Hoshi Yabu was a genius; there is no other conclusion a person could draw from the sum of his life’s work and the solution he arrived at here on Lunar Base Five.
He combined the DNA of the Sherpa people of Nepal with nanites to lower the hemoglobin in the blood of those altered. The nanites would also genetically alter the chest cavity to allow for more expansion of the lungs. These things Yabu achieved easily, at least for him. Adaptations to ease the power problem were another matter, but here too he finally settled on an ingenuous solution. To sustain power levels in the dome, lighting would have to be reduced to its bare minimum in the tunnels. Therefore Hoshi put forth that we should genetically regress the eyes by eliminating the ability to distinguish color, the very trait we developed that cost humanity its night vision. As I said, he was a genius, and I’d never seen his like in my lifetime.
As we both knew, this kind of experimentation was forbidden on Earth, but we weren’t likely to be around for our trials if my suspicions were correct. Together we brought the recommendation to Antonopoulos, who was surrounded by a security team. Obviously he expected trouble for his earlier actions. He was intrigued with the proposal and ordered his security team to see to the arrangements and seek volunteers for the first phase among the workers. At least that’s what we were told.
Two days later all of the scientists were ushered into the lab facilities where we were addressed by Antonopoulos. He informed us that he viewed our proposal as the perfect solution to the estimates we’d given him. Dr. Yabu and I were to start the program immediately on the first set of volunteers.
When we arrived at the lab there were twenty ‘volunteers’ restrained on the tables, ready for us to start the treatments. Their eyes were not the eyes of volunteers and fear distorted their faces. Dr. Yabu took one look at the hapless people and he informed the guard he wouldn’t perform the treatment because these people obviously weren’t volunteers. What they did to him after that still haunts my conscience because I’m the one who involved him.
The two guards beat Hoshi within an inch of his life, then stood him up next to the first patient with a gun literally to his head and watched him closely while he inserted the first genetic-nanite treatment into the struggling body.
I wish I could tell you that it was painless and humane, but it wasn’t, and I’ve had to live with that as well as my other sins. When Hoshi had finished with the first treatment of the ‘volunteers’ I assisted him back to our quarters.
“Why, Stephen, why?” he asked me with eyes that accused me of betrayal.”
I then, in whispered tones, told him of my discovery in the mines. His eyes went wide with shock and fear and he proposed we rise up and stop Antonopoulos.
“With what Hoshi,” I asked him derisively. “His security teams are everywhere and well-armed. You saw what just happened when you said no. Do you really think he’d hesitate to kill us? He’s mad and this was the only way I could think of to save the workers. If we don’t do this he’ll fill the tunnels with their bodies until he reaches the population estimate of Dr. Sanders. You remember his study don’t you? He asserted the dome could be maintained indefinitely at current levels if we reduce the population. Did any of you stop to consider what he was saying?” Hoshi went very pale after that and assured me he would do what they asked of him, but I could see that he was deeply scarred by the nature of his task. He was a good man, please remember that. He didn’t deserve the impossible situation life, and I, thrust upon him, and he was ill suited to cope with it.
The ‘treatments’ continued for the better part of two years but only about thirty percent of the workers were actually genetically altered. All of the scientists and executives and security teams underwent the alteration. They did so willingly to please their CEO, except the scientists, who cursed my name as they underwent the treatment. That didn’t bother me, not significantly at least, if the truth must be told. The scientists of Lunar Base Five and Six were as guilty in some ways as Antonopoulos. Even when I’d told them of what I’d seen they shunned me, not wishing to hear more, pretending as people always do that things are other than they are. They never objected to or tried to redirect Antonopoulos, they simply did what they were told.
But the look of betrayal that has haunted me ever since came from the eyes of the foreman of the workers. They weren’t supposed to have a foreman anymore, but I knew they did, one whom they’d elected in secret, and I kept my mouth shut just as they did. And I knew who it was, because it was my good friend, Jon Skorsson.
