Joy

The sky is a perfect blue. The sun hangs just above the water. From the high ground on which the Spa stands, he looks out over mile after mile of the ancient city. The ruins of buildings, their ankles submerged beneath the rising tide, parade away before him, gradually claimed by the extending fingers of the open sea. He recalls that four hundred million years ago all this land had been at the bottom of a warm, shallow ocean.

Above him, the wreckage of the Laconicum. A few reaching spars thrust into the brilliant blue, shards of glass still hanging from their spiny arms. The floor glitters with a million tiny flecks, and torn and twisted pieces of chromed steel glint in the intensifying light.

Tender pieces together the events of the night before. A makeshift levee runs along the eastern side of the campus, built from the remains of the crumbling buildings that marched down Huntington Avenue toward what had been the city center. A jagged gap in the wall marks where the storm surge broke through, flooding the Spa, dooming the guests and their Tenders to a death without apotheosis.

What is he to do? There are no emergency protocols, no set of instructions he can unlock in the event of such a catastrophe. Mater, Femina, Mulier and Anicula. Puer, Adulescens, Vir, Homo, and Senex are gone. He feels no sorrow, grief or loss. But he understands that he has failed in his duty. Only Virgo remains. He must keep her in Joy until she can ascend to the Eternal Bliss. But how? Tender clears debris from the top of the dais. He gently pulls Virgo from the cavity beneath and lays her on the cleared surface. She moans softly as he puts her down. There is nothing he can do, she will awaken, but the sensations she will experience will be unlike any she has ever had, and they will not be pleasant. How can he allow that? He removes the IV bags he has collected from the compartment under the dais, and lays them alongside her. He assesses his resources: four bags of nutriment, six hydration, four antibiotic, two lethe. Perhaps the water will recede and he can go below and obtain more. But for how long? And to what end? The future she was born for has vanished.

He does not have enough narcotics to end her physical life — he will have to asphyxiate her — but it can be done. She sleeps so deeply. She will never know. He begins to place his hand over her mouth.

But something stops him. Perhaps it is the Protocols, which instruct him that until she reaches seventy-five years of age he is to care for her. Or perhaps it is something else. He gazes at her peaceful, sleeping face. He does not want to see the immobility and emptiness of death on that face. She is lovely, and innocent, and helpless. He cannot explain it. Clearly his coding is corrupted. If there were power, and mainframe was still active, he could run diagnostics to determine the cause of these hesitations. But he cannot do it. He stands inert, caught. A gentle crack disturbs his reverie. He looks up.

A man stands on the broken wall of the Laconicum four meters above him. The man holds a rifle. He is dressed in dirty gray. Bearded. Gaunt. He stares at Tender, surprised to see them there. Silence for nine seconds. Then the man barks something at him in a language he does not know. Tender does not respond. The man barks again.

Tender makes a choice. He turns from the man and stuffs the IV bags into the pockets of his lab coat. They fit, though barely. He gathers Virgo in his arms and turns toward the exit, away from the man. The man considers the distance to the ground, decides not to jump, and shouts again. Tender ignores him, walking at a steady pace toward the shattered exit. There is a loud bang, but no impact. He must have fired into the air. Tender increases his pace, but does not turn.

He reaches the exit. The man shouts again, and fires again. The bullet strikes Tender in the left shoulder. It glances off the alloy chassis within, denting it but not compromising his functions. He exits into the ruins of the glassed-in hallway. The man curses and turns away, looking for a place to climb down.

Tender calls up the plan of the complex and confirms that the man’s path will be blocked by several buildings which used to house the outpatient wing of the hospital adjacent to the Spa. He calculates that the man will take no less than sixty-five seconds to run around the buildings to intercept them. He accelerates to his maximum speed and crosses the short space to the main building, past the shattered double doors.

He crosses the marble lobby with its large, welcoming desk, empty for decades, backed by the huge logo of the Spa: a magnificent rainbow sunburst with the words “Welcome to JOY” spelled out above it. Beside it hangs a holo-portrait of the Founder - Dr. More - smiling his reassuring smile upon guests and staff long-vanished.

