The Gardens of Nibiru by Fox Richard

Author:Fox, Richard
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Triplane Press
Published: 2016-04-07T16:00:00+00:00

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Lilith sat on a wooden bench on the covered patio that ran across the back of the college. She watched as waves crashed against the nearby shore, light from Mentiq’s city shining like a moon frozen against the horizon.

She held her necklace in her lap, her fingers rubbing along the edges. A teardrop fell across the deep-blue jewel in the center.

The sound of heavy footsteps approaching startled her. She sat up straight and wiped her face across her shoulder. The youngest of the Marines, Yarrow, stood in the doorway leading back to the ballroom. He said words that had no meaning for her.

“I don’t understand,” she said.

Yarrow touched a box on his throat.

“Sorry, how’s this?” he asked.

“Better. Interesting technology. My aunt worked on something similar for the temple, creating translation protocols for races that Mentiq would contact…” she trailed off and looked over at the distant city. “He wasn’t going to enlighten those races, was he? He was going to consume them, or make them like us—” Her hand flew to her mouth and she dry heaved.

“It’s not every day you get your whole universe upended like this.” Yarrow sat on the bench next to her.

“I don’t think you really understand how I’m feeling right now,” Lilith said.

“Oh? Couple weeks ago I found out that I’m not a real person,” Yarrow said.

Lilith turned to the Marine and pressed her lips into a thin line. She reached out and ran her fingertips down the side of his face and along his jawline.

“You seem plenty real to me,” she said.

“That’s up for interpretation. I’m a proccie, a procedurally generated human being. Ibarra—I’ll explain him later—grew my body in a tube and put my consciousness, which came from some sort of computer simulation, into it. I didn’t even know until Lieutenant Hale told me. Up until a few months ago, everything I thought was my life was a big old fat lie.” Yarrow put his hands on the edge of the bench and leaned back.

“Why? Did this Ibarra create you to be…livestock?”

“No. That’s what the Toth want me and the other proccies to be. That’s why they attacked Earth. I guess Ibarra made me to fight the Xaros. There weren’t many of us left after the invasion, and the drones will come back…can’t say I blame him.” Yarrow shrugged.

“No one asks to be born,” Lilith said. “At least you have a sense of agency with your life. You haven’t been tricked into a belief system like me. You do have the choice to be a Marine? To fight?”

“Do I?” Yarrow looked across the ocean. “I never thought about it. Not that there’s anything else to do on Earth. Everyone is focused on rebuilding the planet and surviving the next wave.”

“You know what’s odd?” Lilith sat forward and tugged at her bottom lip. “One of the younger students, a biology savant, received his calling the last time the kadanu came to see us. He was to figure out a way to accelerate human growth. Fetus to adult within days.

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