56 years after the Collapse
Leper challenged the screaming winds, his metal body ignorant of the ruthless cold. Rigid joints creaked, working to traverse the treacherous frozen ravine as his aging hydraulics pumped with an endless rhythm. Frost formed on the edges of his glass oval faceplate. Snow and ice suffocated the landscape. Leper persisted.
Deep in the bottom of the ravine, where the last remnants of civilization had crumpled and bowed to the weight of time and once-great towers now withered in heaps of contorted steel and broken glass, only Leper still stood, a distant memory from the time before the Afterworld. Even as the wind and snow came to claim him, he remained. He was numb to it all.
Draped in a tattered cloak and carrying a makeshift rebar spear, Leper navigated the precarious mounds of scrap and ruin, a task his old feet found as easy as walking. It didn’t take long for his instincts to awaken. Soon he was on the prowl again.
With a hand at the dial on his temple, Leper tuned the sensitivity of his hearing, amplifying the howl of the wind until it overwhelmed him. It screamed in his receivers but he let it rage on, listening for something else, something alive.
Somewhere, drowning in oceans of wind he heard it: a chittering sound. There you are. Leper decreased the amplification and—clutching his spear in both hands—he slammed it down on a sheet of metal below him. For a moment it seemed that the wind grew quiet as the impact echoed throughout the ravine. He struck again and the sound rang out, loud and clear. Snow swirled as he waited in anticipation, a dangerous thrill rising within him. Very few species had adapted fast enough to survive a planetary collapse.
Only fools dared to hunt them.
An enormous orange beetle, taller than Leper, smashed out of its scrap nest, chunks of concrete raining down as it chittered wildly, searching for the source of the clanging. Leper faltered, and as he stepped back in alarm the thin hairs along the beetle’s legs fluttered, sensing vibrations. Antennae twitched in his direction. Quick to evade, Leper dodged backward as tusk-like mandibles snapped together in front of him. Too close.
The beetle clambered after its prey, pounding into the ground with legs as thick as pillars. It reared up, preparing to strike. Leper jabbed his spear at the beetle’s hairy underside and tipped it onto its back. Six legs flailed. Leper waited for a chance to strike as the insect fought to right itself. Rolling over, it turned away and raised its elytra to uncover its wings. Oh, no you don’t. By instinct, Leper jammed his spear deep into the beetle’s abdomen, but he was quick to regret it. His soul throbbed with fear as he felt his feet lift from the ground.
Membrane wings pounded a hair’s width from his face. Leper clutched desperately to his spear as the creature tried to shake him off. They shot up out of the ravine and into open sky. The horizon revolved around them as the beetle spiraled out of control, careening toward a tower on the edge of the ravine. Leper braced for impact. Glass splintered as they burst into the top floor and he lost his grip on the spear.
Leper hit the concrete floor with a crack, tumbling before he could catch his bearings. Phantom pain flared at impact, like a thousand burning needles. The beetle landed twenty strides away and shrugged off broken glass, the spear still protruding from its abdomen. It staggered, antennae twitching frantically. I’m wearing it down. Leper ignored the pain and struggled to his feet. Between him and his opponent, there was only a vacant stretch of concrete. Leper squared off.
Something quivered deep in his body, his sensors picking up unusual vibrations. The building began to tremble as an earthquake rattled the broken city. Dust shook loose from the ceiling. The floor lurched beneath him. The tower was tipping into the ravine.
Foundations split, structures snapped, and Leper ran for the opposite window without a second thought. The floor grew steeper with every step. He crossed his arms in front of him and smashed through the glass, the side of the building nearly horizontal as he tumbled up and out. Back on his feet, Leper sprinted as fast as his joints could cope, the building crumbling at his heels in a shower of concrete, steel, and glass. The beetle attempted to escape, but falling rubble caught it and dragged it down into the ravine. With a desperate leap, Leper cleared the side of the building and hurtled onto the edge of the cliff. Moments later, the tower hit the bottom. A dozen frightened beetles scattered from their nests and fluttered away into the city.
