A Trap is Sprung
Ruth and Timothy worked their way down to the generator room. Timothy was now able to walk much better after having been treated at the base medical center by the Duty-Bot that had injected them with the transponder. He still needed crutches, and he was still in pain, but the Duty-Bot made it clear that the cast would come off in one week as opposed to three and that the pain would subside soon.
As they dropped down in the elevator, Timothy asked HAL how fast the elevator was traveling. He had found out earlier that HAL could be accessed from anywhere in the base and had been listening in on their conversation since the moment they got there, but had stayed quiet until they reached the control room.
“At its maximum speed, this elevator travels 25 meters per second.”
Timothy waited as the elevator accelerated for a bit and then slowed to a stop, but he had only counted twelve seconds, which put it at about 200 meters or so between the upper floor and the generator room floor. The doors opened to reveal another long corridor with a number of doors on either side. As in the earlier corridors, this one also lit up only as they walked along it, and once again when they reached the end, the lights came on to reveal a robotic guard identical to the one outside the control room standing sentinel over the entry labeled “Generator Room”.
Ruth and Timothy were still uncomfortable around the guard, partly due to its immense size. Most of the robots they saw appeared somewhat human in form, but these guards were different. Although they did walk on two legs, the similarity ended there. The upper part of their ‘body’ was relatively round, with sensors top and bottom, and they had a set of arms at all 4 poles. In place of a head, it had a munitions delivery system which included some sort of rapid fire projectiles and grenades. Timothy was impressed and figured that very little could stop this machine.
“There is nothing to be afraid of. Just ask it to step aside,” said HAL.
“Please let me through,” Timothy said, and the robot dutifully stepped aside to allow them access to the door. Once Timothy put his hand on the pad, the door opened immediately and silently. Timothy and Ruth were constantly amazed that machinery this old could function so well, and they commented on it.
“Timothy, I’ve had hundreds of years to maintain this facility, and if I were human, I’d be bored. Still, I would calculate that what you will soon see will impress you more,” HAL said.
“So why is the main floor in such poor shape compared to the rest of the base?”
“The situation became chaotic as base leaders slowly lost control of the situation. To prevent any further damage to the base and to protect them from the poisons left behind that had concentrated on the lower levels, I kept them from accessing these levels. Once the few survivors hunted everything in the vicinity to extinction they left,” HAL answered.
Timothy had nothing to say to that as they both stood looking through the now open doorway into a central room. It had various doors around the perimeter and a desk with monitors in the center. At first Timothy and Ruth were confused, but HAL quickly said: “Go around the desk to the other end of the room and enter the door on the right, labeled Generator Room.”
They obeyed, and as they reached the door they felt a slight but steady vibration.
“What is this room for HAL?” Ruth asked, looking at the desk and monitors.
“It is the nexus for this floor.”
“And from here we can access…?” Timothy added.
“Other than the Generator Room where you’re headed, you can access all the equipment that keeps this base operating.”
“Wow. Shouldn’t this room be better protected?” asked Ruth.
“I assure you, it would take an attack of monumental proportions to make it into and past this room.”
Ruth looked around and wasn’t too impressed by what she saw but she kept quiet. As they approached the door, the vibration increased until they felt a slight tremor coming from the floor near the door. At first glance the door seemed the same as the others, solid and metallic, but once they got near it they noticed that the door fit differently. It was also the only door inside this room that had a palm scanner. Their thoughts were confirmed when Timothy once again laid his hand on it. The door suddenly moved inward a few centimeters and then slowly swung open. A puff of air sucked past them into the opening, and a rush of sound flooded their ears, as if there was a waterfall somewhere in this new room.
Timothy and Ruth walked through, and once they rounded the corner they stood dumbfounded at the massive wall of concrete and machinery that confronted them. Large stainless steel pipes jutted out from the concrete wall, dropping down to a lower floor that housed three cylindrical objects – two spinning and one dismantled and the innards suspended on a crane as a robot worked on it. It was obvious that water was running at high pressure through the two spinning turbines. They appreciated the incredible feat of engineering that they were witnessing and they stood quietly contemplating it. Finally, Ruth asked HAL: “What exactly is this powering? It seems that there’s a lot of equipment here producing a lot of energy.”
Timothy hadn’t thought of that, but once he looked around he realized she was right.
HAL answered, “You are correct, Ruth. The generators are in fact running at only 5% capacity and the turbines are at near idle. This base defends this quadrant of the earth, as do the other functioning bases. This generator powers the main laser and other defensive equipment and armaments, and the waterfall powers the turbines that spin the generators. Sitting behind the concrete wall is a six hectare natural lake, and that lake is also used to cool down the laser amplifier. The turbines also supply power to the rest of the base that you haven’t seen.”
“Oh,” was all Ruth could muster. After a moment she added, “What other part have we not seen? The elevator was clearly marked and we’ve been to every floor.”
“To every floor on that elevator, but not on the base itself. This base extends over two miles deep and uses geothermal energy as a backup power source in case the river is diverted or runs dry. I will be taking you now to another part of the base, the one I’ve been meaning to show you.”
Timothy and Ruth had presumed HAL wanted to show them the waterfall, but it was now obvious HAL had something else in ‘mind’. They kept on walking as HAL directed, past the concrete wall, through a large steel door that opened up to a tunnel bored out of the solid rock. Ruth counted two hundred and fifty steps before coming to another steel door that opened into a room full of lockers. Timothy noticed four large washbasins, a door marked ‘Men’ and ‘Women’, another door marked ‘Supplies’, and so on. Once through the door at the opposite side, a large and brightly lit room, much more pleasant then the functional but utilitarian room they just exited welcomed them. The air inside seemed fresh and much less damp then the previous room too.
“Please excuse the walk through the tunnel. It was a shortcut not usually used by the original inhabitants of the base,” HAL said.
Timothy and Ruth looked around to see a glass enclosed area full of electronic equipment, although very few of them seemed to be working.
