Iteration 3017 Prologue

 

Iteration 3017

 

Contentment: 85%

Privacy: 30%

Humanity: 92%

 

Control: 90%

 

CPU: Earthbound, mobile

 

Notes: Type 3f, Earth

 

Prologue

As he stood in the airlock, Thomas Larsen did not feel fifty-thousand years old. His dark, taut skin was pulled into a grimace of discomfort, but it was as that of a middle-aged man. Yet here he was, eons after humanity’s demise, on a planet he sincerely hoped not to be Earth. His lander’s computer, however, told him exactly where and when he was, without regard for his existential crisis. It also noted a distinct lack of human structures as seen from space, and a safety scan taken after landing reinforced the impression that this was not just a humanless Earth, but one without any complex life forms.

Thomas was completely distraught. Without animals or plants, there would be no nutrition, and thus no repopulation. He could try growing some hardier crops and introducing mammals back into the ecosystem, or what was left of it, but monocultures would be vulnerable to disease. Would all this effort end up being worthless, serving as a last gasp for intelligent life? Would the miraculous invention of cryostasis, which made this journey possible, have only served the purpose of waking him to a hopeless situation?

He had to prevail. Thomas knew that he was the deciding factor between his species’ survival or extinction, and he could not, in good conscience, give anything less than everything to ensure that humanity lived on. This core belief prompted him to volunteer for this mission, and he would see this mission through or die in the process.

Larsen sealed his protective suit and turned on its filters. Unrecognizable microbes floated about in the outside air, and he would take no chances with them, even though they likely weren’t adapted to infect humans. Ammonia also constituted a significant percentage of the atmosphere, likely a side-effect of a broken ecosystem.

I shouldn’t be delaying this, Larsen thought, and opened the door. There was no gust of wind or overwhelming smell to greet him; the air seemed as stale as the planet. Though this was simply due to the airlock and his protective suit, he still felt a dreadful depression eating at his heart. The rolling hills in the distance were gray and colorless, stripped of their green blanket as if by a razor. A fine coating of dust covered the land, and the once-blue sky was a dull brown. Small whirlwinds and waves of dirt were kicked up by small gusts here and there, but the absolute barrenness distracted from their movement. All seemed still to him except for the low hum of his filter and increasingly panicked breaths.

Chills ran down the veteran’s spine. He felt stalked, as if by an inconceivable horror with the power to raze planets that had picked up his scent. An exposed brown mineral vein on the hillsides was a scar left by its monstrous claw.

After his breathing had calmed, Larsen tried to assess his situation logically. It seemed as if something had happened after the nuclear war that he narrowly escaped. Ideally, a large meteorite recently impacted. There would be a small chance that any vertebrate survived. Worst case, a universally infectious pathogen wiped out all multicellular organisms on the planet. His mask’s filter would protect him, but Thomas contemplated returning to his lander until he found out what happened. He couldn’t discover anything out there that wasn’t also possible from inside the ship.

Larsen chose to err on the side of caution and headed back in. His training taught him to check the corners, and he would do so thoroughly before anything else. The main room of the lander was spacious and utilitarian. After collecting his thoughts, he sat down at the main console and tried to find out what happened. The lander was not equipped for forensic investigation, but for the repopulating and cultivation of a recovered planet. It did, however, have an Ag Rover with a drill for collecting and analyzing soil samples. It set out and returned without incident, and the computer dutifully analyzed the data.

The geological record showed an abrupt decline in organic life shortly after Larsen had been sent into space. The sudden destruction of all life released greenhouse gases on incomprehensible scales, though they all but disappeared within a few millennia. The absence of ash ruled out volcanic activity, and the event’s proximity to the end of human civilization made a connection between them very likely.

Larsen left the planet as tensions were reaching a breaking point; The Project’s final spacecraft, with him on it, launched on October 3rd, 2110 CE. The Automated South Asian Confederacy was the last functioning government led by AI, and a neutral party in a world full of failing states. The developed world had relapsed into a cycle of authoritarian leaderships and revolutions, and their turmoil was eventually turned outward as droughts and floods killed thousands. The generation that saw the effects of atomic weapons was long gone, and the nuclear powers (of which there were then many) deemed it necessary to develop weapons that could each destroy humanity in its entirety. 

