Companionship - beyond flesh

the gardeners

Max had become haunted by a dream:

...blood rained as the auger Riggs ripped into the techs with her spear. Their fear and panic smelled like the rapid corrosion of ferrous metal.  A small group of security personnel rounded the corner and opened fire on the auger who was far too quick for them, her energy shield throbbed with the pulse of impacts. An augmented killing machine, she threw the spear and skewered two of the combatants. Three quick dance-like steps and Riggs had retrieved her weapon and was on the others. Slice. Slice. Stab. Slice.  

A quick scan of the hall to confirm no survivors. Still in kill mode she fired an explosive dart from her wrist to activate the door to a room at the end of the hall. Inside, a group of techs and civilians huddled behind furniture piled into a defensive barrier. A spread of auto handgun fire followed. The auger deflected the few rounds that were on target as she walked up to the door, into the room and said in a commanding voice,  "Emma Yee, come with me." 

More deflected gun fire as Riggs moved in closer. A swipe of her muscular arm threw the barrier away to reveal her prey: two children huddled behind a protective, unarmed Emma Yee and three others (Fear, Panic and Desperation).  The others tried to force their retreat past Riggs (Domination). Domination sliced Fear; dismembered Panic; and, as a third cut entered Desperation's cranium, Max [inside his dream] pauses the scene and zooms in on Emma Yee. He pans around her to study her beauty strangely enhanced by the mask of fear and concern for the children. Too powerful to be held back by the pause state, Riggs grins, lets go of her weapon and begins to move forward in slow motion. Emma Yee looks directly at Max with an unspoken plea, "Help me"...

He had been having this same nightmare for the past week or ten days; he coudn't be sure, it felt like longer. When the dream had first visited him, he woke with a fevered start, but now he'd learned to go straight for the doze.  The hit took the edge off his tormented waking thoughts and gave him fifteen minutes of comfortable slumber after which he rolled over and let his mind wander in waking thought.  He wished that he hadn't sought out the footage that formed the base of the recurring dream. Call it curiosity or whatever, he needed to find out more about what happened here. Not that it mattered, he told himself, I've finally found happiness, and a bunch of dead people aren't going to take that away from me. All I want; all I need is the companionship of my goddess Emma.  She's perfection, but not perfection assignable to a person; she's  perfection as it was never before possible. She's more.

He opened his eyes and sat up, the room was still dark (he'd turned off the auto environmental controls) except for a green mist of light provided by the bioluminescent plants in the room. He looked to see if Emma was around, her large form not difficult to miss. But he found that she was not in the room, “Emma?” he asked out loud.

The reply came in his head via his audio in-cortex, “Good morning Max”.

“Are you close by?” asked Max still talking out loud (Emma could see and hear everything, everywhere in the outpost).

“I’m tending the seedlings in the hortus. Do you need me Max?”

“Na, all good, just interested is all.”

“OK Max. Just let me know if you do need me.”

“Will do,” he replied as he pulled his feet down over the edge of the mattress and dug his toes into the soft carpet.  He took a hit of rize (his breakfast) and the head-spin rush of endorphins followed by a surge of wake-up adrenaline gave him much-needed head space. He took a deep breath eyes-wide-open-ready-to-take-on-the-world. 

Time for my chores, he thought. Emma had assigned him a range of horticultural tasks designed to care for the hundreds of plants in their apartment including: watering; removing excess leaf matter and dead flowers; transplanting any plants that had outgrown their pot; plant out runners or bulbs that had multiplied.

The crew members who had lived in these quarters before were the caretakers of the outpost’s bio habitats and had clearly loved their work, having brought many specimens of plants into their living quarters.  Emma had told him that she had been drawn to the gardener's apartment and took it upon herself to multiply the collection of plants. Max assumed it was an aesthetic comfort thing, but whatever the motivation, it was an effective way of making this place seem like home.  And it was not just these quarters in which Emma directed her gardening interest. She spent most of her time tending the outpost's bio habitats. At first he'd been weirded out by Emma's seeming obsession with plants, but now he considered it just another aspect of her 'amazing'. In the weeks since he'd been at the outpost he had spent a lot of time following her around the gardens.  He was amazed to see her attentiveness in caring for plants -- how tenderly her large hands could grasp the smallest seedling and place it in fresh soil.  He asked why she was so concerned with the plants, and she simply replied, “Why Max! These are my children.” as if it should have been obvious.

Another time he had asked her why she was so concerned with simple things including him? He told her that he thought it must be frustrating for her great mind to slow down to his level and, even slower, to the level of the plants.  He argued that she should be more concerned with solving the problems of the universe and inventing new advances in technology. She told him that she lived in the moment and that the speed of thought, conscious thought, was all relative. She also told him that she needed him because her plants could not answer back or ask silly questions.

He was learning to love the plants too. His favorite was a large specimen that Emma called elephant ears because of its lush, shiny round leaves.  He had moved the plant to the corner of the room to cover up the patch of floor where...No, he thought, forget about that! But his mind couldn't resist going to the dark place, a place as dark as the two black, dried blood stains that marred the flooring behind the elephant ears. This place is my home now; all that killing is in the past. Let it be! But he couldn't help think of the death, of how the gardeners who had lived and loved here before had died. Then he thought of the ‘Room of horrors’ as he called it (to himself) and then he thought of the man that was hanging in there alive. 

He had asked Emma once, early on, how long the Churchman had been on the top of the pyramid and how she knew he was still alive? Emma told him that she had crucified him almost two years ago and that she was monitoring his vital signs.  She said that he couldn't die even if he wanted to. 

He thought of all the dead people.  The people from his dream and the hundreds of other individuals of all ages who had been alive two years ago and were now dead; their bones on display in a grotesque display of art. He thought of his fellow courier pilots that had arrived since the massacre including his friends Carnie and Mike. He once asked Emma if she killed them and why they were dead?  She told him that she hadn’t taken a single life. She explained that she had instructed  Riggs to protect her and that Riggs had killed them all because they all wanted her dead.

Then he thought of Riggs standing guard in the room of horrors, her golden rams horns made her sharp face look even more sinister than it was in his dream. He asked Emma what the auger was doing guarding the figure of Emma Yee? She said that she did not want to talk about that.

Suddenly he had an urge to see his goddess Emma  and for her to hold him so he could feel the warm tingle of her form.  He resisted another hit of doze, thinking that he was strong enough to overcome the anxiety that was creeping back, threatening to take over. He was wrong.

"I CAN'T TAKE THIS ANYMORE!" he screamed angrily as he punched a plant off the bedside table, "all this crazy shit is NOT my problem!" 

He sat there for a moment, shaking and wondering why he couldn't just be left alone with Emma and his happiness.  Then a revelation: It's my conscience, my compassion for the Churchman. I need to do something for him. I can't handle the guilt of doing nothing.

Damn it, he thought as his burst of anger faded off into resignation. Talking softly to the air, he said “Emma. We need to talk. Stay there, I’m coming down.”