Reunion: Chapter 15

  Under the watchful eye of Molly and her guards, Kathryn unfurled the scroll and tapped out a comm request to the New Horizon.  Jaren’s face appeared immediately.  

  “Kathryn!” The face on the screen uttered.  “Oh, thank the lord, are you alright?”

  “Yes Jaren, I’m fine, everything’s fine.  In fact, I’ve made a new friend who would like to meet you.  She’s made us an offer which I think you and Teresa are definitely going to want to hear.  If you two agree to come down and discuss it with us I will then be free to leave with you again.”

  Jaren’s eyes narrowed slightly in suspicion.  “Or we will be two additional valuable hostages.  It’s what they did to you.”

  “The men can be savages,” Molly said loudly enough for Jaren to hear.  “But I will personally guarantee your safety and free passage.”

  “Who was that?” Jaren asked.

  “Well, uh…” Kathryn said looking back at her momentarily, “our new friend,” she answered optimistically.

  Jaren looked to the side at someone off screen and nodded while sighing in resignation.   “Very well.  We’ll come down right now.  We’ll bring another cure for you as well while we’re at it.  I assume you weren’t able to get the transdermic from earlier?  The sooner we can treat you the better.”

  “Right,” Kathryn remembered with renewed concern from their botched rescue attempt.   “They talk about a plague here, that it wiped out most of the population, that the survivors are just those who happened to have a natural immunity.  It must persist in the environment because apparently some of their children still die from it.”

  “Yes right, that’s what we figured out ourselves and were trying to tell you.   You don’t have that immunity, none of us do.  We were all infected.  New Horizon’s medical tubes couldn’t detect it, but Koboli tech could and Nadelle was able to create a cure.  Untreated you only have a few days left until you would otherwise die from it.”

  Kathryn looked at Molly, who nodded both gravely and knowingly.

  “Very well,” Kathryn acknowledged.  “I’ll meet you at the main entrance to the dam.  You can land just beyond it, and I’ll show you down here.”

  “We’ll be there in twenty minutes.  See you soon.”  He hastily closed the channel, presumably to be able to get to her as soon as possible without wasting any moments in between.

  “He loves you,” Molly observed matter-of-factly.

  Kathryn looked down with a wry smile and almost blushed.  “Yeah…  You could tell?” she looked up and asked.

  “I was designed to be an expert,” Molly dryly observed.  

  “Of course.”

  “But I didn’t need to be with that one,” she added.

  “Yeah…” Kathryn acknowledged with a stifled laugh.  She could admit to herself how happy she was that she was going to see him again so soon.

  Molly reached over and pressed a button on the arm rest panel of her chair on the side where she was missing an arm.  “Patricia,” was all she said.  

  One of the guards leaned over to say something in Molly’s ear.  She seemed annoyed at his audacity at first, then softened after hearing what he had to say.  “Kathryn,” she said.

  “Yes?”

  “This cure that was spoken of.  Too many of the human’s young still die from the plague soon after being born.  We will want to negotiate for access to that as well.”

  “I have no doubt it would be our honour to help our Terran cousins,” Kathryn answered diplomatically.

  Kathryn heard the clanging of the heavy door and not long after Patricia came into view and joined them.  “You have served me well bringing this one to me.  She is to be treated as an honoured guest, as are her friends who will be landing and joining her shortly.  Please escort Kathryn to the top of the dam and greet her friends with her.  You will then bring them all down to meet me, and clearly instruct the men to not interfere.  Do you understand?”

  “Yes Mol,” Patricia answered with a slight bow.  Kathryn found herself both impressed and disturbed by her absolute and unquestioning loyalty.  

  “Good.   Go on then.”

   

  As instructed, Patricia led Kathryn and her two male escorts up the stairs again to the top of the dam and over to the nearby clearing.  Not long afterwards they saw Jaren’s ship high up in the sky rapidly descending towards them, and then dramatically reduce its velocity as it approached the ground, coming to a near stop just above the ground before softly touching down.  When a part of the side fell forward to form a ramp, Jaren fearlessly emerged, walked quickly over to Kathryn, and embraced her so tightly that her eyes widened, and it momentarily became a little difficult for Kathryn to breathe.  He let up soon enough for her be able to resume breathing, but held her quite tightly still, rocking with her sideways back and forth for a long lingering moment.

  “Thank the lord you’re safe,” he said quietly in her ear.  “I was so worried about you.”

  “I know Jaren,” she said as she set him a distance from her with her hands on his upper arms.  “I know, but I’m fine, everything’s fine now,” she said with a smile as she put a hand to his cheek.  “And I’ve made a wonderful discovery,” she said with excited sparkles in her eyes.

