by Waiting for the Machines to Fall Asleep- The Best New Science Fiction from Sweden (retail) (epub)
The smile never left her rosy face when she wiped her cheek clean and looked at a screen in her hand that rested on my arm. "Your pulse is rising, my dear. Are you uncomfortable?"
I yelled at her, I called her all the bad names I could come up with. I begged and cried, but for what? This was no woman, no nurse; it was a machine.
I thought of the Royals, the anger Lancelot showed when the attack came. Was it all a scam? Did they know what was going on? If they were some of the most advanced ones, maybe they were behind it all.
If there really was something special about me, about my brain, that they wanted; how did they find me? I rubbed my arm against the bed. My holograph. The guy at the party, the friend of the Royals! Had he tagged me in some way when he got my number?
I gasped. Wait a minute. That's why he was so dazzled when he saw me in the crowd. It was not love at first sight. He scanned me somehow and found out that I was what they were looking for. But did that mean that he was not human after all?
"Have you already created some of these new AAIGP wonders?" I whispered.
The nurse smiled. "Yes! They are not as beautiful as the old AAIGP, to better blend in with the humans. And their wisdom and visions are outstanding." She stroked a strand of hair from my forehead. "Soon we will control Vegatropolis. And when we do that, the world will be at our feet."
I pulled away from her. Stupid, stupid, stupid. How could I believe that guy was into me? I was so stupid that I deserved to get my brain sucked. Well, maybe not. If I ever got out of this I promised myself never to trust a hot guy again.
Why did I let Maxine convince me to go to that stupid party instead of staying on the other side of the wall, where I belonged.
I bit my lip until I tasted blood and turned my head away from them.
It could have been hours, maybe days. I didn't know. All I knew was that I was so tired. I closed my dried up eyes and thought of my parents, of my life, of the things I would never do or see. I needed to sleep, my entire body and mind were screaming to sleep.
But that was just me, the victim. The predator in her white uniform and fake smile, the AAI built with silicon and advanced technology. She was different. The machines never went to sleep. They just kept on going, living, destroying and creating monsters that could suck the brains of real people and manipulate the ones left.
I hope that Maxine, my parents and everyone else I know outside the city will be spared. To serve the rich and famous in the city might not be any different from serving under a new race of AAIGP.
Goodnight Vegatropolis, goodnight fake city. I guess it's only fair that you will be destroyed by something as fake and shiny as yourself.
The sound of a door swishing open broke through the fog in my mind. With my last will to fight I formed two words in my head that came over my dry lips as a whisper: "Help. Me."
"Jump to the Left, Jump to the Right" – Love Kölle
"You are only allowed to come back to Home if you kill Beast and carry the head in your hands," the Passed had told Norna as they escorted her through the Wildern, all the way up to the cave of Holopedia.
"You must kill Beast – any kind of Beast – in five days. If you take longer, you will not be Passed."
"Why," she asked the others, all her seniors. "Why must I become Passed?"
"It is what the Firsters did. They Passed through the Wildern when they came to Nuhome. Their story must live on, we must do like them, must be like them and like all others that have been here since, for only if we Pass can we survive on Nuhome."
She knew the story of the Firsters well, having listened like no other child ever listened, when the Passed told them about the Big Canoe that carried all the humans from Urth through the sea of stars in the Blackabove.
Norna had listened to the story of how the Firsters parents put their offspring in flying rafts when the Big Canoe started to burn in the clouds, and how the Firsters then landed in the Wildern – not because she found the history of her kind particularly exciting (there were other stories that were far more suspenseful and interesting than the legend of the beginning and "Fayl'd Dessennt"), but because she could sense words hidden inside the words of the story.
She thought that if she listened closely to the tale of the Firsters arrival to this world, she might eventually see new meanings where there were no meanings before, new images appearing in her head like when she dug for shinestones in the ground, and in due course found some.
"The Firsters," said the Passed that accompanied her through the dense vegetation of the Wildern, "found Holopedia in the Rek. Their mommies and daddies were also there, but they were all burnt. The Firsters brought Holopedia to the cave, and asked it what to do and how to live, and they were told."
"What did Holopedia say," Norna replied.
"You will hear it for yourself," the Passed answered. "We cannot say, even if we want to, for every song is different from person to person. When we were small like you we were all taken to the cave, and we all listened to the holy words, just like the Firsters did. And like the first ones, we then killed Beast and then came to Home, because the song had told us how and why and what to do. Just like it told our ancestors."
"I don't want to go see Holopedia," Norna said.
"You must, child," the Passed said. "This must be. It can't be stopped."
After dropping her off at the cave, the Passed made their way back through the rainforest that the residents of Home called "the Wildern". Darkness had begun to fall.
Norna watched the Passed descend into the jungle below the elevation on which the mouth of the cave was located.
They were big and grown up, the Passed were, not as fragile and easily breakable as the small ones of the tribe. On top of that, they were – unlike her – armed, and would be able to fend off any attacking Beast with the help of their spears, rocks and stone axes.
