"We should get moving," Saidan said, reluctantly pulling himself away. "That crack in the ceiling could allow radioactive material to enter this chamber."
"True enough." I picked up my pack, and with one glance back at Little Sister, we left the chamber. We started to follow the narrow underground tunnels with nothing but a chemical glow-stick to light our way in the darkness. With a few simple actions, we had ushered in a dark age for Valeria.
I looked at Saidan as we wandered through the maze of tunnels. He walked with his head down, looking only at his feet. He'd had to make a difficult choice, to sacrifice some of his own people so that we might destroy Little Sister. He had chosen death over slavery. It would be something he would wonder about for the rest of his life, I knew, and there was nothing I could say to ease the burden on his shoulders. More would yet die, those above ground who didn't heed the warnings about radiation. The next few days would determine the life and death of an entire world.
If someone had told me back on Earth that the fate of a world would rest on my shoulders, I would have laughed at their obvious hyperbole. Yet here I was, walking with the lover I'd claimed I'd never need, saving a world that had come to depend on my actions.
We stopped to rest for a while. Neither of us was hungry, but we forced ourselves to eat a protein bar each to keep our strength up. We continued walking along the tunnels, sometimes stopping to look into side rooms to see if there might be any hint of where we were. We found rooms upon rooms of digital records, all destroyed by the E.M.P.
Each one seemed to make Saidan's mood grow even heavier as he realized the gravity of what we had done. The machine Valerians, and all they had been, were now lost to time. We would never understand what had motivated them or how they had come about, and how they lived their lives as inorganic beings. Nor would we know much of Saidan's racial origin, even the name of his parent race. All we now knew—if Little Sister had been telling the truth and not merely manipulating us—was that they had been created from the genes of extinct aliens to be slaves to the Valerian machine race. And even Little Sister had admitted that neither the drones nor the Ones had become the loyal rebuilders and programmers that the Sisters had wanted them to be.
Saidan's people would have to forge a new identity for themselves. They were the only Valerians left now. The inheritors of the planet.
We grew tired and I caught Saidan falling asleep on his feet. I guided him into a side room and eased him down to the floor, slipping my arm around him. I fell into a dark sleep filled with nightmares that I still cannot explain. I saw machines tearing each other apart, locked in a soulless battle. I wondered if these were some of Little Sister's memories that were left inside me as a residual effect of the transfer process, or whether my imagination was just working overtime after all we had witnessed.
Days passed, each one much the same. Every tunnel looked similar, fashioned from steel with wires running along the floor. I wondered if we were circling around on ourselves, trapped in an infinite loop that would continue until our deaths.
"Saidan." As I said his name, I realized that neither of us had spoken in days. We had been going through the motions, locked inside ourselves with our thoughts as if we were in the Re-Education Building once again. "Saidan, listen to me. We need to talk. We need to get out of our own heads."
I was worried he'd become voiceless again when he finally managed a whisper, "I know. I keep thinking about all the lives I threw aside. Those people who died before they even had a chance to live."
"You did what you had to do. One more second and Little Sister might have finished the transfer into my body. Once the process was over, the E.M.P. might have had no effect on her."
"Her power still would have been diminished. She would have been trapped inside you, with no way to return to the computer core. She would have been mortal, no more powerful than you or me. Her grip on my world would have been over."
"She planned to use my body to sire a new race." I shuddered. "She was amoral. I doubt her solution would have been good for anybody." I shook my head. "When I was in that robotic shell, I realized her true nature was crueler than we could imagine, simply because she had no emotions. She could not feel empathy for others in any way. It was simply a limit of her programming. Perhaps someday, we will be able to design inorganic beings that care for themselves and others, but until then, they will not be able to thrive as a species. Who knows if it's even possible to convert intangible concepts like emotion and empathy into binary programming? Humans haven't figured it out yet."
"How did you manage to sacrifice yourself if you felt nothing? You knew Little Sister would kill you for interfacing with her systems. How could you pull off something like that if machines can't care?"
