Thousands of beefy, slack-jawed Cognatans stare at the crumbled wall, their fallen matriarch, and the two Lords standing in the opening.
“There’s no way,” Capria says.
I think she’s accurately captured the futility of this moment. Even with Gal’s help, we’ll never be able to fight our way out of here.
Thankfully, Gal is planning to fight.
“Get on!” Gal shouts from two of the larger drones, lowering their thick, round frames beside us.
“Get on?” I say. “Are you serious?”
Capria drops the heavy sword, and dives atop one of the drones, clutching the sides. Then she’s speeding away, flanked by a number of smaller drones. The stunned Cognatans shrink back, but then, perhaps realizing the Lords they were about to eat might escape, they draw weapons.
“Get. On!” Gal shouts.
I leap atop the drone, held in place as much by the excess gravity as my white-knuckled grip. The repulse discs hum to life, and then I’m moving. But unlike Capria’s flight through the city, I don’t have surprise on my side.
But I’m not alone, either. Six smaller drones buzz around me, and as I cruise across the courtyard they move to intercept the barrage of projectiles already soaring my way. Stones, spears, and arrows are deflected by the drones, whipping and buzzing about like angry wasps, taking hits that were intended for me. The initial attack leaves one drone on the ground and another spinning wildly away, exploding when it careens into a stone wall.
The blast makes most of the Cognatans duck for cover, but the more seasoned fighters, including Rolf, push the attack. An arrow shot by Rolf slips past my defenders and punches through my calf. The sudden pain nearly pries me from the drone’s back, but I manage to hold on.
Far ahead, Capria and her mechanical steed cruise through Renfro’s closing gates, free and clear. I’m relieved that she escaped, but my fate is sealed along with the massive metal doors.
Pelted with stones hurled by throngs of everyday Cognatans, I shout, “Gal, the wall!”
“I see it,” she says, still heading straight for the five-foot-thick barricade, seconds away from crashing.
The drone hums a little louder and we peel away from the ground, slowly gaining altitude as we approach the wall. “Higher!” I shout, and then, a jolt. The drone is struck by something. The steady hum of the repulse disc becomes a sputtering buzz.
I see the collision before it happens. It will no doubt result in my temporary death, followed by a slow, agonizing, permanent death in the bellies of thousands of Cognatans, including Kozna, who I can hear shouting orders in the distance. There are four more thumps on the drone’s underside, and then, instead of plummeting, we’re rising once more!
The smaller drones have buoyed my ride.
But it’s not enough.
I’m about to shout that out, when my ride strikes the top of the stone wall.
Momentum carries me up and over, pinwheeling me through the air like a rag doll in low gravity. Except here on Cognata, the gravity takes hold of my flailing body and returns it to the ground with a vengeance.
Through no effort of my own, I land on my feet, which shatter, along with both sets of tibias and fibulas and one femur. On the plus side, I manage to stay awake, and I have working arms, so I can drag myself several feet before I’m caught.
I attempt to do just that when I hear the great doors opening. When they do, my not-so-great escape will be over, and my very not-Great Escape will begin.
There’s no sign of Capria, or the drones sent to rescue her, so at least she will live on…to what? Watch me be eaten from orbit? No, she and Gal will be back. They’ll… my mind drifts. Gal is holding back. I can think of a dozen ways she could have ended all this long before things got nasty, which means she already thought of hundreds more. And yet, this encounter is playing out to the most painful and dramatic ending possible. All of it orchestrated, or at the very least, allowed, by Gal. But why? Is it for her entertainment?
Or for mine?
Before the first Cognatan can spill out of the opening doors, two small drones fly up and over the wall, the last of Gal’s drones sent to rescue me. They stop on either side of me, and Gal speaks through them both. “Grab hold.”
“What? Are you serious? These drones can’t lift me.”
“Lift you?” Gal says.
I grunt in understanding. Gal’s going to drag me. Since that is better than being eaten, I grasp both drones and hold on tight. I shout in pain as my still mending broken limbs are pulled across the rough ground. Every bump sets bones grinding, making healing impossible. I’m about to let go, the pain overwhelming, when the gates open and a four-foot-tall army crashes out after me.
“Go, go, go!” I shout.
But the situation once again becomes hopeless. The Cognatans on foot are faster than the two small drones hauling my useless legs across the ground. The ones riding what looks like a cross between a horse and an elephant will be upon us in seconds.
“We’re not going to make it.”
Gal’s response is laughter.
Always having fun.
Still having fun.
Just as the nearest Cognatan is about to throw a spear down from the back of his massive steed, pinning me to the ground, the beast rears back, bucking its rider. Then, as though struck by a wave of invisible power, the whole dwarfish army flails backward, toppling over one another. Those that stay upright, turn and run.
What the hell?
As Gal continues to laugh, I follow the Cognatan’s gaze beyond me and find myself looking at the Galahad’s massive hull. Without a sound, the massive ship shifted coordinates from orbit, to just a few feet above the ground.
Grunting in pain as my bones set and mend, I stand on my own two feet. I feel like I should say something to these people, try to direct their path. They are, after all, what’s left of the human race. Instead, I turn my back on the lot, and walk to the opening cargo bay door, where Capria waits beside a lander.