On the other hand, it would soon be pitch black in the forest below her, and she imagined that fighting in darkness was probably difficult, even for the big ones of the tribe. Not that she had ever actually been in the Wildern at any time of day – in actuality she had no idea as to whether or not it was easier to fight in daylight or during night-time – but, since the Blackabove was almost at its blackest, everything under the branches and leaves and vines of the trees must be completely devoid of light.
And fighting Beast in darkness must be hard, she decided.
The lights of lit torches shone out from the mouth of the cave behind her, the entrance to the cavern wide open like the jaws of a dead scale bird.
"The light will keep Beast away from the cave," said the Passed before leaving her. "So don't sit and wait for it to come to you."
If Beast outside the cave avoided the light anything that wasn't human that might have dwelled inside the cavern would have come out by now, she decided, and then entered the cave.
It was indeed devoid of life. All in all nothing but a long torch-lit corridor ending in a larger, spherical room.
In the middle of the end-room stood a strange, disc shaped contraption, the like of which she had never seen. It did not reach above her calves and the top was completely flat and somewhat shiny, even in the relative darkness of the cave interior.
Around this strange, round stage ceremonial flowers and relics had been placed. Among the offerings was an item she immediately recognized; a small ivory idol in the image of a Hummingman that Fergo Sculptor had made and shown to the other tribe members some weeks ago.
She approached the objects in the middle of room, and as she moved something suddenly crackled to life.
From the flat, round surface, around which offerings had been placed, a cloud of what looked like orange dust sparkled to life. Throughout the cave echoed some kind of ancient incantation:
"Category: popular music of the 1980s, subcategory: Italo disco," a strange and distorted, disembodied voice said – clearly the sounds of some ethereal entity that had been awakened by her presence. "Random entry: 'Jump to the
Left, Jump to the Right' by Vittorio Salerno. Year of release: 1986. Palermo Records."
Norna's mind was at a blank – she stood awestruck, gasping for air as the holy words rang out from the cloud of orange. Even though she didn't have any grasp or understanding of what the otherworldly being in front of her was talking about, Norna fell to her knees and cried:
"Tell me more, oh mighty Holopedia! Show me the way, oh wise one! Make me Passed! Make me Passed!"
"Visual feed disabled. Probable cause: severe hardware failure," the oracle answered. "Please notify your system administrator. Commence: audio playback."
The oracle said nothing more, but instead started playing a song – a magical song; music of the past, or her ancestors, or another world far, far away across the Blackabove. It started with a pumping rhythm that was soon followed by a lighter melody, played on some heavenly instrument of a kind she had never encountered in the flesh.
After a few bars, Holopedia started singing, in a different voice than before, but distorted and inhuman, nonetheless:
Hey party people!
The party's just begun
Let's sing and laugh and dance
and let's have a little fun!
Hey party people!
Be happy, don't cry!
Don't know how to dance?
Don't worry – just try!
These lyrics were, in turn, followed by a chorus, clearly the words of great wisdom and ancient truth:
Jump to the left,
jump to the right,
jump up, jump down,
every day
every night
After that, a third and a fourth verse followed, only to lead into a musical passage, how strange were the melodies of the Firsters, and then another round of choruses. After that, the music finally faded away, only to start again, from the very beginning, once more.
Norna said nothing, as the mighty Holopedia obviously had decided that this was no time for dialog. She spent the rest of the night memorizing and trying to analyze the words that were sung to her.
Maybe there was meaning within meanings, she thought, patterns and verses that needed to be examined closer to get to the knowledge inside.
She awoke at dawn. The oracle was still singing its song, and her belly now ached of hunger. Her last meal had been consumed well before her departure from Home.
"Oh great one," Norna said. "I've heard you sing, but I'm hungry. Please, tell me – how do I kill Beast so that I can go home? I want to know – I need you to tell me!"
"Don't know how to dance?" Holopedia sang. "Don't worry – just try!"
She stood up and left.
Better just try then, she thought, and exited into the Wildern.
Not knowing exactly what she was supposed to jump on, over or from, Norna made her way through the thickets, vines and foliage that covered the Wildern.
Like an ocean, she thought, a sea of green and brown and flowers.
For some time, she would then and again turn around and still be able to see the cave of Holopedia, but soon she had lost track of her position, the lush vegetation of the jungle swallowing her sense of direction like some wild animal devouring living prey.
What started like a seed of modest nervousness soon blossomed into a black flower of full blown terror – she found herself sinking deeper and deeper into the confusing verdure around her, like a person lost at sea, drowning in panic. She started running to hurry her exit from this maze of wild flora, fell over, skinned her knees, elbows and palms, then got up on her feet and started again. This procedure repeated itself a number of times before she finally managed to leave this region, where the vegetation was at its very densest.
Catching her breath she halted and stood in silence for a while. Although winded, she found herself in a state of animal-like hyper-presence – the adrenalin, still pumping in her pubescent body, sharpened her senses and made her limbs tremble a bit, as she attentively registered her surroundings down to every detail.
