safe Haven. The place humans once built to run away to in the event of earthly destruction and inevitable extinction. When the time actually came, the powers running the last war filled it in with contaminated water. There's nothing left. Send that little bot and go look for yourself.”
Bird holds the robot out. “Olive agrees to go and see.”
I reach out, pluck the robot from Bird's arm and reel back to throw it into the lake. Into what's left of Safe Haven. Into the end of all this rubbish hope. They're drunk on lies, these three. Fervent for a false reality when the real one is staring them in the face. I am about to huck this little drone when I take one long look at it just to remember this moment forever.
And in a glinting bar of sunlight – I see it.
The stamp on the robot's butt.
A circle that looks like a gear with a cross made of four feather-tipped arrows pointing in the cardinal directions. Just like my compass. Only instead of being a compass, the needle is a line permanently pointing at forty-five degrees from true North.
I fumble for my necklace, yank it up and compare. As soon as I get the two side by side, I'm certain they are designed for the same purpose – whatever that is. But then, my gut sinks. The two “needles” point in exactly the opposite direction, save a degree or two. I turn to the left and mine adjusts, slightly. To the right? The same slight adjustment. As if whatever draws my needle is out there somewhere, in that lake.
Impossible, I know.
“What are you doing?” Jak asks.
“Ark's just noticed the same inscription on the robot as the gyrocompass,” Bird says correctly. Save one detail.
“It's a compass,” I correct.
“No,” Bird says. “Look at its motion.”
I look down at the familiar erratic spinning. It's inability to know north at the best of times.
Bird goes on. “It's based on a gyroscope but used as an inertial navigation device. Air Tech put them out before the exodus happened. Only, most ended up with richies in space. Useless up there. Ha ha jokes on them.”
“The Survivalist gave that one to Ark,” Jak cuts in. “But why?”
I have a sudden wild idea. I don't even believe in it, but like a worm in my brain – I can't get it out. It grates on me like the itching of my palm, only I can't dig my nails in. So I open my mouth and let the words fall out.
“What if the gyrocompass's inertial frame isn't Safe Haven but something inside of it? That could be the key everyone's been missing.”
“Like a vault,” Jak says.
I nod.
“Or maybe a bunker. A place people could still run to. That's a big deal,” Bird nods. “I'd want to keep it secret and hidden inside someone's head, too.”
I stare out at the lake, shimmering as it is with all the wrong colors. Not blue reflective, but something mean and aggressive. Something that will eat you up. Maybe that's projection. Maybe, I've had it backwards this whole time. What if what I'm feeling is my attention, pulled here? Like the itchy scar. Like the worms in my skull. I try to see this lake as anything but ugly and fail. But that doesn't mean it's not real.
I swallow hard. “Do you really think this thing is connected to something out there?”
“I do.” Jak and Bird say together.
I reach for the compass...or gyrocompass...or a device to help open Safe Haven. Whatever it really is – I pull it off my neck. “Here.”
Bird takes my necklace and holds it up to the sky, examining it with one eye shut. “Let's see what it can do. Give me a minute to figure out how it works.”
Jak and I leave Bird to it, walking so near the edge of the water my skin crawls. I fight to ignore the itchiness in my palm, but it's been getting worse and worse. I sit cross legged and wrap my arms around my knees, as if I hold myself tight enough, I'll keep the important bits in.
“So,” I start and my voice breaks. “You have the same missing memories as me?”
Jak just nods. “Did. Until Bird helped me.”
“Why that name: Bird? There's no birds left.”
Jak shrugs. “Said they remembered it in a dream.”
“A dream?”
“Yeah, the robot can connect to human neural networks in REM sleep. That's how Bird recovered my memories.”
“Where did they find the robot, anyway? A trash heap?”
“No. It was given to them by the Survivalist.”
“Bird knew the Survivalist too?”
“My sibling," Bird says, coming back up from behind us.
That'd explain the Survivalist's weird mantra about "the bird." I'd always found it kind of funny phrasing. Like, why not "birds" or "a bird?" Because the Bird was someone we were meant to find later. Pieces of a puzzle, falling together. And I don't even need to buy into magical spiritual woo-woo hoo-ha to believe it's true because we are ultimately just pawns in the super intelligence's game.
How perfect. Exactly what I wanted my life post-human-apocalypse to amount to.
But then, I suppose humanity has no other role to play.
So, why not play along...
Bird hands me the parts of the gyrocompass, the face in the palm of their healthy hand. They sit down in the small space left in between Jak and I and continue to tinker with the robot.
"The Survivalist was your sib?" I ask.
Bird nods.
"Is that what happened to your hand?"
"A coding gone wrong, yeah. I thought I could open Safe Haven alone. Turns out, I was wrong."
Bird holds up their swollen hand and I take a closer look. I can see the faint lines of what might have been a tattoo or a scar long ago.
"We kind of had an agreement," Bird goes on. "If one of us died, the other would find all the pieces and put it all back together again.”