  While Jaren got himself acquainted with the idea that everything really was okay now, Kathryn noticed Teresa and Felix approach from behind him.  As soon as Jaren gave way, Felix immediately subbed in and gave her a big bear hug, lifting her up off of the ground and twirling her all the way around.  “Way to still be alive, kid,” he said in a teasing tone.

  When he set her back down on the ground, Jaren pulled a transdermic out of his pocket and held it to her arm.  A small plastic bell created a suction in the void above her skin into which a skin dilating vapour was emitted, it permitted the cure for the plague to be readily absorbed into her bloodstream when it was secondly released against her skin.  The entire process took only a few seconds before he pulled the device away and she rubbed the spot for a moment as Teresa put her hand on her shoulder and smiled an appreciative smile.  “It’s good to see you again Captain,” she warmly offered.   Kathryn put her own hand on hers and nodded in acknowledgement.

  “Judging from how things went when we first met, I’m guessing this isn’t your new friend?” Jaren said with a motion of his head towards Patricia.

  “No, but she does work for her,” Kathryn explained.  “She’s a simulant Jaren, a sexim actually,” Kathryn added as she momentarily looked over at the dam.  “She’s very likely the last functioning simulant in existence, and… and only barely still functioning at that.”

  “What’s a simulant?” Teresa asked.  The moderately confused look on Jaren’s face signaled his own lack of understanding as well.

  “Oh.  I guess you wouldn’t have any records of them, would you?  Well, simulants were synthetic humans constructed on Earth during the era our missions left.  They were designed to be completely indistinguishable from humans, and when the New Horizon mission departed, they’d reached that level quite completely.   Some were constructed based on real living people, and others were novel units designed from scratch.  The founders of Haven colony, the most revered figures in our history, were actually simulants of the four original principal mission founders.”

  “I had no idea…” Jaren said with obvious uncertainty.  Still, the implications became quite clear to him.  “Wait, so you’re saying that down in that dam, the voice I heard on your scroll…” he shook his head trying to get the words out through is disbelief, “is a six-hundred-year-old artificial human?”

  “Yes!   Well, probably a bit older actually, but-”

  “That’s… perverse,” he interrupted.

  “What do you mean?” she asked.  It was an entirely unexpected reaction.

  “To try to duplicate God’s highest creation, I… I don’t know how I feel about that.”

  Kathryn gave him a curious look.  She knew that he came from a religious planet, heard him reference it in some of his exclamations, but she’d never been confronted with this side of him before.   She chose to believe that it was more of a reflexive response to an unexpected revelation, and that with time his better sense would win over.  She would certainly be happy to help him if he needed a little reassurance.

  “Well…” she started, unsure of how to navigate the unexpected tension, “you’ll have plenty of time to ponder the metaphysics later.  In the meantime, we’re all going down to meet her.”

  Jaren had an expression she had trouble reading but he protested no further.

   

  As the group made their way into the dam past the guards and down the stairwell, Kathryn explained that Molly’s body had been severely damaged and degraded over the centuries.  She explained what her demands were in exchange for telling them what she could about what happened to Earth since the last time New Horizon’s physical archive was updated on the way to Haven.  It would help that the volatile archives on the New Horizon had been nearly sixty percent restored after a few data bursts from Kobol at this point, with new updates being received every twelve hours as updates were transmitted through the rift.

  Jaren immediately understood the importance of this opportunity and seemed to put whatever reservations he had about the concept of an artificial human being itself aside for the time being.  They passed the second set of guards and entered the turbine room.  Despite the clear warnings of her appearance from Kathryn, the others were all visibly taken aback when she came into view.

  “Did you tell them I used to be beautiful?” Molly asked Kathryn, all too literally betraying her naked vulnerability and sensitivity around her appearance in front of her new visitors.

  “Yes Molly, I did.  They all know.  And we’ve all agreed to do whatever we can to help restore you.”

  Molly wept.   Kathryn thought she understood.   It wasn’t sadness, it wasn’t pain or regret.  It was sobs of relief, relief over having hope for the first time in centuries.   This morning she could only have assumed that this was her existence, to slowly degrade more and more until there was nothing left, and she finally went fully offline.  To be without hope whatsoever of escaping her tragic and tortured existence, to have no reason to believe there could ever be any hope, and then for a morsel to unexpectedly fall out of the sky, for them promise to make your cause their own… the tears seemed understandable.

  It was still a bit awkward though.  The guards remained stoic, Patricia respectfully looked towards the ground, but the rest of them could only watch as this mangled remaining half of a body sobbed.  Her head was low, the low mournful sobs reverberated throughout the enormous concrete room as they watched a stream of tears roll down the remaining half of her face and her exposed remaining breast shudder along with her shaking as she wept until she finally exhausted herself and began to calm down.  Kathryn had never seen someone be so fully exposed, her… absolute disregard for what anyone thought of her emotional expression.  She found herself envying her that freedom after a lifetime of keeping herself in check.  She recognized that in some strange discrete way she loved her for it, and her perfunctory obligation to help her became an internal imperative.

