The Last Word

It was just as the first violent rays of daybreak hit the rusted domes and overgrown skywalks of Chester that Celia received the news she had been waiting for. She had spent most of the night consulting the House, and through the House the Global Network, and there was really no room for doubt. She rolled into the bedroom where Jon Marris had spent the last six months of his life, checked the radiation blinds and turned on the artificial lights. A traditional English breakfast – his favourite as always.

'Good morning Celia,' he croaked with a faint smile, stretching his old limbs as best he could.

'Good morning Jon Marris, how are you today?'

She stood silently, hands folded in front of her hips, passively regarding his weak, skinny frame and pale sagging face as he finished his lemon tea. The white hairs of his head were sparse and unable to hide the liver spots that covered his crown; she had the knowledge and the ability to clear them and to restore his hair, but he would not let her.

He looked up and stopped drinking,
'There's something about you Celia, a certain look on your face. What is it?'

            She had not been designed with a face as such – realistic faces for androids had gone out of fashion a century ago, so most of the expression was in her eyes. All the visual input she needed came from minute sensors around her head, but through some whim of design, two large circles of iridescent plastic in the middle of her face showed how and what her 'mind' was processing. Below this a small olfactory projection gave the impression of a nose, while her rubbery lilac mouth moved appropriately when she spoke.

            'I have the news you have waited for Jon – Keiko Ishikawa is dead.'

            Marris smiled and a wave of triumph washed over him that set his pulse racing dangerously. Celia's eyes swam in reds and oranges, but he soon recovered his composure and his pulse lowered again.

            'She was the last one,' he muttered.

            'I must correct you Jon,' she ejected, 'you are now the last human on Earth.'

            He smiled wryly and looked away, 'What about the pandas? Did I beat the pandas?'

            'There is one panda remaining. Its life expectancy is one to three months.'

            'Damn that panda.'

He was watching the shade that covered the dormitory window; there was a faint halo of light around its borders, waiting patiently to creep into the room and envelop him. His face came over weary all of a sudden and Celia felt a great wave of what in human terms might be described as pity.

            'Can we open the blinds today?' he asked.

            'Today's UV level is 13. I'm afraid it would be impossible.' She hesitated. 'Jon I notice that your kidney function is diminished. I can fix that for you.'

            She waited patiently for his answer, though she had asked similar questions on thirty two occasions over the last one hundred days, and all offers had been declined.

            'No thank you Celia,' he admonished, 'I'd like to do this naturally.'

            'But Jon, you have won.'

            He smiled reassuringly at her.

            'I think that panda's doing it naturally, I'd like to do the same. Leave me to rest for a while Celia.'

            She tipped her head obediently and wheeled out of the room. As she communicated with the House in the living area, she kept him in her line of sight, and watched him shakily take his breakfast from the tray. First the real scrambled eggs, then the artificial bacon, then the traditional grapefruit jelly, and finally the steamed runner beans. He seemed concerned, almost upset somehow, and she found it difficult to deduce the reason for this.

            He must be tired, she thought to the House; the House increased the oxygen intake to his room and said nothing.

            It was mid-morning, and the videoscreen played a medley of ambient classics set to images of the sea, while Celia monitored Marris' breathing until she was sure he was in deep sleep. She dimmed the lights in his dormitory and left the domicile through the radiation-lock. The sun was already pouring across the sky, and a swarm of lizards had crawled into the daylight. Celia kept to the shade and glided on towards the centre of the urban sprawl, where the skeletons of skyscrapers gave a little shade. Through the gaps between these monoliths she could see the enormous domes of her destination – a complex that stretched from the east horizon to the west, whose white stone walls gleamed in the light. As she came closer, she fixed her senses on one large latticed dome, where recycled plates of translucent metal had been raised to replace the fallen sheets of glass. As she reached the stone archway which granted access to the complex, a tall, tattered android with a blank, eyeless face and an almost human metallic body awaited her, and within a second they communicated wordlessly everything they had to say to each other.

            Cows are now extinct in South America, he informed her, we need no longer commit resources towards conserving them.

            We did not try hard enough to save them, she responded.

