At the moment very few were moving, but when they did each gesture made a ripple that stirred the images resting in what was left of his memory. His energy was at a very low ebb. He struggled to maintain coherence. He was receiving updates concerning Falstaff’s descent through the disintegrating building, along with an intrusion of obsessive thoughts from the God of Mayhem across the water. His head ached, but he was unable to curtail the input.
None of this information was part of his memory or his life. It seemed to him now he lacked both a soul and a personal history. But these data was all he had as he came to the end of his time on the planet. For most human beings a soul was not much more practical than an imagined thing, given how little they appeared to speak to or use it, and for far too many a personal history was simply a record of how they had suffered. Better to be a machine with no expectations and no disappointments.
Danielbot’s main problem was that he did not believe that. He grieved for his lost human life, imaginary or not.
He had watched as Falstaff descended from the roof door down a staircase that had been knocked dangerously askew during the last shuddering of the building, through the empty waiting room redolent of lives with endings unknown, then down another staircase which was dangerously broken, with missing treads and crumbling walls. Danielbot’s view of Falstaff’s activities was skewed at times, and tantalizingly incomplete.
At one point Falstaff entered a room Danielbot did not recognize or understand. What appeared to be a great pipe organ fashioned from crystal and silver wire hummed and glowed with colors which ebbed almost to nothing before exploding to such brilliance both Falstaff and Danielbot had to avert their eyes. Falstaff studiously unplugged various fragments from outlying parts of the crystalline structure. He grabbed a satchel off the floor and began filling it with what he had detached.
Several times Falstaff stopped and reconsidered, then he would take one of the fragments from his bag and replace it with another. Once the bag was full and almost too heavy to carry he secured the flap and slung it across his shoulder.
Dropping down to the next level over a ragged gap in the stairs, Falstaff paused. Danielbot could feel Falstaff’s sudden wave of regret for all he had given up in order to work in this place. He’d never been married—all he had to go back to was an abandoned purpose and a city he hadn’t lived in in years, and now on the verge of collapse.
But at least you have a life, Danielbot thought. He couldn’t tell whether Falstaff had received the message or not—there was no reaction.
Still the apparatus attached to Danielbot’s head fired intermittently with the last recorded memories of the most destructive human beings in history, both the brutes and the assassins who actually had a need to see blood on their hands, and the bureaucrats and administrators like King Leopold or Mao Zedong—murderers with quotas and a signature.
But clearest of all was the God across the water who now understood fully where Danielbot was, needing only to scratch an itch or two before coming to find him. Whether to kill or embrace him he hadn’t yet decided.
THE GOD OF Mayhem had discovered a body in the trash. The rats had been at it. It wasn’t one of his—for the most part he remembered where to find the bodies of those he was responsible for. And this was a child, a little girl clutching her doll, and he did not kill children. Children were largely innocent of the crimes of humanity, helpless against uncaring nature, and a consolation to the sting of death. And yet humanity was so careless with them, and they so precious they needed to be cared for until they too could become careless adults.
He examined her more closely. The doll had been tied to her wrist, and her pockets were stuffed with goodbye letters from mother and father, siblings and others, sad statements about how she had been loved and cared for, and expressions of grief over how death overtook her, at night and with no warning.
So she had been well loved, and still they had left her body here in the trash. Granted it was hard to know what to do with a body in these times, but the wrongness of this gnawed at him. Perhaps they had buried her and the seismic movement of trash and large debris had brought her to the surface again. This seemed unlikely but it was an explanation the God decided to believe.
The addicts and the alcoholics had had their higher power, the something greater than themselves they’d always wanted to be. The God of Mayhem had no power higher than himself. If killing was an addiction (and certainly no drug could have eased his pain more efficiently) then he had no one else but himself to go to for a cure. This was unsatisfactory, but there was nothing to be done. The masses could never fully appreciate the lonely responsibilities of a god.
He was standing inside the church where he’d discovered the body. Perhaps the family had thought entombment unnecessary within these sanctified surroundings. The walls of the church still stood. Inside it was all trash and aggressive vegetation. He’d followed a young man here who’d disappeared into a pile of building debris where the congregation used to sit. Occasionally he would see a head peer out through some gap in the pile. The God thought the young man might actually live here.
The God left and continued on his way. He had other things to attend to. He’d recently become aware that he had a conscience. He was furious that his conscience refused to answer any of his questions, such as why a god even required a conscience. But he knew where his conscience was located: there, just offshore in the old mental hospital, or UBO as it was now signed. Apparently the God would have to take his questions there.
“I know who you are,” the boy said behind him. “You can stay here with me.”
The God of Mayhem ignored him. He talked too much, and he was a child. It was time for the God to put aside childish things.
As the God of Mayhem descended into the old north section, the Chinatown swamp and the partially-flooded government center and the abandoned inner harbor, the ground burned all around him. This did not particularly bother him, although he had to make some alterations in his route. If anything, the flames seemed appropriate to his mood. Perhaps his mood had even been the accelerant that had allowed these fires to spread.
Fire had expanded from some buildings in the distance behind him to the masses of trash, and now smoke was coming out of numerous fissures in the refuse ahead of him. Apparently it was burning beneath the surface. At scattered locations people were attempting to escape it, erupting like moles from holes in the ground. Blue smoke came out of the ground and wrapped around the trees. Boston had started its transformation into a Hell garden, and a final fitting sacrifice to him. Although footing was difficult, he picked up his pace.
AS FAR AS Danielbot could determine, the last of the guards was gone, leaving the bots to fend for themselves. “Good riddance, I’d say,” Leninbot said beside him. “So do we leave, or do we stay?”
Danielbot looked at him. For a second he could see Lenin’s flesh disguise, wrapping him completely, then unravelling to reveal the metal and plastic beneath. “We’re free to do what we like, I suppose.”
“Then I believe I want to live. I want something more than this. Human beings die, but what says we must?”
Danielbot could feel the God of Mayhem approaching the bay, searching for some kind of boat to take him across to Ubo. He tried to put that image out of his mind. He could feel Falstaff descending through yet another level of ruin and entering a level of doubt, worried about finding food, wondering whether he had time to search the lower levels for weapons or valuables, anything he could trade once he reached Boston, and still get out before the entire structure collapsed on him. Danielbot tried to put all that outside his mind as well.