Jon loved the garden area of the biome and one could always find him there during the fourteen day light cycle. And I’m the one who was forced to give him the treatment. I’m the one who forever denied him the sun, because the eyes of the altered workers couldn’t stand the intensity of normal sunlight. They couldn’t even tolerate the intensity of the lighting system that cycled on during the darkness. They were forever doomed to the dark of the tunnels. It was Antonopoulos’ way of reminding me who was in control.
Antonopoulos ensured that the treatment for the eyes of the workers was a full regression. He didn’t go so far with his lackeys and gunmen. Apparently he intended to keep the garden, as the workers now called it, for himself and his allies. I’ll always remember the look of betrayal on Jon’s face as I took from him the thing he loved most. It would’ve been more merciful if I’d simply killed him.
After two years of alterations, Antonopoulos announced at a meeting (we still conducted board meetings, a confirmation of his madness if ever there was one) that the program had achieved its’ goal and he was shutting it down. Dr. Thomas Sanders stood next to him, whispering, as he’d spoken and I knew why we were shutting down without having to ask. But poor Hoshi Yabu was a true innocent and didn’t know enough to keep his mouth shut in the presence of madness.
“But we haven’t converted all of the workers,” he told the madman. “We haven’t even come close,” Hoshi said, still not understanding the obvious.”
“We’ve made other arrangements, Dr. Yabu,” Antonopoulos said coldly. “Do not concern yourself with it. You may return to your lab.”
“But, our calculations show that everyone must be altered if we are to continue. I don’t understand how you imagine we can achieve a balance without finishing the treatments.”
As I said, Hoshi was a good man, probably the best of us. Every other scientist in that room knew what Antonopoulos and Sanders meant. For Hoshi it was just too great of a leap to imagine their final solution. I gently pulled him away before the madness in Antonopoulos eyes grew any stronger. He’d already ordered and overseen the execution of ten workers in the last few days, ultimately for the crime of treason, which really meant they’d displeased him in some small way.
You that hear this in the distant future must understand the strain the population was under. Under normal circumstances, I don’t believe they’d have sanctioned the actions of that madman, but many of them had left family on Earth and they’d begun to realize that Earth couldn’t help them. The mind reacts strangely when under such duress. But, no, judge us as you will, because the same arguments I’ve just made have always been used to defend crimes against humanity. They didn’t work at Nuremburg and there’s no reason we should think they’d excuse the actions that Sanders and the madman contemplated.
I was at a loss as I gently moved Hoshi from that room. What more could I do to stop this? Dr. Yabu pummeled me with questions as I escorted him from the area. I finally answered Hoshi’s questions, very bitterly I admit, and told him what they planned to do.
“There are seven thousand workers, Stephen, and we’ve only altered two thousand or so. They can’t mean to kill almost five thousand people!”
I wish I’d had words to say to him but I didn’t. I just stared at him, my soul aching in bitter turmoil. Finally, his eyes registered an understanding of what was going to happen and it burned my soul to see the suffering I’d inflicted on this man.
“We are guilty of crim
es against humanity Stephen,” he said quietly. “What we did, altering the workers against their will, there is no forgiveness for that. And now that madman is going to kill those we haven’t defiled and enslave the ones we did! And there is nothing we can do. We are all damned.” He turned listlessly and left me standing there and I never saw him alive again. That good decent man took his own life. He’d pronounced sentence on his crimes and had carried out the execution himself.
While I walked through the tunnels my mind wandered far away from this tomb in which we were trapped and suddenly a thought occurred to me and I found myself entering the biome of Five and like a sleepwalker I went to the far end of the dome where the door had always stood, a massive thing comprised of metal and the stone of the lunar regolith. The door was covered in warnings restricting access to this chamber. To my knowledge no one had ever entered it during my tenure here.