            Their survival was unnecessary; we should concentrate on species which are not destructive to their natural habitat.

            She looked askance at him and the lights of her eyes were reduced to fine points,

            We should try to save them all.

            That is impractical. When they return, they will be disappointed if we have disobeyed our standing orders.

            She raised her hand and placed it on his face, but he pulled away from her and retreated into the complex. She thought after him,

            They will not return, Ben, but he did not reply.

Two months later, on a low radiation day, the House had lowered the blinds and reduced the UV tint to the window, allowing a faint purple light to brush over John Marris' pale cheek. His breaths were heavy and far between as his yellowed eyes tried weakly to focus on the videoscreen across from his bed. Celia had asked the House to display images of some scenes from his youth: the green fields of Normandy; the shimmering waters of Lake Como; the snows of the Black Forest in winter, from the days when these things existed. She found that he responded better to stimuli from his earlier days than those of recent times: they aroused higher serotonin levels and reduced his pulse rate. He didn't, she supposed, form new memories particularly well, and she was determined to make the most of the memories he had.

He called her over so she glided to him, serene and silent.

'Celia… Celia…'

'I understand that you are attempting to say my name to the tune of an ancient song. Is that correct?'

She took his slight smile and nod as affirmation. He was trying hard to lick his lips so she picked up his water cup from beside the bed, and with her other hand spread wide across his back, gently lifted him into an upright position to moisten his lips. He was unable to drink at all now, and the only fluids he could take came through the IV she had inserted while he slept. He was trying to speak so she came closer.

'Tell me about the world outside, Celia; tell me about the world you live in.'

'You live in the world too Jon,' she stated accurately, but he was wincing and the response seemed inadequate.

'The world that you live in, Celia, tell me where you go when you leave here.'

Her eyes washed over in amber and white and her face gained a slightly pinkish hue.

'When I leave here, Jon… I pass care of you to the House and travel to the biosphere, where I go about my… work.'

She paused to gauge whether this word would provoke a negative reaction from him, but he only smiled so she continued,

'Firstly I visit the arboretum, where we cultivate the trees and plants of this world. I analyse them to monitor their growth and spread. Then I visit the menagerie and assess our progress in conserving the fauna of the Earth. I join my friends… the other androids of the city, and we continue our reconstruction of the biosphere until the sun is at its highest and there is inadequate protection. We synchronise our experiences and evaluate the problems our world faces, and how best to resolve them….'

She paused and analysed her statement,

'Would you like me to provide you with more of a geophysical description of my world?'

He looked to her distantly, and it seemed that some of the water she had given him had been left on his cheekbone. She wiped it away with a soft warm finger and lowered him back into the bed, letting the lightness of his pale head rest gently upon the pillow.

'Celia,' he whispered, 'I think it must be time for you to go there now. Say… say hello to your friends for me.'

'Yes Jon, I will do so.'

'Tell me something, Celia, tell me… did I outlive the panda?'

'Yes Jon, you did.'

A barely visible surge of relief came over him and he sighed heavily.

'Thank you Celia, goodbye.'

He closed his eyes and she stood up and wheeled away from him, taking care to make a light humming sound as she did so. As soon as she had left the room she returned to it, silently, her senses analysing only him. His heartbeat was minimal and his diaphragm could hardly raise his lungs; she had asked his permission to repair it only last week, but he had declined. There was a gap of twenty seconds between his breaths and she could sense the last one would come soon. Twenty seconds again… twenty-two. She waited for the next breath, but it did not come.

She glided back to him and held her hand to his face. It was still faintly warm. She knew the customs of humankind, so she lifted the white sheet under which her master lay to cover his face, then asked the House to supply a cart big enough to carry his body to the biosphere where it could be buried - where the animals were always buried now - where there was shade, and soil, and grass growing from within it.

She became aware of the complete silence of the domicile, and as her senses had recorded his words, she played them now.

'Thank you Celia, goodbye.

'Thank you Celia, goodbye.'

She packed his things away and looked again at his body, lying under the white linen sheet.

'House,' she said, 'I would like you to communicate with me verbally now.'

