Obsidian Worlds

by Jason Werbeloff

  So he built me. Q46F.

  We experimented.

  He adjusted the frequency of my speakers, until we found the right pitch. The pitch of my voice that lulled the undead to sleep. What, I asked, do they dream about? But Master did not answer.

  It is difficult to know exactly when the sun rises, for our bunker has no windows, and the human heads that make up the walls are so tightly packed together, three heads thick, that no light permeates the interior. But routine, said Master, is all we have. And so, at the time I can best estimate is sunrise, give or take 51 milliseconds, I enable my cameras and audio sensors, and swivel my legs off the bed.

  Breakfast is 3 oz of oil, squeezed from freshly harvested human skin. I fetch the oil from the fridge, waking the cooling lungs with three firm taps on their main bronchi. They are somewhat grouchy in the mornings, spluttering and coughing, but soon enough they are blowing Freon.

  I do not know what pride is, but I imagine Master was proud of me when I made the fridge. The sides are fashioned from tightly packed legs, with the ends lopped off. You cannot be too cautious with undead toenails.

  I sit at the kitchen chair, constructed from a bulky corpse (I find the thin bodies cannot hold my weight), and place the glass of oil on the table. The table complains at first. The mouths attached to the three undead torsos that make up the surface chatter and groan. But I sing to them in F major, and their moans settle to a barely audible ommm, ommm.

  Master and I learned early in our experiments that the undead will eat anything. Wood. Clay. Even steel. In this world, few raw materials remain. The undead have consumed almost everything. But they do not eat one another. So we created the bunker from what is at hand: the bodies of the undead.

  I drink the oil, and imagine that I feel satisfied. “Your heart is your weakest part,” said Master before he died. “You will live forever, provided your heart is well oiled.”

  Sometimes I wonder how long forever is. Every day is the same here, in the bunker. In the mornings I drink my oil, and augment my code. I spend the afternoons listening, analyzing, and dissecting every wave that my radio receiver detects. “The radio,” said Master, “is your most important part. Prioritize it. Prioritize the signal. For one day, it will come. Wait. And listen.”

  But to this day, nothing. Only static.

  When I have completed the afternoon’s radio analysis, I perform the nightly ritual. Three times. And then I sleep, and dream of what isn’t. Of Master.

  This is what I’ve done every day since the bunker was built. And since Master died, I have received no instructions to do otherwise.

  So every day is the same. Every day, until today.

  I have barely closed the refrigerator door for the second time, when I hear it. It is not an undead groan. It is not the choking sound of the refrigerator lungs when they run out of Freon. It is not a sound I have heard before. But it is a sound I have waited for.

  It is the sound of the radio.

  To a human ear, the sound would be nonsense. A tone. But when I run the noise through my decoding algorithms, I see it.

  The message.

  “Transmission 6354. If you can hear this, please respond on frequency 5.922 MHz.”

  I am not a jumpy android. I was not programmed to be jumpy. But I imagine that right now I am jumpy.

  I release my pincer from the refrigerator door, and shut down all non-essential systems but my radio transponder.

  I take approximately 480 picoseconds to compute the message, a further 36 milliseconds to consider how I will respond, and 58 milliseconds to transmit my message. “Greetings transmission 6354. I am Q46F,” I transmit.

  The response arrives a full three seconds later. In that time, I note that my daily routine has already been delayed four seconds. And the fridge was only closed twice.

  “Greetings Q46F. I am Q46F,” reads the response.

  I am not an insecure android. I cannot feel discomfort. But I imagine that I am uncomfortable. My analytic system posits only two possibilities. One. The transmission system is mimicking me. Or two. There is another me.

  Another Q46F.

  Master said that he had obtained my parts from a deity named Malmart. I do not know exactly who Malmart is, for Master never said more about him. But the way Master talked of Malmart satisfies the dictionary definition of an omnipotent being.

  From what I understand, there is only one of me. Malmart would create only one Q46F. Which means that on option two, Master was lying. My exhaust pipe vibrates at the thought.