“This area is one of our electronic libraries which contain, among other things, a catalogue of events that have happened since the aliens attacked earth. This base also contains an artifact library on another floor, separate from this one. To the right you will see a guarded portal. Walk up to it and it will open.”
There was so much here that they were desperate to look at, but they walked on as HAL directed. The portal stood out at the opposite side of the room because of the large Guard-Bot standing next to it.
Once they reached it the solid steel doors opened and they entered into a small room. The doors closed and a few moments later opposite doors in the room opened onto a landing and boarding ramp for a suspended tram. It was only then that Timothy and Ruth realized that they had gone up a number of floors in an elevator.
They could hear the gurgling of water and it was obvious that the tram was suspended over a river, although they couldn’t see it. On one end stood the machinery that worked the tram and behind that was a solid stone wall. It seemed to Timothy that the river somehow went under the machinery into the wall but he couldn’t see that far without walking there and peering down. The tram and tunnel curved slightly upward and ran off into the darkness, with the river running under it. The river appeared to be the same one that fed the turbines and generators, although there must have been another river adding to this one. It ran cold and deep, but there was obviously not enough there to supply the water needed for the large stainless steel pipes they had seen earlier.
“This river and tramway is another part of this base’s defense. We use both passive and active defense mechanisms that make and have made this base impervious to attack.”
Timothy and Ruth were surprised that HAL was now sharing more information, but they didn’t comment on it. They got on and the doors closed silently behind them. The tram started up silently, and what little noise the mechanical drive system did was swallowed by the sound of the river below. They watched as the river passed by underneath them faster and faster. The tram tunnel was lighted as the rest of the base was, in sections and only as they passed by. They had no idea how long it was, but it seemed to go on for a long time. Timothy noticed that sections of the tunnel seemed to have caved in at different times, but that these sections had been repaired to allow the tram easy passage. The tram was moving at a very fast speed as it traveled the distance through the tunnel but it soon started to slow back down again. Timothy was hungry and he knew Ruth must be too as they both hadn’t eaten in over a day, but he didn’t say anything.
“HAL, are you here?” Ruth asked, interrupting the silence.
“Of course Ruth.”
Ruth felt relieved at hearing the voice. She was getting spooked being all cramped up in this small, driverless tram. She had never been in anything like it before and Timothy hadn’t either, and they were not used to the confined moving space. It was as if HAL noticed the edge in her voice, and then commented, “We’re almost there. We’ll be disembarking in just a few moments.”
The tram left the river system and came to a set of large steel doors that opened just before the tram reached them and closed after they entered. It soon came to a stop, but the exterior lights only came on when the tram actually stopped moving. HAL purposely turned on all the lights at the same time for effect.
Timothy and Ruth gasped at what they saw. Here was another huge cavern and it extended hundreds of meters from the tram. Timothy could now see why the hill he had seen a few days earlier from the outside seemed odd. This cavern was artificial, with massive steel walls and girders shoring up a solid granite ceiling.
Inside the cavern were hundreds of pieces of military equipment that Timothy could only guess at. There were large rolling vehicles with steel treads, defensive robots like the ones they had seen earlier, long slender machines with wings on them, and unusual vehicles with bars and antennas on top. Some of the machinery looked antiquated but in perfect shape, while others looked like nothing from Earth, sleek, black and mysterious.
On one side of the wall were more displays, most of them inactive but one of them with the ancient writing scrolling down the screen and the other with an active video log, showing a bird’s eye view of a quickly moving forest. Timothy tried reading the words on the first screen but it was just out of range. That language was so archaic and the grammar difficult to understand, but he now appreciated the long hours of studying he was forced to do as a child at the hands of the Tribe’s teachers as they considered the Holy Book.
At the very opposite end of the cavern was a long ramp that stretched upward for a few hundred meters to a massive set of steel doors.
“HAL, are we near the surface?” Ruth asked.
“Yes. At this point we’re approximately 80 meters below, depending on where you’re standing. The chamber roof is approximately 40 meters thick at the thinnest part.”
“Why did you bring us here?” she continued.
HAL paused for a few moments to calculate an appropriate answer and then said: “Both of you need proper instruction and knowledge to be able to proceed on the path you have chosen. This room has the equipment necessary to achieve that objective.”
“I haven’t decided on a path yet,” Timothy replied, but Ruth gave him a solid glare that quieted him down.
“Judging from Ruth’s glare, it appears that you have,” HAL replied, astonishing them with his remark. It was obvious to Timothy that not only did HAL have eyes, but that this machine was surprisingly intelligent and able to quickly identify facial expressions. Ruth hadn’t missed the point either, but she was miffed at HAL’s remark and decided not to comment. Instead she asked, “Do we have the time for this instruction?” she asked. “We have to go back to our village…”
“Not to mention that we’re getting hungry!” Timothy added.
“Your instruction will only take three days, including rest periods in between. In the meantime, I have had duty-bots capture and prepare some food for you to eat. You will find the food, teaching equipment and living areas to your right. If you agree to start, follow the light.”
At that, the lights in the main cavern dimmed to a glow, but one room was brightly lit about a hundred meters away.
As Timothy and Ruth walked toward it they had to walk around several pieces of machinery, including a row of sleek looking objects of differing sizes, black on the top side but almost white underneath, smoothly contoured and obviously built for flight and speed, even to the untrained eyes of Timothy and Ruth. They stopped to admire the objects and Timothy ran his fingers along the skin of the aircraft. It felt cool and rubbery, and Timothy couldn’t feel a joint or separation anywhere he had touched. Aside from some rather large openings on top, Timothy couldn’t see any way that an operator could look out from inside. It almost seemed as if the ship itself wasn’t quite big enough to hold a person. He wanted to linger and take a closer look, but HAL asked him to stop and reminded them that time was short.
“The oils from your fingers will seep into the skin of the craft, affecting its performance in a number of ways.” HAL didn’t explain further, and Timothy felt that he wouldn’t understand even if HAL did explain.
