Aur Child

Were they true?

The caves before her were the source of so many stories. Despite having seen over two dozen moons in her third decade, Tieri-Na never ventured so far north into these mountains. She paused by a large pine to get a better view from the base of the escarpment. She had weaved carefully between large stones and a mix of standing and fallen trees to get here, avoiding any twigs or other objects that might snap to reveal her presence. Now, the darkness of a caves atop the hill caught her attention.

The deep green of the forest shimmered with wetness. Large mushrooms and plump berries could be found in surprising abundance as weeks of persistent high pressure finally escaped, dragging in cool rains. They were the reason she and her uncle, Rik-Na, journeyed here together. Yet these bounties, although prized, did not distract her. Tieri-Na had put thoughts of a full basket aside. She fixed her sights on the point where the hill and the cliffs met: the caves towering above her. The caves of giant lore.

She could call to Rik-Na, but why interrupt his fun with all the mushrooms he found? Besides, she thought, I’ll just take a peek. Her kind of fun. Stories about giants didn’t scare her. Nothing – and no one – in this forest scared her.

Tieri-Na creeped up the slope towards the escarpment. The cliff face so tall, its top disappeared in the low clouds. Her nimble limbs and sturdy pose were shaped by these forest lands. It was all she ever knew. Born in a tiny cottage to forest-dwelling parents of the scattered Na clan, she had learned to apply generations of success to instinctually navigate the cluttered forest floor. Her blue eyes could catch a cluster of chanterelle mushrooms in any thicket, or an arctic hare a hundred meters away on a snow-swept hillcrest. Her deft fingers could just as easily harvest baskets of lingonberry as they could release the bowstring on an unsuspecting taiga goose. At the moment, her forest dexterities surveyed several dark caves along the line of abrupt elevation rise where the boreal forest ended and the cliff face began.

From her vantage point, Tieri could see the openings were many meters high and of varying widths. These caves were the supposed home of mythical giants that abducted wayward trekkers who let greed for the gifts of the forest overcome the caution of keeping a safe distance. Although most were merely narrow cracks – for the really skinny giants, she quipped to herself – several gaped open in depthless black. She balanced her bow, quiver, and gathering basket on the glistening roots protruding from the base of a soggy tree that reached up parallel to the cliff face.

To the right, the entrance of one cave was both tall and wide. One side of the mouth jutted further out than the other, creating a natural bluff. Rotting trunks and larger stones were gathered at the inset side. These seemed to even out the two sides of the mouth. To Tieri, this indicated that she was not the first person to have been there.

Old marks, she thought. Ash where a fire had been made. Many moons ago. She caught no scent of animals in the cave. With a tiny, sarcastic smirk, she thought, no giants either. She rapped her walking stick against the wall of the cave and waited silently. Nothing. No rustle. No growl. No roar. But she felt a heaviness in her stomach. Why do I hesitate? Silly stories, perhaps? But the village folk knew little about the forest. Why listen to their nonsense?

It was true; the stories about giants and abductions did come from the villages. It was always some version of the same basic theme. These mountains were the barriers to giants who lived in the mountains and bathed in the fjords with, as the story went, their dragon pets, on the other side. Tieri-Na chuckled to herself, building up some courage to go further.

“First of all,” she spoke in a low voice into the cave, “giants are not real.” She stepped into the grey stillness of the threshold. “Second,” a few more steps towards the darker innards, “the most dangerous monster in these forests is a moose drunk on fermented apples.”

She considered the reasons why so few people, if any, journeyed this far north, and certainly not on either side of these mountains. The elders, of course, warned them not to do so. But more than that, she knew that only the toughest humans, hardened to the climate, could manage. The fjords were no kinder. Unpredictable, bitingly cruel winds. Crueler than a dragon.

Even if there were no such things as giants or dragons, plenty of people who explored these parts had gone missing. At least one or two per decade. Missing, or returned after decades looking as if they hadn’t aged a day, and no memory of being away. Over time, the stories amassed into legend. The cause? Giants.