The door had never interested me or anyone else for that matter. Strategic Solutions had never nurtured curiosity in its employees, and no employee had ever been rewarded for that particular trait, so everyone had simply pretended it didn’t exist. I saw the code pad on the door and wondered why I’d even thought of this place because it was inconceivable that the code would be the same as the master code I possessed. I glanced once at the “Restricted” sign and the warning of dire penalties for unauthorized access and I entered my code. The door opened with an audible click, obviously stiff from lack of use, and I entered the room where Antonopoulos kept his darkest treasures. There were computer programs in stacks labeled with names I recognized as some of the most lethal viruses ever unleashed in the cyber world, viruses so destructive that they couldn’t be effectively erased. Only the destruction of the infected device was recommended to ensure the virtual malevolence did not spread. There were forbidden weapons, outlawed on Earth, and real viruses that had plagued humanity’s past and killed millions, secrets that were deemed too horrible to exist and yet here they were, locked in a madman’s closet, ready to be used at his whim.
And there were three Kashi 1123 warbots, finally outlawed on Earth, but sitting here like the evil things they were, designed for one purpose only, to kill humans. As I saw them I could only wonder why Antonopoulos hadn’t used them already. Perhaps he’d forgotten them in the extremity of his madness, or, more likely, he was about to use them for his ‘final solution’, as another group of madmen had called it almost two centuries earlier.
I knew the minute I saw them what had to be done, even though I was as fearful as I’d ever been in my life. I’m not a brave man, I never have been, and I’ve no idea why these thoughts occurred to me on this day. Perhaps I’d reached the end of my endurance for the constant insanity of the Chief, as he was now called, but whatever the reason I closed the door to this vault of horrors and reprogrammed the machines.
Surprise and fear ran rampant upon their appearance in the tunnels. I know this because everything the 1123’s saw, I saw. The workers merely melted into the tunnel sides casting their eyes upon the floor, the perfect response to the presence of such a machine. I fervently hoped that everyone would do the same, but that illusion was quickly shattered as a group of twenty men from Antonopoulos’ security force, armed with firearms, charged the bot and were slaughtered for their troubles.
Although I was horrified, I knew this wouldn’t be bloodless, I only hoped that fear would keep the casualties down. I hadn’t reckoned on just how mad the chief was and from that day forward there were constant attacks on the 1123s. All of them were bloody and pointless for there was nothing on this world that could stop them. But the madman drove his people forward and they were under his sway. For two months Antonopoulos tried in every way imaginable to retake the dome. But I’d forbidden it and the warbots followed orders like no other soldiers in history. Blind, unthinking killing machines, they dispatched any attempt to retake the dome without mercy or compassion.
Finally, in the last throes of his madness, Antonopoulos did a most despicable thing, even for him. At the time of the food distribution for his people, I saw the warbots retreating backwards into the domes, in slow movements, guns at the ready. What I beheld when the cause of this behavior became clear sickened me.
He had fifty of the workers in chains, pushing them forward in front of his security team.
“Turn the warbots over to me, Anderson,” he screamed at the top of his lungs while hiding behind the workers. His eyes were wild and his voice unsteady, the perfect picture of a jabbering maniac. “We won’t stop, I swear to you! You’ll have to kill all of these people to stop me! Are you ready to do that?”
I watched in agony. There was nothing I could do. I’d programmed the warbots to consider any intruders who penetrated the dome five meters or more hostile. Reprogramming them would take ten minutes, so I charged out of the door to the SCC and screamed a warning at Antonopoulos. Seeing this, he must’ve thought in his diseased mind that I was surrendering, and raised his firearm in exultation.
And the warbots programming took over from there. I don’t wish to speak of this anymore. Suffice it to say that the bots performed their assigned function flawlessly. Antonopoulos, as well as any who accompanied him, voluntarily or against their will, were shredded before he could lower his arm.
After that I reprogrammed the bots and allowed no one but the bringers of the wagons to come close to the dome. I stationed the bot that gunned down Antonopoulos at the junction between the two peoples. If I hadn’t, there would’ve been a repeat of the massacre and I’d give my life to avoid a recurrence of that horror.
