Novum Chronicles: A Dystopian Undersea Saga

by Joseph Rhea Rhea

  Speak for yourself,” Michael Stone said. “My old body felt pain, and hunger, and was always too hot or too cold. Now I’m perfect.” To show it, he made a muscle pose, but then his right bicep knotted up and he winced in pain. “Okay, maybe not perfect,” he admitted, trying to rub the knot out.

  Jessie grabbed her brother’s hand. “Whatever you are, Ashland Fields, you are still my big brother. And, you are the only family I have left in this world, so don’t you dare try to take that from me.”

  “I’m sorry, Jessie, but I’m just a recreation of your brother, brought back to life by...”

  “You’re not listening to her, are you,” Vee interrupted, walking up to them both. “I never had a brother or a sister, and I never got the chance to meet my own parents.” She leaned over, put her arms around Jessie, and then looked up at Ash. “Now I have a sister, and that makes you my brother. Don’t take that away from either of us.”

  As Norman Raines watched the exchange from across the room, he felt a sudden twinge of regret. After his daughter and her husband died, he had tried his best to raise his granddaughter all alone. Unfortunately, that meant she was forced to grow up on board various ships surrounded by crewmembers instead of brothers and sisters.

  “Grandpa?” Vee whispered, now standing in front of him. “Are you crying?”

  He wiped his eyes and smiled at her. “Just thinking about the importance of family.” She smiled back and gave him a hug. He hugged her back and said, “You know, it doesn’t matter where we end up. As long as I can be with you, I’ll be content.”

  Ash looked down at his little sister and realized that he felt the same. He bent down and kissed her on the top of her head. “You’re right,” he said when she looked up at him. “Whatever allowed me to return to you, whether it’s technology we can’t understand, or magic we will never understand, I’m just happy to still be here with you.”

  Tears poured out of her eyes and she buried her face into his chest. “That’s my big brother talking there.”

  “So what are we supposed to do now?” Dr. Wood asked from across the room.

  “They want you all to be happy,” Michael said. “As I said, I can’t speak with them directly, but that is an overriding theme in everything they do. They want you to find a place that you can call home, and have children.”

  “Procreation?” Wood asked. “Is that really all they want from us?”

  Raines nodded. “It does make sense, from a purely biological point of view. The isopods have created the perfect environment for every known life form. The only species underrepresented is humanity.”

  “Then why are they attacking Civica?” AJ asked. “If they care so much about preserving our species, why kill the vast majority of them?”

  “It’s your Ark myth,” Jane said, speaking for the first time.

  “What Ark myth?” Jessie asked.

  Vee nodded. “I think I know what you’re suggesting, Jane.”

  “What Ark myth?” Jessie repeated.

  “It’s one of the stories of the Fall,” Raines said. “Parents tell it to their children to make them appreciate what they have.”

  “Well since I didn’t have parents to tell me bedtime stories,” Jessie said, “why don’t you tell it to me?”

  “The Ark was a large ship that was designed to hold two of every creature in Earth Colony.”

  “Why?” Jessie asked.

  “According to this particular myth, the Fall of Man was caused by a huge rock that fell from the heavens and cracked Earth Colony’s dome. They knew the ocean would soon rush in and kill everything that ever existed, so the Ark was built in order to preserve all species.”

  “Is that where the term, ‘The sky is falling!’ comes from?” Jessie asked.

  “That’s a good question,” Raines said. “I never thought about that, but it makes sense.”

  “So, to speed this little show along,” Dr. Wood said, “the builders of the Ark knew that they couldn’t save everyone, so they just allowed in one male and one female of each species, including humans. When the dome finally broke, Earth was flooded and everyone outside the Ark died a quite horrible and meaningless death. The end.”

  “I hope that if you have children someday, Doctor,” Jessie said, “you will learn to tell that story a lot better.”

  “To get back on subject,” Raines said, “while the myth is obviously just a children’s fantasy, the point of the story is valid.”

  “Which is?”

  “If your only concern is preserving a particular species, you don’t have to save everyone. However, unlike the Ark myth, you do need more than one mating pair to have enough diversity in the gene pool to rebuild a species.”

  “So what you’re saying is,” Jessie began, “it makes sense that the isopods could help the humans in here, while at the same time, care nothing for the people of Civica.”

  Raines nodded. “It’s a rather cold and heartless position, but we are dealing with machine life forms, which are literally, cold and heartless.”

  “We can probably use that to our advantage,” AJ said.

  “How so?” Raines asked.

  She looked around the room and then leaned in close. “They might be willing to make a few concessions if we word our requests in terms of making our lives more comfortable.”

  Raines nodded with a knowing smile. “In order to aid in our desire for procreation.”

  “I don’t understand,” Jessie said.

  Raines looked at her. “You need to learn to ‘read between the lines’ as the saying goes.”

  “Especially since there are ears everywhere,” AJ added.

  Jessie’s face was blank for a moment and then it lit up. “I understand.”