  “You may go Patricia, thank you.” she softly commanded after regaining her composure.   The young woman retreated from the room with their escorts, but the two male guards on either side of Molly’s throne remained.  “Step forward,” she said to Jaren and Teresa.

  They obliged and stepped up to greet her.  “As official representatives of the planets Kobol and Roma,” Teresa opened, “we offer you our greetings, and we graciously accept your kind offer of friendship and cooperation.”

  “Good…” Molly acknowledged with a nod.  “Diplomatic,” she added dryly, “but good.”

  Molly seemed to pick up on something about Jaren and scrutinized him further.  “You have a problem,” she stated.

  He was looking away and trying not to betray anything.

  “You are the Mormon?” she asked.

  “We don’t really-” he hesitated but continued.  “We don’t really use that term anymore,” he explained almost sheepishly.   “But yes, I am the Koboli representative.  Our ancestors were members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and many of us still are.”

  “So, what’s your problem with me Mormon?  My nakedness?”  

  Jaren cringed.   Kathryn had no idea why Molly was being so hostile, but she knew she needed to intervene.

  “If I may Molly,” she offered, stepping up beside Jaren.  “The Koboli and Roman people had forgotten that simulants ever existed.  You are a new concept for them, and they are still working on reconciling your existence with their beliefs.”  She really hoped Teresa would grant spreading Jaren’s discomfort on her shoulders as well.   “I’m confident with a little time they’ll get used to the idea.”

  “Is that it Jaren?” she asked.  He nodded his acknowledgement with certainty but no enthusiasm.

  Molly scrutinized him for several moments.  “Very well,” she finally said.  “I’m actually a pretty sweet girl once you get to know me,” she said with a playful wink to Jaren.

  ‘Oh man is she going to be a handful,’ Kathryn thought as she looked down and shook her head.   She was relieved when Felix stepped forward to speak to her.

  His head was still looking down at the screen of his scroll as he approached.  She wondered if he’d even been aware of the tension he interrupted.  “It looks like there is supposed to be detailed data in New Horizon’s archives regarding the construction and maintenance of simulants,” he offered.   “A quick scan turned up fragmentary information, which suggests more complete information exists which we just haven’t received yet.  Next chance I get I’ll request the Koboli recovery team to prioritize data on simulants in any way they can.”  He looked up at Molly.  “Even so though, the required technical expertise is…” he looked around, “well, beyond any of us to be honest,” he admitted as he waved the scroll in Jaren and in Teresa’s direction.

  “I understand,” Molly said, “but with time… if I had an appropriate laboratory and enough technical details, I could learn to do the work for myself, or adequately instruct others in what I can’t do for myself.”

  “As for your internal fusion core,” Jaren offered while thoughtfully rubbing his chin, now seemingly more invested in the technical puzzle confronting them than any tensions between them, “I don’t think have anything off the shelf on Kobol which would be appropriate to the job, but with the relevant specifications from New Horizon’s archives regarding dimensions, capacity, output… and with a good look at your original defective unit I have no doubts at all that we could create an appropriate replacement micro core for you.”

  “Excellent!” Molly’s expression so visibly brightened to hear this that her excitement was contagious.

  “In the meantime though,” he added, “one of the anti-matter batteries we brought with us should be able to serve as an external but quite reliably portable power source for you right away.  Even the left-over power in one of batteries we used getting some of Orbital One’s systems up and running again would probably be able to keep you going for several years at least.”

  “I…” Molly started to say but seemed unsure how to say what she really wanted to.   “Thank you,” she opted to say instead.   After a moment, her eyes lit up upon processing another part of what he’d said.  “Orbital One?” Molly marveled, “you’ve been there?”

  “Yes,” Teresa answered matter of factly.  She hadn’t said much since being introduced to Molly and Kathryn found herself wondering what she was making of all this.  Her expressions were so locked down.

  “I remember it well,” Molly recounted, seeming overcome with nostalgia.  “I remember when Orbital Two came down.  Those were… dark years.  Literally.” she remarked with a raise of her remaining eyebrow.

  “As for your… body,” Jaren said, struggling through a touch of awkwardness in the required phrasing.  “As discussed, we have no immediate way to help you, I’m afraid.  We don’t know anything about how you work or how to construct anything like you.  With your help though, and with years or even decades of studying what’s… left of you, which I dare say you probably still have, we may be able to create a rudimentary replacement for your limbs, but… I suspect anything more sophisticated would take several decades or more of dedicated research, even with more detailed data from New Horizon’s archives.  Plus…” he trailed off.