“The Survivalist is dead?” I ask. Instead of why the pieces had to be scattered in the first place, why survival has to be a game, why things have to be hidden and kept secret safe from those who need the truths the most.
“Yes.”
That hits harder than I expect, this blunt admittance. I flinch and feel my cheeks burning. I'm already in ideal crying position. All I have to do is drop my head and sob. But, there's something else – this burning in my chest that prevents it. I look up and meet Bird's eyes. There's a glint there, wet and red. Like the swallowed tears of a hundred moon cycles.
I have so little to cry over.
“I'm sorry,” I say, wanting to reach out.
Bird focuses on the robot. “Don't be. What's done is done. I've moved on.”
Just another puzzle piece lost, I suppose. Like Boots dead in that underground room. I shouldn't let it all bother me, but it does.
“So,” I change the subject, “you were a bird or something in the dream the robot helped you remember?”
Bird gives me sharp look that cuts me straight to my core. I cower, hugging my knees tighter, but don't ask again.
Thing is -- I don't believe in the prophecy of dreams like some of the real
woo-woo humans once did. Maybe some post-apoc humans still believe in that shit. Who knows. I don't even believe in spirits or souls. Didn't believe in ultimate purpose until just a moment ago. Still probably don't.
“I wasn't a bird,” Bird explains. “I was back home.”
“Where's that?” I glance down and point in the direction the gyrocompass reads as North.
“Safe Haven.”
I blink.
“Nobody's from Safe Haven," Bird says into my silence. "I know. But I was – before they ruined it. My parents and cousins were all part of the original programming team who created the fleet of Survivalist airships. The ones that got decommissioned for earth flight when the scientists learned it was useless not to run. Those ships all got recommissioned for space flight and took off into the stars with the richest of us while the rest got to burn.”
“So, why are you still here? Not rich enough?”
“Grave – the Survivalist – and I agreed to stay, that's why. For Save Haven.”
I open my mouth to protest. I'm no fool. I know my history. You just said yourself they ruined it.
But Bird interrupts my unspoken doubt. “The new Safe Haven, I mean. The one built to last in the face of human greed and war. When the space-bound airships took off, we knew the way to preserve what was important. Once we coded the locks shut, I turned to Grave and I said: I'll fly home one day. I'll help save things. And Grave said – I know you will. I'll make sure of it. Then, Grave erased my memories to protect the Haven we'd just created, and the robot helped me find them when the time was right.”
“In dreamstate,” I conclude, skeptical.
“Yes.”
It was a theory back when humans were all the shit, running and ruining the world.
Dreamscape, they theorized, was a way of recovering the past. "Hypnosis" some called it. Therapists had been trying for decades to figure it out scientifically. Then, the companion robots broke new ground. They could initiate REM sleep for the conscious mind. So many people claimed to have seen themselves being born. Others claimed they saw how they died. A few claimed to see the future, and it was bleak and bad.
Same old shit as always. I hadn't bought a word of it.
But then, a publication came along where the doctor created this link with a super intelligence computer and verified one such dreamstate REM “vision” of the past against actual facts.
Everything checked out.
I know because I went back through all the details myself back when I was an office cushion and life was simply a series of emails I had to write properly to get paid a lot. I did plenty of time wasting then. Funny. If I had tried the REM dreamstate shit for myself, what it would have shown? That I had some centrifugal momentum building up my whole life that would set me up to be one of the few survivors of the apocalypse? Probably not. More likely, that my childhood was average and boring, and I only made it here by sheer accident and happenstance.
A roar comes from the distant sky in front of us. A slender glint of metal that slowly becomes a craft on fast approach. It slows and hovers for a moment, then descends in a whir of blades and engines. I'm reminded of the land engines. The janky slapped together things people drive around the wasted desert lands. Only this one slices unevenly through the sky.
The craft settles into the ground with a tired groan. Above our heads, a loud hiss and a clunking crack. I look up at the belly of the airship, rusty and covered in barnacles, dripping in dangling brown-green seaweed with blinking deep sea gas bulbs. The bulbs shudder and twinkle like so many stars. The sleek body, green with algae, looks as though it's been hiding under water a long time, but not long enough to stop working.
A faint circle appears with the same inscription on it as my gyrocompass and the robot underneath all the grime and muck. Bird nudges me.
“Check it,” Bird says without explanation.
I pull out my gyrocompass and look. Sure enough, the “north” needle is pointing straight up.
I touch the faintly glowing face. A pale off-white light brightens. And with a burst of cold air, a metal gangplank clunks down to the ground with an ill-controlled slap. We jump back, collectively clasping hands over our mouths and holding our breaths against the stale salty stank that drifts out in fluffy white smoke-like clouds. I scramble for my gas mask after the initial shock, but by the time I get it halfway on, the clouds dissipate.
I move my hand away first, test the air sniffing. Smells like ozone and electrical failure, fish and tang – but not terrible. I gesture to the others who follow suit. A flicker of pride wells up in me at this. As if I'm a halfway decent leader of this little gang. I stuff the feeling down, tuck my gyrocompass away, and point into the belly of the bedraggled airship.