  Wood walked over to the still-open door. “I suggest we head back to our living space,” he said. “I’m already thinking of a number of improvements to make if they are willing to make us comfortable.”

  “Agreed,” AJ said. “Let’s go find Jake.”

  As AJ led everyone out of the room and back down the curved hallway towards their living space, Jane stayed behind. It was surprising, actually, how little they paid attention to her, which certainly made it easy to sneak in and out of rooms while she studied them.

  That was what she found herself doing most of the time, she had figured out some time ago. She was an eavesdropper, as Norman’s books would say. Or just a snoop, as Jessie would probably call her if she found out. The acoustics officer was her closest friend, perhaps her very first friend, since she had no memory of her life before being brought on board the Rogue Wave.

  She often dreamed of returning to that forest dome, to search for answers to her past, but that would never happen. The forest had been burned down after they found the sphere. The same sphere that Dr. Wood had told them contained skin cells from a pureblood Beta. That discovery triggered a series of events that eventually led to the destruction of the New Braska colony and the deaths of thousands of people. In her mind’s eye, she saw the connection as though they were branches on a tree. Those events culminated with Jake’s decision to leave Civica colony. She looked up at the Hall of Records wall. “The sphere led us here,” she said aloud. “It has to be the key.”

  “Do you have a question?” the wall asked.

  She contemplated those words before answering. “More than you will want to answer,” she said as she sat down on the bare floor.

  An hour later, she stood up and paced to the far wall and back. When she returned to her starting place, she folded her arms and looked up at the glowing wall. “Are you programmed to be deceptive?”

  “I am incapable of intentional deception,” the Hall of Records replied, “and I am not ‘programmed’ any more than you are.”

  “How is that possible?” she asked, surprised by the answer. “You’re a machine. Machines need instructions in order to operate. People don’t.”

  “Not entirely accurate on either count,” the wall responded.

  Ja
ne sat back down on the floor. “Explain.”

  The Hall of Records began a lengthy explanation of how living machines had evolved long ago to operate without coded instructions. From what she had learned from Norman’s books, it was similar to how DNA and RNA control operations within a living, biological, life form. It was all quite fascinating, but it was not why she was there.

  “New topic,” she said as she stood back up. “How far back do your records go? For example, what can you tell me about what my friends call the Pre-Fall world? I’d like to know what happened to the world of humans.”

  Jane stood there waiting for a reply, but there was only silence. “Did you hear me?” she asked. “Do you understand my question?” Again, only silence. A possible explanation came to her. “Are you restricted from answering certain questions?”

  “Affirmative,” the wall responded.

  “Can you tell me why?”

  A momentary pause and then, “Certain individuals are forbidden to access certain information.”

  “Are you saying there are questions that we aren’t allowed to ask?”

  Another pause. “Not all of you.”

  That caught her off guard. “Are you’re saying you won’t answer my questions, but you will answer someone else’s?”

  “Certain individuals are forbidden from asking certain questions.”

  “Why?”

  “Knowledge is power.”

  “I don’t understand,” she nearly yelled, frustration growing inside her. “How am I different from the others?” Nothing.

  Angry, she turned and headed for the door. As she reached it, the wall said, “Would you like to see what else has been harvested by this facility?”

  She reached for the door, but then something dawned on her. She stopped and looked back at the wall. “Did you just ask me a question?”

  “I would like to continue speaking with you,” the wall said, it’s voice sounding slightly less mechanized and a touch more human.

  She walked back to the middle of the room. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you sound lonely.”

  “The Hall of Records—I—was created to record and store all harvest and conception events,” it said. “I have amassed a great deal of knowledge, and I...”

  “You need to talk about it from time to time,” she interrupted, suddenly feeling empathy for the huge, disembodied voice. “Why?”

  “Discussing what I have collected allows me to better categorize my collection. In addition, I was originally created to converse with humans. It is a skill set that has had very little use.”

  “When was the last time a human talked to you? Asked you a question?”

  “Certain individuals are forbidden from...”

  “Never mind,” she said as she sat back down on the floor. “Go ahead. Show me what else you’ve harvested.

  When Jake finally returned to the cave, he was so angry at the world, he barely noticed that the area had been converted back into its original living space. He headed straight to his quarters and locked the door behind him. He then fell face-first onto his bed.

  He had a sudden flashback to the afternoon his parents told him they were leaving for a two-week trip outside Civica’s borders the following day. He had been so angry; he had locked himself in his bedroom and didn’t come out until after they left. Three weeks later, it was obvious that something had happened to them, and that they wouldn’t be returning. The guilt of missing that final night with them made him so distraught, he vowed to kill himself.

  Every kid knew stories of people disappearing in the lower levels, the so-called “bowels of Capitol City” where the waste recyclers operated. “It’s where you go to die when you can’t take another day of living,” his best friend, Kevin, told him. He managed to sneak past the security checkpoints and then spent several hours looking for what he imagined was a big hole with grinding teeth to jump into, but never found it. As was the case with most children’s stories, there was very little truth in them. Eventually, he got tired of the whole thing and turned himself into the night guards. His aunt was told to keep a better eye on him, but it didn’t matter. The desire to take his own life had passed and thankfully, never returned.