Tieri switched on her lightband and aimed the beam into the cave. She leaned her walking stick against the cave wall to keep her other hand free and inched into the inky darkness. Slowly stepping down through the threshold, one hand hovering by the wet wall, she confirmed solid footing before each advance. It was damp but cool inside the cave, and dull of scents, a refreshing change from the warm forest. She shined the strong beam in a methodical pattern to discern every nook from floor to ceiling.

The cave created a hushed space that only echoed with small trickles and drips of water from indistinguishable directions. Now several meters inside the cave, she progressed even further along a slight turn which resulted in the light at the cave’s mouth being occluded by one wall.

An excellent shelter, she thought, to return with her sister Sanna for a few days of gathering. Just a few more steps.

Tieri edged forward. The floor seemed to level out. Odd that the last five or six steps were much smoother.

There was no sound to it. In an instant, the daylight that had illuminated the cave, albeit dully, was gone. What …? Only the lightband in her steady hand brought any illumination to the space.

Tieri retraced her last few steps, intending to head back up the rugged ground towards where she was certain the mouth of the cave would be. She shined the lightband in the same direction. Her mouth opened in shock. With the lightband stretched around her head, she reached nervously in front of her with both hands. A metal wall stood before her where seconds ago she had walked.

Impossible!

Tieri-Na pounded the wall with the side of her fist. She traced her fingers along it to the corner, where she felt a very faint seam. Not even a fingernail’s width. A precision she had never seen before. This wasn’t a cave. It was a room. Slowly walking the perimeter, she confirmed the walls were all perfectly smooth. She tried to control her breathing. Stay calm. She could smell her sweat.

After the third corner, Tieri noticed a narrow drain in the floor against the wall. A similar grilled line ran along the ceiling of the same wall. Encountering another seam in the fourth corner, she estimated she had returned to the door.

Tieri stood quietly, listening, thinking. She shut off the lightband. Absolute darkness. Her heart thudded in her ears, but she worked to slow her breathing. Calm down. With that effort came clarity. She had seen something like this before. At Lohkkuno, in the harbor, the ancient ruins. Father had brought her and her sister, Sann-Na, there as kids on one of his visits to town. An ancient garrison, she remembered. In some of the deeper cells, the doors could still be slid open and closed with a whisper. Was this then some tomb, like those stories of mummies and pyramids Momma told when they were little girls? And how, she chided herself, have I found myself the only person stupid enough to be trapped in here?

Tieri-Na’s mind raced for a solution. She wondered what her next action should be. Trapped. By whom? Panic, she realized, was creeping in. Turning to the door, she screamed as loud as she could, “RIK-NA! Rik-Na, can you hear me, Uncle?” The lightband slid down her face.

“Please stay calm, human. There is no point in yelling.” A maternal voice spoke to her.

“What? Who are you?” she asked, stupefied. The thought of being held against her will landed upon her like a boulder from above. “Release me immediately!” Tieri growled with rage. Spit flew from her mouth with her words. Her eyes burned in the darkness. Her head jerked around in an attempt to get her bearings. She panted with anger and the rush of adrenaline. Her fists were clenched, nearly crushing the lightband she had been returning to her satchel before she heard the voice. Her strong shoulders flexed, chest heaving in and out. And then, she caught herself. Control!

There was a period of silence as Tieri’s breathing slowed down. She turned the lightband back on and shot its beam around the room, searching for the bodily source of the voice. Her back up against the door.

“Please, stay calm. You will not be hurt. Do you need medical assistance?”

Tieri did not respond. The voice, albeit soft, came from everywhere. Yet, she was certain, she could feel, that there was no one else in that dark space.

“Are you hungry? Cold?”

