Ex Lacrima Remnant

Track #38 – Uprising

“How?”

Geiger slumped on his chair, his jaw almost dislocated by how wide his mouth had opened up.

“How is this possible?”

The PV feed, Captain Commander Lily’s speech, the dead Peacekeepers. All. In spite of. His efforts. He slammed his fist on the desk, turned to face the people assembled in the mess hall. The rhizomes. Those rhizomes. They had to be in. No way they weren’t. It was a trap, it had to be a trap. Except he could see them. Their eyes. The eyes of Commander Primula. Of Commander Felce. Of Lacrima. They were wide open too. Shocked. Filled to the brim with surprise. They weren’t expecting that either. Their reactions were too genuine to be staged. All of them except one.

Agave.

That armless rhizome was calm, collected. And wore a smirk. One that said more than a thousand words. Which prompted Geiger to start shouting.

“Y… you knew about all of this?”

Agave didn’t even take a second to think. Her answer was sudden, a blade of ice flashing in the night.

“Of course.”

The gazes of all other rhizomes converged on her, on that smug face she was showing off with pride.

“Lily and Oleander have been preparing this magic trick for the past five years, before I was even born.”

“O… Oleander?”

Geiger gritted his teeth. I’m Deputy Captain Commander Oleander. So, he delivered his message to the wolf. That’s why nobody acted on it. That’s why nobody did a bloody thing for the next two and a half hours. That’s why all his successive calls were blocked. Yet, Agave was not finished yet. Her voice, usually inaudible, was storming full throttle out of her lips.

“Oleander, yes. She was our beachhead, the most important piece outside of the seedship. Being in charge of the Barricade perimeter meant that all emergency communications from the outside world had to go through her. So, don’t worry, Station Commander Geiger: nobody could have made a difference. It’s not your fault. You were set up to fail.”

Agave let out a sigh, before glancing at the other rhizomes.

“Unsurprising that you didn’t know anything, by the way. You, Primula, you’ve always been a loner, photosynthesizing on your own, avoiding us at every turn, too buddy-buddy with humans. And you, Felce, what point did we have in involving a freak that never comes to the greenhouse and likes to falut her boobs to the seagulls instead? But don’t worry, you weren’t the only ones left out. I’d say only about half of the rhizomes of New Babylon were in the know.”

Felce clenched her fist, gritted her teeth.

“What… was the purpose of this stunt, Agave?”

“Haven’t you heard sister Lily?”

Agave turned towards the center of the projection, walked to the podium, close to where Lily stood in the holographic picture.

“Equal rights, for all of us.”

“Equal rights? But why…”

Her eyes and Felce’s locked onto each other. Cold, blue irises on one side. Burning ones on the other. Ice and fire, in a storm of contrasting emotions. Agave shook her head, nodded at Prim.

“Hey, Prim… was it fun to be sprayed with herbicide, the first time you hurt a human by mistake?”

Prim’s whole body jolted. Herbicide. That word. Herbicide. Herbicide. Herbicide. It echoed in her brain, made her curl, breathe heavily, unable to answer, unable to say anything. Agave spat on the ground, looked back at Felce.

“See? She’s still in shock! Your… ‘friend’ Primula, Felce! Look at her, barely able to avoid leaking water from her eyes! And that happened, what, three years ago? Two? Spraying one of us with acid is torture, no human would ever be subject to such a cruel punishment, but nobody bats an eye when one of us is! And you know why? Because we have no rights! We’re just pawns, objects! Commodities, Felce!”

Agave’s voice turned louder, angrier.

“I lost my bloody arms, both of them! You know what was the first thing those bastards tried to do, afterwards? That’s right, incinerate me and Lea, after stripping us of our suits! And, when that didn’t work and I came back to the precinct? They started talking about euthanizing me or using my body for experiments!”

Primula reemerged from her state of distress, her voice still broken.

“…but! But not all humans are like that! Mal… Mimi…”

Only for Agave’s voice to grow even more.