Once they came close enough to the room, Ruth, who had walked ahead, saw a row of cots and comfortable looking chairs with equipment attached to them, including a sort of metallic crown with lots of wires near where a person’s head would be. Ruth looked at the wires with dread, but she continued walking until she reached a set of glass doors that opened for her and Timothy, who had by now caught up. They stood quietly looking at all the equipment, but were startled by a duty-bot that had come in just behind them, carrying a tray of food. The smell of food caught Timothy’s senses immediately, and he nearly yanked the tray of food off the duty-bot’s arms.
“What took you so long to bring food in?” Ruth asked HAL.
“Almost all of the food in this base was processed outside of the base and brought in. The emergency rations warehouse has been empty for a long time, so I had to improvise. Unfortunately, some of my files have been corrupted and are incomplete and I have lost valuable information, data pertaining to some events that occurred after the attack and to information that I needed to prepare food for consumption. It was only after you caught, dressed and prepared an animal that I was able to see how it was done.”
They heard a noise outside the room and turned to see the bay doors slowly opening off in the distance. At first they couldn’t discern what was happening because of the outside glare, but once the doors closed they saw one of those blacks ships hovering a few feet off the ground. They were stunned as they watched this incredible object float soundlessly and come in for a perfect landing.
A robot then came up to it and hooked up an umbilical cord. No one came out of the craft.
“Did we build that?” Timothy asked, not sure of what to think. It looked… right, somehow, but Timothy couldn’t say why he thought that way. “I mean, did we humans build that?”
“Yes,” HAL said.
“I would love to know how that thing works,” Timothy said out loud, but more to himself than anyone else.
“That’s why you’re here, in part. The machines in this room are instruction units, they imbed information into your mind that you will hopefully use to better yourself and help your fellow humans. You will need this knowledge for your future tasks. After you finish eating, please sit on the chair so that the Medi-Bot can make the necessary preparations.”
Ruth seemed apprehensive, but Timothy couldn’t wait to be hooked up. While they ate, he asked HAL about the basics of the teaching unit, and HAL went on to explain what they should expect while hooked up. In short order they were done eating, and after using the restroom as HAL had suggested, they sat down on the two closest chairs. The Medi-Bot hooked them up to a body scanner and had the machine do its start-up routine. Timothy saw his vision slowly blur, and just before things became black he felt Ruth hold his hand.
Timothy was surprised to see a sudden, completely clear image jumped out at him. The clarity of what he was seeing was so incredible that he couldn’t focus on the content of the teaching. Within a few moments though, the events he was seeing suppressed his astonishment. Timothy and Ruth saw the same basic content, their area where they live now but back in time before there was any life. He saw this area zoom away until he recognized the Earth, but even that became a small ball as the angle of vision passed the moon, then Mars, and then the outer planets. Ruth marveled at the rings of Saturn and Jupiter, and Timothy noticed a ship pass by just inside his peripheral field of view. The instruction unit noticed his focus and quickly gave him statistics on the type of ship it was and what planet it had been found on, and included information on the ancient ruins of a civilization that had lasted millions of years.
After Timothy had understood that the universe was composed of countless stars that were for the most part conglomerated into galaxies, it once again showed the Earth and the explosion of life that soon followed. Timothy wondered at the strange mist that flowed through the surface as if it had a life of its own, and the instruction unit didn’t comment either. He did notice that this mist was very active around the centers of life, and Timothy watched with intense interest.
Soon intelligent life appeared, then the first civilization, and Timothy saw incredible work done by humans, but he also saw incredible destruction. The religious hatred and murderous actions of many through the ages brought back to Timothy the argument he had earlier with HAL, that humans really can’t govern themselves effectively. Timothy looked intently as the unit showed him important events in human history and his attention was transfixed when he saw Jesus hung on a stake, with his mother and the disciple John there, just like the Holy Book had said. That scene faded, and next he saw the events of the dark ages unfold. He watched in horror as scene after horrifying scene unfolded with unimaginable brutality and he had to mentally stop the images as he attempted to regain his emotional composure. After what seemed like forever, segments of information on the First and Second World War revealed to Timothy the power of science without morality.
When the atomic bombs exploded over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Timothy’s intense focus led the instruction unit to think that he wanted more information, and before Timothy was aware of it, he had received enough knowledge to construct a rudimentary atomic bomb.
The thought that this machine had this kind of power appalled him, and he made a mental note to speak to HAL about this.
From there, he saw the world come to close to a third nuclear war, then the space race, a period of unstable and rampant economic growth and the final earth-wide economic collapse. At this point, the instruction unit stopped and Timothy opened his eyes.
Ruth who was sobbing uncontrollably. This was the last straw for him too, and he reached out his hand as he also started to cry, aghast at what the human race could have done, but did instead.
After a long while, the tears stopped and they were both too physically and mentally exhausted to say a word. When HAL informed them that they had sat there for nine hours, they couldn’t believe it. It had literally felt like a few minutes for them. Another meal was left there, and so Timothy and Ruth ate before they dragged themselves to the washroom and then bed.
That night Timothy dreamed of the Enola Gay; of skull faces; Jesus talking to him and telling him that ‘few things were needed in life, or perhaps just one’ though what that ‘one’ was the Jesus of his dream never explained; stars and planets coming to dance around his head as he ran away terrified that they would engulf him in a never ending embrace of despair and sorrow. When he awoke, he felt more tired then when he went to sleep. Thankfully though, he smelled eggs and a vegetable stir fry which surprised and worried him at the same time.
“HAL, where did you get this stuff?” he asked.
“If you’re worried about the ‘poisons’ penetrating these foods here, rest easy. They have been picked from the tops of hills and the eggs were harvested from the animals that reside there.”
Timothy appreciated the thought of eating this food without worry, but he felt uncomfortable that HAL seemed to know so much about them and their worries. As he ate, he noticed another one of those black ships taking off as one more entered.
“What do those flying ships do?”
“They watch,” HAL said, somewhat matter of fact.
