Waterfall

“Eureka,” Ovid said in Dad’s familiar bayou drawl.

“You will have questions,” Solon said. “First, let us hear what your father has to say.”

“That is not my father. It’s a monster Atlas made.”

“Every ghost gets a dying message,” Solon said. “Until they adjust to inhabiting the robot, this death letter forms the entirety of the ghost’s language. Think of your father as a little baby ghost who needs time and nurturing to grow to his full potential. Now, listen.”

A metallic tear glistened in the corner of Ovid’s eye as it began to speak. “When you were born I was afraid of how much I loved you. You’ve always seemed so free. Your mother was the same way, not scared of anything, never needing any help.”

“I need you,” Eureka whispered.

“It was hard when your mom died.” The robot paused, its lower lip jutting out the way Dad’s did when he was thinking. “It was hard before that, too. I knew you were mad at me, even though you didn’t. I was afraid you’d leave me, too. So I protected myself, added people to my life like armor against loneliness. I married Rhoda; we had the twins. I don’t know how it happened, but I turned my back on you. Sometimes when you try not to repeat your mistakes, you forget that the original mistakes are still unfolding. I never planned to live forever and it wouldn’t matter if I had. Man plans, God cancels. I want you to know I love you. I believe in you.” His orichalcum eyes gazed into hers. “Ander makes you happy. I wish I could take back what Diana said about him.”

Today I met the boy who’s going to break Eureka’s heart.

“I don’t believe it anymore,” Dad said. “So you tell him to take care of you. Don’t make the same mistakes I did. Learn from mine and make your own and tell your children what you did wrong so they can do even better than you. Don’t turn your back on what you love because you’re scared. I hope we’ll meet again in Heaven.” The robot made the sign of the cross. “Make things right, Eureka. Stare your mistakes straight in the eye. If anyone can, it’s you.”

Eureka flung herself into Ovid’s arms and embraced it. Its body felt nothing like Dad’s, and that made her miss him more than she had since he died. She grew disgusted with herself for allowing one of Atlas’s machines to make her feel.

When she pulled away the robot’s face looked different. She couldn’t see Dad anywhere. The orichalcum features seemed to be rearranging themselves in a deep tangle of movement. It was a horrifying sight. Eyes spread. Cheeks slackened. The nose hooked at the bridge.

“What’s happening?” Eureka asked Solon.

“Another ghost is surfacing,” Solon said. “Now that your father opened Ovid, it will draw all the newly dead within a certain radius to it. Think of it as a vortex of local ghosts.”

“My dad is trapped inside with other dead people?” Eureka thought of her nightmare and drew her arms around her chest.

“Not dead people,” Solon said. “Ghosts. Souls. Big difference. The biggest difference there is.”

“What about Heaven?” Eureka believed in Heaven, and that her parents were there now.

“Since your tears began the Rising, all the souls who perish in the Waking World are trapped in a new limbo. Before you cried, they would have made their way, like the souls that died before them, wherever they were destined to go.”

“But now?” Eureka asked.

“They are being held for the Filling. They cannot flow into Atlas’s other robots until those robots rise with the rest of Atlantis. And if Atlantis doesn’t rise before the full moon, the dead’s deterioration will be too great. The souls won’t make it into the machines, or to Heaven—if there is such a place—or anywhere else, for that matter.”

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