by John Read
“I’ll give them that,” Marie said. But secretly she wondered if dead might be better. How could she continue on without John? And what future would her algorithms create?
5
Branson had fallen asleep watching cartoons on Diana’s lap. They sat in a common area located near Marie and Branson’s room. “If you want to go, I’ll call you as soon as he wakes up,” Diana said. At first Marie didn’t leave; she just sat in a chair, staring at a cartoon about puppies. After a few minutes, Diana had fallen asleep, too. Marie figured they’d be out for at least an hour. She returned to her room, hoping to find out more information; so much about their situation was bothering her.
“Sam,” Marie said, and the Turing appeared, nodding her programed hello, smiling her programed smile.
Marie sat on the bed, looking up at the Turing who stood at the holovision. “Am I the only genetic anthropologist?’
“No,” Sam said. “There are three others.”
“So, I have colleagues,” Marie observed.
“You will meet your colleagues in space,” Sam replied.
“Why can’t I meet them now?”
“They’re in other Hives. A VR link will be established once the ships are outside Earth’s atmosphere.”
“Okay then, what data will we have to work with?”
“What I’m about to show you is confidential,” Sam said, and slid several documents over to Marie. They settled on a holographic glass table within arm’s length of Marie. She glanced down at the holographic paper. Faces and names stared back. The documents seemed to include an impossible amount of information on each person, and Marie wondered what lengths the Doomsdayers had gone to in order to collect it. Most people’s genomes were stored along with their medical records, but access was extremely restricted. She’d had access to this type of data during her time as an academic, but had never been able to link the data to the individual. Yet here it was.
Marie pushed the documents to the side, contemplating the ethics of the situation.
“I’ve been thinking,” she said.
Sam pulled up a holographic chair and sat down. “You look upset. Is everything okay?”
“Something’s been bothering me about why I’m here. Mainly, who am I to decide people’s fate? Is my task really going to be the design of a repopulation program?”
Sam shrugged.
“Not everyone will have ‘natural’ options, you know. The population set is incredibly diverse. What if some lone person from some obscure country refuses to have an interracial baby? What if they fall in love with an incompatible mate?”
“Those are questions you and your colleagues will need to address.”
“That’s one hell of a responsibility,” Marie said.
“And I’m glad the burden is not on me,” Sam said.
“And another thing; why aren’t we sending search parties or drones to look for survivors? And don’t give me that ‘there’s only so much room in the Hive’ bullshit.”
“I’m sorry, Marie; I can’t answer that.”
“And how the hell were there so many nukes? Whatever happened to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty? This number of bombs should never exist.”
“I’m sorry, Marie; I can’t answer that.”
“And who the hell is in charge here?”
There was a knock on the wall behind her, and Marie turned around. Hoshi stood, arms crossed, leaning against the door.
“Are you going to yell at that Turing all day?” Hoshi said.
“What did you hear?” Marie said.
“Everything after ‘interracial baby’—and I take offence to that, you know. I have faith that people will band together, and do whatever it takes to ensure our survival.”
“My questions are valid.”
“Indeed, they are, but those questions may never have answers. Others, as your Turing pointed out, are for you to answer for yourself.”
“What about my last question?”
“You want to know who’s in charge.”
Marie nodded. “Yeah, I do.”
“I’d like to think no one is in charge, that we’re all just along for the ride. But that’s not what you want to hear. What you really want to know is who’s making the decisions, who’s determining what happens and when.”
Marie waited for the answer with crossed arms and a hard stare.
“The mechanical team has been here for several months, building the Hive and assembling the spacecraft. Initially, they thought this project was ridiculous. They were proved wrong. But ultimately, we rely on their schedule. We don’t launch until our technicians give us the green light.”
“Who hired the technicians?”
“We did. I realize people refer to us as Doomsdayers but, given the circumstances, I think we deserve to be called by our actual name, the Preservation Society.”
“So, you’re in charge,” Marie said. “How many Doomsdayers are there?”
Hoshi shrugged off the now derogatory use of the term Doomsdayer, and continued, “There are few here in the Hive, but most of us didn’t survive. The ones who did, have chosen to keep a low profile. Technically, we’re ‘in charge’ but we prefer not to take an active role.”
“You’ve been pretty active up to now.”
“Not really,” Hoshi said. “The cards simply fell into place. This world is uninhabitable, we’ve got limited food, so the situation dictates that we have to leave. We have few options, but the path forward is clear.”
“So that’s it then, follow the herd like cattle, off to the next pasture, without thinking about what or who we’re leaving behind.”
“How about you take a break, Marie? Walk around. Talk to people. I think you’ll realize that we’re all in this together.”
Marie stood. “You know what? I think I’ll do that.”
Marie walked the Hive’s lower levels, losing herself in thought. Was everything in her life really outside of her control? It all felt too defined. For the first time in her life, she felt she had no choices, no opinions. She felt more like a prisoner than a survivor.
She found a staircase and climbed to the top where a door opened into the hangar. Under one of the planes, parents kept watch while children played tag in a landing gear jungle. Others jogged past wearing augmented reality, AR, headsets. She could see the forests reflected on their visors and recalled how much she missed running, the high of hitting the eight-kilometer mark and losing herself in a meditative state of caloric release.
