The Last Cycle Read online

  Demure, servile.

  “They’ve broken you?” Sax ventures to ask. There has to be some explanation for this, for why an Oratus would be so placid.

  “Broken?” Rovel says, then pauses, as if considering whether he might be. “No. No. Not broken. Defeated, maybe, but I was made this way.”

  Another strange word to use, and Sax ignores the pressure to get moving, to find an exit, to follow intuition down its dark path. “You’re the first one.”

  Now Rovel looks up. Now Rovel meets Sax square. “The first one that survived.”

  “They’ve kept you alive all this time?”

  “Too valuable to die.”

  Sax doubts that, looking at Rovel. The Chorus could have captured any number of Oratus, taken them from the Vincere and secreted them here. There must be some other reason, maybe one that could help.

  “Tell me how to get off the level,” Sax hisses sharp. “Now.”

  “I already—”

  “You lied.”

  Rovel tilts his head. Says nothing.

  “The Amigga are ruthless. They would replace something as worthless as you seem to be. Call the lifts.”

  Rovel gives Sax a level stare and, for the first time, bares his teeth. “I am the first, but I am also the last, Oratus. They gave me a mind to match this body, and when it proved too strong, I helped them reduce your kind to instinctual monsters. To flashes of anger coupled with just enough comprehension to make military strategy.” Rovel settles as he rasps the words, shedding off the weaker stance, standing firm and glaring bright. “You are a product, and we are your maker.”

  “I don’t care,” Sax says, and it’s true. He is who, what he is. Nothing this pathetic excuse for an Oratus might say can change that. “Call the lifts.”

  “Do you know why I’m here?” Rovel hisses again, apparently not hearing Sax. “Because you all failed. I used to be at the top of this tower, used to stand near the First Chair. But now the Oratus will go extinct, replaced by those machines. All because of your resistance. Because you will not obey your creators.”

  “One more time. The lifts.”

  When Rovel takes a deep breath, starts in on another rant, Sax whips his tail and cracks the elder Oratus in the face, sending Rovel reeling into the wall next to the water station. It’s a move that tells Sax all he needs to know - his tail came in a long arc, with plenty of time for Rovel to intercept, dodge, or even attack Sax before the strike arrived.

  Oratus should be weapons, and even an old weapon ought to know how to fight.

  “Pathetic,” Sax hisses, then turns towards the left lift bank.

  Nobaa said there was a lift here capable of taking Sax all the way up to the top. There are four on this level, and one of them is what he’s looking for. Five long strides brings Sax to the lift doors and their red panel, with no way to unlock it.

  Unless...

  “Rovel,” Sax looks back at the old Oratus, picking himself up slow from the ground. “You might have a way to serve your species yet.”

  13 Creation

  On the far end of the level, opposite the docking bay where we arrived, sits a bank of four smooth metal doors. Each one is shaded a different color, and as we approach a raised panel standing front of them, the screen divides to show ranges of numbers next to small, colored squares showing those same colors.

  “This makes it easy,” I say as we walk up to them. Around us, the usual collection of terminals occupy the otherwise empty ring. After leaving the Amigga’s corpse back in the storeroom, we’ve moved slow to get here, but we haven’t heard another set of steps coming our way. “Where did you say the level was?”

  “Only three beneath this one,” T’Oli replies. “So, the green one.”

  Each of the doors has a single-screen panel that sits dark until I press my palm against its cool surface. This one lights up in teal, and while I don’t hear anything, only a moment passes before the green doors open and give way to a wide, tall lift. The size is so absurd that I stare at it for a moment before remembering just how huge Oratus are.

  “Makes me feel small,” Viera says as we get in.

  “That’s why you’re carrying the miners,” I reply.

  I’d given Viera my miner too, seeing as my shooting is as likely to snipe one of us as it is the enemy. Instead, I followed Malo’s choice and grabbed a pair of long, thick tools to wield.

  One, a half-meter long bar that ends in a near-point, comes with a strap that lets it rest on my shoulder. The other, a shorter and thicker club with a mallet head, finds an easy grip in my left hand. With either, I should be able to make some useful contribution to a fight without risking too much damage to my friends. The club, after all, is similar to the kukris. A little longer, a little heavier.

  Malo does the honors and taps the button to send us down and the lift obeys with a whoosh.

  Unlike the lifts on a Vincere ship, or even on the Sevora’s moon-smashed Vimelia, this one isn’t an austere box of metal. Rather, the side walls shift between static scenes as we move. When we entered the lift, I saw an icy sky with falling, glittering snow catching light from a distant star. Now we’re descending surrounded by spinning asteroids in deep space, with splashes of purples and reds scattered around us.

  The Amigga are capable of terrible things, but beautiful ones too. Just like humans.

  When the lift doors open, though, there’s not much of that beauty before us. Instead, the ghost-blue from terminal screens dominates a dark space. Any overhead lights are off, and the only things I can see from the doors are those screens, and the larger, shimmering projections occupying spaces between them.

  There are depictions of creatures I’ve never seen before - things with a multitude of legs, others that appear to be blobs of gas with only a single, small ball floating in the center. Others show carved up landscapes, ridged canyons or a vast, vine-covered plain. All in that white-blue, and all floating just below the height of my eyes.

