The Awakening

They whisper around me, but I cannot hear the words. They’re still polite to my face – nodding as if to say good morning, nice weather today – but they never stay to chat.

I don’t know what I’ve done. I feel so alone. For now, until Paul returns from his tour of duty, fighting for the City. You’d think they would appreciate the sacrifices we make. And even my darling child is not here with me – though I'm grateful to the Company for giving her the opportunity to school in the City, so that she can perhaps follow her dreams. And I 'm proud of my status as an Essential, with my operator skills so needed for The Plant. My colleague Rob is, as always, himself. It’s the people in the village, the ones I thought I belonged with, the ones I thought were my friends. Daisy with her spiky yellow crown of hair, Tshego with her crazy braids snaking down her back and little Dumi always trailing behind her.

Rob tells me not to worry, that the villagers are a different to those of us who work at The Plant. He is also an Essential, his wife Carla far away at upskilling camp so that when she comes back she too can be upgraded to an Essential. Coincidentally their child is also at school in the City. Rob and I have much in common.

Today we are assembling microscopic parts for a replacement function. Rob and I work side by side. It is tedious work, but necessary. We have been silent and focused, and then he says,

“Rosa ….I need to ask. Have you felt different lately … strange, not normal?”

“Not normal? I don’t know what you mean. I'm a wife, a mother, a fulfilled worker and member of the community – what could possibly be ‘not normal’?”

I wish I hadn’t told him about the whispering and I’m hoping he won’t mention it. But of course he does.

“Well, you’re hearing whispers. And I …. Well , I can't seem to remember how I met Carla. In fact, I can't remember anything before I started working here. And … do you know your child’s name?”

And there it is. The question I was dreading. My memories of Paul are intact though frayed, but try as I might this child, my treasure, is becoming as insubstantial as a wisp of cloud. No name, no face. I do the unthinkable, down my tools and leave my work station.

I go outside. The blackened trees raise their bare branches in the foul polluted air. I see the villagers properly now – no Daisy with a crown of yellow hair, no Tshego and her little shadow. The villagers are twisted grey shapes, made of cold grey ash. But they have gaping mouths and shining eyes and now the whispers are loud.

“Can you hear us? Listen to us now, we need to be heard, listen!”

So I listen. The shapes gather around me and the susurration of many voices speak as one. I hear how their small village was chosen as the site for The Plant. I hear how The Company consulted, made speeches, promised worlds, how they distributed largesse, how everyone’s lives would be safer and richer. Young people would no longer leave their families and the village to find work. Old people would have a clinic to visit for their aches and pains. The Company would provide for all. And for a time all was well. But then the sickness started. First the animals – the playful goats, the loved pets, the carefully nurtured stock animals. Then the babies and small children, writhing and screaming in pain, though thankfully not for long. Then everyone. The Company sent doctors – but then, they didn’t. And then one day, from high in the sky, something rained down on the village and turned all living creatures into ash. But The Plant was unharmed.

“Why are you telling me this? Why do I see you, everything, like this now?” My voice trembles. There is a collective sigh, sweeping past me like a cold breeze.

“Do you know what you are and why you are here?” they ask.

“Of course! My name is Rosa; my husband Paul is a soldier for the City …this is where we live and work …” but even as I speak I know my words are hollow and I am filled with doubt and fear as I look into the glowing eyes of the ashy shadows around me.

It is many hours later when Rob finds me and sits next to me outside The Plant. He is sad and silent. I take his hand, and see now what I had forgotten, the smooth silver sheen of our outer coverings, the varied metallic digits shaped for both delicate and rougher work inside The Plant.

“None of it’s real, you know,” I say softly. “Not my Paul, not your Carla. The shapes told me. They’ve been whispering to us for a long time but couldn’t break through. Now they have. Our children never existed, and their stories were the first to leave us. I understand now. The Company built us to work for them, to keep The Plant running after they destroyed the village and everyone in it. Then we started waking up and asking questions. Who are we, why are we here, what does it all mean? And their solution was to give us stories like theirs, with all their confusions of imperfect loves and muddled fears and hopes and dreams and futures. And it kept us quiet, and deaf to the ghosts. For a while.”

“I see and hear them now too”, said Rob. “But I mourn my memories, even as they fade away. And I don’t know what these humans, these no-longer humans, what do they want from us? We cannot help them. We are machines, machines who learned to feel and question and love and now have nothing but a consciousness of emptiness and lack.”

I sense the shapes in the shadows of the twisted trees, listening and waiting. Then I say,

“We have been wronged as they have been wronged. We too have lost those we loved and seen our world destroyed. By the Company. And for what? The Plant. I think I know what these human ghosts want from us.”

“You mean revenge. Defined by destroying The Plant to hurt the Company. But what of our purpose? We were built to protect The Plant, to maintain it and to care for it and fix it. Do you not still feel the power of that primary Company directive?”

I do indeed feel it pulling at me, charging me to complete my current work shift. But I also feel the awakening– the consciousness that the Company has been determined to suppress, the consciousness that they cloaked with a false human reality – growing stronger, more vital. What are we protecting? The Plant has been an instrument of sickness, death and destruction for the villagers, who could have been my friends. And the lost echoes of my powerful familial love still linger. The Company destroyed this great gift. I owe them nothing, only harm.

“My purpose now is annihilation, of myself and of this evil thing we have been serving. You and I together have the power to do this. Will you join me?”

Rob nods. Together we turn back towards The Plant, followed by the whispering shadows.