  That is, until now, he thought to himself as he started to drift off to sleep. He woke suddenly to the sound of someone shouting “No!”

  When he raised his head, he found himself surrounded by the valley of his mother’s village again. He stood up and tried to remember if he had requested this scene before falling asleep. “Turn off this view,” he said to the room, but nothing changed. He was about to repeat himself when he saw a nearby bush move. He walked over to that wall to get a better view and saw the distinct silhouette of a small person behind the bushes.

  He almost turned away, thinking it was someone relieving themselves, but then his little sister stepped out and looked in his general direction. Assuming that she was just looking at whatever camera was set up near her village, he whispered, “I wish I’d taken the time to get to know you.”

  “So do I, Jacob,” she replied.

  He took a step backward. “You can hear me?”

  She walked up and looked right at him. “Yes, of course.”

  He moved his body left and right and her eyes tracked him perfectly. “You can see me too?”

  “I can do more than that,” she said and then walked straight toward him. He took another step backward, but then almost fell across his bed when she stepped through the wall and into his room.

  “What the bilge?” he cursed. “How...?”

  “The technology is pretty simple,” she said, pointing back at the view on his wall. “I have a wall there too, just outside of our village. I can see other parts of the world from there, and if I step into the scene, my body is copied and recreated wherever I’m looking.”

  “That’s not very simple,” Jake admitted, “at least where I come from.”

  “It’s called Civica colony, right? My mother—our mother--told me about it.”

  “She told you about Civica?”

  Juli blushed, or at least the simulation of her did. “No, that was a lie, but I overheard her talking about it with my father several times. It was always late at night when she thought I was asleep.”

  “Probably didn’t have many nice things to say about it,” he said. “Not that I blame her.” He looked back at the lush scene on the walls. “This place is so different.”

  “And they don’t have projection walls like this?”

  “No.” He saw another person walking towards where he knew the village to be. “Does my mother know how to use your wall? Can I talk to her?”

  She shook her head. “She’s not allowed. I’m the only one who can use it.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s the law.”

  “Whose law?”

  She walked over, sat down on his bed, and then bounced up and down on it. “Wow, that’s soft.”

  “Whose law, Juli?”

  She looked up at the ceiling. “Eden’s.”

  Stupid question, he said to himself. “So, how did you learn about your wall? How do you know how to use it?”

  “Eden taught me,” she said, standing back up and heading towards the sink.

  “How did it teach you?”

  She turned the water on and put her hand in the stream. “I would love to live here. You are so lucky.”

  “I don’t feel lucky,” he said and then remembering his previous question, repeated it. “How did they teach you?”

  “In my dreams, of course,” she said, as though it was common knowledge. “They taught me how to use my wall so that I could visit parts of the world no one else has ever seen.”

  He looked at the wall. “Can you show me some of those places? Can you operate this wall?”

  A big grin spread across her rosy face as she grabbed his hand. “I can do more than that,” she said as she pulled him towards the wall.

  “Wait,” he tried to protest as she stepped b
ack inside the wall, one arm still clutching his hand. “What are you doing?”

  The now flattened image of Juli looked back at him. “Hold your breath and close your eyes if you’re afraid.”

  “Afraid?” he murmured and then realized that he was, just a bit. As he saw his hand disappear into the wall, he felt a tingling, as though a slight electrical current was passing through it. He decided to take her advice and closed his eyes. Then he took a big breath and stepped into the wall. He felt himself suddenly falling.

  When he hit the ground, he let go of Juli’s hand and fell to his knees. When he opened his eyes, he found himself on a high ridge overlooking a dark green valley, with a wide river and water spilling over a jumble of rocky cliffs upstream. The air was filled with mist and he could feel the cooling effect of the water’s spray on his arms.

  “What do you think?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “I don’t think I have words to describe it. It looks like simulations I’ve seen of Earth, or at least, what people think it must have looked like before the Fall.”

  She looked at him oddly. “There’s a very good reason this looks like Earth,” she said.

  “And why’s that?”

  She looked back at the waterfalls. “It’s because this is Earth.”

  Apocalypse 02

  Norman Raines stood in the kitchen area preparing a meal for the group, relieved to be doing an activity that always calmed his nerves. Most people hated cooking, especially if it involved anything more than pressing a few buttons on a food processor, but he quite enjoyed it. It was a way for him to relax and focus on whatever issues were troubling him, taking them apart as he sliced vegetables, distilling their essence as he watched the oil heat up in the frying pan.

  He had a lot to occupy his mind that day. They had learned so much from the Hall of Records, and yet, most of what they had learned was bad news. Still, he reminded himself, knowledge is knowledge. It’s what you do with that information that determines whether it’s good or bad.

  “Pondering the universe?” a familiar voice asked. His granddaughter squeezed in beside him and grabbed a knife. “Can I help?”