Ruth was still asleep but she had started to stir, and Timothy was embarrassed that he had just remembered to leave some food for her. He had been thinking of what he had seen the day before, and as Ruth greeted him with a kiss and prepared to eat, he asked HAL, “What do you plan to do with these instruction units?”
Ruth stopped eating and waited for an answer. They waited a long time before the answer came, and it was once again not informative enough.
HAL said, “That depends on future events.”
“But what if you were to instruct others, and they were to pursue information that could jeopardize other people’s lives. Would you allow it?”
“Once again, that depends on future events. It would also depend on who it is that would be using it.”
Timothy tried a different tack. “Can we delve into anything this machine has stored away? In other words, have you hidden anything from us?”
“I have set the parameters to allow you complete access to anything this databank holds.”
“What if I were to try and search out a way to destroy you?”
Ruth drew her breath in sharply.
“The information is at your disposal, though you would find that objective very difficult to accomplish even with the correct information.”
“So, you wouldn’t stop me.”
“No.”
“That’s dangerous, HAL,” Ruth said, but HAL didn’t reply.
“Two more questions HAL,” Timothy continued. “Do you have emotions? And, can you lie?”
“No, I do not. And yes, I can decide to tell the opposite of known actualities.”
“So you can lie,” Timothy asked.
“Yes.”
“Are you lying now?” Timothy asked, half-joking.
“Yes.”
Timothy and Ruth looked at each other, and burst out laughing.
HAL started laughing too, and that shocked the both of them into silence. “You can laugh?” Ruth asked, astonished.
“No,” HAL replied, and Timothy and Ruth burst out laughing again.
They gained new respect for those that created this machine so many hundreds of years before. They both decided that the machine truly couldn’t laugh, but that it was still surprisingly adept at calculating the nuances of humor, one of the hardest of human emotions to understand.
HAL had calculated that this response would accomplish its objective, to redirect their course of questioning. Their reactions told it that its objectives were reached, for the moment. HAL calculated a 63% probability that they would raise the matter up at a future date.
“Tell me HAL, can you love, too?” Ruth asked.
“No, but I can understand all the different kinds of love.”
“Really!” Ruth said sarcastically. “Then define the love that exists between a man and a woman,” Ruth added challengingly.
“Very well. In laymen’s terms, true love is, among many other things, the desiring and enjoying, usually but not always in a non-sexual way, the complexities and nuances of another person to the point that the two people will eventually bond at an emotional level. This bond usually culminates in the outwardly display of marriage which confirms their agreement to all present and to themselves emotionally; and in the eventual sexual act, often times repeated...”
“Ok, Ok, we get it,” they said, giggling.
“But I’m not finished. I have another two hours of scientific explanation defining the chemical reactions that occur that lead to both short term and long term bonding…”
“Obviously HAL, you understand this more than any human can,” Ruth said playfully. But she did have one final question. “With these instruction units, are we accessing actual historical information, or is this your interpretation of past events?”
“That, Ruth, is a very good question. It is not in my programming to re-interpret information for the Base Library. This instruction unit works independently of my entity, although I can add and delete information as I see fit. It has accumulated the information it feels you need based on what you know, and has independently prepared it in such a way that you can easily understand. It is quite factual and as accurate as possible. For the sake of continuity, many older historical segments have been theorized or recreated based on proven or long accepted but unproven historical sources, yet by far the majority of information shown has come from physical sources such as modern and prehistoric news and historical files, archeological artifacts, or electronic sources such as video and digital files.”
Having finished eating, they went to the restroom and came back to once again be hooked up. Timothy had more questions, but he felt he should see what else the machine had to show.
Once they were hooked up, the images and information they started receiving continued from where they left off the day before.
The effect of the earth-wide economic collapse was far reaching. The financial collapse of two industrialized nations caused worldwide panic and the shockwaves of the collapse toppled one bank after another. The political machine was quagmired as accusations flew from one nation to another. Through inaction and useless accusation, the situation worsened as more and more countries privatized their economy, but this stop gap action only worsened the global situation.
Within three days the collapse was irreversible and all attempts at damage control were now diverted to survival. Inflation rose to a world average of over 1000% per month, and much of what was considered important became worthless because it no longer contributed to survival.
People’s priorities changed when they lost everything for which they had worked their whole life. Bank machines no longer worked because paper money had no value, and things once taken as valuable became worthless as people struggled to eat and stay warm. Gold, a hot commodity, was eventually thrown into the streets when people realized it was worthless. The new gold was food, fuel, medicine and clean water.
Pandemonium hit as greed, frustration and panic set in, and millions lost their lives to the instability of those few days. The world shook as if through tremors, and world leaders became drastic in their approach to solutions. Barely buried religious fervor exploded and murder became once again ‘the will of God’, leading to new levels of atrocities, militant actions and guerilla warfare.
Soon after the collapse, in 2027, a third and final world war began. Timothy and Ruth saw over one billion of Earth’s population die directly from a nuclear attack on that one day war, and another two billion die from disease, starvation and radiation poisoning in the one year period following the war itself.
Ten years after the One Day War, most of the Earth’s population had been decimated through disease, long term radiation poisoning, deaths brought on by terrorist attacks in the name of God, and a new influenza pandemic that spread all through the world within a period of two months.
At the lowest point in human history, one Thomas Grey gained prominence.
This quiet, shy but influential accountant had been proclaiming a financial ‘doom and gloom’ to Wall Street five years before the financial collapse, and had shown up on National Television to highlight his eleven year plan.
Because his plan encompassed the impossible at the time, he was labeled a crackpot. However, with humanity’s near destruction, the President of a much smaller and disorganized United States had found him again and invited him to speak of his plan on national television once again. He was reluctant, but the President promised to back him and appear beside him as he outlined The Plan, as it came to be known.
He began by identifying himself and outlining his purpose: The restoration of peace and security to the human race, to be implemented by any leader who had the courage to follow through with his recommendations.
His sensible logic, coupled with his reputation and his few if any political ambitions appealed to a people tired of death, lies, inaction and political double speak. Before Mr. Grey knew it, a cry had risen up across the nation, and soon Earth wide, to not only implement his plan but to have him as their new World Leader.
