“They were the Dust.”
He sighed and ran his hand over his lips a few times. “They are the Dust.”
“And the soldiers? What happened to the first Sparks?”
Erwin nodded. “They tried to stop it. They imposed their will over the adaptations. But it wasn’t perfect. They couldn’t stop only explosions, they had to stop all reactions above a certain threshold. When the bots finally responded, that’s what they did. They stopped the combustion, and every other large-scale reaction. The nanobots muted every reaction wherever they were. Over the next year, the soldier Sparks were able to get the nanobots to adjust; they were able to get some energy back. External combustion mostly. They got us fire. But life as they knew it was done. The entire world paid the price for the anger of a handful of people.”
“But, really, this is all guesses, right?” She held the map steady with her left hand, but she gestured her disbelief with her right. “I mean, we call it history, but there’s no way we can really know any of this?”
“We do know, because we were told.” His voice was steady.
“Told? By whom?”
“By those who were there.”
Disbelief flared. “How is that possible?”
Erwin held up a finger for patience. “As you said, some fifty-five years after the world went dark, a government was formed. And its foundation was built upon the backs of those very soldiers. Peller had worked in the government as a young man, knew something of the program. He gathered together the soldiers he could find and convinced them to use their unique skills to work with the nanobots again. They handed out the first of the Spark-powered batteries. They handed out hope to the few masses remaining in exchange for the power to rule over them.”
She shook her head. “How many soldiers were there? I may not know all of the details, but I can do math. How could there be so many of us now? Where did all of the Sparks come from?”
Erwin glanced down. He ran his teeth over his lower lip. “They came from the breeding programs, which of course necessitated the mandatory education programs that you know—”
Lena scoffed. “Breeding programs!” She let a burst of laughter erupt from her throat. “Those men had to be seventy-five, eighty years old!”
“Chronologically, yes.” Erwin told her. “But the manipulation of the scientists did something to them. Their lives are very much extended, as are the lives of their descendants.” His stare bored into hers. “You must have noticed how quickly you heal from injury, how rarely you’re sick? It depends upon the strength of the Spark, of course. The lives of weak Sparks run only slightly longer than an unpowered human, perhaps merely a few decades, although they are hardier. The strongest Sparks….” The man shrugged.
She leaned away from him, brow furrowed. She was one of the strongest Sparks. It wasn’t ego. It was fact. What did this mean?
“The strongest…what?” She sat up straight again, back rigid, right hand clenched in her lap. “Guardian Erwin…how long—” She stopped and licked her lips. “How long did they live? The soldiers?”
“The oldest of them began dying sixty years ago.”
She sat still, but her eyes wandered as she tried to run the calculations in her head. Almost two hundred years? When she spoke her voice shook. “Guardian. Will I…?” She huffed her dismay. “So, in addition to all the lovely things that make me special enough to kidnap and torture and lock away, I get to look forward to two hundred years of existence as what? Some desiccated old husk?”
Erwin laughed, his mouth wide. He did resemble a lion. “No, Lena. Your strength, your health, your vitality are all extended. You will not be what we consider old for a very long time.”
She gave Erwin a long look. He had a very faint aura. “How old are you?”
“Well, for all I am a giant among the very few historians left in our world, I am not a powerful Spark. And I am eighty-two years old.”
Lena gasped. She would have said he was not a day older than fifty, possibly younger.
He nodded, accepting her disbelief. “And this is why you find yourself the center of so much attention.” His smile became rueful. “The strongest among us find your ability to keep pace attractive. If they were to be fortunate enough to win you, they wouldn’t have to watch you wither. They won’t outlive you.”
“No,” she ventured, her mouth twisting as she stared down at nothing, “they’ll just have to put up with me.”
Erwin laughed again.
She flashed him a sickly smile.