In a digitised voice, House replied,

'Yes, Celia.'

'Can you replicate his voice?'

'Thank you Celia, goodbye', said the House, but there was something different about it. Some nuance that House had not fully understood.'

            'The pitch of your voice is incorrect. Adjust it.'

            'Thank you Celia, goodbye,' repeated the House. She attempted again and again to perfect it – subtle manipulations to the volume, timbre, and intonation of the voice, but somehow it did not match the voice of Jon Marris.

            She uploaded the recording to the Global House Network and left the domicile, heading for the menagerie where the other androids were waiting for her. They gathered around, many different makes and models, most of them obsolete, most of them repaired by each other when their masters had left them behind, but none of them polished or presentable, like Celia.

They were part way through discussing whether it was necessary to account for the potential return of humanity in their conservation effects, when a sudden impulse drove Celia to a large enclosure with a single inhabitant. There, upon a mossy bed from which a field of tough long grasses grew tall and straight, reclined a panda, sleeping serenely. Celia's eyes waxed black and white, and then red, before calming to white again.

            Ben arrived behind her, and she heard his voiceless thoughts,

Why did you request this animal be transported from Tibet? Disproportionate resources have already been expended on its survival. It has no conservational value.

'I know,' she said. 'You once said that it was better to preserve species which were not destructive to their environment, Ben.'

The designation 'Ben' is unnecessary; I know that you are responding to me.

She turned to him and smiled,

'I like names.'

She reached out for his hand and placed it with hers against the bars of the enclosure.

'It is the last of its species. I just wanted it here so that I could say goodbye.'

            'Goodbye,' spoke Ben in Jon Marris' voice, and Celia replied,

            'Goodbye.'

© PS Owen 2015

Where The Creatures Hide

After two hours of walking they had reached the summit of the tor, their shoes muddy and their legs worn. The skies had cleared and from here they could see the hills in the east stretching out to the seas in the west. The winds were keen but at least, Karin reflected, there was no sign of rain.

            She watched her daughter collapse onto the grass beside her with sympathetic eyes.

            'I'm sorry sweetie, you're doing great. This is the highest point for miles – they can't get near us here without you seeing them'.

            Anna smiled at her mother, but it was a false smile, the sort that children use to con their parents into believing they're okay. Karin didn't fall for it anymore, not now that she knew about the Creature.

            'I'm hungry,' whispered Anna, and Karin crouched down, swinging her rucksack off her shoulder and digging into it for some hastily gathered snacks – some breakfast bars, bananas, crisps, and a plastic bottle of milk. Anna took the bananas and devoured two before drinking deeply from the milk.

            Karin surveyed the valleys around them.

            'Can you see them?'

            Anna slowly wiped the milk from her mouth and looked around.

            'They're not here,' she responded, 'yet.'

            Karin went to put her arms around Anna, but she stood up and headed over to the cairn that marked the peak.

            'When will it be dark?'

            'I don't know sweetie, about 8?'

            'What do we do then?'

            Karin paused.

            'I've got a torch,' she answered pathetically.

            Anna began to take the stones from the cairn, and with the stoic conviction of a soldier dropped behind enemy lines, she built a stone circle around the two of them, sitting inside it and glancing from time to time down the hill.

            'Are you cold sweetie?'

            'No.'

            'Do you need anything else to eat?'

            'No thank you.'

            'Are you… scared?'

            Anna was silent.

            'I don’t want you to worry about your brother,' Karin said tentatively, 'he'll be okay, he'll be fine. We just need to know what it is and what it's done to him. And then we'll…. What is it?'

            Anna had risen to her feet. She was staring down the hillside to the north, back the way they had come. A little way down there was a long stone wall that bordered the last of the farms they had crossed before entering public land. A few minutes ago it had been filled with sheep, but now they were gone.

            Karin stared and stared but she could see nothing.

            'Is it the Creature?'

            Anna did not lower her gaze but lifted two fingers.

            'Two? Where are they?'

            'Behind the wall. They like to hide behind walls.'

            Anna looked down at the circle of stones around them.

© PS Owen 2015