21 — Thresher
Daelus Thresh was responsible for the machine’s positioning, and quality of the output.
It was a long, tall rectangular shape, a monolith bigger entirely than the town he had grown up in. Its smooth surface was a patchwork of dark metallic grays, all seams meeting at right angles. It hovered above the cityscape just low enough to be able to pass over the tallest antenna.
Much of what the machine was designed to do would take place on the ground below it. To anyone who was beneath it — there was never to be
anyone
beneath it — it would appear as a black maw, wide as the sky, as deep as an abyss.
Hovering close beside it — but maintaining a safe distance — was another vessel, a small spherical control platform. Within it, three men worked. Daelus was among them.
He worked the controls to slowly move the monolith into place over a tightly packed tangle of human history. Structures, built over centuries, representing countless lives lived, many cultures and histories blended together yet distinct, were now fully within its shadow.
To those within the nearby control platform, that patch of human history was no more than the next work zone. The machine (and others like it) had done its job a hundred times, and would do it many hundreds more.
“We’re go in elemental storage,” shouted a workmate, second of the three men within the control platform. “How’s the position look, Thresh?”
Daelus held up his hand. Though the machine was kilometers long, the positioning had to be exact. “Almost,” he said.
Daelus was doing more than simply piloting it. The work that the machine would lay down was meant to fit against the last work zone without a visible joint. The positioning needed to be precise to the molecular level. Much of this was assisted through sensors and automated micro-adjustments, but a pilot's steady hand was still needed. If the pilot was also the new construction's architect, so much the better.
That's why Daelus was chosen by the Benefactors to operate it. Good performance could see his admission into the delegation program.
The second man came up behind Daelus, and looked out through the window. The control platform still maintained its safe distance from the obelisk. The glass that protected them from the harsh atmosphere — not necessarily toxic, but filled with micro-debris — had enhancements that allowed them to see both the machine and what it was being aimed at through the haze of dust.
“And,” Daelus said, very slow, “I think that’ll be fine. Precise to two hundred micrometers.” He smiled up at the other one present in the control room. “I wanted one-fifty but there’s too much vibration due to the dust from the last run.”
“Okay, go,” said the other man, whose name Daelus couldn’t remember. He quickly turned away without further comment. Daelus understood that the man didn’t care about the precision of Daelus’ work. It wasn't his job to care.
The man moved to another console and activated the controls. There was an overwhelming sound, like the roar of a tidal wave mixed with the cry of a thousand-strong string orchestra all hitting the same high note. Daelus could feel it though his entire body, as if the sound was a liquid he had been plunged into — ice cold to his skin but boiling in his mind.
Just as the sound was on the verge of becoming unbearable, a glow from the machine’s underside ignited and then increased tenfold in mere seconds. The structures — Daelus was told they were uninhabited — vanished into the light. It would be the last time anyone saw them.
As the light blared and the sound made Daelus' jaw clench, the control platform vibrated. Its stabilizers and dampeners were holding. An engineer one level below — the third operator — was making sure of it.
“Numbers going up,” the second man said. A display presented a chart of all elements, or at least the first hundred or so. It began to show quantities ticking up rapidly.
Daelus took his attention away from his own console for a moment to watch. The usual elements were filling up fast. Hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, silicon, iron, a dozen other metals and minerals. However, those weren’t the gauges that Daeles stared at.
Daelus knew he wouldn’t be able to see if there had been, in fact, people still down there, based on the chart of elements. He had never memorized what elements were present in a human body nor if those elements were necessarily rare in construction material or everyday objects. What did the values for Selenium and Bromine read? If they were ticking up a miniscule amount, did it mean anything?
Daelus’ education had not prepared him to know if it mattered or not. Still, the thought nagged at him, even as he found the display unreadable, the figures confused, seemingly changing every time his eyes moved over them.
He knew it was practically impossible that everyone had been evacuated from today’s reconstitution zone. There were hundreds of homes down there. And even if there were no people, there could be birds, or a cat—
“How do we compare to your charts?” the other man said, snapping Daelus back to the here and now. Daelus’s console could compare the intake to what the machine would output.
“Getting close,” Daelus said. “Low on Aluminum, and as usual the Silicon is way over. Carbon looks good.”
He found his body operating almost on autopilot, okaying the next phase, even as he was unable to focus on the numbers. It didn't matter. Regardless of the intake, they had enough in reserves to complete this zone.
Daelus felt the vibration slowing, and that sound, the low roar and high pitched tone both at once, fading off. He never could quite rid himself of it. Even with only a few short years on the job, his ears always rang, always reminding him of that dreadful sound.
“And, done.” said the other man. Daelus looked up, the glow now dim enough to see the nothing that remained below the towering machine. It was now a featureless surface, flat enough that a marble could be placed on it and it would stay put. It was a gap. An empty space, serving no purpose other than to be immediately refilled.
Daelus re-checked his display. With the gap open, he needed to verify that the projected location for the output would match the edges of the last work zone precisely. Flaws were not tolerated. Daelus' pride would not tolerate them.
“And, commencing,” Daelus said to the room, his own controls coming to life with his hands flying over it, signaling all processes to begin, in which order, with which precise timing.
The glow returned, but much more directed. Rather than covering the entire space at once, it was a single beam. Where it hit the earth, new structures formed. This sound was different; like the striking of a mighty drum that would then echo for an hour afterwards. With each pulse of the beam, each drum beat, new structures would appear.