Leper lay on the ground for a moment, the dust still settling around him as the earthquake’s final tremors faded away. That was a big one, Leper thought, amused, biggest one in a while. Straining, Leper rolled onto his back and sat up, dust sliding off of his thin metal form. Based on a quick inspection, everything appeared to be functioning. He had gotten away without so much as a scratch, but the same could not be said about the beetle. Leper peered over the edge of the ravine, spotting the tip of an orange elytra sticking out from the remains of the tower, broken and twisted. He almost laughed to himself, How do you like your new nest?
With renewed confidence, Leper rappelled down the ravine on a long-dormant electrical line. Excitement rippled through him. His metal feet crunched into the gravel as he reached the bottom, disturbing the still-settling dust. It swirled, highlighted in a beam of light as he switched on the flashlight between his eyes. Now, where did it land? He swept his gaze across the rubble, and the orange of the beetle’s corpse gleamed as his light flashed over it, sticking out from a pile of debris. Aha! Approaching the corpse, Leper heaved a slab of cement to the side, letting it thunder down the rest of the pile. Seizing the part of the bug that was exposed, he hauled it out from the scrap heap. The gap behind it caved in and another chunk of the building collapsed into dust.
When everything settled the beetle lay motionless before him, legs sprawled out, elytra bent. Leper climbed onto the beast and uprooted his spear from its abdomen, holding the weapon over his head in a swell of glory. And to the victor, Leper dropped back down, go the spoils. With its tiny head cradled in his hand, he wriggled his fingers into the spacing between the chitin armor on its face and tore a piece loose. It ripped free with a squelch, exposing the flesh underneath. He held the petal-shaped piece of chitin to the light, inspecting it for flaws. Slightly larger than his hand, it was just the right shape. It would do nicely. He set it aside and reached in for the mirrored petal on the other side of its face. Like its twin, it was a flawless specimen.
…
Narrow footprints followed Leper out of the ravine and through the broken city, embedded in fresh snow as he trudged onward, watching the shattered sky. Shadows swept over the streets, cast by the debris that orbited above, intermittently dimming the sun. Cloudless moments were a rare and welcome surprise. Usually, the city ruins were shrouded in gloom.
In time, Leper’s feet found the residential district and turned down a familiar street. Hollow towers stood in a perfect grid, each residential stack identical to the last, or at least they had been. The abusive weather had left them all with unique scars. The one Leper had claimed for himself had a signature tilt. Partially sunken in the earth, it tipped against the stack to its left, the first in a leaning string of toppled towers. The stacks to its right had turned to rubble long ago.
Leper crept over to the corner of his building and pushed a chunk of cement aside, revealing a hole in the wall that Leper used as an entrance. Ducking through, Leper made sure the cement slab fell back into place behind him.
The stack’s two-story lobby had become a corpse, gutted and decomposing as the earth drew it in. What had once been a flat ceiling now angled steeply, forming a peak with the adjacent wall. Leper had long grown accustomed to the disorienting slant of the structure.
Steel framing stood bare, forming the skeletons of rooms along one side while the concrete on the outer walls attempted to keep out the wind. Woven plastic tarps covered a grid of small empty windows at the front, staining the sunlight orange as it filtered inside. Somehow the light made the barren room seem just a little warmer.
Leper’s few possessions were scattered across the firm dirt floor and makeshift furnishings were littered sparsely throughout. He kept only the essentials. As an andron, he had no use for a table unless it was a workbench, and the floor was as comfortable as any chair. It wasn’t much to look at, but it was hidden and private, and that was a luxury as far as the Afterworld was concerned.
High up on the back wall, there were only three windows, and they rarely got any light. The corner of the highest window’s tarp was flapping loosely in the wind. Leper rolled his eyes. The tarp had been a pain to secure in place and he didn’t have the patience to scale the wall and fix it again.