He pushes open a pair of doors, and heads down a wide hallway. This is the oldest part of the Spa, predating the Protocols, when guests would come for all manner of treatments — massages, manicures, whirlpools, saunas, theta-wave sessions, VR escapes. At the end of the hallway a smaller glass door, marked ‘Emergency Exit’, opens onto the lawn beside the building.

Tender pushes through the door, pulling Virgo close to him, and hurries across the lawn. Virgo’s weight affects his balance, and his gyroscopes are working hard to compensate and keep him upright. The lawn is covered with debris, forcing him to zig and zag as he searches for a clear path.

He arrives at the remains of a road, its surface buckled and twisted, bushes and grasses breaking the surface. Beyond the road the land descends into the Riverway, where the Muddy River flows in a deep ravine. A narrow strand of trees run between the edge of the road and the river, which rushes high with the waters of the storm. Tender scuttles into the shade of the spreading boughs. He hears the shout again, and turns to see the man running across the lawn. The man stops, aims and fires.

A fallen tree hangs suspended above the water, caught on the edge of a metal culvert that runs beneath the street to his left. The culvert is too small for him to hide, but the leafy sprays offer decent cover. Pulling the sleeping girl close to his chest, he slides down the bank, barely keeping balance, slips and skids onto his back, her body on top of him. They continue to slide until his foot makes contact with the branch, and they jerk to a stop. Tender works his way under the canopy of leaves and freezes.

The man with the rifle appears above him, weapon drawn. Tender gets a better look at him. Aged approximately forty years, with dark brown wavy hair, quite long, and light brown skin – RGB baseline 180, 138, 120 – that marks him as a nonalite. He is very thin, malnourished. His black eyes shine feverishly as he scans the area. His clothes are dirty, but not ragged — canvas and denim, dark and sturdy.

Tender holds perfectly still. Virgo, lies on top of him, sedated. The man pauses on the bank above them, unwilling to move on. The sun through the trees dapples his face and shoulders. Silence.

Then a call echoes off the tree trunks. “Chilardo!” The man starts at the sound. He hesitates, uncertain whether he should reveal his position to his prey. The other voice calls again, “Chilardo! Vensa Ki!” The man shakes his head, upset, and then calls out “Spere! Yocareo —” But before he can finish the sentence the other voice, deeper, stronger, with authority, shouts again, “Chilardo, Vensa Ki! Tene chetamo aki! Nowa!” The man curses, takes a final look around, raises his weapon, and walks away. Tender hears him stomping through the undergrowth until he reaches the road, a few strikes of boot on the broken pavement, and then nothing.

Tender lies still for sixty seconds, then begins to work his way out from beneath the branch. It was much easier to get under it. He slides sideways and down, balancing Virgo on his chest and working her inert body past the branch, taking care not to scrape her. The mud oozes and sticks to his back and shoulders. He comes perilously close to sliding into the river, but succeeds at last in freeing them.

He sits up, Virgo cradled in his arms, and then using the trunk of a nearby tree to brace himself, works his way to a standing position. His water-damaged hip sticks momentarily, buzzing in protest, but then re-engages. He runs a quick diagnostic — still functioning at seventy-one percent efficiency. He does the same for his shoulder. Only superficial damage, and a small deformation in his frame. You dodged a bullet, his data stream suggests.

He scrambles up the slope, and looks toward the complex of buildings that house the Spa. He hears several indistinct shouts, turns, and heads away up the hill. The voices fade behind him. There is no pursuit. Clouds slide across the sky, dimming the sun. He starts up the Dvorak Serenade for Winds. Its opening march sounds both purposeful and comforting. It is the first music he has listened to since the storm.

The Spa lies in ruins. Their home. But there are other Spas: one in New York, one in Washington, and, of course, in Phoenix. The Center. Where it all began.

He will take her to New York. He calculates the trip. 329.91 kilometers. 248800 seconds of walking. 2.88 days. He adds an additional 11700 seconds caring for Virgo - maintaining her nutriment, hydration and anesthesia. He realizes he does not have enough lethe to keep her unconscious for the entire trip. He wonders how she will react.

The Dvorak comes to an end. He walks through empty streets lined with empty houses falling into ruin. The clouds thicken. A light drizzle begins to fall, but only a few drops reach the ground through the thick canopy of the trees. Tender walks in silence until darkness falls. He looks down to discover Virgo staring up at him.