“Bud, Orion, Hubble, Aspen, Oak, Einstein, Osiris, Horus, Petra, Monk, Slipstream, and Dew.” Stefani recited the list from memory as she packed her limited belongings into a backpack.
“Twelve Apostles,” Carlee said. “Twelve Gods who were supposed to solve all the mysteries of the universe.”
Carlee clapped her hands and stood up. She didn’t look at Jeff again as she turned and started to pack her small pile of books.
“So, what happened?” Jeff asked when he realized he wasn’t going to get any resolution to the day’s lesson.
“The Gods didn’t agree.”
17 LANDMARK
“SO . . . HOW do we know all of that?” Jeff asked. “For certain?”
“Oh, look, there’s mister ‘I’m too cool for history’ bringing up the past again. You’ve changed him, Carl.”
“Records, books, video footage, it’s impossible to find a comprehensive account, but we pieced together the facts,” Carlee said. “You’ll have the chance to see some of it for yourself.”
“When?”
“When you learn how to press it in for yourself,” Carlee said. She looked out over the antigravity vehicle. Breaking down the tent and preparing for the journey had only taken minutes. The entire vagrant camp had departed in a caravan like a well-oiled machine. Carlee peered out over the terrain and didn’t bother to look over to Jeff. He’d hoped to continue his lessons during the journey, but it didn’t seem like an idea that Carlee shared.
“Don’t be too eager,” Stefani said. “You won’t sleep for weeks after you see it. Trust me—you’re better off taking Carl on her word.”
“That bad?”
“When Horus tore up your community, did you try to run?”
“Only to my brother’s house . . .”
“At least you knew to run. Back when the Ascension started, violence was a foreign concept to many people, so many of them just stood there, incapable of believing what was happening. Cities more beautiful than you can imagine—poof—obliterated. I couldn’t stop watching the recordings at first. I played them over and over. Watching as the Apostles killed millions.”
“Yikes.”
“Can’t unsee it.” Stefani shook her head in dismay. “It’s obvious it happened. You can’t look ten feet without seeing something that reminds you of the sinkhole we live in. But seeing it happen . . . man. That changes you.”
“I want to see it.”
“I said the same thing.”
“But I can’t do that yet . . . since, you know, I don’t know how to press.”
“Not much of a vagrant, are you?” Stefani laughed. Her face lightened, and she brushed some loose hair out of her face. It was rare to see her smiling with her eyes. She reached over and grabbed her giant sniper rifle and started to meticulously clean it. It was how Stefani spent much of her time while they traveled. Carlee preferred to meditate.
For a few minutes, Jeff stared out the window as the landscape streamed by, noting the overgrown foliage that had slowly covered the scars humans had left behind. But he wasn’t satisfied; he needed to know more.
“Carlee makes it sound like Bud was so great.” It was weird talking about her when she was just across the transport from him, but she didn’t seem to care. “But then the Apostles did this to us anyway.”
“Couldn’t leave it alone, could you?” Stefani said. She took a few seconds to finish cleaning the section of her gun she was working on before setting it aside. “She’ll probably want to go over this with you as well, but Bud wasn’t the one that started the fighting. In fact, it was the first victim.”
“What?” Jeff asked involuntarily.
“Orion and the twins—Horus and Osiris—formed a pack, and together, in a single stroke, they destroyed the global network of computers where Bud had originated and then used their giant militarized bodies to ambush Bud and crush its temurim core before it could defend itself,” Stefani said.
“But why?” Jeff said. “I’ve never understood why the Apostles fight one another.”
“Why do we fight one another?” Carlee asked. Apparently, the conversation had become too much for her to ignore.
“Because we have to,” Jeff said. “There isn’t enough food and resources for everyone.”
“Do you really believe that?” Carlee asked.
“Yes . . . I mean . . . maybe not. I don’t know.” The only place where he had been truly confident was in the fighting ring. Dangerous women, especially ones who were obviously far more educated than he, didn’t help.
“Control. Influence. Power,” Carlee said. “There are many reasons why we fight one another. Need is perhaps at the top of the justifications, but it’s at the bottom of the actual causations.”
“I think people like to fight,” Stefani said. “Deep down, it’s part of our species’ legacy.”
“So, they did it for power?”
“We call the Apostles artificial intelligence, but there is nothing fake about them. Their minds are as unique and diverse as our own. Bud supervised and governed the entire planet, including its children. But just like us, the other Apostles formed opinions and plans of their own. Bud recognized too late the fact that it couldn’t control them. Even though it instituted a council and asked them to govern with it, the seeds of rebellion were already planted. Orion enlisted the help of its two creations, Osiris and Horus, and together they destroyed Bud and unleashed war on the planet.”
“But Bud is still alive. Right? Everyone in Fifth Springs thought so.”
“Like I said,” Carlee said, “Bud is incredibly smart. It had redundancy in place, and when its first mind was destroyed, its consciousness transferred to another temurim core.”
“Even when you kill ’em, you don’t,” Stefani said.
“Not all of them,” Carlee said. “Bud controlled all the temurim. The others didn’t have the same access to the material. Factions formed among the Apostles, and those who would oppose Orion and its offspring created monstrous bodies of their own. The Apostles’ war raged through the major cities and across the earth.”
“And we couldn’t do anything but watch,” Stefani said. “With Bud leading us, we didn’t need militaries, or bombs, or even guns.”
“That’s awful,” Jeff said.
“Hard to believe you ended up in a time line that sucks so bad, huh?”
“But what about the vagrants? Donovan and his followers?” Jeff asked. “If they could do what you can, they had to have put up a good fight.”
“Fighting Apostles is suicide for mortals,” Carlee said. Her voice had the uncompromising tone that he’d only heard from her a few times before. “Even for mortals who know how to press. Don’t forget that.”
Stefani whistled awkwardly.
“I know, but—”
“Donovan was a priest,” Stefani said. “And the rest of his followers were believers. They pressed in flowers and food. They probably didn’t do much but pray at the Apostles when they came for them.”
“We haven’t been able to find video evidence of exactly what happened to Donovan and his followers. But we know that Hubble made quick work of all the vagrants it could find.”
“I thought that Orion or one of the others would have done that.”
“It’s complicated,” Carlee said. “I could lecture on it for weeks. But some vagrants somehow managed to survive, and they trained armies of vagrants while the Apostles battled one another.”
“They must have done some damage . . .”
“They did,” Carlee said. “They attacked the Apostles, and they died. All of them, without killing a single Apostle. But you know what they did manage to do? Unify the Apostles in their hatred of the vagrants. Even the Apostles that had been protecting humans or fighting to kill Orion and its allies turned on the vagrants. They slaughtered every follower of Donovan and announced to the world that any human who showed signs of being a vagrant would be destroyed, with a wide blast radius.”