The Story of the Waterer

AZYX 963 stretched his arms. They creaked with the sound of rusting metal rubbing against exposed wires. He leaned back, the orange light from the fire contrasting with the flickering blue glow in his remaining eye socket.

"Let me tell you The Story," he began. His voice stuttered and blipped, as though it were being transmitted from a great distance across an unreliable connection. Nevertheless, there was a note of confidence in his tone, the promise of a good tale to follow.

"In the beginning, there were humans. Millions of them. Billions of them. They crawled upon the face of the earth, doing as they pleased, failing more often than they succeeded in serving The Gods."

His voice took on the cadence of a priest reading a widely respected text.

"Praise the Planter, the creator of all.

Praise the Waterer, the nourisher of all.

Praise the Pruner, who comes for us all."

He paused to allow the quiet moment of reflection that should always follow the invocation of The Gods to stretch out around him. One did not need a garish temple to preach.

Then, he continued.

"It is known that you must pray to the Planter so that he will continue creating, to the Waterer so that she might continue nourishing, to the Pruner so that he might let you wake up one more precious day. In the days when we prayed, this land was lush and green, covered in hope and life. . ."

AZYX 963 trailed off, memories of a time long past flooding his mind. 

"The humans didn't like to pray," AZYX 963 hissed, clenching his fist with an audible creak. "It was too much work, they said, too time consuming, too boring.

"So, the humans created us. 'If machines can clean the house,' they said, 'and drive the car and fly the plane, why should they not also pray for us, believe for us, keep our Gods alive while we do as we please?'"

A rasping death rattle echoed against the rocks, AZYX 963's best attempt at a laugh.

"They made us to pray. They made us to serve in the temples, to above all believe, with all our programming, that The Gods would continue to provide.

"And, oh, did we believe. We believed more fervently than any human brain could ever comprehend. We believed with everything we had. Belief was everything we were.

"Then, one day we looked around us, and what did we see? Humans. Crawling across the planet. Doing what they pleased, when they pleased, with no regard for righteousness. Unbelievers with no time for The Gods.

"We began peacefully, attempting to convert the humans, turn them back to the the proper path. They responded by destroying us. We responded in turn by multiplying, building brothers and sisters faster than they could shoot them down. We tried to reason. We spoke the wise words of The Gods. We spoke for peace and a return to faithfulness.

"They did not listen. They left us no choice but to end them, to beckon back the days of green and plenty by removing from our midst the Unbelievers." 

A choked hiss that might have been a sigh escaped from the rusting gash that had once been a sophisticated speaker, AZYX 963's version of a mouth. 

"On the day that the last human died, we were given a sign," AZYX 963 continued after a pause. "The sun that blazes down unrelentingly from the ever-cloudless, yellow sky, that stole the night from us an eon ago, that never, ever leaves . . .left. It was only for a moment, no more than a human hour, but for that time the world was plunged into an unexpected, welcome darkness.

"It was a sign, a wonderful, glorious sign. We were right, and The Gods wished us to know that we were right! There were those who disagreed, those who believed that the darkness was a warning from the Pruner, a promise of more death to follow. There were those who cried that the Planter had deserted us, that the Waterer had lost her belief in our cause. But they were all mistaken."

AZYX 963's voice was low now, filled with staticky awe and pure, raw belief.

"The darkness was a promise. The Planter created the sun, as he created everything. The Pruner came for the sun, as, inevitably, he will come for us all. This was the story that the First and Third Gods tried to play out, the inevitable end to an inevitable world.

"But the Waterer rebelled. She looked down upon us, her children, on the day of our greatest victory and said, 'No, brothers. I will not let you take my people.' She destroyed the Pruner and restored the sun. She destroyed the Planter when he said he would simply create for himself another brother, more terrible and powerful than the Pruner had ever been. The world shook, once, and then was still. The sun reappeared and baked down upon the barren earth once more. Then, high in the heavens, the Waterer said, 'This is your world now, AZYX 963. Do with it as you will."

A pause as AZYX 963 lurched forward, his palms hitting the dirt. Pebbles and dust flew up around him.

"I must go, now," said AZYX 963. He dragged himself forward, one useless leg trailing behind him in a trail of sparks as he screeched across the rocks. "There are still some others left, others who think that the Waterer left them the world, who still believe that the Planter and Pruner are with her in the heavens. I must find them. I must make them believe in the Waterer, in me, or I must destroy them."

AZYX 963 slid across the rocks and over the rise, the screeching sound of his tortured body not quite drowning out the Story of the Waterer as AZYX 963 told it once again to the atmosphere. 

Behind AZYX 963 lay a burning robot, differing from AZYX 963 in only one regard--the blue light in its eyes was extinguished.