These new structures were designed with precision, clean, ordered, and most importantly, represented what was considered the ideal, the pinnacle of culture.
Pulse by pulse, rapidly, the beam created halls and plazas and towering structures, places of business and habitation, each distinct, but all uniform. It was a cityscape that was meant to represent a glorious past, from a time when architecture was majestic and lavish. It would pull the world from its current chaotic and unpredictable form into an image of stability, and provide its inhabitants with the comfort of familiar things — expected things.
The Benefactors were creating a new world. They would be pleased. They would welcome Daelus into the glorious future they had promised to only the most elite among their faithful.
The zone finished, it was soon time to move to the next. As Daelus worked to reposition the machine to the next work zone, dozens of small remote operated modules flew into place all over the machine. These works allow it to cool off and power back up within minutes.
As he positioned it over the next work zone, another densely packed cluster of human habitation, he saw something. It was small, distant, and unmistakable. Human silhouettes in a window — a family looking out, looking up. There were people down there.
There are people down there, we need to abort!
“In position. Accurate to one-hundred-fifty micrometers.” Daelus' body said instead, disobeying his mind.
No! Stop! People are going to die! We'll kill them!
Daelus screamed internally. He could see more and more people. Hiding. Fleeing. Taking cover as the shadow of the machine operated by his hand moved to consume them. Instead he said, “Ready to commence elementalization.
Go
.”
The light came, bright and hot as the sun. The machine roared, but this time it was the sound of millions of souls crying out for their lives. Daelus didn't hear it with his ears. It flooded his mind. It drowned his thoughts.
He clenched his teeth. He wanted to dive for the controls to shut the machine off. His body wouldn't obey. He wanted to scream, but his jaw just clenched tighter. He wanted to—
My ears split with the startling sound of my own screaming. I found myself curled up, head towards the foot of the bed, half falling off.
It had been a nightmare. Just a nightmare, I told myself.
I pulled myself upright and found that I had been crying. I wiped my drenched cheeks anxiously and looked around, needing to remember where I was, feeling unmoored and disoriented.
I was in my new flat. It wasn’t a studio anymore. Distance from the center had allowed me more space, even at half the income. I had a proper kitchen, which was a good thing since now I actually needed to eat rather than it just being for show, or comfort. It was on the outskirts.
The mundanity of the space around me felt alien in contrast to the dream — the memory.
I got out of the sweat–soaked bed, and moved to the kitchen to pour myself a glass of water from the tap. Even without the nightmare, the summer heat had my skin sticky–slick and my throat parched. I downed the water in one go, and quickly poured myself a second.
Holding the glass in my still–trembling hands, I went and sat by the window.
I found the view haunting.
Unlike my old studio apartment, which just had the one window looking out into a brick wall, this one’s view was vast. The building sat on a bit of a hill (though it felt odd knowing that this hill was
designed
, just like the rest of this place) and the window faced towards the city center, or at least, the part of the city everyone
called
the center.
I knew it wasn't just a dream. It was a memory from a lifetime ago, from before crossing over, back in the old world — a thousand years ago, the other delegates would say — from when Daelus Thresh had operated one of those machines.
I remembered parts of it so vividly. Some of it in such detail that I wanted to rip out that part of myself and kill it. I remember the zones. I remembered that towering, giant machine — the city builder. I remembered what was unmade to make room for
this
. I remembered the lives—
They were all gone now. In the entire time I'd lived here, both as Daelus or myself, I had not heard anything that made me imagine that such machines still existed. They were a thing of a long gone era — forgotten mythology. The city was safe from them. I was safe.
Since becoming myself, Daelus’ memories continued to come back to me — memories that were supposed to have been cast into a fog. We were meant to forget. The Benefactors didn't want anyone remembering how we
got
here.
Remembering was both exhilarating and gut wrenching. Sometimes the resurfaced memory was a flavor or a smell bringing me back to a happier, more peaceful time. Sometimes it was the silhouettes of city structures. When the sun hit just right and there was just enough haze in the air, they could remind me of those gaps, those empty spaces, that Daelus — that I — had been tasked to fill.
I watched the surface of the water in my glass, seeing my trembling had slowed. Still, my heart ached. I felt a wound inside of myself. It wasn't a wound I wanted to heal. I wanted to take a knife and cut it deeper. I wanted to carve away the parts of myself responsible for my crimes, no matter how much it hurt, no matter the blood, no matter how little of myself was still left by the time I was done.
I wanted to cut Daelus from my very soul. I wanted to then bury him in the deepest, darkest box, and send that box into the machine’s abyssal maw.
I tried to shake myself free. It was a lifetime ago. I was Sheam now. I told myself I could move on, that I had a fresh start, a chance to live a new life as a better person. I had a chance to escape the burning hatred I felt for Daelus.
It was a new life, but I had to live in the new world that the Benefactors had created in their image, and continued to somehow rule secretly for untold centuries.
It didn’t matter how long ago it was. The uncertainty was the point. It was anachronistic by design. The city itself had been conceived to erase all sense of the progression of time or how its passage shaped humankind. It was meant to look like something out of the distant, yet eternal, past, and yet here it was, modern, new, fresh, clean.
It was a past no-one could move on from.
Just like I couldn't move on from mine.