"I made a promise to protect you, even if it killed me. My mind was still human and remembered that promise, even if my body couldn't recognize those feelings for what they were. I was still able to protect you, because I had already decided that your life was more important than my own."
"So perhaps it is possible for a machine to thrive after all, if logic can decide such things. Perhaps we did murder the last of a race that was a viable alternative to us." Saidan leaned on the wall for support.
"Perhaps. But not this time. Little Sister and her kind destroyed every world they tried to inhabit. Something led them to their inevitable self-destruction. Inorganic life may be viable, but they lacked the spark to make life work. Extinction was their final destiny, and I suspect nothing we could have done would have changed that."
"What's our final destiny? Valerians were created to be slaves. Will we, too, meet our inevitable extinction?"
"Sooner or later, everything dies. You don't have to be bound to the fate that Little Sister wanted for you. Just because she created you to serve doesn't mean that you are inferior or incapable of forging your own destiny. Each individual on this planet has a role to play. The future is yours now." I took his hand as we saw the light of a glow-stick up ahead in the tunnel.
"One, is that you?" I called out into the tunnel, hoping for a positive response.
"Julian? Saidan?" One's voice was a welcome distraction from our heavy philosophical discussion, and we almost ran down the tunnel towards her. She held the glow-stick up in the air, illuminating a small group of Valerians behind her. A search party.
"I'm glad we've found you," she said. "If you follow us, we'll lead you to the underground section of the Supply Building. There's enough food to last us for a while."
"How many survived?" I asked.
"Most of us, surprisingly. Those in the city were eager to follow a leader. It seems that Little Sister was quickly losing her grip, leaving a lot of confused people and a power vacuum. Once we filled it, everything fell together. Now we just have to wait out the radiation and see what's left of our world now that technology is gone. Life is going to be hard, but I suspect worthwhile. Thank you. I'm sure what you have done today has changed the course of history."
We didn't feel like heroes in the slightest, but the members of the search party clapped. I saw Saidan bow his head and I realized he felt the same way I did—that what we had done was to be mourned, not celebrated.
We allowed ourselves to be led along the tunnels for miles until One escorted us through a door and up steps similar to the ones we had descended in the Science Building.
"I suppose you are tired," she said. She led us down the corridor to two empty rooms, their doors jammed open. "Slide the doors closed when you want some privacy. When you wake, come up to the next level. We're holding an impromptu conference about our future. Feel free to join in at any time." She strode away, confidence in her step that I didn't feel.
"I don't want to sleep alone," Saidan said.
"Me either," I whispered. The pod was only built for one, but we snuggled in together, Saidan cradled in my arms. He slept, but I remained awake for a long time, thinking about the uncertain future of Valeria. What if we couldn't build a future that was better than what Little Sister had offered? What if we did dwindle and die? Most of the Valerians had been engineered to die young. Would I see a thousand familiar faces fade away while I lived in the same old skin for over a hundred years? Would I become the last man alive while all others perished to the sands of time, or would I die with my newly-adopted race?
Freedom is a lonely thing. With choice comes the responsibility that drives us apart from other beings. It's easier not to think, to live within the confines of a life dictated by decree. I didn't know if the Valerians would ever learn to adapt. Perhaps they would do better than me. They didn't have pre-existing relationships to worry about. Their choices, while important to themselves, were fairly minimal in the grand scheme of things.
I eventually dozed, and woke to Saidan shaking me awake. "Did you have a nightmare?"
"Yeah," I said, trying to push the images of killing machines out of my mind. "Go back to sleep, Saidan. I'm going to take a walk." I pulled myself up and out of the pod and headed out into the hallway. I received lots of tentative greetings on my way up to the next floor, given by people who didn't know if they were allowed to greet me or not. I was moved by the fact that they considered me so highly. They had to have known that other Valerians had died when the E.M.P. was discharged. They must have heard the doctor yelling into the radio device. Could they simply have accepted the fact that not everyone lives in a war?