  “What?” Molly quickly asked when he hesitated.

  “Such research, on my world it could create some… political tensions,” he admitted.  “Our religion is still a very potent force on my world and there are many who would object to such a project.  We’re also currently led by a president who isn’t exactly known for taking political risks.”

  “I see,” Molly stated, equal parts understanding and contempt.

  “Haven technology is… well, simple by comparison to the Romans and Koboli,” Felix admitted to Molly,” but we would relish the opportunity to study you and do anything we could to help restore you.  It would take us much longer to get up to speed of course but, well… we revere our simulant founders as, well not gods per se, but certainly something closer to that than ourselves.  Restoring you for us would be a labour of love and respect.  We would cherish that opportunity.”

  “And yet,” Molly lamented, “if it could take them decades it could easily take you a century…”  She put her hand to her mouth in thought.  “There may be another possibility which would suit me even better.   On the coast to the south lay the ruins of a once great city, a place we used to call Vancouver.  Somewhere in what is left of that city remains the laboratory where I was created.  While there’s no chance of there just happening to be an intact Molly unit just waiting there for me, there may still be intact replacement arms and legs and such.   If we were extraordinarily lucky there may even be a different abandoned but nearly complete simulant body which I could be moved into with some work, but that seems too much to hope for.”

  “If we provide you with a new power source,” Kathryn asked, “and make every effort to find these spare parts for you, and promise to conduct all of the required research and development to fully restore you eventually if we can’t find them, will you promise to provide us with all of the history you know?  If we commit to doing the research, however long it takes, will you honour our agreement?”

  Molly considered the question carefully.  “If you provide me with a new power supply in short order, and make the attempt to restore me now, if… you will bring me the sun again, I will provide you with the most essential details.  The full recounting of everything I know, my full recollection and legacy though, will be withheld until I am adequately restored, or until I feel I can trust you enough to be assured that you will continue your efforts to help me regardless.   Is this acceptable to you?”

  Kathryn, Jaren, and Teresa looked at each other and all nodded.  “Yes Molly, it is.” Kathryn stated.

  “Outstanding,” Molly acknowledged.

  “I should be able to get our other shuttle to extract a power cell from Orbital One and get it down here within an hour,” Jaren explained.

   

  True to his word, less than an hour later Irvina had ordered a fresh battery installed into Orbital One, and personally brought down to Jaren the used one.  She was accompanied by Francis, who stayed behind with the surface team in case his engineering expertise might be required to help the others connect it to Molly.

  “Now one way or another, with no battery backup your systems are going to lose power when we switch you over from the local power supply to this battery,” Jaren explained.  “What’ll happen when that happens?”

  “I will appear to die,” she explained, “but when power has been restored, I should finish rebooting within a few minutes.  “If not, you will need to hard boot me by pinching hard the skin between my thumb and finger, then pressing both of my back molar.  It is also possible to do this by tinkering with my brain case, but I’d quite prefer you didn’t do that if you don’t know what you’re doing.”

  “Perfectly understandable,” Jaren said with his usual friendly smile, seeming more comfortable with her existence by the minute.

  Molly, not charmed one bit, warned him: “you should know though, that if I don’t wake up, the guards here will believe that you’ve killed me and will take swift vengeance on you.  No matter what I might tell them ahead of time, you would not make it out of this room alive.”

  Jaren’s smile dissipated and he nodded that he understood.  Molly provided him with the exact voltage and amperage which her body required and told them where nearby they could find a plug which matched the port on her chest.  They were able to connect the plug to the power source and dial in the exact energy specifications as Kathryn and Teresa watched on.

  “We’re ready,” Jaren informed her in a serious tone.

  “Go ahead,” Molly commanded with intensity as she lowered head and stared her eye intently into space.

  Jaren and Felix lifted the half meter long battery onto her lap, awkwardly resting it where her leg was missing up over the remaining one.  They held their breath as Jaren unplugged her existing power supply.  Her gritted look forward gave way to a complete absence of any kind of expression as the last drops of life drained out of her.  Jaren then carefully plugged the new power source into her chest, and after pressing a few buttons on the battery everyone seemed to hold their breath as they waited to see what happened.  Nothing did for almost two minutes, and they observed the guards begin to murmur amongst themselves, Jaren began considering attempting the hard boot up process she had described to him.

  Before he could decide this was necessary though, her eye bolted wide open and she sat up with a sharp, deep gasp.  The suddenness of her revival while studying her so closely the rest of them to jump back over a meter in their startle, making Kathryn and Teresa laugh from further away.  Molly seemed to regain her composure, and when she realized what had been done, and that it had been successful, she thanked them and assured them that it had worked perfectly.  A plethora of wide grins and congratulatory handshakes ensued as Molly looked down at her new portable lifeline.