  “Hold up,” Malo whispers, again leading the way. “We’re not alone.”

  “I thought they ordered an evacuation,” Viera mutters. “Why are people still here?”

  “Maybe they’re crazy,” I say. “Like us.”

  What Malo sees comes clear to me as I step around a giant, spinning projection of a planet. Clustered farther into the level, messing with a series of images, is an Amigga, along with a trio of Flaum. None of these, though, are carrying weapons. None are wearing armor, though the Amigga appears to float on a microjet machine like the one Ferrolite uses.

  “So Ferrolite wasn’t lying,” the Amigga says, and its low, gravel voice echoes from speakers around us, apparently embedded throughout the level. “The humans really have come home.”

  With Viera keeping her miners trained on the Flaum and their spherical leader, I take the lead, weaving through the projections and the terminals producing them. White spots on the floor bear a faint, deep blue outline, allowing me to see where you might be able to create a chair. One of the Flaum already has a small pedestal next to it, where a device that looks like a Cache is resting.

  The aliens watch me, silent and still. I feel like I’m some mythical creature, walking out of legends - or at least, old data logs - to appear in front of disbelievers. Still, unlike the Amigga in the storeroom above, this one lets me speak first.

  “We want to know where we came from, and why,” I say first. “Can you tell us?”

  “I don’t think you’d believe me if I did,” the Amigga replies. “You’re not working with that force attacking the bottom of our beautiful tower, are you?”

  “Not yet.” Technically, we haven’t done anything to help Bas and her invaders, and I’m not afraid to take advantage of blurred lines here. “We came here to pledge our species to the Chorus, and I want to know why you saw fit to create us.”

  “Then I will make a deal with you,” the Amigga replies. “Put down your miners and let my associates go free. They should leave the Meridia anyway, and I pr
omise you they will not go find any guards. Do so, and I will use my access to show you the restricted records that hold your true history.”

  Trusting an Amigga is like throwing a black-glass knife into the air and trying to catch it; you’re going to get hurt. Still, I don’t think Viera can shoot us out of this situation. Given our lackluster luck with the terminal in the safe room, getting through without whatever access the Amigga’s talking about doesn’t seem likely. So while the six eyes of the Flaum trio and the expressionless blob of gray that is the Amigga stares back at me, I have to choose: risk our lives for a chance to see our history?

  “Do it,” Malo says, and his voice is closer than I expected. I feel him come up behind me, then move next and past me, towards our hostages. “Send the Flaum away. Open the logs.”

  “Malo? What?”

  Malo doesn’t glance back at me, but instead points with his toolbar across the level, through the projections and towards the opposite lift. “Go.” The Flaum, though, only move when I give the nod and Viera lowers her miners by the smallest of margins. Once the furry creatures have started their exit does Malo throw an eye my way. “We broke out of that room because you wanted to learn where we came from. If you don’t get the chance to see it, then what’s the point?”

  “You don’t sound like you want to know?” I ask Malo, and note that Viera’s staying back and out of this argument. T’Oli, too, is sliming away from me and following the Flaum, content to leave its pattered opinions out.

  “I know where I come from,” Malo replies. “My parents lived in Damantum, though I guess they don’t any longer. I’m a Charre warrior, and I serve the Empress and follow the god of all things, Ignos. Nothing else matters.”

  The Amigga floats there, content to let us argue. Maybe it’s studying our behavior, logging our every word into the Chorus’ short history of the human race.

  “You weren’t there,” I say to Malo. “When we went back and saw what was left behind, what survived when the Chorus tried to obliterate every bit of us. We were made, Malo. Designed and grown. What I don’t know is why.”

  Malo only steps back from the Amigga and the terminal behind it. Waves for me to take his place. “Then learn. But Kaishi? Don’t tell me. I don’t care. I prefer the history I know. Our history.”

  The warrior can make his own choices, so I take up his offer and walk near the Amigga, who rotates around to face the terminal. It’s a large one, with a trio of wide screens, each with a nub on the top that projects blue light onto a platform behind the whole setup. Right now it’s showing a landscape, but with a quick buzz-whirr, the Amigga issues some command that slides several pieces out of its floating disk. The tendrils with shiny, short cylinders on the end float towards the ground for a half-moment, then snap towards the terminal and latch onto matching circles.

  “We’ll secure the area,” Viera offers from behind me, as much, I suspect, to give Malo something to do as to hole up from a threat. We all know the Chorus could wipe us out if they cared enough. “You let us know when you’re done.”

  “I’ll be fast.” It’s a promise I can’t keep, because I have no idea of the journey I’m about to start, but it seems like the right thing to say.

  “Human,” the Amigga says. “The curse of my species is that we do not care overmuch for the feelings of others, but I must agree with your friend. What you will see here will expose your past as something better left forgotten. These secrets will not win your war, nor save your kind.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  The projection behind the terminal shifts as text begins to fill across the screen. Behind and beyond me, I can hear Viera and Malo start moving furniture. Blocking the lifts. Buying me time to learn, and to understand.

