“Purpose is the most important thing to have. Suffering, without purpose, is the worst kind of suffering. Working, without purpose, is the worst kind of work. When you have no reason to be doing anything, you’re just killing time until the next thing, going through the motions until something else happens and becoming an unwilling passenger in your own life.” Her voice wavered as if she’d lost her train of thought. Roark wondered where she was going with this. Androids tended to have a funny way of thinking about things.
“I suspect the reasons we prop ourselves up on aren’t even that authentic. There are great uncharted mysteries within our own souls and one of the keys to happiness is realizing you’re not in control of most of them. The Buddhists say you’re not even real and that you’re already a passenger, you just don’t even know it yet. Isn’t that disturbing?” she asked.
It seemed like a rhetorical question, but coming from an android it somewhat begged for an answer. The wind coiled Roark’s pale trench coat around him and blew his long hair in front of his eyes. He was crouched with her safely wrapped in blankets at his side, a rifle slung casually over his shoulder, overlooking a canyon of smokey blue rock, a hot bubbling river steaming below.
“I am quite aware I’m just a figment of my own imagination and neurochemistry,” said Roark sideways out of his mouth, chewing, “You, on the other hand, seem to have more spiritual savvy.”
The android fingered the cross around her neck. Why she kept that ancient symbol of sacrifice bemused him. It was a barbaric totem, but no doubt powerful. She ran a finger through her green hair and looked down uncertainly. He chuckled and spat, the moon shimmering on his goggles.
“I feel like there’s nothing solid to hold on to,” she said, “Like I’m sinking. The stories always say love is the answer, but I can’t find it, I can’t feel it and I don’t think you can expect normal people to reach that kind of transcendence consistently or maybe even at all. So what are we left with?”
Roark grunted. The portal would be opening soon and the android would have her answers. He mentally checked off all his weapons: harpy’s extract, under his nails, Bad Mercy, his Andarran rifle, Scissor Spoon, his Histraki slicer and a large dollop of gravity inverter, for when things got messy.
“Help me Roark,” she said, touching his arm suddenly. “I’m disappearing.”
It was true. Her long delicate fingers were more transparent than usual, he could see the leather studs right through them. She looked like a ghost, a beautiful ghost wrapped in blankets.
“Keep it together Rabbit,” he said, trying to keep the urgency out of his voice. Her eyes were shining an unnatural green. “Keep it together. We’re almost there.”
“I need to get out of here Roark.” she said, her voice echoing off the canyon. “But I don’t know where to go and I don’t have the heart. I don’t have the heart. I don’t want to die!” she shrieked, and the blue stones trembled.
“Easy Rabbit easy!” he tried to touch her but his hand slipped right through her and he stumbled forward. There was a bright flash in the distance and then stars began streaking down through the atmosphere and the hot river began lashing against the canyon walls. A huge yawning sound began in the air around them, ripping like a siren.
She let the blankets fall from her shoulder and stood up, translucent and naked. The wind whipped her green hair around her and her nipples stood taunt, her pubic hair a small triangle. The air – no it wasn’t just the air, it was the light, the energy, the very gravity in her womb split open and her head arched backwards and over her back and into her, like a snake eating its own tail, driving her whole body into a circle of light that spun tighter and tighter until Roark had to shield his eyes and a cacophonic explosion blasted him into the distance.
He awoke hours later. Above him, the stars streaked through the stratosphere. He got up cautiously, sniffing. His rifle was gone, Bad Mercy flung to who knows where, Scissor Spoon, his gravity inverter, all gone except for the harpy’s extract under his nails. An enormous blue crater stood where the canyon had been, the rock pristinely cut and still smoking like an inverted volcano. The clouds raced over it unnaturally fast and then stopped and slowed to their usual pace. His ribs aching, he held himself up and staggered up to the rim.
In the center was a bundle of blankets with what looked like moss growing on it. He hopped down but as he landed his ankle twisted and he slipped, falling hard and rolling, desperately keeping the harpy’s extract from nicking his flesh. He got up woozy and zigzagged the rest of the way, his dirty white trench coat streaked with the same blue dust that encrusted his lower lip. He knelt in front of the bundle of blankets, the strange smell of sex wafting into his nostrils and opened them, his hands shaking, raised and opened into a claw
Inside, was a small child with bright green hair.
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