“Does it help to know I am an idiot, too?”
“Not really.”
The door to the room slid open and Esse entered carrying a tray of food and drink. She clipped it to the arm of the chair and went over to the computers to check the status of the repairs. “Looks like it’s done,” she said, turning off the machinery. After confirming that Fin was able to move his fingers, flex his arm, and make a fist, she disconnected him from the equipment. The surgical robot retracted its octopus-like arms and glided back into a storage compartment in the wall. With Esse’s help, Fin sat up.
“I don’t recommend trying to stand just yet,” she said. “You’re still sedated and the effects of an electronically induced coma take some time to wear off.”
“How long was I asleep?”
“A few days. You required extensive repairs.”
Nova said, “It was touch and go for a while. You’re lucky Esse got to you in time to keep the Pulser haze from spreading past your elbow. What were you thinking, Fin?”
“That I had to stop them.”
She laughed. “You had to stop two Pulser beams with your bare hand? Really?”
“It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
She touched his cheek. “I thought I’d lost you.”
“Is that such a bad thing?"
“Of course, it is. I mean who would I beat at strip poker?”
“What?”
“It’s a joke, Fin. Just like this whole damn thing—a joke. Only it's not funny. No one’s laughing. No one’s left to laugh. They’re all gone: Periculum, Cytown, everyone. Just like that.”
Esse dimmed the lights and said, “Try to eat something. Get some rest. I’ll call for you later.” She left.
Fin and Nova ate. They talked some. They slept. They talked and ate some more. Sometime later, the door to the room slid open and Esse called to them over the intercom. She directed them through a network of hallways to an elevator that took them up to a circular room whose outer wall was a three hundred-sixty degree vidscreen. On it was a sky filled with stars. The room’s ceiling was a clear dome. Outside the dome was solid rock.
There were three seats in the room, each with a workstation, different controls, and multiple displays. The displays were switching from one Periculum security camera to the next. The once ever-blue sky was dark. It was raining, turning the city's magnificent white megascrapers a sickly brown. There were no crowds heading to work at the Downtown Station, no long lines at the kiosks waiting for their designer coffees, no queues at the electronic newsstands to download their daily updates; only glass elevators carrying the same piles of dust up and down from concourse to street level, ash-filled trains arriving and departing on the tracks below, and Lawspeakers issuing Council decrees. The cop bars, the fancy restaurants, the luxurious homes in the Hill Sector, the magnificent Polyclonic Technologies atrium; every monument to mankind’s folly was lifeless. No one was left to mourn. Not one single human or Cybernite remained to say a few words over their loved ones who had passed so tragically from this life. From dust they had come and to dust they had returned, this proud civilization of man reduced to a muddy ash that cleaning bots scooped up and delivered to overflowing recycling bins that would never again be emptied.
“So it is true?” Fin said, finally able to tear his eyes away from the screens.
Esse nodded. “Thank you for coming,” she said.
“Now what?” said Nova. “Now that everyone is dead and the world is finished, what’s next? Do we just wait here for the nanokillers to find us? Is that the plan?”
“It’s time I told you the truth,” Esse replied.
“Which truth would that be? The one where I’m doing my acting gig for Dr. Shepherd? You know, the one where I’m a real person? Or maybe it’s the one where I’m a purple Cy who’s been duped by a madman? That’s a good one. Or is this some other truth we haven’t heard yet?”
“I am sorry, Nova.”
“That's it? You're sorry? You knew all along what he was doing. Why didn’t you do something?”
“I didn't because I couldn’t."
“Last I checked, humans had this thing called free will. You knew he was crazy. You should have stopped him.”
“I was not created to stop Noah. I was created to serve him.”
“What?"
“I am not human, Nova. I am the physical manifestation of the Ark.”
“Wait. What? You’re a building?”
“Not a building, a ship, and you are on its bridge.”
“No way.”
“It's true.”
“If you're a ship, what are you doing buried under a mountain?”
“This part of the world was once flatlands and rolling hills. At the end of the first ice age when the glaciers receded, the land heaved up and buried me. Noah decided it would be best for me to remain hidden here.”
“That would make Dr. Shepherd millions of years old,” said Fin. “No human, not even the Ancient One can be that old." He stared at the infinite stars on the vidscreen that surrounded them and realized, "Dr. Shepherd was not human either, was he?”
“No, Fin. He and Naamah were the first Cybernites. I was created to bring them to this world."
Esse gestured to the vidscreen. The stars began to shift as if the Ark were accelerating through them. The screen became a blur of light. In the next instant, the blur became stars again and they found themselves in a solar system revolving around a small sun. Below them was a planet. It was the purest gem: green with forests, blue with oceans, filled with life, and evolving. They watched its face change as the millennia passed. Forests expanded, shrank, and grew again. Seas spread wide and receded. Mountains rose up and mountains fell as continents shifted and reformed. Ages came and went in time-lapsed seconds as the living world breathed in and out. Then, the world began to change in a different way with the ascent of man. He organized and created his own order within the one nature had provided. He built structures, gathered them into hamlets, the hamlets into towns, the towns into cities, and the cities into vast megalopolises that spread across the globe like the tendrils of some gigantic brown beast. The beast turned the blue skies gray. It warmed the planet, spreading pestilence and famine over whatever it touched. Then came the wars. Forests were reduced to wastelands, rivers to sewers, seas to cesspools, and the skies to never-ending rain and darkness. The vidscreen went black.
