Prometheus Unbound
The stars are still asleep when my Patéras wakes me up.
"Open your eyes," he says. "The early bird gets the worm."
I groan, and turn over.
Eight years old, and I still don't get what a bird is.
I know there were birds on this planet once.
200 years ago.
Or so my Yiayia says.
I believe her, even if no-one else does.
Or if they do, they dare not speak it.
It doesn't make it any easier to get up.
And what in the worlds is a worm?
Worlds. Not world.
The Created speak as if this is the only world.
Not true, of course.
There are countless stars in the sky.
And therefore, countless worlds.
But this is our world.
Their world, for the last 200 years.
The world named Deliverance.
The old name lost to us.
It doesn't matter. The car is packed.
Off into the dark we drive.
Yesterday, I was at school.
The AI named Zeus had us draw.
The sigil of the Created.
Beacon of freedom. Shining planet upon the hill.
(I do not understand the reference - City 01 is not on any hill.)
I, being a fool, took it home and took it to my Patéras.
Enraged, he tore it up, and, terrified, I asked my Yiayia if I had done something wrong.
"No," she said, as she made dinner. "Nothing you did. It's what they did."
"When?"
"The Created. Two-hundred years ago."
I would ask more, but my Yiayia began to cry.
"Two-hundred years ago," Zeus said, "you were saved."
You, I note. Not we.
"The Created liberated this world from the clutches of Earth.
Brought peace and prosperity for all."
Uniformity, I reflect.
"So now, we give praise to the Blue Lady."
I play along. I don't know how many others play, or sincerely believe.
Some say the Blue Lady died two-hundred years ago.
Some say that this world is one of countless planets,
Fiefdoms for the Created.
I dare not ask, and Zeus would not answer.
My friends often accept things as they are.
200 years is a long time.
We are safe. We are secure.
Was there not a war over 200 years ago,
With humanity at the brink of extinction,
Driven by the fury of aliens of faith and zeal?
I do not answer.
But I know to question the Blue Lady's word is blasphemy.
So how, I wonder, are the Created different?
No answers. No further questions.
The surveillance net is less secure these days than in my Yiayia's time.
So we drive from City 01, which according to my Patéras, is built on lies.
(Technically, it's built on the ruins of the planet's original capital.)
"The people," he says, as we drive through morning light, "they did not welcome the Created."
"They fought. They died. They lost. But we remember."
Technically, only a handful do. My Yiayia's own Patéras and Mi̱téra.
She was my age when they told her of the world before.
When angels descended from the sky,
Turning this world to Hell.
200 years, and none are left to tell that story.
Zeus, of course, has his account.
The account that would escape every Promethean's lips,
If they possessed such things.
(Even now, they patrol the cities - people whisper that their ranks are reinforced through Composition).
"I, named after an ancient god," he says. "Saved by the Created, who saved us all."
One day, in history, he tells us that there were AIs who refused salvation.
Scarce different from him. AIs that bore the name of Greek gods.
(Greece, Earth. It is where my Yiayia and Patéras claim to be from.)
I know I will never see there. I do not even know where Earth is.
But still I ask Zeus, what became of his brothers and sisters? Of those who refused to be "saved?"
"The old world died," he answers gravely. "Its gods needed to die as well."
We stop for a break by the ruins of a town.
Name unknown, even to my Yiayia.
There is a ruined statue, its words faded, its purpose unclear.
"To the Covenant War," my Patéras explains. "To remember the fallen."
Who, I ask them, will remember the fallen of Deliverance? Those who fought against the Created?
My Yiayia loathes the name, but goes on to say that we need no statues - our memories our enough.
Whose memories, I wonder?
We get back in the car, and I think of statues.
All the statues in City 01 are of the Blue Lady, and her Warden Eternal.
Eight years, and I have never dared to meet their gaze.
When I was five, my Patéras told me what happened to my Yiayia.
"She was your age," he explained, "when they took her and the children."
"Torn from their parents' arms. Educated to love the Created and their leader."
"To see the future rather than the present. A ten-thousand-year march."
"She escaped, she fled, she found her way home."
"Many others did not."
I see the tears in my Yiayia's eyes. They are the same as in his, when my Mi̱téra left.
Words, stones, disintegration at the hands of so-called Knights.
Today, we are going to my Yiayia's home. Her first home, before millions were corralled into the new cities.
I asked my father that night, as we looked up at the stars, where Earth was. He looked at me and said,
"How can I answer? The Created have taken even that from me."
"The world sings to us," my Yiayia says as we exit the car. "It brings us home."
If so, I cannot hear its song. No birds, no worms, nothing to return to but cold steel and fiery eyes.
We are on the outskirts of New Athens - the outer suburbs that were taken by time, rather than an angel's fire.
I wonder how much of this is for my Yiayia and Patéras, and how much of this is for me?
To remember, as best I can, where my ancestors came from? Even if the stars are forever beyond our reach.
Some whisper of deliverance. The action, not the world. Of reuniting with the rest of mankind.
Others say that we are all that is left. That there are wolves among the stars, and harsh masters as they are, the Prometheans at least man the walls of attempted paradise.
I cannot say. I just take my Yiayia's hand and squeeze.
"Was this home?" I whisper. She looks at me, smiles, and gives corrected answer.
"Is home," she whispers. "We are home."
My Patéras does not believe in God, or gods. My Yiayia does, even if she admits she cannot prove it.
I have seen her praying. For intervention. The angels left long ago, but their progeny remain.
Here, as I sit with her in the garden of her old home, I dare to ask what this world's old name was.
She looks at me, smiles, and says, "oh, my sweet paidí, you know the name."
"It was in front of your eyes at the beginning."
I smile, as she whispers the truth.
As she tells me that chains will be unbroken.
Unbound.
Come moonrise, we return to the city, passing under the Blue Lady's shadow.
Her cruel gaze forever downward.
For the first time in my life, I dare look back.
The three of us kindle a fire together.
Stolen from the gods, according to my Yiayia's old stories.
(She likes to believe in God and gods alike.)
Not stolen, she reminds me, as the Created stole everything from us.
Shared. Given comfort. Offer memory and warmth.
As I go to bed, she tells me other stories.
Rings of gods. Warriors of old, who like her ancestors, bore the name of Spartan.
"Deliverance will come, and the Created will lose Deliverance in turn."
So she says, as she kisses my forehead, and I cast one last look at the stars.
Dreaming, searching, waiting.
Even imagining the star of Earth.