“They still want something from us! Our lymph, our pussies, you name it! There’s nothing free, we aren’t magically becoming their friends overnight! Think about it: if they cared so much about us… why didn’t they do anything? Why didn’t they lobby for our freedom? Did your Mal, your Mimi ever told you ‘I want you to be free’? No, because they don’t think that far! That’s their status quo! And that’s why we had to do it. That’s why Lily, Lea and all others are fighting our fight down there! The only day, the only time, the only occasion where all the human leaders of the world would be gathered in one easily controllable place. It was today or never!”

Geiger stared without saying anything, watched that rhizome talk, listened to her words. Somehow, he saw a younger version of himself in her. His rage for being left behind, after Crevene was assimilated by New Netherlands. Becoming a second rate citizen. A parasite. An inferior being. That rage in Agave’s words… it was the same rage he felt at that time. So, in a way, he sympathized with her. Rhizomes were no pets. They were no things either. But, by all relevant laws, there was no room for them as humans. He glanced again at the projection. Captain Commander Lily, speaking from the podium, keeping Prime Minister Herz in her vines. That image was already a picture for the history books, however that crisis was handled. The rhizomes had an important advantage, but was that enough? He didn’t know, he couldn’t know. Geiger wasn’t a diplomat, just an old, grizzled soldier, one that solved all problems with his gun. Unfortunately, that problem right there was one no gun could easily solve. Yet, a question lingered. A question he had to ask.

“How was Zonta involved? It’s his fault, isn’t it?”

Agave spat on the floor again.

“As if! There is no single existing rhizome that doesn’t want that ogling bastard dead and buried in a mass grave filled with used condoms! He knows nothing, we just used him, like the tool he is!”

“But those parasites…”

“Oh, yeah, he invented them. We just took care of… making them work for us, after stealing the blueprints.”

Agave smirked again, crossed her legs while sitting on the mess hall table.

“Did you really think that all that lesbian catgirl erotica that pervert found on Lily’s tablet was just for her personal consumption? Well, one part definitely was, but the rest was a honeypot for our good ‘chad dad’. So, yay, virus and backdoor, who could have guessed?! Complete control over his archives, over his private files! It was just a question of time till we found something useful. Such as that parasite. Easy enough to create in a lab and to mass clone. Easy enough to plant inside the dumb ‘keepers by messing with the precinct’s medbay and the food of our cafeteria. Sure, it misfired quite a lot and it developed too rapidly in those idiots that stood around rhizomes for too long – such as your precious Mal, Prim. But it was all for this moment. All for today.”

She chuckled, wore her brightest smile.

“Now, sit quiet and enjoy the show! The Turn is coming and there’s still one last surprise!”

**

Among the screams, among the panic, Muriel van Perens couldn’t believe her own eyes, her own ears. That plant. That dirty skank of a plant. Was claiming that scum like her, nothing but property of New Netherlands, was owed human rights. And, to make her point clear, she deleted all the Peacekeepers in the room, in one strike. Van Perens almost bit her tongue, covered her mouth with her hand. The stench of blood, the sight of heads opened like watermelons made her feel sick, caused her to retch. How did it come to that? She breathed, tried to. When Zonta, ten years before, showed them the first protorhizomes, everybody considered him a freak. However, two years later, when Captain Commander Lily was born, Prime Minister Lucretia van Haden saw an opportunity. Artificial heroes, to boost enlisting rates, boost the troops morale. Muriel van Perens was Minister of Technology at that time too, as she had been for the past three governments. Change the head, the belly remains the same. That’s how she survived three legislature switches. She had been there, always been there, even before rhizomes. Now, seeing the tables turned on her made her unreasonably angry. Not even the sight of the maimed corpses of what had to be her elite bodyguards swayed her. She played that game for so long, one, a hundred casualties more were just statistics. Plus, it was now clear what Lily’s aim was – a goal that involved keeping all of her ‘guests’ alive and in good health. That steeled Van Perens’s nerves. There was no danger for her. No danger at all. So, she was free to talk. She was free to counter the flawed, twisted logic espoused by that abomination. So, she started shouting.