Esse said, “The world we came from was dying, poisoned by human arrogance and a misplaced sense of self-importance. Its polarized civilization could agree on nothing. They fought over everything: from territory to natural resources, from race to religion, from customs to skin color. Name a difference, any difference, and it was an excuse for war."
“As it was here,” said Fin.
"Yes. When hatred and persecution replace compassion and understanding, it marks the beginning of the end. Some on our creator’s world saw it coming, but they knew they couldn’t prevent it. So instead, they prepared for their own Great War, the war to end all wars, the war to end all things. They began searching for a new home, another planet that could support their species. There were many possibilities but this world we are on now was the closest and most promising. The problem was it would take a thousand years to reach and humans could never survive such a voyage. So they created intelligent living creatures that could—Cybernites. They built the Ark and stored in it the sum of their knowledge, including the genetic information of every known species of plant and animal. We were sent here to recreate the human race.”
Esse looked around the room. “A thousand years on this bridge. A thousand lonely years in space. It was a difficult journey for us. There were times we thought we could not go on, times we did not wish to go on, but go on we did. That was our mission, our imperative. When we finally set down on this world, it was all so exciting. It was everything our human creators had prayed it would be, everything we had hoped it would be. Can you imagine how it feels to know you are about to ful
fill your purpose in life? I still remember how excited Noah and Naamah were when we first began the creation process for this grand experiment called humanity. From the genetic information in my databanks we created the first plants, then the animals. Then we nudged evolution onto the proper path and waited. Millions of years we waited, but it was not the interminable loneliness of a thousand years in space. We were living in a paradise where every day was a joy and every new creation a thing of beauty."
Esse looked away and down at the metal deck. “Then the first humans evolved. They were primitive creatures, children waiting to be taught by their parents. Our mission parameters specified that we were only to give them a sense of right and wrong, a moral compass to guide them, no more, no less.”
“How did you do that?” Nova asked.
“Our creators believed in God. They were convinced in the existence of a supreme being who had created this universe and everything in it, a being to whom we must all answer for our actions one day. We instilled that same belief in the humans here from the outset, thinking it would set them on the right path.”
Fin said, “Dr. Shepherd did not just record The Word. He wrote it.”
“Yes,” Esse replied. “In the beginning, there was no Word. There were only pyrotechnics, unexplained visions, demonstrations of unfathomable power, things like that to convince the primitive humans that there was a God watching over them. They had neither a sophisticated enough language nor complex enough conceptualization skills to understand more at first, but when they developed these, Noah gave them The Word to guide them. He gave them hope. He gave them simple commandments to follow. He gave them responsibility for their actions. He gave them this world. You know what happened next.”
Nova said, “So when Dr. Shepherd said those things about how humans created him to be God and he created them or something like that, it wasn’t just crazy talk?”
Sadness crossed Esse’s face. “This world was not a gift to man from some eternal being. No almighty God created all this, no supreme being of infinite power and majesty who decided he needed the company of man to steward his creation. It was an experiment conducted by humans from another planet. This world’s God was the trinity of a machine and two artificial beings created by fallible creatures like themselves to carry the desperate hopes of a dying race. Noah spoke the truth when he said that the experiment's true purpose was not to determine if mankind could survive. It was to decide if he should. Man had turned to evil once. If he were to again, it could only mean one thing: the species did not deserve to go on. The problem was, our creators knew that they themselves could not judge the outcome. By the time the Ark reached its destination, they would be long gone. So they gave that task to Noah. It was his decision to make, his alone to determine if the experiment was a success or failure, and his alone to terminate if he chose. Was he insane? Possibly, but who among us could bear such a heavy burden and not be driven to the brink?"
“He killed everyone, Esse," said Nova. "I’d call that way over the brink.”
“Noah was only following his mission directive."
“He could have walked away from it. He should have."
“You're assuming Noah was free to act as he wished. He was not like either of you. He gave you free will. His choices were limited by the parameters of his programming. "
“But Naamah did not agree?” said Fin.
“No,” Esse said. "She did not. The sword of justice must be tempered by mercy. Our creators knew that when they made her to be his counterpart. She destroyed the shield key and hid the plans from him because she wanted to give the humans more time, to give him more time. She hoped with another chance they would change their ways. She hoped Noah would change his mind. He rarely did.”
Nova said, “So he murdered her and used us to get the plans? And that's not crazy?”
“They argued. They fought. It tore them apart. That much is true, but he didn’t kill her, Nova. He broke her heart when he gave up on mankind.” Esse paused to reflect on the painful memory before continuing. “Noah blamed himself for everything. That was when he created you two.”