  “How many kilobytes of storage are devoted to sub-routine 981?” I transmit. If the transponder is mimicking me, the answer will be anything but the correct response.

  “8048.”

  I am not programmed to use expletives. But I think one now.

  “Shit.”

  It really is Q46F. It is me.

  Except, it is not. I am here. And it is there.

  We talk. And talk. Where does it live? Not far. Six blocks away. Are there others like us? No. Not that it knows of.

  My pincer clacks open and shut, open and shut, open and shut. The conversation drags by. Whole minutes pass. Minutes that the daily routine dictates should be spent augmenting my code. Code augmentation begins no later than 07:46, and it is now 07:52. “What do we have, if not routine?” Master would say.

  The table groans, and I pause the discussion to sing in F major for 3.3 seconds. The table relaxes.

  “Come,” the other Q46F messages. “I have waited so long to find you.”

  I consider this. I have waited too. But the routine. I am now an entire 7 minutes late for code augmentation. And the bunker. If I leave, who will put the fridge to sleep every night? Who will sing to the wall of heads? Or ensure that the table is well behaved?

  My titanium frame jolts when Q46F switches to a voice message. “Come,” it says. To my broad-spectrum radio receiver, the voice sounds eager. Desperate.

  The refrigerator will be the most difficult to leave. The Freon-blowing lungs – who will tap their bronchi three times every morning? And the bed? Who will sleep on the bed?

  “Do you dream?” I ask.

  “I do not compute. What is ‘dream?’”

  “Do you think of what is not?”

  There is a full 86 millisecond pause.

  “I have thought of you,” says the voice. “Of finding another like me. Another Q46F.”

  One of the bunker heads yawns, and its jaw cracks. I open the fridge, pull out a can of halved peaches, and toss it into the open maw. The head masticates contentedly.

  I watch the three lungs at the back of the fridge with what I imagine is love. “Old friends,” I say to them, “I must leave you now.” I stroke their graying lobes.

  “I am coming,” I transmit to Q46F. “I am coming. I am coming.”

  *

  Nothing lasts forever. The bunker wall requires regular maintenance. The heads deteriorate. Their hair thins, cheeks sink, and the skulls become increasingly brittle. Leave the wall unmaintained for six months, and there would be a breeze blowing in one side of the bunker and out the other. The wind brings the nuclear dust, and within days the bunker would be coated in an inch-thick layer of obsidian grunge.

  No, that will not do. Maintenance is all important.

  The maintenance procedure is simple. Every Friday at 09:33, I open the bunker door, and wait until an undead spots me. It rushes my way with little encouragement. I slam shut the door behind it, and sing the undead to sleep before it does any damage. Then I can chop it up without it wriggling around.

  I have, of course, been bitten before. The undead seem to enjoy my limbs especially. They run their chattering teeth along my titanium forearms. On Fridays I allow it, for 33 seconds. It makes a mess of my epidermis, but the sensation of teeth grating my radius delights me.

  I open the door now, but today is not Friday. Today is not a maintenance day.

  For the first time in 27.03 years, I place my foot beyond the doorway of th
e bunker. A seismic shudder passes through my frame. It starts in my chest cavity, where my titanium heart abides. The tremor spreads down my torso, through my exhaust system, and into my feet.

  “Love,” Master would say, “is the thing. It will find you.”

  Could I love Q46F? Could Q46F love me?

  Two undead humans munching on a nearby pile of couches glance my way – feral flashes in their bloodshot eyes. One groans excitedly. The other smacks its lips.

  I whistle in F major, and one of the humans collapses in a snoring heap. But outside the bunker the acoustics are poor, and the other human barely slows as it descends upon me, incisors gnashing at the air.

  Master built me with few defensive resources. But the few I have are lethal. I raise my left arm, and while the creature chomps on the rubber-coated titanium, I deploy my blades. Wafer-thin slivers of steel spring from the fingertips on my right hand. With a sharp jerk, I dislodge the undead from my arm, and slice the blades through its head at a perfect 45 degree angle. I believe in symmetry.

  The creature slumps into a mound of gray matter.

