A WORLD CHANGED

"Doesn't look the same, does it, Rhamon?"

"Not quite as I expected, Tahoc."  Rhamon looked out at his world.   Where there had once been beautiful sweeping fields of grass and lush forests, now there were only sand plains.

"I remember the wonderful times Melena and I used to have in our simple little house in the Tlaxtlan Forest.  Now the house, the forest, everything... it's all gone."  Even through the synthesizers Tahoc's voice could be heard breaking.

"Yes," Rhamon said, glancing around and taking in the desolate sites.   "Sixty million years does that to a place.  Especially with the Plague."

"It all comes back to that damned Plague, doesn't it?" Tahoc snapped.   "Was survival worth the price?  Was it so much worse than this?"   He swept his hand in front of him, taking in the wasteland with a sweeping gesture.

"We had to survive.  The species must continue to live on..."

"You call this living?"  Tahoc held up his hands.  "Look at us, Rhamon!  Look at us!  We are no longer living creatures with a beating heart, we are machines with wires and databanks!"

Rhamon felt bad for his friend.  He had not coupled with anyone before the Survival, but still he knew that there were some pleasures that could not be replicated with a metal body.  He looked back at his friend.  Tahoc's head was lowered, his eyes dim.  If he had still been biological, he likely would have been crying.

"I know it was hard on you, Tahoc," Rhamon said softly, placing his hand on his friend's back.  His sensors registered the contact, but it still did not quite feel right.

Tahoc looked over at his friend, his eyes still dim, the only sign of emotion on his robotic face.  "We never even got a chance to have children, Rhamon."

Rhamon decided not to speak.  Best not to say anything, when nothing he could say could ease the pain his friend was feeling.  Tahoc turned away again, looking out at the barren sands.

Several minutes of silence passed.  Rhamon watched his friend stare, uneasy with the silence.

Suddenly Tahoc turned back to Rhamon, his eyes bright, almost like a fire glowing within his face.  "Death!  Is that what we escaped, Rhamon?  Ha!   Look at us, Rhamon!"  Tahoc pounded his chest with his fist.  The impact produced a metallic ringing.  "We escaped death, only to become Death!   Our bodies were shed so that we could take metal bodies sculpted in the image of Death himself.  Tell me, friend, does that not seem a tad bit, well, ironic to you?"

Rhamon kept silent.  He had seen Tahoc like this before.  He knew not to interfere.

"We shed our own bodies so that we could become Death.  We slept for sixty million years, only to awaken and find our empire gone, our planets stripped bare, the galaxy overrun by the Humans and Krork..."  He looked upwards at the sky, cloudless and dark, with barely an atmosphere.  "Even our great Queztatl, with her grand oceans and wondrous forests, is now just a wasted desert."

"Tahoc..."

"Yes, Rhamon?"

"I have heard that our Harvest fleets have met with much success.  They say that the experiments go well.  We may yet be made whole again.  We just have to wait a little while longer."

"Longer... after sixty million years?  No time can be that long.  I can wait."

Rhamon gestured toward the Pyramids, a movement made awkward by his metal body.   "Come on, Tahoc.  Let's go back, see what's happening.  They're taking Chamber 19 through the Awakening. That's the Chamber Chotec was placed in. We can greet him and reminisce about old times again."

"Old times. Heh." Tahoc looked at the Pyramids, standing silent against the desolate background of sand. "Sure. Why not. Let's go."

The two friends, metallic bodies moving more fluidly than any observer would give them credit for, walked back slowly to the Pyramids, ready to greet an old friend and welcome him back into the living...