Each step up the ramp is a fight, but by the time I reach the top, I’m fueled by anger. “Gal, we need to talk.”
“Later,” Capria says, a smile on her face, hand reaching for mine. As the doors shut behind us, she leads me away. “I’ve never felt so alive. I want to share it with you.”
And with those words, and Capria’s alluring eyes, I forget about the conversation I planned to have with Gal…for five hundred years.
46
“Is it Mount Danu, or Danu Mount?” I ask, looking at the tallest peak we’ve seen on Antarctica. I’m sure it used to have a name, and we could have Gal look it up, but we prefer to name things ourselves…and we haven’t directly communicated with Gal in several years. Over the years, Capria and I have embarked on several expeditions to explore the continent that we share with a variety of wildlife, but no other human beings. Gal—controlling drones—joined us on our first few adventures, uncovering natural wonders that were once hidden beneath miles of snow and ice. But in recent years, she has stayed behind, the Galahad’s lone occupant.
The ship rests on the surface, our massive and modern city, should we ever feel the need for running showers, toilets, and food we don’t have to grow or hunt. Without the ability to change Galahad’s coordinates, the ship would have broken apart punching through the atmosphere. Though Galahad was constructed in zero gravity, hackable reality allowed me to shift the ship’s altitude, weight, and structural strength, allowing it to rest comfortably on land.
“Danu Mount,” Capria says, looking at the jagged mountaintop, still miles away and too tall to scale without oxygen. We’re standing atop a cliff, surrounded by jungle, alive with sounds we’ve come to recognize. Monkeys, birds, and insects sing together, their song carrying a message of safety. If they fall silent, then we will, too, taking to the trees if we can. There are predators here—descendants of wolves, bears, and big cats, which hints at humanity making their last stand on Antarctica, bringing the plants and animals that populate
the continent before failing to survive.
That’s part of what we’re looking for: the last vestiges of humanity. Not because we need to know their fates, or are hoping for a still-surviving human population, but because it’s interesting. We’re interested in digging up the past to discover the narrative of mankind’s end, the same way archeologists used to pull mummified corpses from the Egyptian desert.
Eventually, when the rest of the planet recovers, we’ll set out across the ocean and do the same with the rest of the world. Given the planet’s size and our slow mode of travel—on foot—it should take up the better part of forever. And I’m actually looking forward to it. Are the pyramids still standing? Is the Statue of Liberty under water? Is the Grand Canyon wider and grander, or has erosion filled it in?
We could answer these questions quickly with Gal’s help, scouring the planet from orbit, but venturing out on our own, alone, under the stars, is far more…romantic.
“You know it’s a weird name, right?”
“You named the last one Willy Wonka,” she points out.
“It’s from a classic novel.”
She laughs, her voice echoing through the lush valley below us. “It’s the product of a drug-induced hallucination.”
“There’s no proof of that,” I say.
“Except for the story itself.”
I roll my eyes, but we have a variation of this fight every time we name something. It’s become a fun routine, seeing who can come up with the most absurd title for the world’s majestic sights. “What does it even mean? Danu Mount?”
“It’s representational of this time in our lives.” She sits on the ledge, letting her feet dangle over a hundred foot drop into a green canopy of trees. “You’re the one who likes novels. It’s basic story structure.”
I sit beside her. “Pretty sure nothing about our lives fits any kind of story structure.”
“Action, climax, you know.”
“So this—” I motion to the mountain. “—is what, Mount happily ever after?”
“Hasn’t it been?” She rests her head on my shoulder. “We’ve been here for just over five hundred years. We’re never hungry. Never thirsty. Dangers are short-lived and normally just fun. Every day brings something new, and we’re in love. After five hundred years, still in love.”
She’s right. We live in paradise, and since one or both of us appears to be sterile, our responsibilities have been simplified to enjoying each other. We travel, explore, laugh, have sex, watch the stars, and rarely talk about the past anymore. After years of what could best be described as torture, we’ve found peace.
But is it enough? Forever?
“Do you ever miss it?” I ask.
“Miss what?”
I point at the sky. She gets it.
“The endless void that isn’t endless? That has a wall where reality ends? That has a planet where the inhabitants want to eat you and do God-knows-what to me? That was the climax by the way. Couldn’t have gotten much worse than that.”
She leans over the edge, looking down. I tighten my grip on her bare arm. She’d survive the fall, of course, but it would hurt, and the idea of her being in pain doesn’t sit well with me. There have been a few occasions—accidents and encounters with predators—that would have killed one or both of us if we were normal human beings, but surviving doesn’t make dying any easier. Or any kind of fun.
Her arm, covered with slick humidity, isn’t easy to hold on to, but there isn’t much else to grasp. Her carry pack sits a few feet away. It contains food and water we don’t really need, a bed roll, binoculars, and a single bit of modern technology—a solar powered tablet that lets us map the world, record the names we give landmarks, read books, and watch old movies. Had she been wearing it, I would have held on to the strap, but since we’ve been here for so long, our clothing has been reduced to small loincloths and leather underwear, more to keep out parasites than a display of modesty.