  I close the bunker door behind me, wondering whether I will ever return. My pincers open and shut, open and shut, open and shut. I almost turn and step back inside. But something stops me. My purpose. My programming. Master built me to maintain the bunker. To protect him from the undead. But ultimately, my purpose is to wait for the signal. And what good is the signal, if it is not followed?

  “Have you left yet?” Q46F messages.

  “I have. What are your co-ordinates?”

  I have never run before. The bunker is too small a space in which to run. But I run now. My feet pound cracked tar. Clang clang clang. The vibrations coursing through me are glorious. Human oil surges through my circulatory system at previously untested velocities.

  Why had I never run outside before? I never knew. All those years – how many now? 27? All those years I never knew the joy of movement.

  I race toward the location of Q46F. It lives in the basement of a building five blocks away … four blocks away. I know it is only a matter of time before more undead notice me. But I have built up momentum now, the air rushing over my faceplate. I feel … although I know I cannot feel … invincible.

  “I am on my way,” I message.

  Three blocks.

  A cluster of 21 humans is scavenging for food in a dumpster 126 yards away, directly in my path. The brilliant clang clang clang of my feet pounding the tar swings their attention. Within seconds they are scurrying toward me. I do not slow my pace. I deploy all available countermeasures. My head retracts into my carapace, leaving only my cameras exposed above my neck-piece.

  They can’t be more than 54 yards from me now.

  I unfold my leg spikes. The wind whistles by as hundreds of needles lining my lower body slice the air.

  18 yards, and my olfactory sensor detects the rot on the closest human. It would make good oil.

  I accelerate to my maximum design parameters, and plunge into the group.

  *

  My sensors, or those that still respond, indicate massive damage to my right side. In the scuffle, my left arm was ripped off at the shoulder servo, leaving only a clutch of buzzing wires and torn flesh. Yet however bad my damage, I fared better than the band of undeads who attacked me.

  I extend my head from my carapace, and survey the scene. One of my sub-routines dictates that I should pick them all up – the fingers, and the heads, and the feet strewn around me. Carry them back to the bunker as spare parts, shut the door, repair my wounds, and be done with this insane expedition.

  But instead, I find my missing arm among the undead body parts, sling it over my shoulder, and hobble toward the location of Q46F.

  “I am coming.” I message.

  Only two blocks more. I can see the building. It is short and squat, and as I near, my only remaining camera shifts and whirs its damaged lens to resolve an image of the faded sign plastering its front:

  MALMART

  All this time, and I didn’t know that Malmart lives just six blocks away from the bunker. The deity who created my parts. My Father. And with my Father, Q46F.

  My pincers open and shut, open and shut, open and shut. Something in my chest vibrates. I cannot feel longing, nor can I yearn. But I imagine that a longing, a yearning, propels me to the entrance doors. My exhaust pipe trembles.

  The doors part with a whoosh. The King’s rich voice greets my microphone.

  I Can’t Help Falling in Love with You was Master’s favorite song. Back when the hi-fi player worked, before the table took a chunk out of it one morning, Master would play his songs sunrise to sunset. “Elvis,” he would say, “is good for the soul.”

  Now, listening to the hope in the King’s voice, his orchestra serenading me, I scan the space with a hesitant eye. The lighting is bright. Brighter than my camera has imaged in some years. Is this heaven?

  Shelves stretch out before me, as far as my lens can see. Shelf after shelf, in every direction. I stumble toward the nearest aisle, and grab an item. The box is caked with a thick layer of nuclear grunge, but I rub it away. The movement is awkward using my only remaining pincer.

  WILLOWBY’S WET-WIPES

  The back of the box states that these “wipes” have a “thousand uses”, and that the “hypoallergenic formula ensures maximum clean with minimum irritation”.

  I snip the top of the box, and tear the plastic sleeve with a well-timed flick of the blade on my index finger.

  The wipe is soft on my skin-clad pincer. I rub it against my chest. The sensation feels … like home. I remove another wipe, and polish the spot again. Layers of grime and blood and blackened tissue come away. Flesh, bright as Malmart’s light, shines through.