  “Years you say?” she softly asked Jaren.

  “That’s right,” he assured her, “and congratulations.  Like I said, I’m confident that by the time that wears out we’ll have designed a replacement internal unit for you.”

  “Thank you,” she said simply.  “I can’t…” she sighed.  Words seemed to fail her adequately expressing her gratitude, so she gave up trying.  “I’d like to see the sun now,” she requested with renewed vulnerability.  It was the first time she seemed to be making a request of friends instead of demands of her subordinates.

  Her guards lifted her with the battery in her lap into a chair with which they could more easily carry her.  With the expedition team members following behind, they carried her over to the door and Patricia, along with her escorts and the door guards, they all joined the parade behind her as they ascended the stairs.

  When the upper door opened and natural sunlight fell on Molly, she began openly weeping again out of her one large brown eye.  Her guards set her down on the grass in the full glory of the late afternoon sun, and all of the rest of them let her be for some time as she continued to sob with the intensity of her relief.  Patricia and her guards stood stoically in reverence of the moment, and the New Horizon team did their best to join them.  She had been trapped in her sunless dungeon for so long, to be free now after only yesterday having no hope of ever being so was too much for her to keep contained.  

  “I was never a natural leader,” she admitted when her tears settled.  “I was never designed that way…  Confident sure, capable certainly, but the burden of leading these people and being responsible for their survival and safety for so long has been so much to bear, especially from down there in her lonely depths.  It hardened me, made me someone I didn’t like.”   She reached out for Kathryn’s hand, and she took it.  Her one eye looked up at her with all possible sincerity.  “Thank you,” she said again.  She looked towards Jaren and the others and added: “to all of you.   Today is the beginning of a new order, a new and richer reality for all of us.

  “Patricia,” she let go of Kathryn’s hand and reached for her priestess’.  The young woman knelt in front of her with a reverently bowed head.

  “I am happy for you beyond words Leader,” she offered, near tears herself.  “This is a momentous day, is it not?”

  “It is child, it is… now take me to the village, I want to see my people.  Tonight, there will be a great feast in honour of our guests and new friends.  Spare no luxury we have to offer, both the finest goods we have scavenged and created for ourselves, understand?  This is a day to be remembered for many generations.”

  “Yes Leader,” the woman said, emotion overwhelming her.

  “These noble travelers have come home,” Molly told her people, “and they have pledged to help us.  This is a glorious reunion, child.  The family has finally been put back together.  We have a future again.”

  “Yes, Leader.”

   

  True to her word, the celebration was beyond anything the villagers had ever known in their lives.  Not only were the reserves of their locally produced alcohol and cannabis nearly entirely depleted over the course of the night, but later in the evening they’d even broken into the especially sacred store of wines from the before time.   They laughed and giggled to themselves opening six-hundred-year-old bottles of wine.  Some were rancid, some were outright vinegar, but they found a few which were remarkably drinkable.

  The gigantic bonfire at the centre of their settlement started out as a pyre twice the height of a person, and the villagers spent most of the night taking turns dancing around it in various states of undress.  Some came to the effort with wild unstructured enthusiasm, while others attempted to replicate the ceremonial dances their elders had passed down to them.  Molly and the surface New Horizon crew were gathered around one of the smaller fires nearby talking as the smell of the full deer roasting on a spit over the fire wafted past them in concert with the smoke.

  Molly’s personal guards remained fully lucid and still watched intently as Jaren sat down quite close to Molly to speak with her in relative privacy.  Kathryn watched him do so and being so close she could still make out what they were saying.

  “You don’t like me, do you?” he asked.

  Molly looked at him for a while as she considered the question.  “I don’t like men,” she clarified matter-of-factly. 

  “I see,” Jaren nodded.  “Because of your… origins.”

  “That’s right,” Molly answered carefully, and then after a moment’s hesitation.  “You don’t like me much either do you?” she asked him.

  Jaren leaned back into his hands with his palms in the dirt behind him.  His eyebrows raised momentarily as he considered the accusation.  Kathryn was entranced watching the shifting light of the fire dance across both of them.   “I wouldn’t characterize it in quite that way.  I find your existence… disquieting perhaps, a challenge to my view of myself, a potential political concern back home.  It isn’t anything personal, in fact I like you more the better I get to know you.  I think that my encountering any simulant would have elicited a similar reaction.  I suspect it is similar for you when I showed up as any given unfamiliar man.”

  “Hmm…” Molly considered somewhat dismissively as she took a drink from her cup while staring into the dancing fire. 