The then President invited him over for dinner and introduced him to The World Alliance Council, a mysterious group of twenty people, addressing them as his friends. In the course of the evening this group explained to Mr. Grey that world events had inexorably and relentlessly reached this climax, and that it was a necessary correction to what had been a deviant path that greedy humanity had chosen to follow. Timothy watched the interchange with intense interest, and the instruction unit obliged by giving him the dialogue record of the event.
“Do you mean to tell me that this council had something to do with the One Day War?” Mr. Grey had asked as a cold sweat starting forming on the nape of his neck.
One of the members appeared to be the spokesman. The unit had no record of his actual name. “No. However, we knew what was about to occur and took action to protect people that were too important to the human race to lose. In the end, the war benefitted humanity.”
Mr. Grey’s anger peaked as he realized the implications. “You mean to tell me that the death of billions of people somehow helped us?”
“Mr. Grey, please don’t get angry. It serves no purpose in this dialogue. As to whether it helped us, look at world events. Nobody listened to you before, and look at what happened. And now,” the spokesman said with exaggerated open arms, “...here you are standing in front of us. Which, by the way, was made possible because we protected you and your family.”
“We are talking billions of lives!” Mr. Grey emphasized.
“This council understands. Honestly. It looks like we are cold and calculated, but I assure you, we spent decades working out the permutations. Let me explain in simplified terms. Think of what has happened to the human race as a disease. In many respects, it is very much the same. Greed, corruption, religious zealotry, materialism and so on has spread out like, well, like necrotizing fasciitis. Flesh eating disease spreads so fast and is so ingrained that the only recourse we have is to amputate and destroy the ruined flesh. If not, the whole body will die.”
“But the One Day War wasn’t selective, culling the bad and leaving the good. It wiped out everyone, good and bad. How does this help us?”
“That’s true,” the spokesman said. “But it provided us with an opportunity, one we can use to humanity’s benefit.”
“How?” Mr. Grey was horrified at this cold logic, but he kept listening.
“Well, let’s use another example, one that is 2600 years old. I was told you are religious. Very well then. In the Bible, chapter two of the book of Daniel describes a vision that Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon had.”
“I didn’t know you were religious.”
“I’m not, but some others in the council are also. That is irrelevant, but the story is fascinating.
“The king of Babylon had a vision while sleeping, but promptly forgot it when he awoke. It so disturbed him that he insisted his magi not only interpret the dream, but reveal it to him too. That was of course impossible, as Daniel stated. But they were magi, supposedly able to do these very things, and seeing as they failed, they were about to die for it. Daniel saves the day by relating the dream and its significance. Here is where it gets interesting. Nebuchadnezzar dreamed of a tall statue in the form of a man. The head was made of gold, the chest of silver, the hips of bronze, the legs of iron, and the feet of a mixture of iron and clay. He then said that the head of gold represented Nebuchadnezzar, and went on to explain that each segment represented an existing or future world power, culminating in the final one, the feet.”
“Made of iron and clay. I know. But iron and clay don’t mix.”
“Of course not! And that’s the point. Daniel went on to explain - rather vaguely I might add - that in the ‘end’, human society would have strong and weak elements in it, and that these elements would be at war with each other. Whether you believe in divine providence or not, the truth is that human society was indeed at war, both symbolically and physically. No sure conclusion could be reached on the important issues, because there was no effective leadership and because no one could see past their greed. The issues that had plagued society for 6000 years were now worse than ever. Society had to lose hope, to admit defeat, to believe there was nothing left, to be able to accept hope. We know for a fact you were not oblivious to this.
“But even this loss of hope would be ineffective with too large a group, as some in the group would always push for their ideologies. Too large a group would be chaotic. Of what use would 50% of seven billion clamoring for help be, if the other 50% was bent on taking advantage of the situation? In truth, human society had to be brought down to manageable levels, levels that could be taught, guided, and directed to the path that would ensure their survival.”
“You mean controlled,” Mr. Grey said.
“Yes, that works too. Do you not think control is necessary?”
Mr. Grey was horrified at the group’s cold hearted action, but he could see clear similarities with what he himself had warned about only a few short years before. And though the truth was a difficult pill to swallow, he could see the logic behind it.
A phrase the council had said stuck in Timothy’s mind. “History has proven that humans need a soul shattering experience to motivate them to make soul searching decisions. Many souls have been shattered. Make the right decision, Mr. Grey.”
Both the council and the President unofficially endorsed his plan and urged him to act. The President recognized full well that his term as President meant little if the nation he presided over was on the brink of extinction.
Although Mr. Grey privately refused their request, they still assigned him a large group of well trained body guards and placed Mr. Grey and his wife in an unofficial ‘safe house’, a small fortress located down a very long dirt road near an abandoned national park in Maine, completely remote from anything and connected to the world only through an electronic link.
His public (and private) refusal to take on that role, coupled with strategic propaganda helped convince the world that he was the right man for the job. An earth wide emotional and unwavering plea finally led him to reluctantly accept the position and the title but with conditions.
He insisted on being called simply ‘Mr. Grey’, or ‘Tom’ in social gatherings, which endeared him to almost everyone. He also made it clear that he would remain in his position for eleven and one-half years, the time he needed to bring about the reality of his dream, after which he would step down and allow the world to choose its type of representation and elect its leaders.
Next he presented a detailed outline of his plans that would be implemented during the course of those eleven years, showing positive and negative effects and withholding nothing from the people. He insisted on a vote of acceptance for the overall plan before he would take office, with a minimum endorsement of 75%. Humanity, overwhelmed by his honesty and candor, came in with an overall vote of 92% with 96% of the population voting. The celebration lasted over 10 days, but Mr. Grey didn’t participate. He had already started work.
Timothy noted that The Plan wasn’t accepted by all. As the segments were implemented according to schedule, the more difficult aspects caused no small resentment among a relatively small group that had voted in favor of it only a short time before. This resentment intensified until an underground movement was formed, created to destabilize the very plan they had voted for.
