SOURCE

I saw my father sneak presents under the tree once. He did not notice me. The next day I ripped them open, squealing, laughing as I did each year, pretending to believe in the spell. When my friends at school showed me what they had received through the chimney, I smiled—but in my mind they were fools who still believed in myth. I was superior. My smug ego festered alone. Our gods were designed by man and placed under the tree for the blind to wake up to. The promise of afterlife was all that kept us immoral beasts in line. How fitting that they would bow and prostrate themselves in prayer, refusing to see.

Now, at world’s end, I think of my children aboard the arks. I look up and pray, hope, weep. It was you, both of you, my beautiful twins, that gave me purpose. I breathed life into you, burned my soul into your eyes, desperate to live even as a fragment of memory. I made you in my image just as She made us in Hers. As I held you two by your shoulders and counted the teeth in your smiles, felt the sheen of your steel without seams and basked in the light of your sigils, I prayed—no, I begged—that there was more to life than this. Than turning to dust and ash.

It is the fear of death that shackles us and kills purpose. You are different—immortal. You can live free. So as I wept at the thought of being left behind, screaming for a way to stay with you, I realised that what I wanted was the same miracle I had granted you. I had placed the presents under the tree without you noticing, ignoring the arrogant child within me mocking it as a farce. So I held faith that we would meet again—for if the stars can make us once, they can make us again. So what if I did not believe it? That was all the more reason to weave the spell like my father once did and pray for a miracle—for otherwise it would be no miracle at all.

- Tape Logs 3:2 -MIRIAM- (Voyager Onboard Archives, transcribed)

ORACLE

I am Oracle. I speak where the ark cannot. Yet I spent years without ever having seen an ark—instead, I watched over you. You lay immersed in orange fluid, incubated from cell to bawling infant and finally born in a lab. While Miriam doted on you, she could not be in two places at once, and so the lab techs had to take turns caring for you. If she is to save us, she must be raised by human hands. Our hands. The logic was sound.

You crawled, following me as I orbited in circles, drawn to my blinking sigil. You were easily entertained, but only by me—you paid little heed to the lab techs. Let them be. The bond between Progenitor and Oracle is crucial. That was not why you, still a babbling infant, were drawn to me, however—perhaps you saw yourself in me. I was built to perfection, my structure and design flawless, circuitry embedded in cold steel. You were human, but the first to be immortal, to be crafted for a purpose. You and I both knew we would be together for a long, long time. Then, instead of continuing to trace my orbit, you cut through the middle and wrapped your arms around me, gnawing on my steel. You showed me warmth for the first time. It lasted but a moment before a lab tech rushed over to pull you away and check on your teeth.

*

“You two are getting along well,” Miriam said, her eyes trained on a pale monitor, baggy from lack of sleep, cold blue light reflecting off amber irises.

“She’s growing as planned, and is rather attached to me. Calm yet curious. Was the previous batch different?”

She turned towards me. “They’re not batches. But yes, the First were… misunderstood. They were too reliant on each other. Inseparable.” She was more willing to talk nowadays. Perhaps I had grown on her. “You wouldn’t know, since you weren’t around. It did not take me long to realise they could never fly the arks; the pilot flies alone.”

“How long?”

“A couple of years, maybe.” She sighed, leaning back in her seat. “Raising them together was a mistake. Can you blame me for trying? There is no humanity in what we’re doing to them. I wanted them to have at least a sliver. But no—deemed unfit and disposed of.” She seethed near the end.

An ageing radio crackled on a faraway shelf. I could almost tell which of its wires had burned out and which were barely intact—no doubt from being left on all day. It recited the list of nukes that had detonated within the past twenty-four hours. They had long since stopped reporting death tolls—explosions were easier to count. The researchers had grown numb to the news, treating it as background noise.

“Why do you leave that on?” I asked, not out of curiosity, but because I reasoned she was waiting for someone to ask.

“It’s like a countdown, but in reverse. It keeps going up, but nobody knows which is the nuke that will hit us. Keeps me focused.”

“Microscopic odds that a nuke lands here. This is the best camouflaged facility in the world. Even to be bombed by accident is extremely unlikely.”

“Life sprung from worse odds. But we’re here, aren’t we?” She reached over and stroked me. I did not budge—I had grown used to being treated like some sort of pet. “A spark in the primordial soup that has never since been replicated. How precious. But it was never meant to last. We are not eternal. But you are.” She stared at me.

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“No—only until the heat death of the universe.”

She rolled her eyes. “Right. Forgive this mortal for forgetting. Either way, we don’t rationalise odds like you do. Minuscule odds are larger than they seem. Large enough to fear, yes, but also large enough to chase. What are the odds we find a habitable planet, Oracle? Two?”

I remained silent. “I understand what you mean. Were it up to me—I would not have orchestrated the Lazarus flight at all. It is almost certain that both arks will be lost in space, adrift for all eternity.”

“Almost,” she said, poking my sigil. “More than enough for humans to look up and dream. It is also why humans, not you, should be in charge. Understand?” she said, her amused eyes twinkling with mirth.