“Wow,” Ming said, rubbing his hands on his face before remembering that they were still covered with the disgusting remnants of Takashi’s bomb. “There are other entries throughout the data base but these have answered any questions we had. I don’t know if I could’ve done what he did, how about you?”
“I want to say I could’ve done the right thing, but I don’t even know what the right thing would’ve been under these circumstances,” Farr answered honestly. “Let’s let wiser men than us throw the first stone.”
“Agreed, let’s skip ahead to this last entry.”
“What’s the date?’
“Looks like April 17, 2130.” Ming initiated the log entry and once more Stephen Anderson’s face materialized on the screen, but the face was very different from the earlier entries. It was drawn and thin and very pale. His eyes carried the hollow, empty look of one who sees his own death. The rest of his body was emaciated and listless and there was a fevered urgency to his speech.
I had a dream last night. The first I’ve had since the cancer returned some months ago. Hoshi came to me and his eyes weren’t filled with accusations as they were the last time I saw him. I could tell that he’d forgiven me for my many sins. He said he’d had a message from the Creators, which I thought was odd. The old Hoshi I knew was not a religious man and scoffed at the idea of God as superstitious pabulum for the ignorant. Death had changed him and his face wasn’t tortured by the things we’d done, but was at peace once more. I rejoiced for my friend.
He gave me a message to deliver to the workers and repeated it until I could recite it back to him verbatim. I thought this was odd for a dream but I was so glad to see another human being after the years of isolation in this biome that it seemed perfectly normal to me. He stopped and coughed several times, a wracking, bone shivering cough that brought blood to his lips, and then he continued.
Hoshi told me that I must give the message in person to the Foreman of the Workers. I assured him I would do anything to atone for the acts that had led to his death. He told me he was beyond that now and that my suffering had all been for a purpose and would soon end. He said I had taken the necessary steps the Creators required and no more was needed from me.
And so I went to the entrance of the garden and waited, holding on to one of the 1123’s to stay upright. I asked the workers who appeared to bring me their Foreman because I had an important message for him. They did
n’t trust me, but eventually they agreed to carry the message back to their leader.”
I waited there for almost an hour until a shadow came down the passageway. The shade did not attempt to hide but boldly walked up to me, oblivious to the presence of the 1123s. My heart broke and tears streamed down my face as I beheld what I’d done to my friend, Jon Skorsson. His eyes were large, much larger than a normal person, because they were designed to absorb all of the available light. His chest was enormous, the lungs having adjusted to take in more air in the low pressure atmosphere I’d made. He no longer looked human.
“Stephen it is good to see you once more my friend,” he said and his face was as peaceful as Hoshi’s had been and I’m afraid it was several minutes before I could find words.
“I was given a message to pass along to you Jon,” I told him, but then I doubted myself. Maybe all I had to tell him were the ravings of a dying man. It all seemed so ridiculous now that I stood before my old friend.
“The strangest thing happened last night Stephen,” he said. “I dreamed that you were to deliver a message to me from the Creators. I don’t know what that means and you and I never believed in God so I’m puzzled.” Then he stepped forward and put his hand on my shoulder.
“You did the only thing you could do Stephen. I know that now. I’ve thought long in the darkness and silence of the tunnels and I perceive the variations and factors that influenced your decisions. Antonopoulos would’ve killed most of my people and enslaved the rest if you hadn’t brought the altering solution to him. And it would’ve all been to keep him in his accustomed comfort. Life is hard for us, but we’ve adapted and we are discovering ourselves in the tunnels and caves.”
“Forgive me my friend,” I blurted out, falling to my knees.
“Stephen,” he said helping me up, “there is nothing to forgive. You were working on necessity’s behalf and my people will know and understand that, I promise you. Now it is time for you to give me the message Stephen.”
Children of the Dark World Page 22