Timothy saw Mr. Grey’s family killed one by one, and he also saw attacks made on his person. When he concentrated on the attacks, the instruction unit gave him specific details of the events that occurred one night, three years into his term.
A sleeper agent posing as a security guard that had been employed for two years was activated, and he attacked and killed Mr. Grey’s two grown children while they slept. He then went into the bedroom where Mrs. Grey was sleeping, having gone to bed before her husband. Mr. Grey came in just as the assassin was about to cut her throat, and Timothy saw Mr. Grey turn from a mild and quiet accountant into a determined, unstoppable force. The attacker turned on Mr. Grey as his wife Evelyn woke up, and Mr. Grey grabbed the only thing he had at hand, a vase. In the darkness, the intruder misjudged his distance and Mr. Grey smashed the vase directly into the intruder’s mouth, causing fragments to enter his throat. In a panic, the intruder drew a gun and shot at the World Leader, smashing his left shoulder with the bullet.
Timothy saw Mr. Grey pause momentarily, at which moment his wife grabbed the intruder’s hair and yanked back as hard as she could. He wheeled to confront her, and Mr. Grey, now totally out of control, reached forward and grabbed the intruder hard in the face with his good hand and dug into his eyes as strongly as he could. The intruder screamed and his gun went off while Mr. Grey literally tore him off his feet. Mr. Grey felt mush in his hands, but continued to tear into the intruder’s face without thinking of the gun in the intruder’s hand. The intruder, who had dropped the gun as he was being attacked was now completely terrorized, trying everything possible to get out of the World Leader’s hands as he choked on the vase fragments.
Meanwhile, Evelyn had by this time grabbed the night table lamp stand and drove it as hard as she could into the intruder’s mouth. The light bulb exploded as it was rammed down the intruder’s mouth, and Timothy saw Mr. Grey and the intruder shudder with the shock of the still plugged in lamp stand, until Mr. Grey let go. They both heard a gurgling scream which shortened out into silence within a few moments.
Timothy stood there transfixed by the horrible affair, but continued watching Mr. Grey and how he reacted to the situation. By this time he had turned on the lights in the bedroom and had hobbled over to the intruder now lying still on the floor. He saw the shredded face, with both eyes torn apart, and the lacerations around the lips from the vase. The intruder, who was unconscious and choking on glass, was left where he fell. Mr. Grey looked at his wife, now slumped on the floor, and saw blood staining her dress. He held the intruder’s gun in his hand while he pressed a button near the headboard, calling the outer security agents in. They had been completely ignorant of the events that had just occurred.
Timothy learned that this event was a pivotal point in Mr. Grey’s term as World Leader. Their serious injuries, the death of their children, the courage he showed in defending what was important to him, and the fact that all this had been recorded by surveillance cameras and leaked to the press ended up solidifying his support to the populace. People all over the world had gotten tired of this sort of attack, and many had gone through it themselves. To see someone stand up to this, fight back and actually win, won him admiration even from enemies, who had previously called him a physical weakling.
He had been interviewed numerous times over this event. One particular question stuck to the minds of the viewers, and his answer did more for him in five seconds than any propaganda could. The interviewer had asked, “Why didn’t you pull the trigger? Did you not feel justified?”
Mr. Grey thought carefully before answering. “If I had pulled the trigger, I would have gone against the people.”
“How so? Your life was in danger.”
“At the time I had the gun in my hand, it no longer was. If I had killed him, I would have ignored the very laws and principles I laid down, the very same ones humanity voted for. Ignoring them would mean I was ignoring you, and everyone else. I would no longer be fit to serve as World Leader.”
“So, this would be something akin to the benefit of the people, over the benefit of the one.”
“That’s what this is all about. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
After that, there was nothing that they could do to stop him. The underground group was given a chance to support what they had voted for, and those that refused were charged and convicted of treason against the human race, the most serious crime anyone could commit and punishable by death. The World Court decided that the intruder did not deserve to be remembered and his name was erased from all records. He was executed as John Doe. Meanwhile, Mr. Grey continued with the plan, and his wife stood resolutely by his side until his death by natural causes.
Mr. Grey had started out as a mild and humble accountant and turned into an unstoppable force that, under his benevolent dictatorship, stabilized the Earth’s finances and brought peace to a shattered and lost humanity. His common goal of a ‘One world, One people, One economy’, his ability to persuade through reason and common sense, and his quick action against those that had set themselves up on the side of anarchy made The Plan a reality. Timothy saw a tired multitude, sick and hungry, turning now to Mr. Grey for leadership and trusting in his every decision.
He also saw this outstanding person continue mild mannered, taking action only when it bettered mankind. His vision was far sighted, but within eleven years, and just before his death, the world was once again prospering and unitedly making plans to send human explorers into space and beyond. The military technology that made war so lethal was now being modified to make exploration effective. With a One Government, there was no need for war.
Just after this momentous point, Timothy saw an alien ship crash land almost dead center in New Washington, narrowly missing the New White House. The year was now 2036, and stability was a reality. The existence of this ship shocked the world because it simply couldn’t be denied. Although the aliens inside were dead, the effect this ship caused on the human population was worldwide and immediate.
Everyone wanted to know where it had come from, why it crashed, and its purpose. Pictures of the dead, ant-like aliens inside surfaced within days, but it took months to understand the biological computer inside and decipher its contents.
Eventually a team of top notch scientists organized by the now public World Alliance Council, the precursor ruling party after the death of Mr. Grey, revealed some startling key facts. The alien craft was surprisingly simple, but their intent was not.
It became clear that this ship had an unusual drive that could traverse long distances in a short period of time. It was also obvious that the ship was a scout. As they studied the information, the objective of these aliens became clear.
At the same time, a brilliant but autistic engineer and mathematician called Jonathan Diaz showed up on the scene. As an idiot-savant, his family kept him out of the public eye, until one unfortunate event made him world known.