Back on task, Leper set the chitin petals on his workbench and shrugged off his cloak, hanging it on a piece of exposed rebar near the entrance. He retrieved a large metal power pack from the corner and set it down next to the petals. Its old red paint was chipped and faded and he had replaced the frayed black straps at least seven times. It had always reminded him of those old turtle-shell tactical supply packs, except for the metal arm that extended out the back to hold a wind wheel above his head.
With the arm extended, he inspected the damaged petals. One was starting to crack and another had broken off entirely. He pulled the pieces apart with deft fingers, screw by screw. In moments the damaged petals were loose from the machine and he swept them off the table into a pile of their fellow defects.
With long-practiced precision, Leper drilled holes at the base of the new petals and secured them to the wind wheel, replacing the broken ones. As usual, he gave it a test spin with his finger before greasing the joint.
With the wind wheel arm retracted and the pack propped back up, Leper reviewed his handiwork. The wheel looked whole again for the first time in months, like a blossoming flower. With rising anticipation, Leper threw on his cloak and slipped his arms through the pack’s straps. He reached over his shoulder and felt for the thick metal plug, tugging its retractable cord out from the top of the power pack’s casing. Quivering with excitement he clicked the plug firmly into the socket on the back of his head. Finally.
Leper pushed his way outside and plunged into the swirling wind. All around him it howled, whistling through old abandoned buildings and surfing along snowdrifts. With the flick of a switch, the wind wheel snapped up into place above his head, beginning to spin, slow at first, then faster. In the next moment, it became a spinning blur and the pack hummed with life as it generated power.
Blinking his shutters closed, Leper blocked out the light and let a surge of energy wash over him. It felt like taking a deep breath of fresh air. In an instant, he felt his fatigue leave him and all of the tension and strain in his body faded away with the pulse of the battery. Leper lifted his arms to accept the wind, and he could almost feel the air rushing between his fingers. Phantom chills swept across his body, as though he had skin with hair standing on end. He felt alive.
But it wasn’t enough.
Despite the vitality that filled him he could never disguise the truth. Even with the soul that pulsed within him, he was nothing more than a fabrication, an andron, like the soldiers and workers from before the world collapsed. He could watch the falling rain and hear its patter upon the ground but he could not smell the fresh earthy scent that followed. No matter what he endured, his face bore the same manufactured blank expression as always, two indiscernible round eyes peeking out through holes in a mask of hazy glass. He was numb to it all.
Skyscrapers, like lifeless husks, towered over him as he began to walk. Even the weight of the snow threatened their collapse. Aimless, Leper wandered. He knew that when he was fully charged he would have to unplug and the sense of vitality would end.
…
Leper found himself at the ravine again, standing at its edge. After so many journeys down into it, he no longer feared its depth. He was durable, but if he fell it could still kill him. Perhaps it would smash his central processor to pieces and leave his soul to drift in the void. Leper almost wanted to try. He leaned over the drop, imagining what it would be like to fall, completely surrendered to his fate.
In that moment he would either die, or he wouldn’t. Nothing he could do would slow his descent or prevent the impact. No choice he made would matter. No consequence would arrive unexpected. For just a few moments everything would be out of his hands. He would be free.
Alive.
He stood with his toes dangling over the precipice, waiting for his body to teeter forward and drift into nothing. Every second passed like a minute, but when he opened his shutters again he was still standing on the edge, motionless. Then clarity struck. What are you doing?
Soul pulsing, Leper seized the plug and yanked out his charging cord. The strange feeling inside of him vanished. He tumbled backward and sat hard in the snow, his vision swimming. This thing is starting to mess with my head. Above him, the wind wheel whirled uselessly.
For minutes Leper sat in the snow, glad for the apathy that consumed him again. It was for the best. Whatever feeling of vitality he gained by charging only brought hopeless yearning for a life that could never be attained. A yearning for a brief, volatile existence, plagued by cold and injury. Humans suffered. Leper existed.
Leper picked himself up off the ground and began the trek back to his hideout. The sun was low in the sky and soon it would be time to wait out the night. With the power pack repaired it looked like he was in for another few weeks of laying low and counting the seconds until he could charge again.