When she leans back, I relax, that is, until she asks the question, “Do you miss it? Are you not happy here?”
“I have never been happier,” I say, but even my ears pick up on the unsaid, ‘But…’ I lie back on the stone ledge, my now shoulder-length hair clinging to my beard.
Capria leans over me, smiling, her confidence in our relationship and our life together unshaken by whatever doubts I might have. “Go on.”
“It’s too easy.”
“Mmm.” It’s not exactly an articulate response, but that’s because she’s waiting for more.
I’m about to say more, but the words trigger forgotten memories. Concerns never voiced. Or just buried.
I shake my head. “It’s just my own bullshit.” Today is a perfect day, even better than most, and most are pretty awesome. I don’t want to screw it up with hypotheticals and ‘what ifs’ that have the potential to ruin the day, not to mention the life we’ve built here.
“I think what I hear you saying…” Capria is using her psycho-analysis voice. It reminds me of someone I used to know, or imagined. “Is that you want to try something new. Take some new risks. Maybe it’s time to try that boat we built?”
It’s a fairly sea-worthy vessel, built using instructions from Gal’s database. We considered learning the hard way, through trial and error, but neither of us are instinctively handy. We built the sailboat using wood and animal hides. We then sailed the coast for several months, but never ventured out into the sea.
“It’s been five hundred years,” she says. “The air could be better. Gal could check before we left. We could make Chile. Explore South America. Head north. See what became of Florida. Pay our respects. See if F.B. can still conjure giant killer frogs.”
That gets a laugh. Some of the events of our now distant past have faded, but my nickname and the mutated frog that nearly made a meal of me, have haunted me since.
“I guess.” Everything she’s said sounds…great. Perfect. Even the idea of fending off man-eating amphibians. But there is something off about it, about our story.
“Let the past go,” Capria says. “You have to eventually. Just live in the moment.” She leans closer, smiling wide, and not because she’s made a good point, but because she’s letting her breasts rub against my chest. “You know that thing?”
The subtle tension in my body fades into the background along with my not-yet-understood misgivings. “What thing?”
“That you want me to try,” she says, mischief in her eyes.
My heart skips a beat. “The thing I asked about two hundred years ago?”
“And just about yearly since.”
“I gave up a few decades back.”
She shrugs. “Well?”
I push myself up on my elbows. “Seriously? Right now?” I put a hand on her hip, already getting excited.
Then she shakes her head and points to the sky. “I’m sure she’s watching.”
“Gal doesn’t care what we do or how we do it.”
She sits back, removing the warmth of her body and the promise of immediate gratification. “Privacy, or blue balls. Those are your options. C’mon, Will. Be my cave man. Find me a cave. We can take our time.”
Her words are intoxicating. I have a hard time thinking past the graphic images flitting through my head. “Uh, o-okay.”
I have rarely set about a task with such determination. Finding a cave isn’t always easy. We’ve found them before, usually to escape a monsoon. Several have dwellings built inside, ready to house us as we travel past. But we’ve never been in this part of the jungle before, so finding a cave takes some time.
Three days to be exact, and as though fate had a sense of humor, the cave is located at the base of Danu Mount. It’s large, cool, and happily unoccupied by predators or anything else. An underground river flowing through the back of the deep cave fills the darkness with a pleasant, baritone, white noise.
After realizing that I have, in fact, found a cave that would suit our needs, I breathlessly set about preparing it. I li
ght the space with torches, lay out our bed rolls and furs, and cut flowers to make the earthy air smell sweet.
“Okay,” I shout, voice magnified by the stone walls. “Come in.”
Capria slips past the overgrowth concealing most of the cave’s entrance. She’s silhouetted by the daylight behind her, but I can already tell she’s naked. She moves into the firelight, eyes locked onto mine, and descends onto my body, hungry and willing.
My mind slips into a kind of numb bliss. I lose all sense of time, of worry, and of life beyond the passionate darkness. And we stay in that place for what must be days, our genetically modified bodies having no trouble keeping pace with our ecstasy.
When it ends, the torches long burnt out, and my years of pent up desire satiated, I roll up behind her, wrap my arms around her waist and close my eyes.
“You’re happy?” she asks.
I nuzzle my nose into her neck. The answer to that question requires no words, and I’m pretty sure has been expressed several times over the past few days.
“I’m glad.” She rubs her back into me. “Can we sleep?”
We don’t need to. Haven’t in quite some time. But a deep and dream-filled slumber feels like the perfect end to what we’ve just experienced. I squeeze her a little tighter. Kiss her ear. And then, after five deep breaths, I fall asleep.
I don’t know how long I’ve been asleep, but I smile when I hear her voice again.
“Will?”
“I’m here.” My voice sounds gravelly. My throat is dry. I might actually need a drink. “I’m awake.”
I open my eyes to total darkness. “Where are you?”
“Here,” she says, not far away, but when I reach for her, I come up short.
I turn toward the cave entrance, but see neither daylight nor the moon’s glow. Just total darkness. Is there an eclipse? I wonder. Or thick clouds?
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