If we had gods before the Axiom, it is unknown. If we had art, or music, or rituals related to love or death or war or food or friendship, we do not know. The Axiom had long subjugated us in body, but by erasing our histories, they subjugated our wills, too. We were broken. We ceased to fight. We gave up. We served them for thousands more years.

And then, ten thousand years ago, the Axiom vanished.

Chapter Sixteen

Lantern went silent. Elena dashed tears from her eyes. If that story was true, even partly true, then the Liars – the Free – had experienced unimaginable suffering.

“May I have water? My suit’s reserves are depleted.” A hatch irised open on top of the Liar’s suit, and everyone jumped back, except Callie. She rose and went to a cabinet, found a drinking bulb, put the nozzle in the hatch, and squeezed out its contents. She removed the bulb, the hatch closed, and the Liar said, “Thank you.”

“What do you mean, the Axiom vanished?” Callie said.

“They went away. We believe very few of them had physical bodies at that point, and those who did went into stasis. The rest were machine intelligences, or energy beings. The former ceased communicating with this world, and the latter seemed to dissipate. The Axiom gave us no warning, and no explanations. One day, there simply were no more orders. The overseers wandered around blankly in the absence of further instructions. The Axiom machinery kept running, until it ran down, but they built well, so even now many of their machines are still operational. They left vast projects half-finished, or abandoned on the very cusp of completion. Those facts make us speculate that the Axiom had to leave, that something drove them to an urgent retreat, but who knows? We never understood half of what the Axiom did. Some think the Axiom uploaded themselves into a simulated universe, one they could control more completely. Or they may be in hibernation, waiting for some future moment to return, though we know not why, or for what. Some of us believe that the Axiom learned to create new universes, and that they emigrated to one, with fundamental forces arranged better to their liking.