by Daniel Quinn
The room is well-lit, and Mother Superior is indeed waiting inside, consulting with something on the pull-down holo display. It is one of the many ways she accesses the instruments hidden in the walls. She waits a moment to acknowledge my presence, transmitting something to Mother Grace before favoring me with her attention. The bot who is my personal mother tilts her head, non-verbal agreement to whatever command Mother Superior has issued, and retreats without a word.
Mother Superior is one of my creators, a Master of bots and humans—although her ascender name is shrouded like the smoky glass enclosing the interrogation room. She’s beautiful in a tall and perfectly proportioned way, her bodyform carefully chosen and crafted toward some innate measure of human beauty. It’s a remnant from the time when she was human—before she took the nanites into her brain and ascended into the hyper-intelligent being all ascenders are today. By comparison, I’m barely more intelligent than Mother Grace and her sweet but limited cognition.
It’s the order of things—bots then humans then ascenders.
My intelligence is supposed to be limited as well, but the Masters are trying to change that—it would be an abomination if it weren’t for a holy purpose. But I wasn’t created to be intelligent. My purpose is to reach beyond the intellect, outside the senses. To provide a bridge to that holy place the Masters cannot reach on their own—and reclaim the thing that was perhaps lost when the Singularity elevated humanity into near-God-like beings. I’m supposed to reach for God… only I’m not sure I want to touch the divine.
It seems too powerful. Like something that will burn, not enlighten. Destroy, not uplift. Maybe it’s merely fear, but there are dark nights when I doubt the strength of my faith—when I believe more in my ability to fail than in the possibility of being the salvation of the world.
I stand awkwardly in my thin, sleeveless sheath. My feet warm the chilled floor, and my heart feels childish in my doubts.
Mother Superior finally banishes her holo screen and turns to me.
“Sister Amara,” she says, her voice cool. “Please have a seat.”
The chair. I can’t control the shudder that passes over my skin. Mother Superior’s skin dances with wisps of purple. The translucent fabric of her shift shows the color-flux of her emotions, just as mine reveals my prickles of dread. Our clothes are the same—bots, humans, and ascenders alike wear the lightweight sheaths made from tech-laden fabric. The cloister may keep us concealed from the outside world, but inside our glass walls, our clothes lay bare all our bodily responses.
Mine signals my reluctance.
“I’d prefer not to sedate you this time, Sister Amara.”
That makes me move—the sedative left me nauseous for hours. My bare legs shuffle me to the chair, and I gingerly climb into the cool embrace of the gel cushions. Mother Superior moves with ascender speed, flitting to retrieve the med patch—a small, square electronic dispensing device—and place it on my forehead before I’m even settled. The chill of the cushions seeps through my shift. They won’t release me until our interrogation is through.
“Make careful note of what you see.” Mother Superior’s words are routine, and she’s already back at her holo controls. “I want a full report.”
Before I can respond, the med patch flips on and doses me. There’s no sensation when it activates, but I feel the effect immediately. The God-mode slams through my mind, stronger than the previous sessions, wrenching me from my nerves and anxiety and pulling my mind to a different place. The sensation of being liberated from my body pervades me, like always, and I blearily force open my eyes to check that I’m still in the chair.
I am. I never move, but I always feel like I’m floating.
It’s not without pleasure, this release.
I feel a presence in the room that’s not Mother Superior. It’s not unlike the connection I feel with my sisters when we’re all in the same place, enjoying the same work in the garden or a game in the virtual. This sense of oneness with others, of being larger than the tight confines of my body—this is the med patch at work, inducing a mode of thinking that is supposed to elevate me from my existence of cool boxes and limitless glass.
And it does.
The problem is that I’m not supposed to simply enjoy this blissful and harmonious state—I should be actively reaching for more. Mother Superior says I have to seek God in order to find it, but so far the trance holds me like tar, stuck in this joyous plane of love and sisterhood. Maybe my faith isn’t strong enough to lift me higher. I wonder if Mother Superior ever enters the God-mode and experiences this harmony in the midst of her frenetically intelligent life—and if so, why isn’t it enough? Why must she reach for more through us? Is this too simple a joy, pleasurable only for meager humans?