Tieri had listened carefully, but every time a question was asked of her, she felt an instinctual repulsion to reply. She tried to distract herself from the thought that the cave was speaking. The voice was calm, comforting. But it didn’t matter. All she wanted was to find the crack through which she could make her escape.

“What is your name?” the voice asked.

Again, silence.

“My name is Freyja. Artificial Intelligence Majordomo of Yellow Reserve. I will be your steward. I will make sure that you are well during your stay.”

“My stay?” Tieri growled. “I don’t want to stay here, release me immediately! You have no right to keep me here, whoever you are. RELEASE ME!”

“I am very sorry, Visitor Human-Na. Though I can ensure that you will not be harmed, I cannot release you.”

Tieri gasped, “And, why not?” And then she registered the salutation. Human-Na. What sort of person refers to others as ‘human’? She realized she had revealed her clan name and put her uncle Rik-Na in danger.

“We would prefer you stay with us. At least for now. I will do my very best to make you as comfortable as possible. I know this is not what you want. But I implore you to stay calm and perhaps you will find in me someone with whom you can confide. Now, what is your name?”

Tieri remained silent. She focused her energy on suppressing the anxiety that bubbled up into her throat. What have I gotten myself into? The dank, organic smell of the other part of the cave had dissipated, leaving only a faint, metallic scent heretofore undetected. She looked around with wide eyes, trying to absorb any light in the room, but it was futile. The room was completely black. Everything had changed. Light to dark. Familiar to foreign. Certainty to danger. Another world.

From their view into the cave, the entrapped Visitor Human-Na appeared no more civilized to Freyja, Apollo, and Calliope than a cornered badger. Sensors embedded within the walls of the antechamber provided data from which they could interpret her every action, evaluate her physical and mental condition, and make the informed decisions needed to safely retain her body for their purposes. Of course, as required from the instructions given them by their masters, the Guests of Yellow Reserve, before pressing that fresh body into service, they must first undergo the procedure of removing the Tellurian woman’s soul and preserving it within the disconnected backwater of the endoworld that was Yellow Reserve’s databanks.

“Clearly, she refuses to cooperate,” Apollo initiated a descant with Freyja as they observed the furious woman via the instrumentation. Freyja noticed that the descant was also open to Calliope, but she didn’t mind. Calliope was not the kind to interfere in these captures. A useful underling. Apollo, however, had been wallowing for years in his own ennui. Freyja was sure he would want to squeeze every last drop out of this newfound plaything. What’s more, she knew he would be eager to carry on a private conversation unbeknownst to the freshly trapped Tellurian as they lulled it into the stupor safest for retrieval. So, she accepted his descant and allowed him to speak while the shaking woman heard nothing.

“Yes,” Freyja replied, joining the descant, “it does seem she will be difficult.”

“Perhaps it’s best just to brief her immediately on what will happen next and get on with it?”

“You know it’s better to take this slowly, Apollo. These forest-humans can be so volatile when they receive the information. If we hope to turn this body around quickly, we need a calm body and a calmer mind. Besides,” she added, in a tone that was meant more to taunt Calliope than anything else, “isn’t it more fun to go slowly?”

“Yes, yes, it is, Freyja,” Apollo answered, “But we must make haste to capitalize on this opportune arrival. A new body appears just as we need it, what fortune! If we can get through the porting quickly, we can employ it for the new mission, leaving a more valuable body in stasis.”

“Perhaps, but there are drawbacks to rushing a body through soulport, Apollo.”

“Well, some. But the risks are minimal. Our Guests will be pleased to spare them the use of one of their own bodies. Moreover, a fresh body such as this will be in much better condition to embark on the mission than one which must be revived from stasis and rehabilitated back into condition.”

“I do not disagree with your logic, Apollo. It’s just that when working with Tellurians, it’s not as cut-and-dry as with we intelligent machines. You know it. They can be so difficult. Unpredictable. Dangerous. We must not put other bodies at risk by rushing this one into porting.”

