Eku stayed put though, unwilling to leave without her.
Syn smiled, scratched the tiger again and straddled the bike—a quick version known as the Ogun model. Syn loved this hover bike—its blue finish, the way it sloped forward like a tiger, ready to pounce. It was sleek and beautiful, and she felt like she was hugging an arrow shot through the air.
The Ogun hovered above the grass. Like Blip, it used magnetic induction to hover above the metal surface that lay just below the jungle soil.
As she touched it, it sprang to life. Like most everything else, it responded to her touch. She was all it needed to come alive. She was the code that unlocked it. There had been keys on doors and different vehicles when she had first ventured out into the Disc, but they were of no concern to her. The ship was hers alone.
8
OGUN
“And he dreamed, and behold, there was a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven. And behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it!”
Like a rabbit hopping up out of the weeds, Blip jaunted ahead and pointed far down the Disc. “Go to 17. Hopefully, the Jacob there is still working after that.”
“16 is closer,” Syn said.
Blip nodded as she pointed the Ogun out from the house. “Yes, but closer to the blast. I’m hoping that 17 wasn’t damaged at the top,” he said.
Syn paused, took her hands off of the bars, and looked at him. “You think the Jacob lifts are damaged? Near the needle?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. Olorun is struggling to deploy scanners and assess the damage.”
“How’s that possible?” Syn couldn’t understand that. The Olorun was the ship and the ship responded as fast as Blip, as fast as thought.
“I think the whole system had to reboot. I’m not getting my feed.”
“Blast,” Syn said. She understood the feed between Blip and the ship. He interfaced with the system and had access to everything through his connection. Always on. Always present. This was the first he had ever said there was a delay with it. He mentioned it so casually that Syn wondered if he had encountered this before. He wasn’t freaking out. He wasn’t frightened. For him, losing his connection with the ship was something that just happened. That frightened Syn, sending a cold sensation washing across her. It was proof he wasn’t telling her everything.
Syn steered the Ogun toward 17. With a single tug, the hover shot off. Even at this speed, it would take a minute or two to get to the bottom of Tower 17, and then they would have to get in the Jacob lift.
The air whistled alongside them as they sped forward. There was music to the sounds: the hum of the engine, the slight off-key whine as they careened across the surface, the metal frame straining in the tight corners, the rush of the wind as they roared past the blurring scenery. It was a soothing echo of what Syn imagined flying would be like.
They moved through the various buildings and structures. The Disc’s rises resembled a stacked city, designed in organic shapes to lessen the artificialness of it all. At the base, the structures were spread out. No congested alleys or streets. Yet, no single path was a straight route. The designers of the Olorun loved curvy roads. Since the ship had been manufactured, since it was all artificial in nature, the goal was to make every bit of the design feel natural. Sidewalks and roads all curved through foliage. Sightlines were broken up.
Ladder 17 was nearly one hundred meters in diameter at its base. It curved up, following the outward bulge of the Disc and the tiered houses and green spaces of the rise. The houses and buildings followed the curve and ascended past the clouds. The upper residences had housed the older members of the crew. As the levels went up, the gravity lessened. This was an attractive option for the elderly, for those of the crew that were past 100. With less gravity, they had more mobility, less fear of falling, far more strength in managing everyday items. So it went—the younger at the base, the older far up the rise. It was an unintended physical hierarchy of age. Syn had discovered this fact in her scavenging and exploration of the residences. The decor of the houses changed the farther up the rise she went. A scattering of toys at the bases. The residences became odd geological strata of the lifespans of its crew.
Syn slowed and drifted next to the tower’s base. The Jacob lift opened up in the center of the strut. As they approached, the lift doors slid open.
Blip gave an acknowledging beep. “Grab your spear.”
Syn narrowed my eyes. “Up there? No lions, or tigers, or bears up there, my brave little toaster.”
Blip just stared back. “I’m concerned.”
Syn narrowed her eyes but went back to pull her spear free from the makeshift sheath she had crafted on the side of the Ogun. The spear was nearly five feet in length, and Syn had crafted it from several carbon-fiber pipes (it was as light as a feather) and managed to cold-weld a carbon-fiber knife she had shaped to the tip. Syn could hit nearly anything from at least forty to fifty feet away. She had taken down a lion that had escaped the zoo in their second year. She hated to do it, but he had been chewing up the cats and dogs in the Anatolia neighborhood, and he had to die—the closest the Disc had to a serial killer. The animals had been docile, programmed deep in their DNA toward a tameness. But that change in nature was only a guarantee with humans. She was safe, but the lion still possessed its primal urges to hunt and feed. And now, it seemed, to hunt alone for the sport of it.
Reflecting on the moment, she had been frozen in fear, her stomach rolling in anticipation. It wouldn’t kill her—couldn’t kill her. But if she walked away, its spree would continue and other animals would die. Or perhaps, this would be the one animal that fought its programming. Maybe it would break free of its reins, charge her, and she would die. Then, Olorun would tumble through space, empty of all intelligent life except a single robot named Blip. She shook her head. Imagination run amok. Very little could hurt her here.
A strange thought formed far back in her mind. If she had conceived of her own death, Blip had as well. Would Blip knowingly choose to live his existence alone? Perhaps he kept the other bot secret so that he had someone else in case Syn died.
And she would die. At some time. Clearing through the dead bodies in the Disc had convinced her of that. Everyone died. Perhaps, her death was years from now, but she would die. She knew it. And so did Blip. So why had they never talked about it?
Syn stared up the length of the Jacob lift. The tower stretched to the sunstrips, and its end was obscured in the clouds. Far above them, attached to the Jacob lift, an Orisha mask stared down, seemingly oblivious to the commotion. The masks had been created by the Builders and each was different. The one above her was a rectangular construction with a long, long chin, slits for eyes, and a thin mouth below an angular nose. The masks were hundreds of feet tall and could still be viewed down here. They were mounted on each lift and created a somber feel when viewed; each of them were silent like sentries, looking over life on the Disc.
“Express ride to the top?” she asked.
“No stops,” Blip said, as much to her as the Jacob. The inner doors of the lift shut, and the outer doors to the chute closed. The elevator lifted up—it was a gentle motion.
Syn put a hand on the wall. Smooth and clean. They cruised upwards at an incredible speed, but they did not feel it. Without the open window to the world below them, they would not have even noticed.