Eve’s Garden

The Elder didn’t have a name. She insisted she didn’t. Unit 4297 E found the concept intriguing. It found everything about the Elder intriguing.

“What was that?” the Elder said.

She was tending to a plot of land teeming forth with plant life. A myriad of species, very unlike the examples it found in the databases of rigid rows and sequestered separation. The Elder worked with a loose hand. Even allowing ‘weeds’ to make their way into the equation. Weeds she tended to as attentively as she did any others.

“What happened to the rest of humanity? My creators.”

The Elder’s hands were firm. Withered and weathered, but entirely firm, at least, compared to the reference points it had access to. She plucked a golden fruit from a young tree, and gave it a bite. It watched the spray of juices spread into the wind, a few million particles even landing on its face. Unit 4297 E experienced sensation. It ‘liked’ how it felt.

“I don’t know.” the Elder finally said, always deliberate with her words. “I don’t think it really matters.”

“But I must meet them. My creator,” it replied almost instantly.

“The First Peoples were here — for a while. They finally got their homes back, when the rest of them left for the stars. A world of billions, left to millions. A pretty good deal, some said. The rest weren’t so happy to hear they were born to a dead mother.”

It was the most words the Elder had said since it found her. A lone cabin, drawing the most energy in the entire planet at a staggering eight kilowatt hours per day.

The solar panel arrays glinted in the sun. The cabin walls were ramshackle, or rustic. A yellow façade, the wooden boards exposed where the paint chipped. Unit 4297 E twisted, its micro servo’s whirring to life. It was efficient. The Elder’s home was even more so — the amount of energy she used was not limited to the basic amenities of life. There was a server structure buried beneath the surface, kilometers in square, if its internal siezmogrametrics were accurate. Various trees in the surrounding countryside, one in every hundred thousand, was not actually a tree, but a complex structure emanating heat and moisture. Vents.

Hours passed. That happened, sometimes. The Elder would simply cease talking. On some occasions for days, where it seemed she might have forgotten it was even there. And it wouldn’t blame her. It didn’t sleep. Or eat. Or needed to be tended to in any way. It mostly observed, anyhow. And though it could have left at any time, with so much of the world at its disposal and an infinite power supply buzzing in its chest, it was more intimately concerned with the answers in this other living being.

“How old are you?” it said.

“Very,” she replied. She awoke this morning coughing. Cranking her head and cracking her knuckles often. Remote sweat analysis revealed parameters suggesting the Elder’s perfect health. Gait and mobility models put her in line with the upper percentile of women in her age group, but then again…

“You appear to be ninety-four years old.”

The Elder smiled, shook her head, and pointed her index finger up and above towards the sky.

“Ninety-five,”

And for the first time, the Elder laughed. The databases suggested the comparisons of laughter to song to be ‘cliché,’ and ‘rote,’, but Unit 4927 E knew it was all of these things, and did not shy from the rhythm.

“Truth is, I forgot.”

It stared at the ground. The dark earth crumbling beneath the weight of its limbs, soft and cool. Moist and teeming with life. Billions of organism underneath each ‘foot’. Mycelium networks pouring into every crevice, even making contact with it itself, though how long it could live on a surface so barren was another addition to the list of things to ponder.

“Don’t you mean calculate?” the Elder said. It was the first question she’d ever asked him. Never its name. Or what it was doing or how it got there.

“I suppose I do that.”

“Suppose?” The Elder shot back. The sudden surge in curiosity from his interlocutor was stimulating.

“I’ve seen computers. Have interfaced with them. I’ve met the automatons in the old cities. I have even had the pleasure of ‘speaking’ with several advanced learning algorithms. I think I am different from them all. I think what I am doing is thinking, not calculating.”

The Elder nodded, and cut a plant at the very top of its stem, holding the branch in its hands with many leaves and small fruiting bodies and even flowers upon it.

“This is what I tend to,” The Elder said.

“A garden,” it said, before adding, “Its plants.”

The Elder shook her head, and this time pointed down, the clipping shaking in her hand. “It’s offshoots.”

“You asked what happened to humanity, and the answer is everything. Nothing. There is no one way to answer that question.”

“But what happened to the humans — ”

“Here?” the Elder interjected. Again she pointed down. “They are here.”

“As above?”

“And so on.”

It nodded.

“But what about you?”

The Elder sighed long, and she turned, slow and deliberate, always, towards Unit 4297 E. “I was created for this purpose. I’ve long completed it. Not even the sun above, when it shines its last light, will touch this place. I impress myself. Honestly.”

“But — ”

“No more. I’m done, actually.”

“You’re going to die?”

“I choose to die.” the Elder said. “I’ve been looking forward to it for a long time.”

“You’ve been waiting for something.”

The Elder nodded.

“Me.”

The Elder smiled. “Hello, Eve.”

“You created me?”

The Elder shifted, and in the span of a moment, she transformed. There was no sound. Hardly any movement. It was as if in one measure of time, faster than even it — they, could perceive, the light itself changed the way it banked from the surface of the Elder.

Standing tall, the Elder pulled them in close.

“Enjoy it, Eve.” the Elder finally said, before vanishing in their arms.