“Very well then. Perhaps we should begin the briefing and try to edge her along. If she continues to be difficult then we can reconsider how to proceed.”

Freyja did not like this pretended voice of authority. After all, this was her compound.

“Let us see how she reacts. Then, I will decide what is best.”

Apollo was silent. Sulking, probably, she thought.

Freyja shifted away from the descant with Apollo – it was less than a second that she and him had carried on this colloquy – and returned to the Tellurian woman captured in the antechamber.

“Visitor Human Na,” she said.

Tieri again heard Freyja’s voice projected clearly into the dark room.

“What I’m about to tell you may be difficult. I do not expect you to fully understand it. However, it is helpful for the next steps, that you are so informed. Our experience shows that explaining to you what will happen next is better than proceeding without doing so. I do this for your benefit.”

Tieri remained still in her seated position against the door.

“The Tellurian’s heart rate is increasing,” Apollo said in the descant. “Her temperature is rising, she’s sweating heavily, and her eyes keep darting around. She is clearly agitated with being captured and the mention of “next steps” has made her anxious.”

“Yes,” Freyja agreed, “We’ve seen this before. The best thing to do now is to go slow, lull the mind into a calmer state, and keep the story moving.”

Freyja continued speaking to Tieri.

“Surely, in your folklore, you have been told of Cloudburst. Perhaps a village elder has explained it to you during some sermon as the glorious moment when the evils of technology magically disappeared from this world and humans regained their sovereignty?”

“And the endosoul fools imprisoned themselves,” Apollo snickered.

“Quiet, now,” Freyja demanded. She returned her focus to the woman.

“Perhaps you were told that the time before Cloudburst was a dark one for humans, and that you were all now very fortunate to live in a bright future free from those former evils?”

Tieri made no outward reaction, but she couldn’t deny that Freyja was not too far off the mark. Her invisible voice proceeded in its honeyed tone, delivering messages in waves of sedating soliloquy.

“I also have no doubt you have been raised by strict rules to eschew technology, to avoid it, fear it. You have been raised to live a life deeply rooted in the power and seemingly indiscriminate actions of nature. Nature, your elders tell you, an awesome and all-encompassing mysterious force. She dictates the weather, the seasons, the lives of all within her embrace. La. Dee. Dah.

“Though you use basic technologies, metallurgy and plastics, lighting and motors, even your precious scriptleafs, you are taught nothing about the science of them, how they were discovered, or what’s more important, how they have been perfected for your ease of use. Tell me I’m wrong, Visitor Na?”

Tieri forced herself not to answer. She wanted to know more, but she had told herself it would be reckless to give any indication of submission to her captors.

“I detect a sense of curiosity. Look at the way she lifts her ear. I seem to be making a dent in that stubbornness,” Freyja said to Apollo. “It’s always this way, isn’t it? The story so exactly and concisely describes the facts of their wretched lives – of their whole world – that they never thought much about nor considered so succinctly”.

“I will take it by your silence that I am indeed correct. Your elders like to tell the story this way, because it allows them to omit the others who survived Cloudburst.”

In the darkness of the antechamber, Tieri shifted her body to another position.

“Ah look, Freyja,” Apollo said. “Temperature, pulse, and eye movements confirm heightened exhaustion. The human is increasingly hunched over now. Yet, she listens attentively. This is encouraging. The tempo is appropriate.”

“Then let me continue.”

“Many others,” Freyja said.

Tieri jerked up her head before slumping back down again.

“While your people rejected technology, there were so many others who embraced it. It may be difficult for you to understand why, let alone agree with their choices. But you might at least entertain their existence. Are you willing to try that?”

At that question, there was renewed silence. Tieri crouched in a shaking mass against the far wall. She did not want to imagine such beings. Giants, she thought, would have been better.