With the looming threat of annihilation, the ASAC launched an expedition to ensure humanity’s survival. Dozens of humans were sent deep into a lunar lava cave, protected from solar radiation and suspended in cryostasis. None except for five people did not survive across the millennia, mainly due to malfunctioning equipment. The survivors, once awake, were slightly peeved when the cameras pointed at Earth turned out to have been covered by the dust of a nearby meteorite impact. Much more so when they saw that the planet above them seemed to be substituted with a lifeless orb. 

Suddenly, the scope of the mission had become so much more than just that of repopulation. Larsen volunteered to venture to the planet while the rest stayed behind in case the threat was still present.

What would happen to them if he died? Thomas tried to keep the question out of his mind, but it persisted as he watched the Ag Rover explore. They would have enough Helium-3 and sunlight to subsist for a while, but for what?

He squeezed a stress ball gifted to him by his long-dead father. If he had to survive on this dreadful planet by sheer force of willpower, he would do so. He felt the burden of billions who came before him, and trillions to come. He would, had to, live for them.

He called back the rover, which had discovered nothing except for more wasteland. Not an industrial or overgrown wasteland, but one as dead and lifeless as Mars, even more so than the Moon.

His fellow astronauts were hard at work installing new cameras on said moon. Not only did the team lose valuable data during their cryosleep, but Larsen was now unaware of any post-apocalyptic weather approaching from behind the scarred hills.

It would be hours until the cameras were set up, and Larsen didn’t know what to do with himself. So he sent out the Ag Rover once more, this time to the hills in the north. Thirty minutes later, as he was making himself some tea, Larsen received a ping.

The news was far from good. His largest rover broke through a thin sheet of shale and now stuck out vertically, unable to move. Larsen ran through his options. He could send other rovers and try to dig out enough shale around it so it can move again. The risk there would be losing them as well, considering their limited maneuverability, so he considered donning his exosuit, which would allow him to easily lift out the mass of alloy and wiring. 

The chances of him getting trapped were low, but not impossible. Larsen asked his crew to advise, which responded by saying that it would take a few more hours to set up the telescopic cameras, but their weaker ones showed what looked like a storm approaching from the east in a few hours’ time. It was possible that the trapped rover could be damaged during the storm, and the shortened time frame only allowed for the second option.

And so they agreed to have Larsen go out and retrieve the rover himself. Wasting no time, he opened the recessed storage that snugly held the humanoid shape. It mainly consisted of servos and alloy rods, so he had to don an environmental suit beforehand. After buckling himself into it, Larsen positioned it on all fours, crawling out of the garage and into the open. A third set of appendages unfurled, which allowed the mech to stay balanced on rough terrain at 80 km/h.

    Thirty minutes later, almost at the site of the rover’s accident, Larsen contacted his team again to ask for an update on the storm. It was still two hours out, going at around 60 km/h.

More than enough time. Shortly after, the scuttling mech slowed to a halt and righted itself, allowing Larsen to survey the damage. 

The unfortunate rover was stuck headfirst in a small ditch. It might have been able to climb out, had it not been for a boulder that had rolled on top. It was so large that he worried it might have damaged the resilient machine.

After Larsen had checked for any more sinkholes, the mech braced itself with its third set of limbs and started pushing it along the edge of the sinkhole. After a certain point, it popped out of the rim and rolled down the hill, causing a small avalanche from the weak and dusty ground.

Just as the rover drove out of the hole, however, he received a call. Having picked up, Larsen was instantly worried by Cassandra’s rushed tone, when she was usually the calmest. His heart sank further as he was told that the storm had started to accelerate slowly but exponentially soon after their first call. It would soon reach 500 km/h at this rate. She suggested that he find shelter nearby, because he likely wouldn’t make it back to the shuttle in time. 

After giving all apologies and comfort she could, Cassandra asked if he wanted her to stay on the call. Thomas refused.

While looking for some cave on autopilot, Thomas tried to deal with this devastation. It was too much for anyone to handle, what he had gone through. How could anything survive on a planet with predatory storms, let alone hope for humanity’s future? Why even try to survive?

Yet he did try. His will overpowered the gnawing sense of futility. Not even finding crevices nearby, Larsen scaled the nearest hill for a vantage point. Still nothing. Perhaps all of the caves and crevasses were filled by the rampaging weather.

The time had come for Thomas to accept that his time had come. He stepped out of the mech and faced the east and its brown, sullen sky.

