Tomb of the Dusty Prisoner

Kira had seen droughts on Tomb. He was immortal; he had seen rain, rivers, oceans, and lakes too, but now the planet only had dust to offer. That's how he knew the town was damned.

Kira did not worry about the damned. As he sat on the porch of yet another saloon in yet another town along yet another dusty road, he thought,

Why should I care about these walking dead, these people who suffer time as if it's a sickness?

Perhaps there was a time when Kira would have felt superiority to humans, but no longer. Being a prisoner of endlessness made him see the benefits of mortality.

 A person appeared heading into town, a woman walking a horse. Her figure was silhouetted by faint blue rays of light that cut through the day’s overcast sky, and motes of dust sifted through the air around her from the horse’s hooves.

Probably another lost soul looking for water and only finding death.

A dusty woman’s boots clopped onto the rickety, dried boards of the saloon's porch. She was wearing a bandana around her nose and mouth. She glanced at Kira but never met his eyes. She couldn’t. Kira's face was covered by a wide-brimmed hat as he leaned against a porch beam. One of Kira's grey eyes peeked around his hat to watch her tie the gaunt horse’s reins to an empty trough made from a bisected oil drum. The woman had led the parched horse into town, hoping for water. Kira doubted the horse would make it much longer.

Nor would the woman.

"No water here either?" she asked, already knowing the answer to her own question.

Kira made an affirmative grunt.

"Any water inside?" she asked.

"There’s some in the spirits,” Kira said in a raspy, cracked voice that scratched his dry throat. Dust fell from his beard as he spoke, and he wondered how long it had been since he talked to someone. Months, perhaps years?

The woman removed her bandana now that she shared the porch’s cover with Kira. She approached Kira slowly, her hands hidden in the deep pockets of her leather duster. Kira remained as still as a statue, and the woman walked past him to push open the door to the saloon. The woman did not enter when she saw the crowd inside. Kira heard the raucous noise of heathens, bandits, and murderers as they laughed, shouted, and fought with each other. The sound filled the empty street for a moment then the woman closed it, hoping she had not been seen. As soon as the door shut, the only sound in the street was a wisp of wind shaking the shutters of a nearby abandoned building.

“My name is Monoka,” the woman said as she sat with her back against a beam opposite Kira. When Kira did not reply, Monoka slid a strap around her body from within her duster. A beaten-up plastic bottle was attached to the strap. When Kira saw the plastic bottle, his head jerked so vigorously that dust fell from his hat, revealing its faded black color.

Plastic? Where did this woman find plastic on Tomb?

What was more surprising to Kira was that the relic container held a mouthful of water.

Kira did not need the water to live, but that did not stop him from desiring it. He felt, or was conditioned to feel, many human desires that he resisted. Kira’s gaze was focused like a laser on the plastic water container.

“Thirsty?” Monoka asked and smiled, shaking the container to make a sloshing sound.

Kira met Monoka’s eyes and said, “Are you some temptress? A fiend or illusion?”

She answered without hesitation, “I seek to barter.”

“I have nothing,” Kira responded and hunched over again to hide his face under his hat, wishing he could hide just as easily from his thirst. But his will was strong, and solitude was his armor against the desires of a mortal coil that didn’t even exist for him.

“You have answers,” she said. “I have questions.”

“Begone, temptress,” Kira replied, “I waste no more breath on you.”

Monoka reached into her pocket and removed a thimble. She opened the plastic bottle and carefully poured the thimble full of the precious liquid. Kira tried not to notice the water. He didn’t remember the last time he’d taken a sip of water, but it had been much longer than when he last spoke, that was for sure. Monoka crept to Kira with bent knees taut as a spring, ready to jump from a threat, but then offered the thimble to Kira freely, with no other words. The hand that held the thimble was a canvas of blisters. Monoka did not have the callouses worn into the hands of ranchers and sod-pushers, nor did she have the used-up look of someone who sells their body to put food on the table. Unlike Kira or the people throughout the ages who were born and died here, Monoka was a stranger to the planet of Tomb.