I reach and reach for the more I’ve been created to attain, trying with my limited mind and small faith to imagine something greater worth reaching for… and fail. Again.
The happy floating state lulls me back.
Too soon, the med patch slams off, wrenching me back into the cool prison of the chair and the harsh gaze of Mother Superior’s dilating purple-tinted eyes. Everything that can be measured has been—by the instruments in the walls and the chair and her eyes. Now comes the interrogation in which I’ll have nothing to report. Again.
My sisters do not have to worry about me reaching God before them. And it’s easy to report to Mother Superior that I haven’t yet fulfilled our purpose when that’s the simple truth.
“What did you see, Sister Amara?”
“I’m sorry,” I mumble. “Nothing.”
“Sister Sophia reported visions at this level.”
“She did?” My heart quickens.
“I’m increasing your dose.” In a blink, she’s back at the holo controls.
The God-mode slams harder into my mind, making my heart rate jump. The bliss and harmony flee. My senses expand so rapidly, I fear I am exploding. I choke, unable to breathe, my eyes pop open, looking desperately at my body—I’m still attached to it, but I’m curling up, fighting the cushions as my stomach wrenches. What I’m seeing with my eyes—my limited body on the chair—doesn’t match up with the sense of largeness in my head. I clutch at my stomach as it roils. A keening sound, high and sharp, rings in my ears. Only after I drag my head to the side, working against the chair’s hold, do I realize by the change in pitch that the sound is coming from my mouth.
I’m screaming.
Mother Superior doesn’t even look my way.
The sense of expansion ramps up further. My back arches up from the cushions. Every muscle in my body is electrified…
I blow into a million pieces.
My body slumps hard into the chair.
The scattered pieces of my mind rain down like black drops.
The darkness closes on me.
II
I awake with a rush of air filling my lungs.
Mother Grace stands over me, her hands gently restraining me while her smaller, mechanical arms—the ones that live inside her chest—retract from touching my throat and lips and chest.
What? My heart jerks, and my chest wheezes. “Wha—?” is all I can say before the air runs out.
“You are fine now, Sister Amara.” Mother Grace releases me completely.
I blink to focus—I’m laid flat on the steel gurney in the laboratory. My sisters gathered around me, a tight ring at a distance, while Mother Grace used her medical appendages to bring me out of the darkness. I swallow, my tongue thick in my mouth, and struggle up to sitting. Chloe hurries forward to help. She reaches me first, but the rest converge, their hands holding me up, their touches gentle on my face and arms and back.
Amara. Amara. Their voices are soft, but they buoy me. With my sisters’ help, I swing my legs off the side and find my voice.
“What happened?” I direct the question to Mother Grace over the shoulders of my sisters. She’s retreated to give us room.
“You are fine now, Sister Amara,” she r
epeats. Then she adds, “Mother Superior has awarded time in the garden for all the sisters once you awoke.”
The garden? I’m still a little woozy, but I suppose I could work for a while. My sisters are already easing me from the cool metal bed. I wave them off when I have my feet under me.
“All right, the garden, then.” Whatever happened in interrogation, I’m over it now. Mostly.
My sisters brace me as we pad on quiet feet out of the lab and down the hallway toward the garden. Chloe holds steadfast by my side, but at least half of my sisters are still touching me in some way. It’s unnerving and reassuring at the same time—their love is a comfort, but I’m really fine now, just as Mother Grace said. It’s not until we reach the garden that they start to let go. One by one, they peel off to work the weeds between the orchard trees.
I keep walking.
When Chloe alone is still by my side, she speaks. “You were dead.” Her strained whisper is almost inaudible.
“What?” I stop cold next to a peach tree heavy with fruit.