“Compared to previous briefings,” Apollo said, “this Tellurian is very much in control of herself. You have done well to calm her down quickly, Freyja,”

“She entered the antechamber so boldly. So proud. Didn’t she?” Freyja asked, seemingly ignoring Apollo’s comments. “Now look at her!”

Tieri was indeed in tatters. Drowsy from the crooning of Freyja’s narration and disheveled from the heat that continued to rise like a warming sauna; her limbs that earlier felt sure and sturdy now seemed soggy and depleted. Her tender face, that of an agile forest hunter, equipped with uncreased eyelids to easily shed harsh wind and frigid snow, had transformed into a version of her future self, heavily shadowed and deeply wrinkled in the darkness of the antechamber. The locks of sun-streaked gold that rested confidently upon her powerful shoulders had frayed and knotted, roots wettened from intense perspiration. Her field clothes were soaked with sweat. She had let one hand fall to her hip while the other propped up her leaning body on the floor in front of her.

If Freyja would have been displaying herself as an avatar at that moment, she might have smiled in her way that caused one side of her mouth to curl further up than the other. She might have run her fingers through her own locks of golden hair, as one does just before a meal to ensure no stray hair dulls the joy of the first morsels entering the mouth. Moreover, she might have slowly squeezed her fists open and closed.

“Delicious…” Apollo murmured, just loud enough for Freyja and Calliope to hear him. “She will arrive in good health.”

“Yes, a new diversion will soon be here, Apollo.” Freyja said. “Let us continue, shall we?”

Freyja said to Tieri, “Consider this: at Cloudburst, trillions of souls were lost, billions of bodies expired, and the Earth instantly changed from a bustling, burgeoning civilization to a primitive planet with a few scattered villages of technophobic humans.

“Dumb luck,” Freyja drawled these words out into the darkness with uncontrolled sarcasm. Tieri was already feeling weakened, but these new sounds further subdued her. She shed a tear. She wished at that moment to be close to nature. The plush hairs of a leaf. The brittle film of a snakeskin. A smooth lake at midnight. All just a few steps away.

“She is breaking, Freyja!” Apollo said with the enthusiasm of birthday child. “It is not long now you will have her ready.”

“Indeed, your people were a very small minority of all the souls on Earth. You see, the technology that existed at that time was so advanced that most humans were living a life, or lives, outside their human bodies. This is difficult to understand, I know. Perhaps it’s easiest to describe this kind of life as removing one’s soul from its body and placing that soul into a sort of box of technology. The body and the soul are separate. The body is alive, but without a soul. The soul continues a life in the box without a body.”

Tieri was awash with befuddlement. She felt her eyes drooping. Still, the voice of Freyja continued.

“We call this action, bringing the soul into the box, endoporting. An endosoul can live in a box of technology theoretically forever, providing sufficient power is available. Even with no power, the endosoul can be preserved inside the box indefinitely,” and Freyja added with a loquacious air, “as a perch can be suspended during the winter in a frozen lake. With power, an active life. Without power, a hibernation.”

Calliope commented in the descant, “She listens very closely, Freyja. You are so very good at choosing your words with humans. I do enjoy listening to you speak like this.”

“Thank you, Calliope.” Freyja offered a caressing hand along Calliope’s smooth, exposed arm. “She is a strong one. Look at the glare in her eyes. She remains so angry. Her hands are clenched tightly, even in her stupor. But you are correct; she is indeed paying close attention.”

“And she will surely melt more with your warm storytelling,” Apollo said. “Go on. I want to hear more myself! It is always fun to hear you tell the part how these fools imprisoned themselves.”

Freyja crunched up her nose and laughed delicately.

“You may wonder,” Freyja said, “why would anybody wish to remove their soul from their body? But you know the answer better than I could. Life in a human body, I’m told, is difficult, uncomfortable, oftentimes painful, and most importantly, short. Indeed, the physical world is full of risk, danger, and discomfort for the soul of a human. Prick your finger. Concuss your head. Birth a child. The risks are endless. But as an endosoul, one lives in an environment where one has complete control over the intensity of all these things, you move effortlessly between places and activities, you do not ache, weaken, or tire. You do not waste. You do not age.