A sound stopped Leper in his tracks. It was a simple beeping, echoing softly from the ravine, but it shook Leper’s soul. It couldn’t be. A thousand possibilities flashed in Leper’s mind, but he knew better than to hope. I’ve scoured this entire city and found nothing! It isn’t possible.
Is it?
Leper ran to the edge, his soul pulsing as he listened for the sound. It was louder, closer. Without pause, he rappelled down the electrical line. With every leap downward the beeping grew closer. Closer. He hit the ground running, and clambering over the piles of scrap, he found himself at the ruins of the fallen tower. The beeping was louder than ever, but it wasn’t coming from the tower. Leper strained his receivers and tilted his head, trying to determine the direction of the noise. It was coming from underneath.
Piece by piece, Leper removed slabs of concrete and broken glass, digging into the mound. Leper froze. He had uncovered a slight gap in the debris. The pile was hollow. How did I miss this? With newfound energy, he cleared chunks of rubble and cement, tossing them to either side in a frenzy until there was a dark gaping hole before him. Somehow, a cavity had survived the earthquakes. It had even withstood the weight of an entire building falling on top of it. The beeping emanated from within.
Dropping his power pack, Leper got down on his hands and knees and squeezed himself into the hole, suddenly wary of the structural integrity of the ruins. It’s been around this long, he assured himself. With the flick of a switch, his light clicked on, illuminating gravel and scrap. Ahead, there was a tunnel leading down into darkness. Leper tried to ignore the intimacy of the walls as he pushed in, crawling on all fours. Further into the tunnel, the ceiling rose slightly and he had room to crouch. Every few steps there seemed to be a new dead end, but there was always some passage to squeeze through. Leper ducked under steel beams and clambered over mangled concrete scraps, all the while drawing nearer to the beeping.
Something crunched under Leper’s foot. When he looked down, color caught his eye. Scattered shards of stained glass, glittered in the gravel. Impossible. Has it been here this whole time? Nearby there was a heavy stone brick, half-buried but unmistakably ancient. It looked like an old keystone with the engravings long eroded. Leper picked up his pace, desperate to get to the source of the beeping. For the first time in fifty years, there was hope that he could find it, the very thing that had once been the sole purpose of his existence, the very thing he had searched for and given up on countless times.
It wasn’t long before he identified the twisted steel structure that was supporting the cavity, ready to buckle at any moment. The beeping was close. It was under his feet.
Leper knelt down and carefully brushed the gravel away, exposing the glint of metal behind chipped yellow paint. His soul kicked inside of him the moment he saw it. Part of him refused to believe it was real. Anxious, he brushed more gravel away, revealing a clouded glass window. It glowed, bathing the room with an eerie white light. Hands shaking, Leper heaved it out from the gravel and laid it on the ground.
Although it was beaten and scarred, there was no doubt that it was the one. All of a sudden, Leper’s search was over. He could hardly believe it was real. His sensors detected gentle vibrations as the pod hummed with life. It still worked.
One final extended whine concluded the beeping and the room was left in silence. A row of eight letters rolled into place along the pod’s controls in a rhythmic series of clicks.
C-O-M-P-L-E-T-E.
The latches popped open and the top half of the pod jumped slightly, spitting out dust and gravel that had plugged the crack. Cold white vapor pooled out from the open slit. Leper knelt, locked in place as the device invited him to open the lid. Fear racked his soul and his arms would not respond.
You’ve been waiting for this, he thought, Do it.
With nervous fingers, Leper reached down and grasped the lid. It squealed on ancient hinges and swiveled slowly upwards, unveiling its contents. For an endless moment, the inside was obscured by vapor, but as it drooled out of the pod a small form was revealed in the dissipating fog. It was as if the hum of the pod vibrated Leper’s soul and mind, mingling with the pulsing fear and anticipation as decades of waiting accumulated into one breathless second.
Lying still in the pod was a ten-year-old girl.