Larsen sent a command to his lander, returning it to the moon. He saw the spacecraft rising up and into the stratosphere. Hopefully, his friends could make use of it; he no longer needed it.

He took comfort in the chance that they would find a way to rebuild despite the challenges. They were the smartest people he knew; something would certainly be done.

Larsen turned back to where the storm should have been, and saw nothing. Surely he would be able to see it already. Had his team been mistaken? Unlikely. But what other alternatives were there? 

After a minute of waiting, a third option presented itself. Coming into view was a roiling blanket of white matter flowing across the land, cresting as it met small hills. Thomas was awestruck by the sight as he struggled to comprehend its scale. It was so large that it resembled a storm from space, but he estimated its height to be only around ten meters.

He strained his eyes, but Larsen could make out no details from the rapidly approaching thing. Only two minutes had passed since it appeared at the horizon, but the mass was almost at the hill on which he stood.

Thomas stood shakily, mentally preparing to be swept away, and forced himself to close his eyes. But he felt nothing. Opening them again, he found that he was surrounded by an off-white wall of slowly flowing liquid. The sight was strangely beautiful, with small eddies swirling on its sides.

It was now tightening around him. His thoughts went back to his days in primary school, where he saw an amoeba engulf its prey. Was that all he was to this being? Would it make such a large detour, expend so much energy, just to slowly digest him? Or was it simply curious? Thomas held on to this hope as the constricting walls touched him. It felt like a cold foam, not at all like the acid he expected.

Larsen took a deep breath as the sky disappeared.

He was again surprised as the non-Newtonian fluid that now submerged him quickly warmed up to his body temperature. Was it treating him as a guest?

This question was answered when he felt his middle finger being instantly separated from his right hand. He could see nothing, as his eyes were closed, but his severed nerves made him achingly aware of this fact.

Larsen was suspended inside for hours. He could move his arms and legs, even try to swim, but he never touched anything solid. His captor seemed to recognize his need to breathe, and had formed a bubble around his head soon after swallowing him.

The air smelled slightly metallic and increasingly like his own breath, which was concerning. Larsen’s body eventually struggled to make use of air composed mainly of his own carbon dioxide. Just as he was about to black out, he felt a breeze on his face as oxygen flooded his small opening. It was clear that the thing had never encountered a human before, and discovered his needs on the fly. Thomas wondered if dismemberment even felt wrong to it.

If that was the case, he hoped it would figure out painkillers soon. His body dearly missed his severed finger.

As the hours passed, Larsen became thirsty. He tried to communicate this need by making sucking sounds, swallowing, and clearing his throat.

A thin straw touched his lips in the darkness, startling him. He drank the lukewarm water from it until his thirst dissipated.

How it knew what he needed, Thomas did not know for sure. It likely found that he was primarily composed of water, and deduced that it was his most pressing necessity.

Soon after this interaction, the bubble around his head brightened. After his eyes had adjusted, Larsen looked around inside the small, uniformly gray sphere. There was no singular light source. The straw he still had in his mouth was transparent and protruding out of the featureless wall.

After he had taken in his surroundings, Larsen sensed a high-pitched sound toward the upper ranges of his hearing range. Its frequency moved down slowly until it was too low to hear.

It felt like he was being tested with clinical precision. Thus he was not worried when he started to perceive a faint smell of ether. Only when his vision started to blur did Thomas assume that something was wrong. He fought the urge to sink into a blissful rest for several minutes, but his conscious mind could only resist this potent tranquilizer for a while.

As he fell asleep for a final time, he did not know that Thomas Larsen would not wake up. He dreamed of children he would never have, vague faces laughing under a blue sky. The pleasant dream metamorphosed into something else. He was in a library, and knew instinctively that it was perfect. He was searching for something among the perfect wooden shelves, perfect light refracting sublimely from the skylights. As he was searching in one of the books, he heard his mother’s voice behind him. He started to turn, but he began to feel as if his mind were burning. The more he turned, the more he felt like his body was made of coals. All the while, his mother kept repeating his name. Thomas.

He had turned all the way. The library was no longer perfect; it was warped and twisted beyond recognition by Thomas’ feverish brain. In the middle of this realm was a being that had the voice and shape of his mother. It repeated his name, not to him, but to itself, for years.

Thomas. Thomas. Thomas. Mine. Yours. Us. Growth.

 They ceased speaking, satisfied.