  As the sun sank Patricia came over and put a blanket over her.  It seemed an expression of affection as much as a concern for her comfort.  Between Molly’s comfort sitting naked in front of everyone and the bodies dancing about the campfires likewise in various conditions of nakedness, Kathryn was fascinated by their total disinhibition about it.  She found herself wondering if all of Earth had become this way.  More likely she thought, was that it was Molly’s influence that had disinhibited this particular group in this way. 

   

  “Tell me…” Jaren carefully asked, “can you come to trust a man?”  

  Molly shrugged.  “It’s been known to happen every century or two” she answered with a wry smile.

  “Then I shall endeavour to do whatever I can to help you learn to trust me.  I wish us to be allies, friends even…” he looked over at Kathryn with an expression she couldn’t quite identify.  “I hope to make you trust that even if you had nothing to provide us with, we would do whatever we could to help you regardless.”

  “Especially never trust a man who tells you he wants to make you trust him,” she snorted.   “I find that very hard to believe.   I mean why would you?” she asked.   “Everything in human interaction is an exchange, everything is political.”

  Jaren chortled and leaned forward again.  He took some moments of his own to stare into the fire and watch the deer slowly rotate over it.  “I’m going to be honest with you Molly.  When I first learned of your existence, I was… not just disquieted.  I was utterly aghast.”

  She looked at him with curiosity in her eye.  Kathryn could see how beautiful she must have been when intact and undamaged, how easily one could be taken in by the mistiness of those large mournful brown eyes looking up at you with her long, thick lashes.  “Why?” she asked.  If one could focus on the parts of her that were still intact, one could still see how achingly beautiful she must have indeed once been.   Even in the state she’d been left in, when not playing the hardened uncompromising monarch, she was soft and vulnerable, even her most casual gaze seemed to be stare into the deepest depths of one’s soul with compassion and sympathy.

  “My people have come a long way since we left Earth,” Jaren explained.  “Our religion is more our culture than our belief system at this point.  Most who would say they believe would do so uncritically, something claimed reflexively as a member of our community more than something they consider, live, and breathe intently every day.  Certainly a great many still take it very seriously, but for most of us our custom is to speak as though we do more than live as though we do.  The deeper parts of me that more firmly internalized the religious teachings in my youth cried out when I learned about you.  Not you in particular, but your kind more broadly.   We had forgotten that simulants ever existed.  We brought no records of their existence, and over the generations we managed to forget completely, perhaps we wanted to forget.

  “The idea of a perfectly simulated human being seemed to be… such a direct challenge to God itself,” he explained.  “If nothing else, it is God who creates people, if not their bodies, then their… well, soul for lack of a better word.  If humans can create something indistinguishable from a human being, something so close an approximation that we would assume that it had a… soul, to meet them and for their artificiality to never betray itself… I suppose it felt like there was no space left for God in the genesis of a person at all.”

  “Maybe that’s something to think about,” Molly offered matter of factly as she took a drink.

  “It is,” Jaren agreed thoughtfully, “and I have been, believe me.”

  Silence passed as they both stared into the licking orange flames, seeming to both be seeing their whole lives relived in the dancing licks of flames Kathryn saw reflecting in their eyes.

  “The more I think about it though, the more…” Jaren started to say before trailing off.   “See, my people are so technologically advanced compared to the other colonies because we consider technological advancement to be a primary commandment from God.  From the very beginning the goal was always to strive to become ever more godlike in our morality and behaviour and at some point, after landing on Kobol that became re-interpreted as an imperative to become ever more God like in our technological powers as well.  We sought to build ever more powerful tools, but we never once thought about attempting to duplicate God’s powers of human creation, the power which created you.”

  Molly kept her gaze in the fire but seemed quite interested in listening to what he had to say.

  “My people had to be coerced into coming here by the other colonies.  We had no interest in Earth because we detected no technology here which we could learn from.  That has changed now, for me at least.  I was curious enough to want to participate, but I didn’t really get it until now.  

  “After my initial shock at your existence, I realize now that even if we never choose to construct fully fledged simulants ourselves, our understanding of your construction and function would be a vast leap for us in any number of other areas.   The discovery of you I believe will if nothing else mean that my people will be more interested in Earth now, more intrigued now by what they can learn here and what powers they can newly harness from understanding you and your kind better.  So yes, we all want to know everything you can tell us about the history of Earth from the time New Horizon left to present, but my people especially will want to help you restore yourself regardless of that because of what they can learn technologically from helping you so.  But beyond that,” he looked over at her and she met his gaze, “I want to help you now that I’ve met you.”

  “I understand,” Molly acknowledged with a nod.  “You haven’t earned my trust yet Mormon, but you might’ve opened a door.”