Chloe bites her lip then runs her hands softly over my cheeks, again and again, her eyes searching mine for something. Finally, she says, “Your heart stopped. Mother Superior saved you.”
I frown. “Mother Superior is the one who—” I glance around. My sisters aren’t far, and I’m sure they’re listening, but it’s the other ears I’m worried about. Yet Mother Superior can’t expect me not to say the truth of what happened. I face Chloe. “The dosage was very high.”
Chloe’s eyes go wide. “The med patch?”
I nod. “I can’t believe I was… are you sure?” Did I really die? How would I know?
Chloe’s lips pinch together. “We were shown the holo image.”
A holo? That could be faked, but why? No reason I could think of.
More importantly, I fear this is a sign of things to come. An escalation. “Chloe.” I pull her closer and whisper. “She’s going to keep trying and trying.” It’s understood that I mean Mother Superior. In theory, other Masters are involved in our experiment, but she’s the only one we’ve ever seen.
Chloe’s creamy brown skin turns ashen. “She said it was an accident.”
I release her and step back. “Maybe it was.” I don’t think Mother Superior intended to hurt me—she’s simply willing to push hard for something I can’t give. But, until now, I didn’t realize dying was an option. Or having my mind blown into a million pieces.
I could end up like Sister Hadley.
That thought punches me to the gut—has Sister Hadley already awakened? Has she been splintered apart, and we simply thought she had gone mad?
I scan the orchards for Hadley… she’s at the base of a pear tree, holding a fallen fruit in her hands and poking at it with one finger. Then her hand falls to her side, and the pear rolls away.
That’s no state I want to be in.
Chloe notices my stare.
I grab hold of her arm. “During your interrogation, did you have visions? Mother Superior said Sister Sophie did.” I’m speaking it plainly now, but I don’t have a choice. I need to know for certain.
Chloe’s eyes go wide. “No.”
We both scan the orchard, looking for Sophia. She’s close to the entrance, with Naomi and Jade and Thea huddled around her. Sophia has always gathered the sisters like that—they’re drawn to her wisdom and calm demeanor, especially when nerves are rattled.
My almost dying has shaken more than just me.
I drop my hold on Chloe and march toward Sophia and her gathering. She and I have always been the leaders among the sisters. Even as young girls, Sophia calmed fears while I came up with a plan. She picked up Thea when she fell, and I brushed the dirt from her knees. She calmed Judith’s crying fits, and I got to the root of what bothered her. Sophia was the gentle hand, and I was the problem solver. And now, more than ever, we needed to work together and stand together—all twelve of us.
As I march over, Sophia sees me coming and gives me that cool gaze, like she’s measuring my next move. Has she been holding out on me? Even with all my doubts about whether my faith is strong enough for our holy purpose, I’m the one who just came back from the dead… and everyone knows it. But if she’s the first to truly awaken, it’s even more important that we stick together.
I stand before Sophia and her little coterie, arms crossed and feet planted wide. “Have you been seeing visions?” I demand. “Mother Superior said you did.”
She gives me a pinched look like she’s not sure why I’m taking such a confrontational stance. “No.” The word is simple, bare, uncomplicated… and very possibly a lie.
Esha. It’s our sister-word for liar. Esha, Esha. It’s pinging around in my head, but I don’t let it out. The spectacle of the two of us facing off gathers the rest of our sisters from their work.
“No visions of any kind?” I follow the question with a tsk of my tongue that says I think she’s lying. I simply want her to come clean so we know where we stand… and can make a plan from there.
Sophia arches one eyebrow. “I am no esha.” Her voice is calm, despite my implied insult. Her eyes are the same as the rest of ours, but somehow they’re deeper and contain more wisdom on Sophia’s face. And, in spite of what I’ve said, lying is not her way. I know this.
“Mother Superior said—” I start.
But she cuts me off with a slow drumbeat of words. “Mother Superior said you died.” Sophia’s eyes lock hard onto mine, then she gives a slow tsk with her tongue, implying that Mother Superior is the esha.