I climbed upstairs to see the next floor was crowded to the brim with Valerians trying to hear what was going on in the meetings of their first unofficial government, despite the darkness and the rationed glow-sticks. I realized I had underestimated the Valerians' desire to be free and the amount of interest they would have in their new world. The crowd parted for me to enter the small room where One and the other leaders sat. They looked up as I entered. The doctor looked at me sadly, and I knew why. He couldn't accept the death of the unborn Valerians so easily. The others might have seen me as their savior, but to the doctor, I was a killer.
I took a seat at the table and simply listened. I didn't have much to add; I just wanted to watch a world in its infancy choose its path. I listened to the questions of the Valerians as they stepped up to voice their fears one by one, and to the careful way the informal council of Ones thought before they answered each question. Some of the children, fresh out of the tanks, stood with their caregivers and watched. When I stood to leave, I was flooded with a sense of relief that Valeria was going to be okay.
"Julian?" I turned as One's voice spoke my name. As I turned, I noticed all eyes in the room were fixed on me.
"Death is better than servitude," One said. I was confused for a moment, until the crowd echoed the sentiment with their hands over their hearts. With a sudden burst of emotion, I realized that they were thanking me. No matter what we had done down in the basement, whether the destruction of Little Sister was right or wrong, these people were happy to be free. It would be wrong to remind them of the trials ahead; they already knew and had voiced their concerns. So I said the only words that seemed right.
"You're welcome." And they were. All of our suffering hadn't been for naught. Our time in the Re-Education Center. My time as a robot. The sacrifices we had made and those who had died.
I excused myself as my throat grew tight, but the emotion was also welcome. I felt alive. I felt… organic. As I made my way down the hallway lined with souls with their hands over their hearts, I realized I no longer saw them as drones or synthetics, but as true Valerians. They were people, no less, a race of their own with rights and responsibilities. To think of them as any less after they had expressed their own free will would have been inhuman.
Saidan was waiting for me, sitting perched on the edge of the pod as I walked into our room. He smiled as I slid the heavy door closed and then turned to greet him with a deep, passionate kiss. Life was flowing through my veins, and I was desperate to share this feeling with Saidan, to infect him with it. My hands roamed down his body, removing the black outfit. We had three days' dirt on us, but we didn't care as we planted kisses on each other's bodies in any place we could reach. I turned my backpack upside down and pulled out ointment, bending Saidan over the pod and preparing us both.
"No," he whispered.
I pulled away suddenly, feeling my joy deflate.
"No, not like that. I mean, I want to be on top. Please." Saidan's smile lit up my world and I happily let myself submit as he planted kisses down my back and probed me with slick fingers.
I gasped, feeling my cock pressing against the pod, eagerly seeking some friction. I clung to the sheer metal beneath me as he pressed into me, filling my world with himself. I was complete with him inside me, pushing deeper and keening as we built up a rhythm.
His hand moved around to stroke my cock, and I let myself simply revel in the feeling of being alive. No inorganic being would ever know this pleasure. Perhaps that's why they couldn't survive. I let the thought drift away on a wave of pleasure as I came with a gasp. I rested my forehead on the pod and, as Saidan came with a cry, closed my eyes.
"I love you." The words were on my lips, urgent and immediate.
He slipped out of me, and I felt empty. He turned me around to face him and looked into my eyes.
"I love you too, Julian."
It was then that I realized it was okay that I was never going back to Earth. It was all right because wherever Saidan was, that was home. I grasped him in my arms, holding him tightly as the afterglow washed over me. We had saved Valeria and come back alive. Together. Nothing else mattered.
As time passed, I realized I was a spare part in Valeria's new world order. The people held an election, in which I was not eligible to vote, and chose to elect One as the President of the Council. I sat alone in my room as Saidan went out to vote. I spent a lot of time by myself in those long six months after Little Sister's destruction.