This new, hostile world that she found herself in was different than Home in every conceivable way – unlike Home this was a dark, alien landscape, a strange place filled with rough, bark-coved tripwire and sharp, green teeth-leafs.
She began to cry. She wished that this whole ordeal was over already, that it never had commenced in the first place, that no blood had come out between her legs and brought the attention of the Passed that, like a chorus of authoritative voices, had proceeded to tell her that the time had come for her own Passing.
Her body, a lanky constantly growing prison of flesh, ached. It was broken, she thought, a wreck. Just like the Rek where the Firsters found the burnt bodies of their elders, all consumed in the flames of Fayl'd Dessennt.
She closed her eyes and imaged the Wildern, devoured by never ending fire. Then, after a while, the images of flames inside her head morphed and migrated south. They mutated into a fire in her chest, and a certain kind of stubbornness, that of the most hardy of survivors, hatched from some hidden egg inside of her.
I will not let the Wildern beat me, she thought. No. I will beat it. I'll kill Beast. I'll jump to the left, jump to the right, and then I will be Passed.
The effects of the magic of wish-think, a special kind of sorcery of which the tribe's resident shaman often spoke, was instant; her thoughts of killing Beast immediately materialized in growing sounds in the distance.
She wiped the last of her tears, ignored the ache and stinging sensations still clinging to her elbows and knees, and set off in the direction of the source of the sounds.
She moved in silence, crouched and camouflaged, like a snake-rat on the prowl. Within minutes, she could see a large creature moving slowly between robust tree trunks – an animal the like of which she'd never laid her eyes on before.
It was a reptile of some sort, a slow moving, six legged lizard that carried what seemed to be an enormous shell on its back. Ever so often, the creature stopped and chewed bark off trees, and when distant noises caught its attention, the animal stuck its head and limbs in its large shell, like Norna and the other little ones hid in the caves of Home, when Beast of different varieties reached the vicinity of the settlement.
She had no weapons or tools, and even if she had been armed, charging head first into battle would be completely futile; the same way it would be suicidal of a lone crystalant to try to attack a hummingman.
A fragment of the song bubbled up inside her brain, like a subconscious alarm activated by the stimuli of her surroundings:
Hey party people! Be happy, don't cry! Don't know how to dance? Don't worry – just try!
The trees around her were impressive in every single way. The trunks were thick and the protruding branches numerous and quite robust. The many flowers and leaves covering them were all hypnotically colorful.
The creature stopped to consume a patch of bushes, and Norna started climbing the nearest tree. Getting up wasn't a problem, neither was avoiding being detected by Beast below, as the colorful vegetation that decorated the branch on which she laid provided cover. However, deciding on the ideal landing place was, in contrast, quite difficult.
Aiming for the head was an alternative, but if she landed a little bit to the left or right or in front of the creature, it would do nothing to it. She, on the other hand, would suddenly find herself in arms reach of the reptile's giant mouth.
Trying to hit the ground right beside it was another option – from there she'd just try, like Holopedia had instructed; without any real plan of action just leap from the top of the tree, and things would work out for themselves.
Maybe she'd land, roll in beneath the giant shell, and punch Beast right in the stomach? But what if it just laid down with her still underneath? She'd be crushed like a little crystalant under a big rock. Not a risk worth taking, she decided. Better to aim for the shell itself.
Again, the song that had chimed in the cave echoed in her head.
Jump up, jump down, every day, every night.
/> She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and jumped down, as she'd been instructed.
She landed on the being's back, and almost instantly started to scream in pain and in fear, as she slid off the back of the big lizard, and landed on her back in one on the nearby bushes.
Lying gasping for air, looking up at lush crowns of surrounding trees, she heard the animal that she'd tried to subdue run away, frightened. In the blink of an eye, Beast was gone without a trace, as if the forest had swallowed it whole.
Norna found herself alone, once more.
Her head was spinning. Eventually, she managed to catch her breath, but the spinning refused to stop, and she found it difficult to keep focused as she tried to inspect her injuries. The relatively sharp, pyramidal bulges on the creature's back had scraped the skin on her left arm. The signals of pain didn't even have time to reach her brain before she fainted at the sight of the shallow but bloody wound.
When she came to there was pain and the light of a setting sun. As she rose from the grassy terrain her left arm hung numb and useless at her side, and her stomach rumbled with hunger. She recognized some of the surrounding fauna as the same type of vegetation that could be encountered on the outskirts of Home. Judging from this fact, she came to the conclusion that edible fruits and berries were to be found nearby.
After a few minutes of scouting and scouring the area she came across the same kind of fruits and vegetables that were to be found close to home. And lots of it.
She ate until the hunger had vanished completely. With still a few hours before the dark of night set in she took it upon her to search for a place to spend the night.
Once more she was in luck. Nearby she found a big lush tree that had fallen onto a couple of low cliffs close to a small lake, in effect creating a windbreaker shelter for her to cover under. As the sun would stay up for at least a couple of hours, and the fertile plants that had provided her with sustenance weren't that far away, she decided to use the final hours of daylight hoarding provisions.
