Beneath it all, another anger coursed. Anger at Blip and his lies. This whole situation borne out of deception. Perhaps if he had lifted the veil of the second Disc earlier, none of this would have come to pass.
Then, glancing at Blip’s shattered shell on the ground around them, she felt anger at herself for even allowing that thought.
She glared down at Taji’s unconscious body. She wanted to kill the girl and release all of her rage in an instant. She spat out, “I’m not a killer. I’m not like you and Neci.”
From far away, a voice called, “Syn.”
She knew she should recognize the name. She knew that she should answer. But she was unsure why.
“Syn!” the voice shouted again. It was high-pitched. A chirp. Again. “Syn!”
Syn slowed. She worried, though, that in her distraction, Taji would take advantage of the moment
“Syn!”
Syn slowly looked up at the inert shell of Blip just a few meters away. White shell had burst across the ground. Like a cracked egg, a large portion of the shell was gone, a large jagged edge of curling shell wrapped around a revealing twisted array of blue glowing wires and silver circuit boards. But not all of his outer body was gone. In fact, over half of his shell was still in one piece. Through tears, she chanced, “Blip?”
A pale sound chirped from within him. Was that a response?
“Blip?”
Underneath her hand, his cracked form vibrated and lifted from the ground, wobbly and stuttering. “Blip?”
With a sharp whistle and then a low hum, Blip’s voice found its way. “Yeee… yes. Yesyesyes. Yes.”
Syn lept up as Blip floated up as well, under her hand. “Blip! You’re alive! How?” Syn smiled at Blip. A torrent of joy poured through her, warming every part of her. She smiled. He’s alive.
Then she glanced back at Taji’s unmoving body, and an unbidden thought came to her, I’m free. She winced at her own dark relief.
“Syn, are you okay?” Blip asked, his words slow and challenged.
Syn shook her head. Was she okay? “No,” she said, and her mind focused on the stabs of pain and the dull ache of her legs and arms. Then, she realized, that wasn’t what he was talking about. She turned back and looked at the blood that had soaked her arms.
Her hands were crimson. Her legs were red. The ground around them was red. It was all red. Just like her vision. Just like her thoughts. She went numb at the potential. Had she gone too far? Had she killed Taji?
“Blip?” she asked. Her words came from far away, an echo in her own mind. Oh, she thought, maybe I didn’t speak loud enough. Again, she said, “Blip?”
“Syn. It’s okay,” Blip said.
Syn shook her head. “Is she okay?”
Blip floated near her. “She’s not dead.”
Syn’s eyes went wide at the surprise. Taji wasn’t dead, and Blip wasn’t dead! There was a flood of joy and relief at the thought. Syn wasn’t a killer.
Syn pushed away from the girl and scrambled back. She scooted across the ground, pressing her back against the concrete divider leading to the Jacob platform.
“Oh God!” Syn cried. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” She looked up at Blip and the sounds stopped, but her lips kept curling around the shape that “I’m sorry” should make. Her mouth kept up the motions like some strange mantra.
“Syn, it’s fine. It’s okay.” Blip was down beside her. He nudged against her arm and lowered his voice to a calm tone and echoed, “She’s not dead. You had to stop her though.”
“I had to?” Syn repeated. But her lips then kept moving around the words “I’m sorry.”
Blip replied, “She was going to kill both of us. You had to do it. It’s okay.”
“I had to do it,” Syn said. Yes, that was an answer. That was why. Syn reminded herself that Taji’s threat to her life had motivated it entirely. She refused to think of the anger that had been buried deep inside and billowed over like a volcano. And in not thinking about it, it was all she could think of.
Syn struggled to look at him through tear-filled eyes. She mumbled, “How?”
Blip, wobbling in the air and half-broken, pulled away. “Can you get in the Jacob? We have to go.” He hovered in the air with a subtle shake. He was alive, but the impact had hurt him. Each thought radiated through the coil and array of blue tubes and silver boards that peeked through the shattered visage.
Oh, Blip, how are we ever going to fix you? Syn thought but instead said, “Did you do it?” Syn took a deep breath. Everything focused in her mind. She had sent Blip to send a message to the Ecology. He was back. Now she had to know what had happened. How had he been back that fast? Did he send the message? Had he faced obstacles?
She asked all of these questions in a stream of words.
Blip sighed, “Yes. Get in the Jacob, and I’ll answer.”
Syn came to her feet, shaking as she did so. “Kerwen.” As she spoke, she turned and moved in the direction of the impact point.
“Syn! Come back!”
Syn was staggering, dragging her foot as she spoke. “I have to…” There were more words, but she didn’t emphasize them nor did she feel they mattered.
Blip zoomed next to her. “I sent out the signal. I said everything you told me to say. We have to go. It’s okay. You did you job. I did—”
“Kerwen.” She said again.
“Who?”
“Kerwen!” Syn spat, irritated. How had he forgotten?
Blip understood. He moved quickly past Syn toward the body lying at the edge of the sand. He dropped down next to it, but as she was still a bit away, Syn couldn’t see what he was doing. Perhaps examining her for life. Perhaps making sure she was really and truly dead.
Blip flew back to Syn as she neared Kerwen’s corpse.
Blip blocked Syn’s path, “Don’t. It’s not good.”
“I killed her.”
“No, you didn’t.”
Syn pushed around Blip and knelt at Kerwen’s head. The girl was distorted. Her body was far wider than it should be. She hadn’t flattened like some cartoon rabbit, but the impact had molded her body into something strange. Her skull was shattered. Syn reached out to touch the mirror image of herself, her own dead body. Kerwen’s eyes were empty. Only white globes looking out onto the sand.
“Syn, please,” Blip implored. His voice was urgent. There was fear in it. “We have to go.”
Syn ran the back of her hand across Kerwen’s cheek. The girl’s skin was already cooling.
Blip’s voice changed, “Oh! Look!”
Syn glanced up, her reverent pause broken. Blip was staring past her, further up the arc of the Disc. There, one of the Jacob towers had lit up and one of the cabs was rising up the tower. “What’s that? Who’s on it?” she asked.
“I think some of the bots.” As he spoke, dark shadows became visible on the horizon, moving toward Syn and Blip.
“What’s that?” Syn asked.
Blip remained silent. She had always envied his vision. He could see things nearly across the arc of the Disc itself, from one edge to the other if he concentrated.
After a moment, he said, “I think they’re more bots.”
“Do you recognize them?”
“There’s a cleaning bot or two. A few house bots. Primarily little ones.”
“But do you recognize them?” Syn insisted. Then she realized he had never been there when the Ecology had found her. He was not at the celebration nor in the workshop. Blip wouldn’t know many of the bots. “Never mind.”