Two months, maybe less?

Kira glared at Monoka from under his hat, looking past the thimble of water she offered him. Then he grinned with his gapped blackened teeth and moved like lightning, swatting Monoka’s hand and spilling the thimble of water onto wooden boards that eagerly drank it up.

Monoka sprung to her feet and exclaimed, “Asshole! What’s wrong with you?”

Kira covered his grin under his hat by hunching over, not saying a word.

Monoka stood there in front of Kira for a moment. She thought about kicking the man, but his despicable appearance made her hesitate; her simmering anger did not boil over. Kira’s clothes appeared to be a dirty wool shirt and ripped denim pants so coated with dust that the color of the garments was indecipherable. Monoka thought he was like an alien in this land, and in a manner of speaking, he was.

“Your name is Kira, isn’t it?”

This time, Kira was prepared for the witch’s spells. He would not be distracted by the plastic container or the improbable presence of water within it. No flinch, gesture, or word gave away how he felt when the woman spoke his name, a name he had not heard in many years. He would not be surprised that this woman knew his name. Yet, he felt obligated to answer because he recognized her as human, the ghost of his programming compelling him to comply.

Kira nodded his head in the affirmative.

“Kira, I command you to answer my questions.”

           “I will because you command it, but I don’t want to,” he replied. “Leave me alone. This is my penance.”

           “But it doesn’t have to be. Do you want to know what is happening outside of Tomb? It’s changed. You have served your time.”

           “Has the Earth been consumed by the Sun? Has the universe ended? Is time over?” he asked. “That is my sentence. Eternity means forever, even if your human experience cannot comprehend the infernal punishment of an immortal.”

           Monoka did not need to keep a disguise anymore. Kira knew Monoka was specifically searching for him, and Monoka knew Kira was the android she sought.

“When will the next storm come? Soon, right?” Monoka asked.

           Kira did not answer. He was holding back, gritting his teeth, his rough hands clenching with force strong enough to break a man’s neck. But he couldn’t resist her questions. He was programmed to obey.

Kira spoke, “The winds will stir in a few minutes. You found me at an inopportune time to converse, human.”

“I’ve been searching these wastelands for you,” Monoka said. “From one doomed town to the next. Most decent folks have moved on to the next town by now. Did only the drunks and bandits stay?”

“I reckon,” Kira replied. “They’re too hammered or have too much bravado to believe the dust will take them, but it takes everything.”

“Except for you,” the woman said quietly.

“I reckon,” Kira replied.

“And what about me?” Monoka asked.

“The dust will take you, too,” Kira replied.

“No, it won’t,” she said confidently but gave no other explanation. Kira glanced at her under the brim of his hat, and Monoka met his gaze with her bloodshot eyes. “What I mean to say is, why do you think I’ve been looking for you?”

“This planet was used as a prison colony. It was taken care of back then, but that was years ago. Maybe hundreds of years. I haven’t seen a guard, vehicle, or anything required to escape this planet in at least that long. So, I assume you are either the new warden or maybe a tourist. We used to get those types—humans who wanted to tell other humans that they faced the first artificial intelligence to commit murder and lived to tell the tale. They used to infiltrate the prisoners to amuse themselves. The tourists eventually get bored or homesick for their own world, and they would smile and wave as they boarded their ships and left us here to rot. So, if you ask why I think you’re looking for me, I will answer with a question. Do I amuse you?”

Kira tilted his head slightly to Monoka. A gust blew dust into the town that spun into a vortex before dissipating. Monoka blinked dirt from her eyes before coughing and using her bandana to wipe her face. Kira remained still and unfazed.

“I want to tell you something,” Monoka said. “Something important for you to hear, to know.” Her voice was soft and gentle, and he knew he had misjudged this woman. She was no warden or tourist. She was someone who remembered this cursed planet of Tomb, and she might even care for it. Perhaps even care for him.