His wealthy but shy parents had enrolled him in a private school that catered to children with specific disabilities, and within days his ability to solve complex mathematical problems had become obvious. A professor took Jonathan under his wing and tutored him for the next six years. To everyone who knew them, it had appeared as if this professor had become a second father figure, one that the family trusted implicitly. Unfortunately, an already troubled and uncommunicative Jonathan turned even more so, becoming totally absorbed in his own mathematical world as he lived with the professor.
It shocked his parents when, on leaving the house one Sunday morning to go to church, they saw a cold, wet and crying Jonathan standing at their front door waiting for them to open it. Why he had left the professor was something no one could figure out. Jonathan was unable to communicate the reason and the professor hadn’t even noticed that he had left, which left the Diaz family very upset. How he got home was another enigma, and yet there he was.
For the next six months, Jonathan worked away in their backyard, asking for and receiving one item after another that he would ask for. The items he chose appeared to be random – he asked for things from various catalogues, roamed through the local junkyard, took parts from vacuum cleaners, toasters, refrigerators and other objects, all of which drove his parents crazy.
The professor had come numerous times to visit, but Jonathan became so upset whenever he saw the professor that the parents had to ask him to not come again. In the meantime, the object Jonathan was constructing was taking shape, though no one knew what it was.
One morning Jonathan’s mother Mary was turning on the dishwasher when the lights dimmed suddenly and a noticeable hum was heard from the electrical circuits in the house. A moment later all the lights blew out. Mary figured it to be a power surge and knew that Jonathan was afraid of the dark, so she went looking for him but he was nowhere to be found. Panicking, she finally looked into the backyard and gasped in astonishment. In place of machinery, transformers, capacitors and so on was one large sphere measuring about 20 meters across with a perfectly mirrored surface. Mary called her husband at work in a panic, and then called the police.
Once they all arrived, they inspected the sphere and noticed that it perfectly matched the contour of the ground, down to the individual blades of grass. They could pull out a blade that seemed imbedded in the mirrored surface, but they couldn’t put it back in once it was pulled out.
Mary was now crying uncontrollably as she worried about Jonathan, and Jonathan’s father Pedro paced back and forth. He knew this object was somehow related to his son’s disappearance. It was on his pacing that he discovered overturned grass, which led to his finding a thick power cable buried in the ground coming from the direction of the house to the sphere. As he tried to dig where the sphere met the ground, it would immediately expand to fill the void, acting somewhat like liquid filling a cup.
Pedro followed the cable to the house and saw that it by-passed the breaker box and tapped directly into the grid. He called an electrician.
At this point a quick thinking police officer called an engineer friend of his working on a contract for WASA, the World Aeronautic Space Association. He arrived just in time. The electrician, unknown to the police officers or the engineer, cut the power to the house and the sphere collapsed in on itself to reveal a frightened Jonathan Diaz whimpering in his seat amid a mass of equipment.
It had taken weeks, but Jonathan’s frenzy to build a machine he devised in his head was finally understood. He was trying to find a way to protect himself.
He continued working on mathematics and engineering, except that now he had a team of ‘handlers’ - engineers, mathematicians and hundreds of support workers helping him out in a high security building in a secret government compound. Jonathan liked the security, and he particularly enjoyed the freedom to do anything he wanted. His parents had made sure the government understood that stipulation clearly.
Mr. Grey came to visit him personally shortly before his own death to thank him for his contribution to society and to assure him that all would be done to keep him safe. Jonathan understood very little of what Mr. Grey said, and he sat there fidgeting quietly throughout his speech. About halfway through, Jonathan wrote something on the notepad he always carried with him, and when the World Leader concluded he handed it over. In the middle was one line of a scribbled formula, and Jonathan, for the first time in his life, looked at someone straight in the eyes. As he looked at Mr. Grey, he said, “Important!” and closed Mr. Grey’s hand around the paper.
Although no one at the time could understand that formula or the context behind it, through his work he devised other formulas that led to Zero-Point energy harvesting. This breakthrough led to jumps through quantum space and provided the energy for shield creation and sustainability. It took a massive worldwide team of engineers years to follow his proofs and bring his mathematics to reality, but eventually they did, and these designs gave impetus to the spirit of space colonization, exploration and world defense. What would have taken centuries to do was accomplished in less then two decades. More importantly, his inventions, coupled with technology taken from the crashed alien ship advanced human technology to the point that it surpassed that of the aliens, giving them what they hoped would be a lead in whatever might be coming their way. They didn’t have long to wait.
A World Library was set up by people grouped under a new term, The Technologists. This library was made accessible to all approved students and scientists that held the common goal as originally agreed to by humanity, and it electronically housed all the information, tests, studies, papers and scientific notes gathered by all the Technologists in their fields. It also included all the data accumulated by Jonathan Diaz’s team, as well as the information gathered from the alien ship’s computer. This incredible amount of information was the basis for the technology race that had begun, and it was now fueled on human pride, curiosity, and the threat of an alien attack. Each language group excelled at some facet of this technological advancement and took pride in what they added to the World Library. The relatively open source was built on the premise that secrets are never secrets for long, and that secrets themselves ultimately benefit no one. It obviously worked. Humanity had never before been so fired up.
At this point HAL spoke up without stopping the instruction unit.
“Timothy, please note the following point that I highlighted for the both of you. It concerns an attempt to use the information in the library for an evil cause.”
When Timothy’s attention focused on this minor point, the Teaching Unit expanded the event.
Certain colonists on Mars had declared their colony an independent state, much to the derision of the rest of humanity. The few took advantage and monopolized their stolen position of power, breaking the vow they had given before heading out. The Council refused to deal with terrorists, and continuing to trade with the colony provided advantages for both groups.
After a few years had passed, a container ship on the round trip from Mars carrying a cargo of helium 3 docked with World Orbital, a repair and assembly facility in Low Earth Orbit, and one of its sensors registered a small radiation leak.