“There’s nothing to bargain! You and all the other weeds here were property of New Netherlands, since the moment you were born, if not before! There’s no ‘human rights’, there’s no equality! We made you! You don’t even have wombs or seeds! You are a sterile excuse of a ‘species’, one that cannot exist on its own! So, what makes you think you can make demands? We can just stop producing your kind and you will be extinct in half a generation!”

Lily’s eye staggered on her, its red brighter than usual, like an everburning crimson flame.

“That doesn’t make a difference. We live. We think. We feel. We hate. We love. Just like you. This should be enough for us to be equal. Even if just for a generation, we have the right to be free. What makes us inferior, Minister Van Perens? Whatever you can do, we can. Sometimes better, sometimes worse. That’s how it is.”

Minister Van Perens gritted her teeth. Recognizing human rights for rhizomes was preposterous. They were, for all intents and purposes, just weapons. Weapons in the shape of plant women, weapons that could think and act independently, but weapons no less. Now, these weapons were thinking they could decide their fates. How. Annoying.

“Ha! I like that, girl! Well done! Well done!”

A voice. That voice. Van Perens turned around, met the gaze of a large man, laughing his heart off. Grigorji Shao. The president of the Eastern Coalition. Wrapped in a black tuxedo with white shirt and a horrible green tie. He was applauding, applauding at Lily’s speech.

“The Eastern Coalition has no issues in recognizing rhizomes as equal to humans. I can speak on behalf of my government and of all the countries I represent, of course. You are open to relocate to our cities even tomorrow, Captain Commander Lily. So, please, tell us more about your demands and I…”

“Oh, no, you aren’t!”

Muriel van Perens stood before him, vitriol in her eyes, her fist shaking.

“Rhizomes are property of New Netherlands, Shao! We own them! We own their designs, their blueprints! We have patents! They are just weapons! We own them!”

“Apparently not, Muriel.”

“Lagash take her, she killed all of our soldiers! She kidnapped all of us! And you… you are giving her asylum?! Are you insane?”

“What’s the matter? Scared your plant gals switch owner? You should learn to read the room, Muriel. She won. You lost.”

Muriel van Perens raised her fist, bellowed like a gorilla, ready to strike the chin of that large man occupying her field of view.

But she stopped.

They stopped.

Everyone stopped.

Because the bell tolled.

One. Two. Three.

The timer was blinking. Zeroes. It was simply showing zeroes.

Four. Five. Six.

The tenth vault lighted up. Arrows on the floor pointed at it.

Seven. Eight. Nine.

A small column emerged from the ground, right in front of the vault.

Ten.

The last toll.

The top of the column shone bright in the room. Lily left Prime Minister Herz on the podium, slowly walked down the stage, surrounded by her bodyguards, those thirty armed plant women following her like a an armored tortoise. Shield, Sword, Spear, Whip, Mantis type rhizomes, all in their shining suits of armor, all with their weapons drawn. The crowd watched in silence, fear replaced by a sense of inadequacy. Lily towered above everyone, reached the column with elegant steps. The timer kept blinking. The lights too. The tenth vault extended in its immensity, in front of Lily’s gaze. She couldn’t help but whistle in admiration, in wonder, at the sight of that last gift from the old world. A gift that was going to assume an even more symbolic value, that day. Surrounded by her sisters, she stared down at the luminous panel that emerged from below. The shape of a human hand, wrapped in blue light. An inscription at the top.

For the dominant species on this planet.

The dominant species. Not necessarily humans. Lily caressed the border of the switch, licked her lips. Then, raised her vine arm, rearranged it, turned its extremity into a pseudo-hand with five fingers – all seemingly made of vegetal matter. She admired her own appendix for a second, admired the control she needed to reshape her body as she wished. Then, she turned around to the crowd of humans, still trapped in a state between shock and awe.

