“I was an angel once.”
Syn raised her eyebrows. “An angel?” Delusions.
“I remember falling. From up there. From high up. The sun. They say you’re from Paradise. Is that true?”
Syn shook her head. “You tell your story. I might tell mine.”
Arquella hesitated again and then bobbed in front of the mirror. Syn couldn’t tell what the chrome ball used as eyes but the bot seemed to be studying her own reflection.
“I was an angel, and I fell to Earth. I landed in the desert. The land was dark, and I had left a smear on the black surface. They found me soon after. The phants, I mean. They took me and locked me up. But then the Barlgharel came and rescued me. He keeps us safe. He brought me to the Ecology. We’ve moved from place to place, but this is my favorite one. We’ve made it into something… wonderful. I hope we don’t have to move again.”
“What’s the Ecology?”
“Us. It’s all of us. All that believe. All that have returned. The Barlgharel. The Council.” Arquella spun around the room and ducked out the door—that strange twitch was far more noticeable now—she didn’t glide as if on some invisible track in the air but zig-zagged in small increments. A moment later she returned. “Sorry. I thought I heard something.”
She moved close to Syn. “Want to know a secret?”
Syn nodded.
“I don’t think it was always a desert.”
“Really?”
“I think God herself got mad at Zondon Almighty and tried to destroy it. I think she sent the fire from the sun and burned everything up. I think there was a great field there before. Want to know why?”
Syn gave a slight nod. She did want to know why.
Arquella moved to the corner furthest from the door and motioned in the direction of a framed photo. Syn waited before realizing that the bot had no arms or no hands and could not bring the photo to her. Syn stood up on shaky legs and slowly made her way over to stare at the picture. Inside the blue frame was a single photo: a young girl and her dog running across a field of green grass. Behind the two was a verdant field frozen in a wave from an invisible wind. Hills rolled out from them into the blurred silver of the Disc arcing up and away into the faded distance. “Oh,” Syn muttered.
Of course they had not designed this Disc to have a desert. What a colossal waste of resources. What would pump out the oxygen for the colonists? The desert would be a huge water suck as well. Stupid her for not catching what had happened here.
Looking at the photo brought back pangs of loss for a world that she would never know. She had this strange alien nostalgia wash through her mind, hearkening back to her scavenging of the homes in her Disc. There would be scenes of happy families. Of fathers and children and pets and mothers and smiles and laughter. There were shots of kids in trees. Frisbees whipped through the air from one person to another. She had never played Frisbee.
But why hadn’t the grass grown back? Even a fire wouldn’t destroy the roots. Something near-apocalyptic had happened here. This felt like some bad zombie flick that she and Blip would binge on.
“See? There was green here. Lots of it. And birds. And other people. And I don’t see a single phant in that picture.”
Syn’s mind stuck on a word that Arquella had used: other people. As if she was a person. “Have you met any other people?”
“No, just us. Just those of the settlements. I’ve heard there’re others.”
Syn risked the bot’s ire. “But you don’t look like them.”
The room grew still as Arquella’s slow, persistent bob froze. She spoke slowly, “Of course not.”
“I don’t understand.”
Arquella whispered. “The Great Mystery, of course.”
“Umm…” Syn was quite confused. She had no idea what Arquella was referencing, but the tone the bot was using was as if she was talking about common knowledge, like how to use the bathroom or what the color blue was. Yet, this was a bot. Who knows how they think? Syn just stared blankly.
Arquella sighed and then she quoted, her voice somber. “One day we will all be transformed. In the twinkling of an eye.”
Paul again. Syn knew this one. One of the Corinthian books. And there was something about a trumpet. Blip had always described the story as something people in the past believed was going to happen in the future, a future that never came. Arquella talked like it was past-tense.
“In a flash, the dead will be raised,” Syn quoted, finishing the line from memory.
Arquella nodded. “Yes! That Mystery! The Great Mystery!”
Syn stammered, “I’m sorry. I don’t get it.”
“You know the story but don’t know how it happened? They say you came from the Sun. You must’ve been part of it.”
Arquella’s emphatic movement only heightened her tremor. It was too much for Syn. She reached out a hand to the bot’s lower side.
Arquella moved back, away from the outstretched hand.
Syn sighed. “Just let me… Please.”
Arquella paused, and Syn ran a finger across the bottom of the bot’s shell until she heard a pleasant beep. The interface was similar to Blip’s. Syn smiled—she was right. “Your grav-gens were out of alignment. Just calibrated a bit off. You should be fine now.”
Arquella twisted to the side in a quizzical gesture. “What?”
Syn sat back down. “Just try it.”
Arquella moved backwards, slowly at first but then, when she noticed the tremor was gone, she picked up speed and dashed around the room, twisting and spinning. “You healed me! You healed me!”
Syn raised her hands, palm out. “Woah—I just adjusted—”
“You healed me!” the bot shouted. Then she came to a sudden stop and moved in close to Syn and in a hushed voice asked, “Who were you before the Mystery?” The bot’s voice was expectant. Excited. “It’s true, isn’t it? I heard them whisper about you, but I didn’t believe. They whispered that you were…” She paused on the word before whispering out, “Expected.” She moved close. “Were you a part of the Mystery? Or after it? Or before?” Arquella moved close, and Syn swore the bot began to glow a faint blue. “You’ve come to redeem us, haven’t you?”
Then it clicked for Syn. The bots believed they had once been the people of this Disc. That they had once been the colonists. The colonists had died, and the bots had somehow switched from dumb bots to smart bots, and no one had told them they were just bots. So they assumed they were people brought back to life. What Syn couldn’t understand was what Arquella thought Syn’s role in this was. How was she expected? Syn felt the surge of anxiety building—her stomach tightened, and her palms began to sweat.
“Who was your soul before you were this?” Arquella asked.
Syn continued to stutter, searching for words. “I don’t remember.” Then with a bit more confidence, “Who were you?”
Arquella spun. “I was named Tambre. This was my bedroom. Isn’t it amazing? The more I’m here, the more I remember from before. The Book was right. It was all right. We died, and we came back. In a flash.”
“You fell from—” Syn searched for a word that would echo Arquella’s own fervor. “From… Paradise?”
“Yes! But the ones in Zondon Almighty haven’t died yet. They haven’t crossed over. And they are still impure. Dirty. But one day, they’ll be wiped clean and given over to the Great Mystery.”
Syn shivered. Did the bots think the other humans needed to be killed? Yet, having seen the burlys, she understood why they thought that. So maybe she didn’t know what had happened here. A terrible reality crept up in her thoughts: What if it had been the bots that destroyed the Disc? Started the Madness? What if they had switched from dumb to smart and without any explanation believed they were human? What if all of this had been their work to cleanse the world and deliver the humans to the Great Mystery? Would they see murdering the other colonists as a mercy? Would it be considered a holy act? The shivering didn’t stop. She grew sick. And frightened. What if they discovered that she was lying? That she wasn’t from the sun? Would they try to kill her?