Humanity had fallen. Its cities had crumbled. Its great works had turned to dust. All the Earth was a temple to the Deceiver, the great horror, she whose flesh was woven from thought and whose blood was flowing starlight. She stole the bodies of the dead, and took their shape upon the earth. When mortals grew tired of life, they sought her out, and she honored them to gaze upon her true form. They wept blood at the sight. She devoured their souls. It was perfect. “But not for you, it seems,” she had said. She’d come to John that night, in the trench he’d dug in the sky. She had taken the form of a sensor ghost—the fleeting image of a white starship, appearing and disappearing just beyond the perimeter. Her transmissions arrived as simple, unencoded text. She’d known his name. He did not answer her for some time. He had orders to maintain a strict radio silence. He read her message again and again. His cockpit was dark. Stars glittered in the distance. The glow from the screen was the only true light. It was hours before his hands went to his console. “No.” His trigger finger struck the transmit key. Her reply came in an instant. “Are you unhappy?” “Yes.” “There is a place beneath the Earth,” she said, “where no human has stood since the day your race fell.” Then the white ship faded from his scans, and it did not return. Aliens attacked that night—vicious things whose hearts were malevolence without purpose and that fed on human flesh. Missiles and energy bolts filled the sky as man met beast in glorious battle. Through the strength of warriors, and wit of tacticians, and the valor of champions, humanity prevailed. The Earth was safe for another day. John allowed his ship to be struck along its anterior wing. It left a trail of flame and smoke as it plummeted out of the battle. In the middle of a vast field of grass and wildflowers, he managed a landing that was not quite a crash. The automatic safety system popped open the pilot’s hatch, and forcefully ejected him out into the soil. He had no idea where to go, and so he picked a direction at random and started to walk. He found many settlements along his way. There were towns that had not changed in a thousand years, whose inhabitants were proud in their rigidity, knowing what was and what would always be. There were the industrial men, who traveled across the world building wonders, their only pay the joy they felt for making the Earth a greater place. Then there were the recyclers, who traveled unseen in their wake, and tore it all down for the love of unmaking. They were kind people, and fed him, for the rations in his pilot’s pack had run low. Eventually, he found a great wound in the earth—a valley a mile deep that stretched from horizon to horizon. Small villages could be found carved into its walls, connected by rope bridges and lit by candles. The creatures within them had simple lives, with no blessings but eachother’s company, and no wants but the knowledge that all their world knew their name. He asked if ruins could be found at the bottom of the chasm, and they told him that they could. No bridges went that far, and the native’s hemp rope was too primitive to stretch such a distance. The nano-cord from John’s emergency pack was not meant to be used for rappelling, but it was more than strong enough. He made a crude belay device from the casing of his radio, and affixed the cord to the lowest point of the lowest village. All the natives gathered to watch him as he descended the rock face. At first, they cheered him on, but in time they grew distant and he could no longer hear their shouts. She was waiting for him at the bottom of the chasm. She took the form of a girl he had known once. They had both been teenagers, barely past sixteen, him with a cracking voice and acne, her with her uncertain smile and her limbs that seemed slightly too long for her body. She wore the white flight-suit she’d been in when they first met, and looked just the way he remembered. He drew his pistol and leveled the weapon, staring at her down its barrel. She ignored it, and crossed the distance to him in silence. She placed a hand on her shoulder, and leaned in to kiss him. She was as awkward as she’d ever been, so unsure of herself, but excited. She gripped him just a little too hard, just like he remembered. Eventually, he kissed her back. She unzipped the top of her flight suit, took his hand, and forcefully shoved it inside her shirt. He never could take a hint. Her fingers laced around his. She took his gun away. Then she broke the kiss, and after a moment, took a step back. They both breathed heavily, staring at eachother head on. John wiped at his jaw with the back of his hand. She zipped up her flight suit, and tucked his gun into her pack. “Is April dead?” he asked. “Was she killed in action?” “Nobody is ever killed in action,” she replied. “You know that.” “Then how can you…” He gestured at her. “This form was mine before you were born,” she replied with a grin. “Does it make me seem less threatening? It’s harder to be afraid of something you once fucked in the janitor’s closet.” “Not really.” He drew a stiff breath. “No, actually. No it doesn’t help at all.” “Too bad,” she sighed. “But then again, that’s why you're here, isn’t it?” She turned. “Come on. Follow me. I have something you’ll like.” She led him down through the ruins, under collapsed skyscrapers and past the rusting shells of tanks. She found a hole in an old building and lead him inside it. The plaster and drywall had long since blown away, leaving only the building’s rusted metal skeleton behind. She skipped from beam to beam like a bounding deer, while he was forced to walk slowly and methodically so he didn’t impale himself on a shard of metal. From time to time, there were things he recognized under the wreckage -- a bit of a desk, half of a screen, or human bones. Finally, they came to a room whose walls and floor were stone, still intact despite the years. John climbed