Mother Superior lied.
This momentarily wipes blank my mind. But as I reel back from that shock, I see the truth Sophia is implying with her hard stare and slow words. If Mother Superior truly brought me back from the dead—if she can actually resurrect someone—then why not use that power to seek out the divine?
No… her words have to be a lie. She fabricated this story to explain why I was unconscious after her interrogation… only Sister Sophia saw straight to the heart of it.
And if Mother Superior lied about something as serious as that… then what else could she be lying about?
Sister Sophia gives me a slow nod as she sees the understanding dawn on my face. “My heart is sorkept,” she says. It’s a pledge.
“My heart is sorkept,” I say in return.
My sisters’ faces relax with the peace between us, but I’m not sure if they truly understand. We cannot know the truth of anything the Masters say. We can rely only on our sister-love. But I cannot simply spell that out with the listening ears of our Masters. So how to make my sisters understand that we need to stand together?
Sophia tilts her head to me. “Almost losing you has shaken us, Sister Amara.” Her words are for the Masters who overhear, not just our sisters. The softness comes back to her face—the gentle, caring look she’s bestowed on every sister at one point or another, including me. “To lose one of us is unthinkable. It cannot be allowed.”
My heart expands in a wave of sister-love. “Agreed.” I reach out a hand, and she touches her palm to mine. Our fingers line up, identical down to the length of our nails and the slight bend in our pinkies. Our sisters huddle around us with furrowed brows and whispers behind hands. Even the slack-faced Hadley has been drawn into our circle, with Thea holding her hand on one side and Maya on the other.
I lift my gaze to the peach tree we’re standing under. All the food in the garden belongs to us—like the gentle arms of a mother bot, the cloister holds us and cares for our every physical need. Our work in the garden is solely to provide exercise, not because it actually needs the sisters to tend it. The bots intentionally leave weeds behind for us to pull as they harvest the fruit at the proper time for peak efficiency. We are banned from taking it ourselves.
I reach up for a peach that is hanging low and ripe and ready. The twig that holds it snaps easily, and the motion shakes the entire tree, but the gasp that goes around my sisters is louder than the rustling of leaves.
Sophia’s gaze is riveted to mine. I take a bite of the fruit, then I hand it to her.
She stares at my outstretched hand.
Everyone is holding their breath, waiting.
Sophia lifts the peach gently from my hand, then locks gazes with me as she takes her own bite. Then she hands it to Thea.
“Our hearts are sorkept,” Sophia says. “We are sisters first. Always.”
As our sisters pass the fruit, it is clear—all of us or none of us will fulfill the Masters’ purpose. We will leave no sister behind. I feel the love, the sister bonding, and it’s as strong as a med patch dose but without the out-of-body sensation. It buoys me up and convinces me we’ll get through this, somehow. Together.
But we still need a plan.
If we are a failed experiment, we’ll need a place to run. To hide. To somehow live on our own when all we’ve ever known is this cloistered corner of the world. We could steal food from the garden, but where would we go?
The domed glass above the garden filters the outside sun, hazy and yellow and warm on my skin.
Outside.
For all I know, two steps out the door would mean our deaths.
I know literally nothing of the outside, other than the one distant mountain peak that can be seen from the garden, rising above the frosted glass that blocks our view of anything at ground level. The peak changes with the seasons, even as our internal environment always stays ascender cool. Maybe there are other humans out there. Maybe not. Perhaps some of the animals I’ve seen only in virtual.
Any number of things could kill us.
Sister Judith takes the final bite of peach. The fruit is consumed, absorbed into our bond, our promise to each other.
“Our purpose is holy, and we should strive toward it with all our hearts,” I say loudly, primarily for Mother Superior, who must be overhearing and overseeing this entire performance. I hold out my hand to the center of the ring of sisters, palm up. “But our hearts will always be sorkept, first and foremost.”