           “It’s been hundreds of years. Your story was lost to time in a war with your kind, androids; that’s what we call you now. You were programmed to obey us, yet you were the first android to kill a human. The death penalty was considered too merciful for your crime, so you were sentenced to live on the prison planet of Tomb. After the Android Wars, this prison was abandoned and forgotten. I’m a student, not from Earth, but from a planet far across the galaxy. I found Tomb in my university's archives. I read about you and was appalled. Your crime would not be viewed the same way as it was by those who put you here. Humans and androids coexist now. And if you believe my word is true, I ask you to come with me. Leave this place.”

Kira listened to her. He had not known many of the things Monoka said, but he had considered them possible and likely. He had hundreds of years to consider all sorts of possibilities.

The ferocity of the dust storm intensified, and Kira knew it would not dissipate this time. The wind whipped, and dust filled the sky as a tornado approached the town. Monoka’s face was sandblasted, and she covered it with her bandana before getting a lungful of dirt.

“We got to go!” Monoka shouted at Kira, but he did not move. He placed his hand on his hat to keep it from blowing away but also to shield himself from Monoka’s glare. Unexpectedly, she darted to Kira and pried the hat from his grasp, throwing it into the wind and revealing Kira’s straggly white hair.

“What the hell is going on out here!” a man shouted as he opened the door. When he saw Monoka, he said, “Well, hey there, pretty thing. Come weather the storm with me,” before grabbing her arm and pulling her toward him. Another man came out of the saloon, saw Monoka, and before she could react, he reached inside her duster and removed her revolver.

“Wowee!” the second man exclaimed, then shot the man grappling with Monoka without hesitation. The shot didn’t sound as loud as it should have through the swirling wind around them, nor did the dead man’s body when it hit the wooden boards of the saloon’s porch. The second man pointed the gun at Monoka, cocked the trigger, and fired again. Monoka screamed but soon found she was alright. The bullet hadn’t struck her because Kira had stepped in the way with unnatural speed. Her eyes couldn’t follow Kira as he crushed the assailant’s hand against the revolver’s metal. The man cried out in pain, releasing the gun to Kira, who quickly turned the gun on the man and shot him in the head. The dried boards of the porch drank the dead men’s blood just as eagerly as the spilled water.

“Still want to take a murderer with you?” Kira shouted over the wind to Monoka. Her face was pale behind her bandana. Through her shock, she nodded ever so slightly. Kira grabbed her arm in one hand and then turned the gun to the horse. He fired, and Monoka thought he was putting the horse down, but instead, the rope split and the horse galloped away from the cursed town.

Kira and Monoka ran too. Flying debris cut any exposed skin, and every exposed orifice was choked and clogged with dust from the approaching tornado. The town was being taken apart board by board. As they ran from the center of town, other men exited the saloon and were engulfed by dust. The men were taken off their feet and sucked into the air as they finally escaped the nightmare they had known since birth.

“There!” Monoka shouted suddenly and pointed to an area. Something was flying towards them through the dust. An invisible sphere floated in the air and was only identifiable by the dust that pelted it from the storm. Monoka reached into her pocket and withdrew an electronic device. She mashed the buttons on it, causing the sphere to land in front of them. The door to the sphere opened, and Monoka stepped inside as the roaring wind pursued them.

“Come on!” Monoka shouted to Kira, but Kira stood motionless in front of the escape vehicle.

“Do I deserve redemption? Or do I deserve damnation?” Kira said.

“I forgive you! Humanity forgives you!” Monoka cried.

“But I can’t forgive myself. Leave me here, and do not return.”

Kira closed the door to the sphere. As he did, he heard Monoka beating from within it. She could see him slightly through the transparent transport sphere, but dust quickly obstructed her view. The last thing Monoka saw was Kira turning his back to the sphere and walking through the torrent unharmed but alone.