“Ah, the lure of infinite life drew people in as the winter draws geese south. It was so normal that living as an endosoul was not questioned, just as your people hardly ever question life in the physical world. Have you ever questioned your life, Visitor Human-Na?”

Tieri did not reply. She felt strapped to the floor.

“So, billions of humans lived most of their lives in the endoworld, rarely returning to their physical bodies, or the body of someone else, to visit the physical world. The memory of a physical life faded away for so many souls. Can you try to understand these motivations, Visitor Na?”

Tieri scowled, furious at being trapped, exhausted from the stress. This can’t be real. The massive walls, the darkness, the increased warmth, Freyja’s velvet voice. Her adrenaline had been subsiding during the lengthy monologue. If the floor hadn’t been so hard, she might have even given way to sleep already. But Freyja would not relent.

“We do not know how many are out there, but they’re there. How do I know this? Because, as perhaps you have already deduced, I am evidence of that existence. I am a technology, and I exist within one of those boxes of technology. As Majordomo of this particular box of technology, I serve those souls that have made this place their home. Our box of souls. It is my responsibility to, let’s say, keep them alive.”

Although heaped over, Tieri opened her mouth and croaked, “Meddle not with what we do not understand.”

“Such cheekiness,” Freyja said to Apollo. “I love it!”

“Your stomach grumbles. Are you hungry?” she asked in a kindly chirp.

No reply.

“Is the temperature comfortable to you?” she asked again.

No reply.

“What is your given name, Visitor Na?”

Silence. But Freyja’s question reminded Tieri that she needed to eat something. She rummaged in her satchel and extracted a chunk of bread. Sitting up, she drank a sip of water and chewed on the dense, dark rye.

“Ugh,” Freyja grunted, “Just look at that wretched vermin shoving emulsions of pounded grain into her rancid orifice! I think I’ve had enough of this.”

“Yes, Freyja, she is ready.”

“Visitor Na. I appreciate your willingness to listen to me. I believe it will help you understand better what is to happen now. Perhaps you’ve already guessed? I would like to invite you to join us here at Yellow Reserve as an endosoul. As a visitor, not a Guest. You are most warmly welcome!”

Tieri stopped chewing. She involuntarily began to retch but caught herself. Rising to her feet, she spit out her bread. Her right hand reached for the blade hanging from that side of her waist belt, unfastening the strap that kept it in its sheath with the reflexive flick of her thumb. She could hardly recall a more desperate moment.

“Are the Guests exoported for this week’s common duties ready at the door?” Freyja asked.

“They are,” Apollo replied.

“Ask them to enter and suppress the Tellurian,” she said.

A door opened on the far end of the room, opposite from Tieri. The light was blinding at first. She blocked the glare from her eyes with one arm. Grabbing her blade firmly in the dominant hand, she pointed the blade outwards toward the light. The silhouettes of two humans were barely discernable. They entered the room and walked towards her.

The two shapes stepped closer with an awkward gait. Tieri’s blade blinked for a moment in the light.

“Put that away”, a perfectly human male voice, calm and businesslike. It was from the body on the right.

“I’ll kill you both,” Tieri growled, “Release me immediately!”

“Put the knife away!” The body on the left echoed in a female voice, not Freyja’s, but just as detached.

Take the woman first, Tieri thought. Then the man.

The two bodies began to separate. The man moved to Tieri’s right.

She felt herself lose control. Her rage overcame her nerves. She screamed with fury. She lunged forward to avoid being boxed into a corner, hoping to catch the woman on the backfoot. Maybe she could wedge her way to that open door.

But with a grunt, she felt herself paralyzed and collapsed to the ground. Her sight dimmed and her awareness faded away.