  “Very well. Your story, such as it is, begins with an accident.”

  The Amigga’s terminal blurs and shifts until I’m seeing another world on its screen. Behind the terminal, the blue projection changes too; into a world I recognize as my own. Earth’s continents sit on the slowly-spinning globe, until they’re joined by a much smaller oval, one that the projection targets and zooms in on. The terminal joins in, locking into someone’s perspective. There’s a manicured white-metal hallway, a few Flaum standing by holding all manner of devices and watching as whomever guides the terminal’s view glides along.

  Glides.

  “These are an Amigga’s eyes?” I ask.

  “In a manner of speaking,” the Amigga replies. “This device records and transmits what we might see if we had eyes. We bind our nerves to its receptors, and in doing, gain control over its abilities just as you have over your own limbs.”

  “Then who is this?”

  “Your creator.”

  Our ‘creator’ presses on until it gets to a large, circular hatchway. It issues some even-tempered commands to other Flaum - these all wearing full masks, the sheen of them keeping the Flaum’s fur pressed down - and the hatch opens. I recognize a shuttle on the other side, and soon enough our guide is in its cockpit.

  “What’re you going to call this planet?” One of the Flaum pilots asks. “It’s not on the registries.”

  “I haven’t thought about it.” The guide holds silent for a moment. “We’ll choose later on. When we know what’s going to happen here.”

  The recording freezes. I glance up at the projection and its frozen too.

  “This is the first inkling we have of Ignos’s doubt,” the Amigga says to me. “An Amigga should be more confident. We gave Ignos one of the most valuable remaining planets in the galaxy. Ignos told us it would create our last species, and it lied.”

  “You trusted Ignos, you mean.”

  “The Amigga don’t trust lightly. Reputations are built and maintained, and Ignos had a spotless one. It helped design the Oratus, including the mirrored variant you see all over this tower,” the Amigga almost sounds sad here. “So much promise wasted on a flawed premise.”

  “Which was?”

  “That we could create something better than ourselves.”

  The terminal jolts into another clip before I can investigate that statement. We’re in a forest now, one far different from the jungle I grew up in and more resembling those scattered sets up in the Lunare mountains; pines and bits of snow. A brown floor rather than one crawling with ferns. Yet it’s verdant all the same, though the view pans through a wide array of Flaum wielding tools or driving massive, lumbering machines tearing their way through the landscape.

  “We will need to dig deep,” Ignos says to something we cannot see.

  “Deep?” The light voice betrays another Flaum.

  “Enough to bury our mistakes, and preserve our successes.”

  The screen shifts again and we’re further along. A small brook runs along between a set of trees and a trio of creatures occupies the center, staring at the moving water. The creatures are small, shorter than me, and wear various skin tones, from brown to black and white. Some have tufts of hair sticking out from odd places, like their knees or the middle of their backs. Their hands, too, are shrunken and end in hooked claws.

  “Touch it. The water will not harm you,” Ignos says.

  The creatures hesitate. One casts a look back at the screen, and I see that its left eye takes up nearly half its face, its pupil huge the eyelid a sagging mess. The others, though, look more normal. More human. Yet none of them move to obey the command.

  “Touch it, now.” The exasperation is obvious in Ignos’ voice.

  Still, none of them move. A different one opens its mouth, and a low, distorted chirping comes out, like a Flaum’s skittering squeak mixed with the hooting calls of an owl. None of them touch the water.

  “Too afraid. Increase the aggression and the curiosity in the next batch,” Ignos says. “And, please, clean up the hair. They must be adaptable, and hair adds too many complications.”

  “Anything more with these?” I can’t see what asks this question, but it sounds like another Flaum.

  “No
. Dispose of them.”

  I blink. Keep myself from stepping back from the terminal. “Ignos just had them killed?”

  “A project like this will have numerous failures on the way to success,” the Amigga tells me. “Would you rather they were left to roam an unfamiliar world until some predator consumed them? Or, depending on the development stage, they may not have had the ability to eat. To speak or digest. Creating a new species is a messy business.”

  I’m starting to understand why the Amigga treat everyone as secondary, as tools to be used. If you’d disposed of countless iterations as nothing more than mistakes on the way to your preferred creation, you might not care all that much either.

  The terminal flashes again and now we’re underground. A space I recognize, though the lack of junk and presence of functioning lights give it a different feel than when I explored the ruined base. Ignos appears to be floating in front of a wall-sized terminal, looking at a lot of different graphs and numbers.

  “There’s been another conflict,” a Flaum’s voice, I think the same one from before. “That makes three this week.”

  “I thought we’d tuned the violence? They passed the tests.”

  “It’s not the violence, Ignos. It’s the intelligence. When we made the Oratus, we made them obedient to a fault. These humans, they have too much independence. When they get frustrated, they do not listen. They fight.”

  “But they can be taught?”

  “Yes.” The Flaum’s voice gets more hopeful. “Our evaluations show, too, that the Sevora will not be able to establish full control.”

  “Because of that independence.”

  “Yes. It seems the same will that drives these humans to act in their own interests can allow them to overpower a Sevora’s blocks.”