  Jaren smiled and a puff of air escaped through his nose in the cold as his smile was accompanied by the hint of a laugh.

  Sensing their conversation seeming to reach a natural stopping point, Kathryn came around the fire to them and sat on the other side of Molly.

  “Molly, we know from our orbital observations that there are a number of small encampments like this one spread out all over the world.  Do you ever come into contact with any of the others?”

  “Not directly, no,” she answered.  “Our most frequent interactions are when our scavenging parties come across those from another village in the ruins one of the closer ancient cities.  More often than not violence ensues, but what else would you expect.  They are all men after all.”

  Kathryn wrinkled her brow at this generalization.  It was starting to grate at her now that their interactions were more secure.  “I see.   So how do you think the others would react to coming across us?”

  “I honestly don’t know,” Molly admitted.  “I’ve been locked in that dam for the better part of two centuries, and when the scavenging parties return, they have little more to offer than casualty reports.  You probably know more about them than I do just from your ability to observe them from orbit.”

  “You know Jaren,” Kathryn said past Molly, “I was thinking; so much has happened so far, it would probably be wise to check in with our home worlds before launching any new expeditions south, offer them an update on our progress before proceeding.”

  “You’re probably right,” Jaren agreed.  “Of course, there’s always the possibility that for whatever reason we might be told not to engage in any such new efforts and return home instead.  We have after all achieved our primary mission of determining why Earth went dark.  They may want to rush us home and take that political win as it is.”

  Kathryn smirked.  “I think if they tried to pull something like that, they would find that we’d suddenly had some inexplicable communications interference.  It’s the darndest thing how equipment can just go on the fritz like that sometimes.

  Jaren laughed.   “Quite true Captain.”  ‘Captain’ came with a wink.

  “I find that quite unlikely anyways,” Kathryn added, “at least from my people.”

  Jaren tilted his head to the side with a raised eyebrow, indicating that he wasn’t so sure of the higher ups in his own command chain.  “My higher ups tend to let people on the ground take whatever risks they consider appropriate and worthwhile to take.  This is a unique situation though.”

  They watched as one of the men from the camp began flaying strips of meat off the deer carcass over the fire.  Kathryn wasn’t sure why she was surprised they had plates when he came over and handed one to Molly first, then Kathryn and Jaren.

  “So,” Kathryn said, turning again to what was left of the simulant.  “What are you willing to tell us about what happened to Earth?”

  The simulated woman lifted the piece of meat and took a bite out of it.  Her pleasure at having it in her mouth, tasting it as she chewed was clear on her face.

  “I’m surprised you eat,” Kathryn observed.  “I mean we eat to power our bodies, woefully inefficient compared to that antimatter battery in your lap.”

  Molly winked at her as she tore another piece of meat off with her teeth.  “Still tastes good,” she said.  “You have to remember the primary conceit behind our creation was a perfect mimickery of humanity.  I get hungry when I don’t eat, same as you.  I even simulate death if I go too long without it.  I taste it and am as satisfied with it as you are.”  She put the plate down and swallowed the piece she’d bitten off after a bit more thoughtful chewing.  

  “You’re right of course,” she said, returning to Kathryn’s original question.  “There was indeed a plague.  Nobody knew where it had come from or how it had been created, there… was simply no time to study it before everyone died.  People seemed fine for a week or so after being infected, and then suddenly dropped dead the next day.  Billions dead… billions,” her eye widened and revealed her to be lost in unpleasant remembrance.  “Can you even imagine what it’s like to walk the streets of a city with twenty million fresh corpses?” she asked.

  Kathryn and Jaren just looked at each other with a shiver up their spines.  Sensing that it was story time, the rest of the New Horizon crew and some locals gathered around to hear her.

  “Pretty much everyone who died from it on Earth did so withing a week of the first death.   There was no time for civilization to break down.  Instead, it just… ended, midsentence.  For quite some time we simulants thought we were the only survivors.  Our programming is designed to recognize infectious agents and simulate the effects on us.  Our deaths are only simulated but unlike the humans we can be reactivated.  This disease though… it was designed to be undetectable to modern medicine.  This made it also pass unnoticed by our systems.

  “We thought we might be the only survivors, and for a time we contemplated how empty and shallow a fate that would be.  We who could not reproduce and didn’t know how to manufacture more of ourselves.  We were left to just wander the Earth in ever dwindling numbers until finally the last of us inevitably went offline.

  “But then a miracle happened” she said.  “We came across humans survivors.  At first we thought maybe they were just simulants who had gone mad enough and come to believe themselves to be human but no, honest to goodness flesh and blood human beings.  We cherished them as the miracles they were.  We tried to lead them, tried to gather them up in one place and rebuild what we could of civilization, but…” she shook her head.  “Supplies were limited.  Our whole food supply chain had become so technological that specialized technicians were required to generate everything from lettuce to meat.

