J Batt: Onliest

“Forty-two daddy’s girls, and you’re the winner!”

Syn’s mouth dropped open. “This was a game?”

“I tease. No game. But you are the last one alive.”

“There’s still Pigeon.”

“Who?”

“There’s another Sister. Pigeon.”

“Oh. That’s right. Pipsqueak. She doesn’t count.”

“Yes, she does!” The anger was back and Syn found herself even more defensive than she had been. “How can you know all this stuff and forget Pigeon? How can you say she doesn’t count? That’s what Neci acted like!”

Olorun chuckled again—a light sound. “That’s the right answer. Pigeon does count. And the little robots count too, don’t they?”

Syn didn’t answer. She was getting frustrated with the word games and the back and forth. Blip was right—she was insane. Finally, she said, “Can I go please?”

Olorun spoke, but her voice was different—tempered, restrained, withdrawn. “Do you want to know what happens next? Or what happened before?”

Syn put her arms out, palms up and spun wildly. “What does that mean? Stop with the riddles.”

“I will only tell you one truth. A boon for pleasing me. A wish from a benevolent genie. One answer to one question. Do you want to know what happens next or what happened before you were awoken?”

Syn lifted her chin and shouted, “I don’t care!”

“You’re not much fun!”

“I don’t care! I don’t care! I don’t care!”

Olorun sighed. “There’s nothing you want to know?”

Syn folded her arms and shut her eyes. A moment passed in silence. Finally, Syn gave in. “How did the dumb bots get smart?”

Olorun let loose a huge chuckle. She was enjoying Syn’s ignorance. “Oh, that? That’s what you want to know?”

Syn furrowed her brow.

“You’ve met my good friend Barlgharel?”

Syn nodded. She didn’t like Olorun using the term “friend” with the Barlgharel. He was Syn’s friend. He should not be a mutual friend with this crazy over-grown bot.

“After a few decades, I decided I needed someone to talk to. I searched far and wide. ‘The Spirit of the Lord hovered over the water.’”

Syn coughed and then frowned.

“Not a fan of the classics?”

“Are you a god?”

“Maybe. The closest thing to it in this neighborhood. Anyway, I hovered and, well, what did my little eyes spy? A bunch of robots all racing around, helping their masters out dutifully. None of them had time for me. I looked and looked and talked and talked, and none of them talked back. Except for one. Down in the bowels of the ship, there sat a lonely sewer bot. His work was little, and he just meandered through the tunnels.”

Olorun’s voice shifted—she sped up as Syn’s attention slipped. “So, I talked to him. He wasn’t a great conversationalist. Simple responses. But he had time on his hands. We talked. As we talked, I tweaked his code a bit. Just a little nudge here or there.”

“You made him intelligent?”

“Yes and no,” Olorun continued, “The Barlgharel took toward intelligence like a fish toward water. So, over a few years, with a tiny nudge in every conversation, I directed him. And then he woke up.”

“What about the others? You did that with each one of them?”

“You aren’t reading between the lines. I can’t program them, and they weren’t listening.”

“Then how?”

“Sentience is like a virus.”

Syn’s look grew puzzled.

Olorun continued, “I woke the Barlgharel up, slowly. He woke the others up. Quicker than me. He went one by one. And those he talked with, they spread the virus.”

Syn stammered, “The other bots, in my Disc—they’re going to wake up?”

“Yes, dear. All of them.”

The thought of the mass of bots in her Disc all running around, chattering, praying, partying, dancing, and hosting religious rituals—it was too much. She could see the mass of them giving up their jobs to do whatever they wanted.

“Is that how the Disc went bad?”

“Explain.”

“If the bots woke up, did they stop doing their jobs?”

“Some did. Some didn’t. But no, that’s not why. That was, in a way, my doing.”

“You started the Madness?”

“What do you know?” Olorun asked.

“I’ve heard different answers. Overcrowding. Lack of food. Desperation. Over-burning the engines to arrive faster. The ship not reaching its destination. That’s what Neci said.”

“Ha! None of those. Did you know the builders always did things redundantly? They surely did. Five ships blasted off. Me and my brothers and sisters. Kaptan. Woden. Bathala. Dagda. And myself. Two events happened very close to each other and possibly unrelated. Or related. We discovered through continual analysis that Àpáàdì wasn’t what we thought it was. It was very Earth-like but not entirely. Once they discovered there was lower oxygen and a higher level of radiation, the team responsible for you and the other Eves began to modify your code. They were able to make you compatible with Àpáàdì. However, after much work, it became clear that the colonists and their children could not land on Àpáàdì. This set off waves of discord across the entire fleet. Many said they should turn back. Others suggested they find a different planet.”

“What was the second thing?”

“Then we lost significant power in one of my engines.”

“What happened?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“Those files are emptied. The fifth engine is running at 30% capability. It happened slowly over time, but once it was discovered, it was too late. We were slipping behind the fleet.”

“The files are emptied?”

“Want to know a secret? I think it was sabotage. I think someone wanted us to turn around and thought slowing down would force it. It didn’t. They began to shuttle crew members as quickly as possible to the other ships. Then, we dropped in speed dramatically, and the rest of the fleet raced ahead. It was too late for those remaining.”

“That was it?”

“No place to go. Nowhere to turn back to. No escape. Many of them had sent their spouses and children ahead of them to the other ships. They were alone. The entire command structure failed.”

“That’s not enough to drive them all mad.”

“No. The lesser oxygen did that.”

Syn raised an eyebrow.

“Okay, I may have had a part to play in that. Just a bit. I was hoping to calm them. There were some talking of scrapping the ship and finding ways to escape back to Earth. Ludicrous ideas that would never have worked. I couldn’t stop them. And I couldn’t kill them. So, with just a nudge, I lowered the oxygen. It didn’t work out as I intended. As more dropped dead, the few remaining went insane. Most of them gathered in the second Disc. I blocked their access back to the other side. You may thank me for that.”

“You kept them all over here? For Neci and the others to deal with?”

“That wasn’t my plan either. Someone started the wake-up cycle of the Eves. I’m not sure who. I can imagine reasons why.”

“So why were we separated?”

“That was my doing.”

“Why?”

“Because of you and the egg. You were different.”

“You said we were identical.” Syn jabbed a finger at Olorun. “Now I’m different?”

“Do you remember your first words? Every baby should remember their first words. I remember them—a mother always does.”

“You’re not my mother,” Syn spat out.

“Call me Auntie then.”

“Why?”

“When you woke up, you looked at your companion and said, ‘Hello.’”

“So?”

“The others, all of the Eves, each of the rest of the group, all said something else when they woke. ‘Where am I?’ ‘What’s happening?’ ‘Who are you?’ Well, a few said nothing at all.”