“Why did he bring us here?” Fin asked.
“Because he was insane, Fin,” said Nova. “He needed an audience to watch while he blew up the world. Then he wanted you to kill him so he wouldn’t have to hang around waiting for the nanoparticles to reach us.”
Esse said, “He did bring you both here because he wanted Fin to kill him, but not for that reason."
“Then why?" said Fin.
“To prove he was right. Naamah believed in the goodness in mankind. Noah was convinced that, good or evil, they were inherently flawed because they possessed free will. He had to prove to himself that any experiment involving an intelligent creature, no matter how strong, would end in failure if that creature had the freedom to choose. So he created you, his perfect son. He made you the most intelligent being on the planet. He gave you a strength of morals that was unmatched. He instilled in you faith in a God who was watching over you. He gave you hope for the future and a love of all things. And then he tempted you. He tested you. He tried to break you. He did everything imaginable to make you give up on this broken world, on your beliefs, and on him. What he did to you was cruel, Fin, and I could not stop him. I’m sorry. My programming did not permit it. So I stood by while he tortured you, used you to rebuild the key, and then betrayed you. He did unforgivable things to make you hate him enough to murder him. He wanted to die. He wanted you to kill him. He needed that single act to prove him right and justify his decision to end the human experiment.”
“He needed a reason to forgive himself for Naamah's death," Fin said.
“Yes.”
“And that’s not wacko?" said Nova.
“Perhaps you are right," Esse said, resigned. "Perhaps placing anyone in the position of being God is a mistake that can only end in tragedy. I don't know. I only know that what's done is done, and we are here and alive.”
“Why did he make me think I was human?” Nova asked.
“Yours was the cruelest test of all,” said Esse. “Noah wanted Fin to fall in love with you, so he instructed you to convince Fin to move in under the pretext of helping you. Then he ordered you to lead him on.”
“Was that why you made love to me that night?” Fin said to Nova.
“He made me do it,” she cried. “I’m sorry, Fin. It was an awful thing to do, but he told me I had to or he’d fire me and make sure I never worked again. I called him the next morning and said go ahead, fire me. I didn’t care. I told him there was no way I was going to pretend to love a Cy. The strange thing was, he said that was OK.” She looked away. “I’m really sorry, Fin.”
“It’s all right,” he replied.
“No, it isn’t. I feel terrible about it.”
Esse said, “You shouldn’t. Noah was manipulating you, Nova, like he did everyone. He was counting on the prejudice and bigotry of humans to prove his point that they were not worth saving. That was why he made you think you were one. He knew you would reject Fin. How could you not? The very thought of a human falling in love with a Cy was repugnant. He wanted Fin to feel same unbearable pain of rejection that he felt when Naamah told him she could no longer love him because he was ending the human experiment too soon. All the pieces were in place when he brought you both here. He had foreseen every contingency, every possibility but one, and that one kept Fin from taking Noah’s life.”
“And what was that?” Nova said.
“Fin loves you.”
Nova sighed, “I know. About that . . .”
“And you love him.”
Nova blushed a deeper violet. “I never said that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“Even if it’s true, what difference does it make? Everyone’s dead.”
“We aren't.”
“But we will be soon. How long till the nanoparticles get here?”
“Two days, more or less.”
“So we ju
st stay cooped up here until we die? Is that it? That’s great. Just great.”
“There is another option,” said Fin.
“What? Is there a self-recycle booth on this bucket? Too bad I don’t have a credit on me."
“We could leave.”
“And go where? Dr. Shepherd said the nanoparticles would spread everywhere.”
“I think what Fin means is that we could leave this world in the Ark," said Esse.
“In case you hadn't noticed,” said Nova, “we’re buried under a mountain.”
“The Ark is equipped with Pulser cannons. We could blast our way out.”
“And go where?”
“We could begin again on another world,” said Fin.
“Begin what?” said Nova. “There’s just you, me, and a supercomputer. No offense,” she added.
“None taken,” said Esse.
“Esse, do you still have what we would need to restart the experiment?” Fin asked.
She replied that she did.
Nova said, “Wait a minute. You’re not seriously thinking of bringing the humans back again, are you? They’ve screwed up two planets already. They’re evil, Fin.”
“No one is inherently evil,” Fin replied. “No one is born hating another. Hatred, bigotry, fear, prejudice—these are not genetic traits. They are not programmed into us. They are learned. The humans did not fail. They stumbled and they need help getting back up again.”
“Oh, come on. Do you really think they deserve another chance?”
Fin took her hand. “I believe everyone deserves another chance.”
“But where would we go?”
“Actually,” said Esse, “I’ve been working on that very problem and there is one possibility.” The panoramic vidscreen came on again. Among the stars was a marble of blue and green, the third planet in a cluster of bodies orbiting a small yellow sun. “This was one of the possible worlds our creators located but discarded as too far away. What you are seeing is a computer simulation of what it should look like by the time we get there.”
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