  “After the first riotous frenzy of hostility, the outbreaks of murders, theft, hoarding… we realized that what we’d originally hoped for would be impossible.   My husband and I gathered up our descendants along with some others and headed here.  We had a lot more technology left over back in those days, and energy to power them was the scarcer resource.  Dams such as the one where you found me were some one of the few remaining reliable sources of power.

  “Some other simulants did the same, and-“

  “Sorry to interrupt you,” Felix apologetically interjected, “but you said had a husband?   Descendants?”

  “Yes,” she answered nostalgically.  “His name was Colin.  He was a simulation of an Australian man who owned and operated a casino and bar on Orbital One.   He died several hundred years ago after falling from a great height and damaging his brain beyond repair.  There was nothing we could do…” her great sadness was obvious.  “Long before that though, well before the plague, we were the first simulants in history to commission a human child of our own out of sorrow at our own inability to reproduce but, well… that’s a story for another time.  And yes, some of the people here are descendants of that child, like Patricia here.” Molly gestured to Patricia who was sitting on a large log by the fire, somehow still managing to keep her pretty dress still immaculate.   Her smile was warm and serene with pride when Molly drew attention to her lineage, and the New Horizon crew all nodded a new understanding of the relationship between the two.

  “That’s really all there is to tell,” Molly stated indifferently.  “We made a life for ourselves here as best as we could.  We still scavenged what we could find from the nearer small old towns near here, but it wasn’t long before we’d scavenged everything we could form them and had to risk mounting ever more dangerous expeditions south to the ruins of Vancouver.  We had to learn from scratch how to farm, how to keep animals, how to build shelters, all the things which were completely unknown to us as pampered high tech city dwellers.  The early years were very rough ones, and we lost a lot of really good people, but as you can see…” she looked around with a note of pride, “we came through in the end.   I’d like to think that we are thriving all things considered.”

  “What became of the other simulants?” Jaren asked.

  “We kept in contact for some time,” Molly explained.  “We were a network of saviours for the remaining humans, sharing what information we could about what we’d found and newly learned and discovered.   One by one though they stopped answering my comm requests… either they themselves broke down or their comm devices did.   The last I was still in contact with though, I never heard from again after the Years of the Falling Sky.”

  “What is that?” Kathryn asked, reflexively tilting her head slightly to the side in curiosity.

  “Just one particular era we survived and still reference…” she recalled.  “A century after the plague struck, all the larger things in orbit started falling down on us.  The most catastrophic event was when Orbital Two came down and hit the lands far to the East of here.  After that critical communications relay crashed down, I never heard from another simulant ever again.  That was four hundred years ago.”

  “So… it’s possible that some of the other simulants have survived and you just lost contact with them,” Felix observed.

  “Possible yes,” Molly conceded, “but the odds are quite against even my own survival.” she said.  “I shouldn’t even still be around.”

  “Can you tell us more about what happened before the plague?” Teresa asked.

  “No,” Molly answered matter-of-factly.  “I increasingly trust you people but I’m not ready to show all of my cards here yet.   Besides, the night grows late.”   She looked over to the main fire and saw that half of her people had collapsed in exhaustion or from too much drink or smoke in the now twilight.  “My people have prepared beds for you to spend the night with us.”

  “With… all due respect,” Jaren offered diplomatically, “we should really be get-”

  “What he means to say,” Kathryn cut him off, “is that we would be honoured to be your guests tonight.  In the morning we will return to our ship and report our progress to our home worlds through the rift.  Molly you’re welcome to join us on the ship while we do so if you’d like.”  She had no idea if she’d accept.

  “I… I haven’t been to orbit for over six hundred years.  I’m torn,” she admitted.  “Torn by my desire to get as far away from my prison as possible, and my reluctance to abandon my people.  Thank you, Kathryn.  I may take you up on your offer, but I think I need the night to sleep on it.   Patricia!”

  The young woman stood up and flowed in her blue bird print dress to her side.  “Please show our guests to the beds we’ve prepared for them.”

  Patricia nodded and held out her hand in invitation to lead them.  The New Horizon crew lifted themselves to their feet and followed her to their cabins.

  Kathryn didn’t get much sleep that night.  Not only were the provided beds quite uncomfortable compared to what they were used to (especially when not drugged unconscious), but her thoughts dwelled on Molly’s nightmarish story.  It was the story of the end of all things, something feared in the deep primal heart of her human psyche.  When she was able to fall asleep, she found herself the last living being in a city of twenty million corpses, desperately and frantically searching for one other living being to assure her against the absolute loneliness, but finding none.