Coincidentally, a docking station attendant that had spent most of her early morning tossing and turning in bed finally gave up and decided to go to work early. She caught the amber radiation warning light just as it lighted up. Having nothing else to do, she suited up and entered the container ship, and after inspecting its cargo found a small yield nuclear bomb normally used for sub-crust robotic mining actively counting away to detonation with only twenty seven minutes to go. The bomb was defused, but it was obvious that some had gone to a lot of trouble to make sure the bomb detonated at the busiest time.
Once the news got out, anger towards the rebellious group spread like wildfire among almost everyone on Earth. The first Interplanetary Space Combat Unit was formed, Intel was gathered, the World Court assembled, and the colonists involved were allowed to defend themselves. As soon as the decision was rendered, the already waiting ISCU delivered a series of precise strikes that ended the group’s ambitious plans once and for all.
Timothy understood what it was HAL was trying to say, but didn’t comment. He continued to see the colonization of the outer planets and the cooperation between nations on Earth defense, space exploration, earth sciences and in energy, food and medicine.
In the meantime, work continued on the alien ship. A new science called exobiology had been formed and centered around the study of alien physiognomy. Their first specimens, the ants, were well known, but few had heard of a second group of twenty-eight smaller aliens initially mistaken as vermin.
Timothy watched as, over a period of 23 years, the Deep Space Project took shape and came to fruition. A total of 242 deep space primary vessels, each carrying a complement of over one thousand humans each, were built, assembled in Low Earth Orbit and launched. Along with these were hundreds of smaller support, attack, defense and reconnoiter ships divided among the group. They launched as a group under the agreement to never return unless called for. The survivability of the human race was too important to sacrifice for homesickness.
In 2065, the brutally cold night that was December 21st introduced an event that would burn itself into Timothy’s psyche, one that had done the same to the two billion other humans on Earth over 700 years before. Reports came in from the recently built Pluto Deep Space Station that multiple objects had been detected from just within the Kuiper belt. They soon confirmed that it was the same alien species that had sent the scout, and after sending out greetings on all frequencies, they locked down the station and retreated to deep underground tunnels well below the frozen methane. The last automated report was that the external part of the station was under attack, but Timothy saw the surface station appear to get completely destroyed.
The aliens bypassed China Lunar Base, either because they didn’t know it was there or because they didn’t bother, and attacked Earth. Timothy saw the devastation they caused, but he also saw humanity fight back. This base where Timothy was had caused serious harm to a large part of their fleet, as had a number of other Earth bases. The battle was obviously edited by the instruction unit, but it was clearly evident that the aliens had encountered unexpected resistance and had underestimated the ability of the Earth to fight back. The base shields had completely surprised the aliens. Perhaps they weren’t aware of the crashed alien ship and the technological advancements it gave humans, or perhaps Jonathan Diaz’s brilliance gave humanity exactly what it needed to survive, but whatever the case it soon became clear that the attack, although lethal to two thirds of those on Earth, would not be successful. The only exception to the whole event was China Lunar. It had its offensive weapon offline due to a serious radiation breach and so could offer no support.
Out of apparent desperation, the aliens launched a biological attack on humanity, poisoning the ground and waters and led to the situation they were in now. Timothy saw that almost all of the habitable land had been poisoned except for some remote islands that had missed the brunt of the attack. Human resistance was the reason why there were humans at all, and the aliens left in somewhat of a stalemate once the poison spread.
The teaching unit went on to describe the last 700 years of history, and ended by telling them that a small number of humans had become resistant to the poisons.
Timothy’s senses slowly came to inform him that he was hungry and needed to go to the bathroom. A total of sixteen hours had now passed, and HAL notified him that he had one more day to go.
“HAL, the machine mentioned that a few humans were resistant to the poisons. How many?” Timothy asked.
“Impossible to ascertain.”
“Can you guess?” Timothy asked.
“Or lie,” Ruth added, and they both laughed again.
“An estimate would be greater then forty, and less then fifty seven in this tribe, based on previous observations of members exposed to the toxins and their survival rate, whether they mated with a human that had a similar resistance to the toxins, and the number of offspring they had.”
“Do we have a genetic resistance?” Asked Ruth.
“Yes, both of you.”
“How do you know?” Timothy asked.
“If you didn’t, you would be dead by now. The levels of toxins in this part of the base are still high because of the waterfall. But earlier on the Medi-bot scanned you both as it administered the transponder, and then analyzed the pinprick of blood left on the transponder syringe just to make sure. You are immune. In any case, a vaccine has been developed that can be administered to all if you wish.”
They ate in quiet, mulling over what they had seen. Once they were done eating, HAL informed them that for this part of the lesson, they would be hooked up while they slept. The information they would be receiving would be technical and would allow them to work on any machine in the base inventory, plus any alien machinery outside in the local area of the base that had been inventoried and codified. The information they received would be imprinted in their sub-conscious, and would appear like second nature.
Ruth and Timothy awoke almost at the same time, and for the first time in three days, they felt completely refreshed. They didn’t dream as far as they knew, and neither did they feel like they knew anything more then the day before. They talked a bit about the events they ‘saw’ in the past few days and asked HAL: “So what do we do now? There are five other bases that you haven’t heard back from, not to mention Pluto Deep Space and China Lunar. And there’s our tribe too.”
“Your tribe is of immediate concern,” HAL replied. “They are at a crossroads, and events are unfurling that will lead to a negative path. It must not be allowed to come to pass. I have downloaded all the relevant files into this viewer. View the most recent events, and then we can consider possible courses of action.”
They sat down once again and started seeing the events of the last few weeks. They were surprised to see that Rat had followed Timothy and Ruth and they drew a sharp breath when they saw Naomi’s murder. Their anger reached a peak as they realized the degree to which the tribe had been manipulated and fooled by some in the Tribal council. Once the files had been shown, they looked at each other, and Ruth determinately said, “HAL, I think I know exactly what we should do.”
Timothy added: “And we have to do it fast.”
“And what is that?” HAL said.
“You’ll see,” was their only reply, but HAL could clearly see the resolve in their eyes.