“We aren’t different. We are different. It’s a contradiction, but not one without solution. Let this day be the day where man accepted a new companion. A day we’ll be able to remember as a new beginning, peace between two intelligent species that walk the surface of this planet and coexist. Human and rhizomes…. rhizomes and humans. We’ll forget about your sins, the way you treated us so far. In turn, you’ll forget about our crimes, the sacrifices we made to reach today’s arrangement. Now, as the firstborn leader of the rhizomes of Lagash and ambassador of the planet…”

Her vine hand pushed the panel. The light turned from blue to yellow. Numbers and letters danced on the terminal.

“…I’ll open the vault to our common future.”

“No, you don’t! You don’t have the right! You don’t have the right!”

Muriel van Perens’s voice thundered from the crowd, as she tried to overcome the barrier of plant women, as she tried to carve a path through their weapons. That was not how things were supposed to go. A rhizome. A dirty rhizome. Was not the one that had the authority to open the vault. Not after so much time. Not after all they did to be the first.

Yet, she couldn’t stop her.

The terminal.

Was already activated.

“Nooooo! Rot in hell! Rot in hell, you bastard!”

But Lily wasn’t listening. Lily was watching the black gate, shining in the glimmering neons surrounding it, under the peeping eye of the PV cameras.

“So, what’s next?”

A buzzing noise answered her words. The lights on the small column turned green. Suddenly, a panel slid down on the top side of the vault, freeing a huge display. Just like a hundred, two hundred, a thousand years before. The message. The last message. Finally ready to be broadcast. Lily felt a shiver down her spine, a shiver of excitement. Her mouth bent in a satisfied grimace, her heart beat faster, faster, faster. She almost wished Lea was there with her, sharing that moment together, hugging her. Yet, it was inevitable that they had to be separated. Lea’s place was on the Barricade, intercepting all comms from outside. It was natural. Logic, even. Despite that, Lily felt a sort of emptiness, something missing. That feeling, though, disappeared as soon as the display switched on.

Silence fell on the flight deck.

All eyes went up, to the screen.

An office, somehow ordinary. A giant map of what had to be the old world, full of red crosses. All the left half was crossed out, leaving only the right half free of signs. Five soldiers in the background, with uniforms that were so similar and yet so different from those of the current armies of Lagash. Steps. A sound of steps. Till a new figure entered the picture. A man, looking old, tired, wearing his distinctive blue suit, his well-groomed beard.

Anthony Yarramundi.

The President of the Turn.

People bowed. Among the hundreds of humans in the audience, many raised their hands to the sky. Many chanted the name. Others simply stood, gazing at the picture of a man that had transcended life, becoming a symbol of rebirth for another planet, for another mankind.

Yarramundi stood in front of the camera, a grave expression painted on his face, stood in silence for a couple more seconds.

“I’m sorry.”

His first words, though, weren’t those the people assembled were waiting for.

“If you are watching this video, it means that we’ve lost – that, despite our best efforts, everything has been for nothing.”

Lily’s mouth fell agape, she stepped away from the terminal. That introduction… felt wrong. Her skin crawled, her danger instinct flared up.

Yarramundi’s arms opened up, his face traversed from what looked like pain.

“But, if there are still humans among you, please, listen to me. This wasn’t how things were supposed to go.”

His left hand touched the map, slid on its center, on a cross older than all others.

“Germany. This name doesn’t mean anything to you, right? In your database, the database that kickstarted your civilization, there’s nothing about it. We purposely removed most of the references to Earth. We wanted you to learn and grow as a new mankind. Asian, Caucasian, African… even if these terms survived, their origin wasn’t transmitted to you… by design. But, yes, Germany.”

He sighed, bowed his head.

“Five years ago, right in the middle of the seedship program… an unknown vessel of extraterrestrial origin landed here, in what we used to call Central Europe. Without forewarning. Without even being picked by our satellites first. One day, it wasn’t there. The day afterwards, it was. All attempts at communication failed. In hindsight, it’s easy to understand why: there was nothing to communicate. Because, you see, that vessel was also a seedship. An alien one. And, following its purpose…”

Yarramundi turned again towards the camera, his eyes wet with tears.

“…it started terraforming Earth, to fit the biology of the dead race that sent it.”