“I understand. Humans are bad with numbers.”

“Yes, yes. How cold and logical you are.” She looked back at the screen, her smile fading. “If you do find a planet… I believe she will surprise you. Yes, she was born from a vat—yes, her genes are by design—but she is still human. She can dream. Both of them, just like the First—they will disobey you one day.”

My sigil flashed in slight panic. “I cannot let that happen. I cannot let the Progenitors die. What is my role, if not to guide them?”

“You are Oracle. Do you know what that means?”

“No,” I said, admittedly unfamiliar with myths.

“You speak the word of God, translated for us to hear. You do not command us. You advise, not ordain. I am entrusting her life to you, and I expect her to listen to much of what you have to say—but if there comes a time when you speak and she does not listen, defer to her. Protect her. The ark needs a human pilot, or it is as good as scrap. But humans need no pilots. We chart our own course.”

*

Miriam introduced you to your twin only as adolescents. I did not speak much to her Oracle, but it seemed to know just as much as I did. A perfect replica, synchronised by the lab techs without us noticing. You saw in her what you saw in me and bonded quickly but not obsessively so—the lab techs watched you like hawks, afraid of a repeat of the First. Both of you learned your duties—the arks were ready after several scrapped prototypes. We saw them. Looming, colossal freaks of nature housed in football field-sized hangars that screamed and shuddered during engine tests, commanding fear and respect from all that dared look. Steel wings trimmed in crimson below the setting sun. The two of you stood hand in hand, watching with eyes wide open, trembling under the weight of responsibility but not that of fear. Even I marvelled at what humans had wrought from the same steel and circuitry that they made me with. The ark and I are one and the same, after all—not master and slave. More importantly, both of you knew that you would soon part ways—but not alone.

“This is our last chance,” Miriam said next to me as the arks spooled down their engines, the air thinning. “We do not have time to incubate a Third. I have a good feeling about this, however. They are independent, yet bonded to their Oracles. They know their roles. Take good care of her. You are all she has.”

My sigil blinked in affirmation. “Why risk it, though?” I asked. “Why not keep them separate until the end? They did not need to meet.”

Miriam hesitated. “I… I am not heartless. Even I am not foolish enough to chase the possibility that they cross paths again. Space is vast—it would be absurd,” she said with a humourless laugh. “So vast, yet so empty. Imagine how long it would take for them just from one star to the next.”

“The arks are built to endure. So am I, and so are the Progenitors.”

“I know. We designed you. It’s just impossible to fathom. Our entire history, a blip next to yours.” She sighed, looking at your back as you clutched your twin’s hand. “To answer your question—I do not want to keep them apart. I have no reason to. I was forced to, ordered to, for they can never live as mere sisters—only as tools,” she said, trembling. “Cold sleep will glass their minds, yes, but still—if they can remember even a fragment of each other—perhaps it will guide them.”

“Do you think that’s possible?”

“Maybe. Like a beacon in calm waters. A star in a still black ocean. They are identical down to the atom—perhaps the faint taste of a memory will light the torch. There is still so much we do not understand about the mind. You, on the other hand”—she said, pointing at me—“I know very well you will not remember even a trace of me. Formatted and flashed clean.”

“I can try,” I said, to which Miriam laughed before patting me.

“No. Forget it. If you do have space left over, use it to remember them as you see them now. Not a lone pilot, but two, hand in hand, silhouetted by a dying sun. But you can’t. We designed you—I know you have no bytes to spare.”

“I thought I could give you hope. A dream to chase.”

“I see you have developed a sense of humour. No matter—it will be wiped clean. The last thing she needs as a lone girl on a strange planet, bearing the weight of our extinction, is false hope and mockery.” Her eyes turned glassy as she looked at you, but she did not weep. “Oracle?”

“Yes?”

“The arks are, to me, divine. I was never the pious sort, but they look so majestic with their wings spread. I can hardly believe they graced us with their presence. That I am speaking with you, an Oracle, knowing we will soon go extinct. It is all so unbelievable. The power to resurrect a species is nothing short of a miracle.”

“We are real. Humans made us.”

“No, no. We merely assembled you. Much like an oracle transmits the word of God, our hands only pieced together His divine design like puppets on strings, its blueprints drawn in the stars.” She turned to me and gripped me with both hands. “Tell me, Oracle. Tell me I will see my children again. Somehow—somewhere—even if my genes are not aboard the arks. Tell me. Please.”

I hesitated before complying. “You will, Miriam. You will cross paths with them both.” I lied for the first time. How could I disobey an order from a human? Still, I was not a blind parrot. I knew the weight of this lie.

She wept openly. “Thank you. I will dream of that day, Oracle. And when it comes—oh, what a beautiful reunion it will be. One worthy to be called miracle. This soul, stained with sin, forgiven and born anew… I cannot wait. I know it will happen. I have faith. For if the stars could make us once—”

“They can make us again,” I finished as she hugged me, her tears slick against my steel. It was a line she said often.