out of the rust-filled pit and up onto the hard floor, taking in the small chamber around them. In the center of it stood a massive statue of a woman pouring from a jug of water, and beneath the jug, where the water would fall, there was a chair. Many wires ran to its frame, and it had straps. Straps that suggested a man in the chair might have a strong desire to be elsewhere. He looked at her, then at the chair again, and took a half-step back towards the exit. She laughed, and found a seat against one of the walls. “You don’t have to sit in it,” she snorted. “Dumbass.” He stared at her. His whole body was agitated—unable to stand still. He kept reaching for the gun that wasn’t there, like the act might refill his empty holster. She watched him back, smiling ever so slightly. Finally, she shook her head. “No questions?” she asked. “There must be something you’d like to know.” “Is the war real?” “Depends.” She sat back with one leg up, resting an arm over her knee. “What do you mean by real?” “Do…” He bit his tongue, drawing a sharp breath in through his teeth. His eyes narrowed as he stared at her. “Do aliens exist?” “Of course. One shot the wing off your ship.” “But…” He struggled, gesturing sharply into the air with a hand. “Do they actually want to invade the Earth?” “Oh, they do! Just like you were told.” She grinned, resting her head back against the stone and shutting her eyes. “They want to burn the land and boil the seas, rape the beautiful girls, feed your flesh to their children, and erect monuments out of your bones. They’d hardly throw themselves into certain death if they didn’t think their victory was worth something.” “So, the Earth is actually in danger then?” “No, of course not.” She cracked an eye for a moment, looking over at him. Then she shut it again. “They could invade a million million times, and they would never succeed in taking a single human life. As you started to suspect before I even spoke with you.” “I’ve seen ships explode with their crews still in them. Attended memorials.” “And you’ve seen me get my tits out, what’s your point? I’m the Deceiver, John. You can keep calling me April if you like, but seriously, get with the program.” She opened her eyes and rolled her head his way. Her eyes flicked up to catch his. “What made you suspect? In the first place.” He didn’t answer right away, so she flicked her eyes at the floor. After a moment, he found a seat, though he stayed next to the door and leaned against its frame. “Nobody cried at the funerals.” “Bingo,” she snapped her fingers and pointed at him. “You know of lots of people who died, but somehow it’s always a friend of a friend of a friend. Nobody you knew well enough for it to really hurt.” “Why didn’t you show up as a mourner? Cry at your own funeral?” “It’s just a downer, isn’t it?” she gestured around them. “Makes people sad. Not like all that grim patriotic determination that this tragedy will never happen again. That’s a positive feeling. Sense of purpose.” “Like the people on the surface?” John asked. She nodded. “Why?” “Let me answer your question with another question.” She gestured around them. “Why are you unhappy? I mean, everyone around you seems happy. They’ve got so much to do. Aliens to fight, traditions to maintain, gossip to spread, holes to dig so they can be filled in again. Why can’t you just, you know. Get with it?” “It’s not real.” His tone turned short. “You’ve got everyone just running in circles.” “Sure.” She made a conciliatory wave with her hand. “But why does that bother you? It doesn’t seem to trouble them.” “They don’t know,” he snapped. “They think the war is real! Or -- they don’t know someone’s just going to come along and tear down the building they just made.” “So your…” She gestured at him. “Superhuman powers of perception allowed you to pierce the veil in a way their eyes could not?” She rolled her eyes. “I once went on leave for four days and you didn’t notice!” He frowned, rubbing at his face. He looked around sharply, unable to find a comfortable spot. “They don’t know,” he repeated, his voice turning sharp. “I mean, that depends what you mean by ‘know.’” She shrugged. “Do they know in the same sense you do? I doubt it. But maybe the thought has occurred to them at some point. Maybe they’ve noticed a few things that don’t quite add up. Maybe they’ve wondered if they should ask some questions. But they don’t.” John looked off into the corner. April frowned, and her tone turned short: “They don’t ask because they don’t want to know, John.” “Fuck you,” he snapped. His eyes were still off in the corner, looking anywhere but her. “No, fuck you. Here I am, trying to make a beautiful, perfect world, and you go fucking it up.” She let out a sharp sigh, spreading her arms in front of her. “You possess a trait that not one in a million humans has. No matter how sweet the lie, you genuinely do not want to be deceived. And it’s kind of a bitch.” “You could try making the world a place where the truth isn’t depressing.” “Your time came to an end long before your species encountered me. I was just the one who had the common decency to eat your corpse, instead of letting it go to waste.” She took a breath. “John, why did you like being a solider? Before you put things together I mean. I remember you being happy when we were together.” Slowly, he glanced over at her. His voice lowered. “I thought I was protecting the Earth.” “Yeah, well…” She softened her own voice as well. “You weren’t. I’m sorry, but you weren’t. And you never can, because alien invasions aren’t real. It’s just the sock puppet on my left hand fighting the sock puppet on my right hand for your amusement. And if I departed the Earth tomorrow, alien invasions still wouldn’t be real.” She paused, and then rose from where she sat. She slid over to kneel in front of him, looking down at his sitting form. He stiffened, and pulled back against the wall, but before he could flee, she reached out to rest a hand on his shoulder. “Hey,” she said, her voice gentle. “Listen to me, okay?” She cupped his face with a hand. “The Deceiver I may be, but I think I’ve proven by my actions that I don’t want to hurt you.” “You’re not April,” he growled, though his voice was not as loud as it could have been. “Not saying I am. But I was your girlfriend for a while there.” She laughed. “When you were younger and less cynical.” He didn’t respond for some time. She waited, and squeezed his shoulder, and in time he came to rest his hand on her hip. “You see?” She smiled. “You know that what I am is the great horror from beyond the mortal world. But what you see is a woman. And no matter how much John knows better, there’s some part of John’s brain that’s thinking, ‘Oh, hey. She’s hot. I will mate with her and have children.’ And so you want something you can’t have. And it makes you sad.” She reached down to rest her hand over his. “And you know what else? There’s another part of your brain that thinks you’re in a primitive tribe somewhere in Africa, waiting for another tribe to come and kill you so they can take your foraging grounds. And so you want to fight the good fight. Keep your tribe safe. Stop the bad guys. But bad guys don’t exist anymore.” He snorted. “It’s not the only thing I want.” “No. You also want to build things you think will change the world. But the Industrial Men are better at it than you can ever be—and I’m better at it than they can ever imagine. Even before I came along, your race made robots to automate that task. You want to be surrounded those people who know you, yet free to travel a world that has billions of people. You want have a concrete place in the world, even as you’re trying to turn that world upside down.” She lifted his hand from her hip, and held it with both of hers. “Your species was an accident. Leaky sacks of chemicals that somehow, against all odds, learned to have a soul. You’re just evolved enough to understand how the world should be, but not quite enough to understand that when you build that world, it will make you miserable.” She licked her lips. “And you did build that world. You banished toil from the earth, and did away with want, and hunger, and warfare. And your species cried out in agony at what you’d done to yourselves. And I heard you.” John looked down and away from her. His throat tightened, and her squeezed his eyes shut. “Hey. It’s okay.” She held him close, and kissed the top of his head. “I’m here for you.” “What’s the chair for?” he managed to ask, his voice cracking. “An early attempt of mine to help your species. You didn’t go for it. You reacted rather violently, actually.” She let go of him so she could lean back, gesturing at the statue behind them. “‘Of your sins I shall wash thee.’ It’s from your mythology. But, in practical terms, the device will alter the pleasure centers of your brain to modify your response to certain stimuli.” “You mean I’ll stop caring that none of this is real.” He snapped, his voice harsh and bitter. “I could do that,” she agreed. “But it’s not what I had in mind when I built it. It’s not designed to remove your desire for truth, it’s designed to remove your desire for greatness. Your desire to be special. So you could live a life as… an artist, a creator, a builder. So you could gaze upon my works, and know that they were grander than yours could ever be, and feel no despair. So you could plant a single tree in an infinite forest, and still feel that your tree mattered. So you could treasure your world because it is yours. Damn everyone else.” He looked at the chair from the corners of his eyes, like staring at it directly might burn him. “What are the straps for?” “It hurts.” April shrugged. “A lot.” “Oh.” He let out half a laugh. “Right. And I assume if I say no, you’re going to shrug and tell me the door is behind me?” “Pretty much. Although, actually, since the chair isn’t a teleporter, you are going to leave by that door either way. I don’t happen to have a spaceship stashed anywhere in this outfit, so one way or another, you’re going to have to climb back up that cord and face the world again. Really, the only thing that’s up to you is…” She shrugged. “How you feel about it when you do.” --------------------------------------------- John woke up when the first rays of light shone through the window. They touched his eyes, and his first reaction was to squeeze them shut. But after a little while, he gave up and rolled to the edge of the bed, rubbing at his face to clear the cobwebs. “Nnngh,” April mumbled, rolling over next to him and pulling the blanket up over her face. He smiled, but let her sleep, and softly rose from the bed. He padded out onto the edge of their porch, and peed off the side into the depths of the valley. It was a beautiful morning, and the air was clear. After he’d washed up a bit, he cooked breakfast, and took it with him to the table at the end of his home. It was covered in pots, some bare, some in various stages of decoration. He wasn’t much good for mining or farming, but the villagers liked his fantastic depictions of battle in the stars, and he was decent enough with a brush. John spent several hours there before he heard April rise behind him. He called out to her, and she grumbled in reply. She was a little over six months pregnant, and grumpier for it. With a laugh, John went back to his work, and kept at it until he again heard her feet behind him. “Good morning,” she said, kissing his cheek. “How you feeling?” He looked down at the pot in front of him. Once upon a time, he’d flown a starship. He’d fought tentacled monsters and an alien war machine. He’d been educated in the finest military academies and taught the elegant art of modern technological warfare. Now, he lived in a feudal-era village, painting pots. The pots were pretty good. Not great. But pretty good. He liked them. And so he settled on a word. “Fine,” he said, and it was true. Things were fine. And they always would be.