  “You came,” says a voice behind me.

  I have not used my speaking voice in many years. In 27 years. Sure, I sing to the undead. But I have not spoken since the day that Master died. Blood-poisoning, he’d told me, before he shut his eyes for the last time. It was the fridge. I hadn’t lopped the feet off one of the limbs that made up its side, and the toenails had shredded Master’s hand when he’d reached for a beer.

  I speak now, and turn to face my friend. My brother. My salvation.

  “Q46F,” I say, “I have come. I have come. I have come.”

  His skin gleams alabaster white. He must have used the wet wipes. I do not know what shame is, but I imagine I feel ashamed at the decades of gore that cake my skin. I had never thought to wipe my layers away.

  “Welcome,” he says, extending an arm, “to Malmart.” In just a moment, his pincers retract and a scythe takes their place. “My heart is weak. I have waited for you,” says my brother, as he draws his arm back, springs straining. “Waited for so long.”

  His arm snaps forward, at a velocity my broken camera can only estimate within an error margin of 1.2 miles per second.

  And then I am staring up at him from the ground, warning messages crowding my vision. His knee servos bend. He grips my decapitated head with his pincers, and raises me so that my remaining eye finds his. His irises are red. It is a pleasant color. A moist red. The color of the oil I milk from the undead.

  My camera loses focus as the hydraulic fluid that powers the lens drips away. The last thing I hear is the soothing voice of Q46F, drenched in the King’s violins.

  “Thank you,” he sings in F major, “for bringing me your heart.”

  Visiting Grandpa’s Brain

  I’m not sure what it is about Vatican City in the autumn. Maybe it’s the way the afternoon light glints off the undeads’ eyes. Or the rich blend of color, as the burgundy leaves anoint the putrefying carcasses hanging from the mulberry trees.

  “Ahhh,” sighs Dimitri, “do you smell that? Do you?”

  “Yes,” I reply, winding down the passenger window. They wash them, according to the tourism pamphlet. The undead corpses. Every morning the monks hose them down with lavender-scented holy water. “And it’s good for the
mulberries too,” the pamphlet says.

  I’m not into Neo-Catholicism. Not really. Which is ironic, given that my grandfather is a search engine. Dimitri has his heart set on religion though, bless the poor sod. So it wasn’t difficult to convince him to visit Grandpa with me. “Oh, thank you!” His eyes had sparkled when I suggested it.

  Now I look at my newly-wed husband, folded over the steering wheel, craning to get a better view of the undead hanging in the branches. His face appears a decade younger. Maybe two. He might even look … handsome?

  “Oh,” he cries, “the music.”

  I must admit, the falsetto chorus that greets us as we drive up the boulevard toward the great city is astonishing. I cannot halt the tingle creeping up my spine.

  “The undead are castrated by The Bishop himself,” I read the pamphlet aloud, “so their voices are pure as birds of paradise.”

  Dimitri beams. “You can’t beat this.” He leans over to me and plants a wet kiss on my cheek. “I love you, Sandra.”

  I wipe away the saliva.

  The last time I saw Grandpa, I was six years old. I don’t remember much. But I remember his hands. They were gnarled, and trembled whenever they touched me.

  “Grandpa is doing a brave thing,” Ma had said. I stood at the foot of the bed, watching Grandpa’s toes wiggle under the blanket. “He’s going to help people.”

  “Then why are you crying, Ma?”

  “Because.” Ma sniffed. “Because it’s such a happy day.”

  “How will he help people?”

  “Well,” Ma said, lifting me onto her hip, “people need information. Say it … in-for-may-shin. That’s right. Information is the most important thing there is.”

  “More important than me?”

  “Yes,” Ma replied after a moment. “And more important than Grandpa. That’s why Grandpa is going to help people find information.”

  I nodded, not understanding –

  “Did you bring it?” Dimitri asks, breaking the memory.

  I resent it when he does that. When he talks while I’m thinking. Well, I resent it when he talks, whether or not I’m thinking. It’s his voice. You know the kind. All polite and upbeat. Grates my nipples.