“So what did you create? You and Grave?”
“Let's go see,” Bird motions us all onto the craft.
We clank up the gangplank. It whines in complaint but doesn't fail. The belly of the ship opens up into more hodge-podge technology. Wires exposed and twisted into knots. Busted screens and cracked open mainframes. There appears to be no rust or water damage anywhere, so the craft probably holds pretty well under pressure. A handful of narrow archways indicate darkened hallways, small and hard to maneuver. A stale ozone tinged air sits heavy in each one, a non-physical barrier my brain worming responds to like a snake, coiling back.
I stop in this middle room, looking for a place to go. What I see is a picture of Boots hanging from a hook on a hall.
"You've known Boots that long?" I ask, looking for Bird.
Bird comes up from behind and puts hand on my shoulder. “Boots was my oldest pal. When Grave died, Boots took their shoes to help me remember myself. I shouldn't have--"
Cut them off, is the unspeakable end of that sentence.
I put a hand on Bird's shoulder in a sudden gesture of comfort. We haven't mourned, any of us, for Boots. There wasn't time. There still isn't.
"They betrayed the great Northern Cave Diggers – biggest gang in all City Fell – in order to get us the engines to find your camp out in the wasteland, as per the oracle's map."
"You got a map," I say. That feels much less pawns-in-a-game and much more looking-for-lost-things.
"Of course, we did. How do you think we knew where to look? The oracle said you'd be traveling and retraveling the route from the Survivalist's place back to your home. We knew you'd be somewhere along a certain broad line. Only a matter of time."
"Home," I repeat the one word I'm stuck on.
"You don't remember where you're from," Jak says wisely. "Neither did I until the REM dream reorganization. It seriously combats the crazy the environment causes these days. You should try it.”
“After we open Safe Haven, so I know you two aren't just a different kind of crazy.”
“Deal,” Bird says and leads the way onto the ship.
We clamor aboard the ship and find places to sit. Bird takes the pilots seat, then waves at me. “You know programming, don't you?”
“I did, once.” Think back to my old life, the vague shadow of my home, a ghost of me working an office cushion job. I used to do something with landscapes for games made out of zeros and ones.
“Co-pilot for me.”
I look at Jak, who -- in Boot's stead -- should have that honored spot. Jak rolls their eyes. “Just do it. You know you can.”
“I can't."
“Come on. I don't even know the first thing about ships, to be honest. I never did.”
My palm itches like it wants to grab the controls. My brain squiggles like something is trying to break free.
“Okay,” I say and sit down in the co-pilot's seat.
Bird gives me an excited-but-scared smile. “Ready?”
“No,” I want to say. Instead, I just swallow and nod so nobody can hear my voice crack.
~~~
Simpler than it ought to be, co-piloting a waterlogged airship.
The robot and the gyrocompass work on their own, some kind of root p
rogramming none of us understand. We don't need to. The robot flashes a variety of colored lights through several different eye-like ports and the craft responds. The pattern itself is mesmerizing, almost pretty. Comforting, if nothing else. Staring into the shifting rainbow glow, the worminess calms down, but the itchiness gets worse the closer we get to...to...
To what?
The ship starts to slow and drop.
“Bird?” I say and hear my voice shaking.
“Oh, right. Hold on to something.”
And right then, the ship plunges into the water with a jolt. I grasp for anything to keep me in my seat and my hands find straps. Seat belts – the kind that pull over your head. Why didn't Bird instruct us to put these on? I yank it and it comes free. Oh, that's why. I roll forward and crash into the center console. My head hits a touchscreen. It flashes a myriad of angry-looking colors in response. Red, orange, yellow.
The ship levels out and we all right ourselves. Eye contact with Jak, whose also staring daggers at Bird.
“The fucking--”
“I forgot,” Bird admits.
What else is hiding in the corners of all our minds? Things either purposefully erased by the Survivalist or just lost to the effects of our environment. If I agree to go with the robot through REM into the broken hallways of my mind – what will I find?
I push that aside just as, through the murk, something arises.
The grey solid something takes shape. At first, I think it a submerged skyscraper and I think it's just piece of the lost cities. More tragic archaeology. But then, the sides are solid. No broken windows. No gaping mouths where water and warped seaweed have taken hold. And then, a doorway lifts open.
The ship drifts in. A docking arm, encrusted with salt that's been cracked only just enough to move toward us, takes hold of the ship like a hand grasping a tool. It bears us into a port and in we cliff, just like an old world key in a lock.
A siren goes off.
“Please verify authorization to access Safe Haven.”
I feel my heart stop. Flutter. Stop. Flood blood into my brain. I go lightheaded.
It can't be. But, it is.
Safe Haven is real.
It's nothing at all like I want it to be – this singular square of a bunker with no markings and nothing at all that look like home. But, still. It's Safe Haven, and we can live here.
A Remembered Kind of Dream Page 4
