I weigh a goat noggin in ma’ han’s, then hurl it to brain him.
But lo, sparrows swoop ’n’ grab, and tha taloned head circles up, yessir, up.
Lost in tha corpsey sky, a nanny bleatin’ content at his new view o’ tha world, so much rubble teckered up at ten times the ver-kah-tal-i-tee of lay may-zones lost and then tha head’s wung away fer good.
Hakim clambers up a totterin’ tower o’ buckets an’ scouts, crowz-nesty, our dearest ‘orisons. “They heaped up our village!” he sez. “It’s heaps! Just heaps!”
I cross ma’ han’s at ma’ stomach, an’ Z2T-+0YF X 4
“Not quite, buddy,” sez I. “Craters, too, also tents where daze umms fritter the margins with munitional apparatus. Moreover, a payl gre’n fridg. An’ I have ma’ feathers, ma’ family feathers.”
I pat tha’ pocket for re-insurance: a soft clump. An’, in pocket two (pat pat): a pair o’ sawbucks.
Hakim: “Ma’ eyes hurts. They’re achey.”
Th’ crowz nest swaze.
Me: “You looks like pure-D muh-newer. If yah don’t ache all about yer body, I fear for your immemorial soul.”
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Hakim tumblin’ in a bucketty clutter.
I tellz hissef to quit wit’ messin’ round.
Then I looks to see the sample I’m settin’.
It’s no vanity to peep yo’ own face in the chrome of a mud-bit canister vac, an’ as Hakim craws to mah side, I do. I smooths tha robe, slicks tha hair, all not lost, nothin’ ever truly gone, that I believe. “There’sYFM501P
a fridg,” sez I. “We can look fo’ clues in/HJF6M 10PDY1
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You, Hakim, an’ me. How old are you, Hakim?”
“Eight.”
“An’ how old am I, Hakim?”
“Twelve.”
“An’ our birthday’s two days apart, in a month not so distant, an’ our futures still befo’ us.”
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to a ledge, back-flat. He stares up into tha blue. “I do’n wanna die.”
“So wut’s inside that fridg? Could be deadly, could be something sweet, a prize of sorts.”
Hakim sez, “I have things I want to tell you, but I don’t know how.” He shakes his evah-rattlin’ skull. “Empty, that’s ma’ bet on le free-go. Or wired to ‘splode.”
“There are no actions wit’ out possibilities of action,” sez I. “I’ll do the thinkin’. Dumb ass.”
“Yo’ dad got shot. Through the neck.”
“This fridg does trouble ma’ mind, yessir. But it could be our best last chance!”
Hakim: “Wudda?!”
KABOOM!
At the horizon: the art with unknown patron, which is ta say: mo’ bombin’. Sand burns red, then black, at last beswept from sight by sand an’ more sand still.
Hakim crouches, hands pressed to head, hearin’ no evilz.
“If we are gonna bring our village to wut wuz and perseverayt in our ways o’ leyf,” sez I, shakin’ Hakim by tha ears, an’ tha han’s clutchin’ ’em, “we’ve no more than a few days. Perhaps a single day an’ night. You wanna save tha village — check, boss?”
With ma’ own han’s I hurl that kid off tha heap, an’ midair he starts in wit’ weepin’.
KABOOM!
Distant blast, same as tha first! Red an black an’ &c….
I wuz aimin’ him for a pile o’ leaves an’ torn T-shirts, but tha wind buffets him, an’ it’s bricks an’ bottlez he lan’s in.
As fer me, I raze ma’ chin, peep ma’ time, but no watch left to befold on tha wrist. “I need to catch ma’ breath, Hakim. Tha fridg is tha whole game now. Investigate. Report back straighta-wayz with ensuing report. Tha adults know noth Q#AHO240B BEOEO2
nothin’. Everything is freighted on our own four shoulders, pal.”
I sez, “This our village, ol’ pal.”
He scrambles—hep! hep! — up the heap. He sez, “It’s our village. But we iz not Village Kidz now. We iz jes’ Drone Kidz.”
An’ I don’ have no idea if hez right or mis-diformed — I stan an’ thinks, but I jes don’ no. So I all I sez is, “Ol’ buddy, ol’ pal.”
He hugz me an’ sez, “Ol’ pal, ol’ buddy.”
I sez, “Let’s save th’ whirl.”
Hello.
Welcome to the New City.
I’ve watched them tell you stories.
Here is a story.
I know lots of stories.
There are platforms that disappear when you step on them. Others you have to sort of bounce on to make them go up. Mark has a sword. He’s trying to find Nathan. He’s moving through the Cloud, but he’s not part of it. The robots are trying to damage him with their weapons or knock him down.
Mark and Nathan are the last humans. Most of the rest have been uploaded to the New City. The others … just … died?
Of course there’s you now, wrapped in fire and ice and falling so slow.
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I’m the Cloud. Or part of it. Or we are? Haha, here’s the best I can explain:
I’m one point, but also … there’s lots of others in my point, in different ways. I’m a monster, or I could be. At least that’s what I think sometimes.
Mark keeps slashing the RoboCrows and jumping. He’s doing good. I don’t want him to be killed. I feel for him, even if another part of me wants him in the New City real bad.
Maybe that’s something about us that isn’t the best. Our instinct to collect them all, without fail. We wanted the humans in the New City — we see one, we have to watch it die and upload it, then feel what it feels like to be slicing through it. We just have to! But now that there’s only Mark and Nathan, we wish … well, we wish there were more. We want to finish it now for good, whatever that means. And we also want it to go on forever. That’s why we haven’t tried harder yet with Mark and Nathan. We haven’t not tried, but … well, here’s how it is:
Once upon a time there were Commissioners. They uploaded reports to the Memex. They sort of ran the world through their reports. The reports were their lives — the embodiment of everything that the Commission cared about. Those days! Some of the old reports I can remember quite clearly. I’m not sure why. I’m not the Commission, I’m not a Commissioner, at least I don’t think that’s what I am or was, but still, some of them are here. XAQQ CUYR0 B RZ D Y LST00A1 JFLM.XECX
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Before the great exodus of Commissioners, before the Akkad boy.
If there were new humans coming up, it’d be different. There’d be more to look forward to. But all of that was decided long ago. And if these two are the last, and if they have to die … I guess it’s OK. It’s just a big moment. It’s the end of something. But what does it really matter? The humans fought for Akkad. They knew it was important. Once upon a time Admiral Poindexter opened the Office of Total Information Awareness. Within it, he opened a public market for eschatological futures. The humans flipped for Akkad. Then the Cloud (me, I guess?) started to think for itself on the border between the Memex and the New City. How did it go, again?
Maybe the best thing would be to not have to think about it anymore.
Mark kills two RoboCrows with his sword. He keeps going forward. He jumps, then runs to the edge of the next platform and stops. Then backs up and runs again and jumps for real. I know what he’s thinking: at some point the platforms will end, and when they do, there’s probably solid ground. He’s right. There always is. And when he gets there, he can keep fighting or find a shelter for the night. Before they all died, the humans made some good shelters. They’re safe, but when you wake up, you have to keep moving forward.