Steve Tem - Ubo

THE OLD MAN looked terrified, and when the God of Mayhem grabbed him by the throat the God could feel the geezer’s will dissolving into the thin mud of his blood.

“You’ll take me on your little boat, out there, you know the place? Where hope ends?” He gestured toward Ubo, and Danielbot, who realized now he hadn’t heard his own heartbeat since he’d first awakened in Ubo and how that should have been a dead giveaway, could hear the God’s heart beat like thunder.

“And if you do it well, I promise I will not burn you.”

FALSTAFF WAS MORE than halfway across the water when he saw the little boat, the long white hair tortured by the wind as the old man hunched and dug in with the oars. Standing in the middle of the boat was a huge figure in an enormous black coat, face wrapped in multicolored rags. The figure turned its head as it passed and pointed at Falstaff with one long arm.

Falstaff could not be sure, what with the sound of the wind and his own loud heart, but he thought he heard laughter.

THE GOD OF Mayhem continued to laugh with his head thrown back. Eventually he stopped and gazed at the water, at the dark shadow of the devil’s hand stretching behind and past them, the fingers curling, as if they might come back around and crush the boat.

He reached into his coat and pulled out his toy: an old flare strapped to a bottle full of jellied fuel. He lit the flare, stretched back and threw the bottle as hard as he could, hoping the devil would catch it in his overextended hand. If the oil here was too thin the cool ocean water would prevent ignition. But he had an instinct for such things, and sufficient faith the oil slick would be just thick enough.

“I figure we have about ten minutes, probably less. I seriously suggest you row, Grandad.”

DANIELBOT SAW FALSTAFF land and pull his raft up on a jagged cluster of rocks resembling splintered tombstones. It was at that point that the sky all around them caught fire. The boom shook the building and Leninbot sprawled on top of him.

Fire filled his vision, so bright and hot he could not process anything he was seeing. He dragged himself to the edge of the roof, thinking all that water would wash the fire out of his eyes. Instead when he looked down what he saw was an ocean of fire, extending as far as he could see across the quarantine area to the near edges of the Boston ruin. A boat appeared in the midst of it, the God of Mayhem standing inside, and the flames did not appear to bother the God at all. If anything he reveled in it, his arms rising in triumph.

A ball of fire shot up from below and arced over and behind Danielbot, followed by another explosion. He twisted around. One of the bots had exploded. His torso looked like the ruptured shell of a giant metal insect.

Danielbot kept turning and was relieved to see Leninbot approaching, waving his arms. But when he arrived and began to speak Danielbot couldn’t hear him, could barely make out his features. Instead he saw the God of Mayhem docked below, a rope in his hands and looped around the neck of the trembling old man. “My sincerest thank you for the rope, and see, you must have done a competent job. I’m not burning you.”

And then he pulled on both sides of the rope until his hands were as far apart as he could make them. While behind him the brightly-colored souls of the dead raced from the flames.

A SMALL ARMY of people, their faces layered in strips of plastic and ragged cloth, greeted Falstaff as he made his way inland and up the first giant mound of trash. He thought at first they might be burn victims, because of their faces. They grabbed him on either side and helped him up the slope. He clutched the satchel strap on his shoulder and would not let go, willing to die rather than have it taken.

DANIELBOT LOOKED UP as the God of Mayhem strolled onto the roof, appearing even larger in person than what he’d imagined. Danielbot expected the God to come directly to him, pick him up and disassemble him in some crude and non-technical way, or perhaps just throw him into the flaming waters below. The air billowed with thick, particle-filled black smoke. He tasted the bitterness and foulness of it with each reluctant breath. Even though he had no lungs and so no need to breathe, he had been breathing, smelling, and tasting ever since he had awakened here.

But the God of Mayhem simply looked confused. He unwrapped his head and threw his rags away. He looked older in person, his beard matted and streaked heavily with gray, his soft eyes watering like those of a sick child.

The God seemed not to see the bots at all at first. They stood still enough—the Danielbot thought they might resemble some artistic assemblage. The God kept turning his head, searching the roof with his eyes, seeking, Danielbot supposed, for real human beings.

Finally the God of Mayhem paused and stared at them. Leninbot and some of the other bots around Danielbot began to move restlessly, as if swaying to some internal electrical rhythm.

The God came to them and looked down, taller by a head. Suddenly he fell to his knees and folded his hands together. He looked from one bot to the other, finally focusing on Danielbot as if he expected him to be the spokesman.

“Are you gods, or devils? What are you?” the God of Mayhem asked.

The other bots moved their eye fixtures around, confused. Danielbot eased closer to the God, far enough away that he couldn’t be grabbed. It was raining in his head, fragments of the wife and son who were not his, whom he once had thought he loved and perhaps still did.

“We’re the ones who remember.”

EACH MORNING DURING Falstaff’s stay in the trash pickers’ home, the father prepared his smaller children for the day’s work by first liberally kissing their dark faces—a thorough covering of forehead, cheeks, nose, and chin.

It reminded Falstaff that for a parent every inch of your child was a precious thing to be cherished. And although he loved watching, Falstaff was vaguely embarrassed by this unadulterated outpouring of love. He didn’t deserve to witness such affection after the things he had done. Daniel… Danielbot should have been here instead. Or would this family have seen the bot as a monster and a threat?

It wasn’t just, and Falstaff hated his part in it. This father understood what was needed in desperate times, and those in charge of Ubo had not. In Ubo they had witnessed a great deal, and yet they had not witnessed enough.

Then, the children still giggling, the father pasted the strips of cloth and plastic to their skin in random layers. It vividly recalled Halloweens when Falstaffwas very young, and his mother had dressed him for the night. He wasn’t sure if the pickers’ get-up was a costume, exactly, but obscuring the wearer’s identity was part of the design. It also suggested damage and disease to predators—wild dogs and rogue humans—so that they tended to leave the ones dressed this way alone. The colors and methods of disguise distinguished among the various tribes and clarified who belonged to whom. There were occasional disagreements among these groups, but little actual violence.

Falstaff usually went with the family when they picked; customarily no family member was ever left alone. He also wore the layered strips, and it was an odd sensation, especially the way they came down partially over the eyes, like hanging skin as the result of some disastrous burn.

But he wanted to earn his keep, even though he had no idea what he was doing. There were fellows who went around to the various tribes with lists of what was in demand, what could be traded, and that’s what set the priorities. Falstaff assumed they were brokers of some sort, but he didn’t know the economics involved or how these lists were compiled.