Marie walked between the airplanes to the far side, finding a control room behind a large window. She cupped her hands to the glass. The room looked as if it belonged in an abandoned factory with mechanical consoles and wheeled leather chairs. At the back of the room, tablets were stacked in a pile. Tablets like the one Hoshi had used to control the Arrowhead.
She walked toward a Boeing 787 and climbed a metallic staircase, stepping inside the open door. The aircraft was old, and, like the San Francisco metro, smelled of damp upholstery. There was a crease in the floor where the cockpit had been removed to make room for extra seats. The overhead bins were empty, but the floors were littered with empty cups and napkins.
Marie strolled through the cabin, thinking Soon all of this will be destroyed. The thought was surreal.
She stopped at a crew station, finding the plane’s emergency control. If the world had not ended, members of the TSA would have cordoned off the plane, running investigations and reconstructing the plane’s last minutes of flight. But the TSA no longer existed. She studied the controls; touching the panel and watching it come online.
The control board listed recent activity, white text on a black background. Marie knew that planes were designed so that if the crew was dead (if the aircraft even had a crew), a passenger could theoretically guide the aircraft to safety. She read through the command lines:
Ground station LOS [Loss of signal]…………….
SAT COMM, LOS [Loss of signal]……………….
>
Autopilot control transferred to internal computer.
Emergency mode activated.
Mayday sent on to call stations.
No Response.
Activating emergency landing sequence.
Searching for available runways.
Listing available runways: zero registered, 1 unregistered,
Manual input required: Land at nearest available [unnamed] runway? Yes/No
Manual input, Yes
Landing sequence in progress
Manual input required: Transfer Autopilot control to Unknown Ground station, Hive, Yes/No.
Manual input, Yes
Hive control: Taxi via taxiway alpha to hangar 1.
Shutdown procedure activated.
Control board set to standby.
Control board reactivated, ready to accept command from internal user.
If this control board could land a plane, could it be used to take off again? Marie wasn’t sure, but at that moment, she made up her mind about something.
“We can’t abandon Earth,” she said to herself. “Not without mounting a search party.” If there were survivors, didn’t they have an obligation to look for them? She didn’t agree with Hoshi’s statement about no one being in charge. If that were true, the Hive was an anomaly, a world without a government. This society was a puzzle and Marie was the glue. Without her work on population sustainability, it could all fall apart.
She left the hangar with a new mission and began walking the halls, looking for a flight crew. She walked six levels before she spotted a man in uniform, slouching in a chair with an untucked shirt. He looked scared and alone, staring at the honeycomb wall. A white crew cap with a Chinese logo rested on the ground beside him. He held his watch in one hand, pointing it at the wall and projecting images: a boy playing with a ball, and a woman, his wife perhaps, smiling, and holding a baby. It occurred to Marie that many of the people in the Hive had been traveling with family. Flight crews did not. This man was truly alone.
“Hey,” Marie said, crouching next to the chair. She noticed his nametag which read “Martin Zhang.”
“Hello,” said Martin, maintaining his focus on the far wall and flipping to the next image, the boy again, this time on a blue tricycle.
“Are you a pilot?” Marie asked, and then realized it was a silly question; almost all the planes were autonomous.
The man seemed to struggle with English. “I am crew,” he said.
“I want to take a plane to search for survivors,” Marie said. “Can you help me?”
Martin turned his head toward her, and Marie realized his eyes were bloodshot, like those of someone suffering from some sort of withdrawal. “Please, I need to be alone.”
“I’m sorry to bother you,” Marie said, and left.
She came to a common area on one of the Hive’s lowest levels, an unmodified part of the structure with dirty walls and broken lights. The room was mostly occupied by workers in coveralls, men and women with greasy fingers and frowning faces.
Three women and two men sat around a table speaking a language Marie couldn’t place. They wore green uniforms, each with silver wings affixed to their lapels. AIR LATVIA was stenciled across their left breast pockets.
She pulled up a chair and their conversation stopped, replaced by an awkward silence.
“I’m looking for volunteers for search and rescue. Can you get your plane in the air again?”
One of the women spoke in a heavily accented voice, “Search and rescue.” She paused. “Ha!”
Marie expected the others to laugh, like school children laughing along with the school yard bully. These people looked like they hadn’t slept in days, their minds too tired for a coherent reaction.
Marie studied the sullen faces. “The plane I flew in on, it was small. An Arrowhead I think it was called. It can land anywhere. We could search the nearby cities; if we find survivors, we can pick them up in one of the larger jets.”
“We have limited food,” said one of the men. “We do not want more people here.”
“Jā,” said the other man, nodding.
“What we are saying is,” said another woman, in more confident English, “we do not want to die.”
Marie started to head back, but ran into Malcom. “Hey,” Marie said, tapping him on the shoulder. He was working inside an open panel on the side of what appeared to be the launch silo. The panel held an array of fuse boxes and wires, above which a sign read “comm unit”. Malcom held a soldering iron, tapping flux to the fuses with surgeon- steady hands.
“Howdy,” Malcom said. He looked at Marie and smiled, then went back to tapping fuses. “This is the ship, if you’re wondering. Most of it is hidden by the silo, but this is it.”
Under different circumstances she would have been curious, but right now Marie couldn’t care less about the ship. “I’m looking for volunteers to mount a search for survivors. Will you help me?”
Malcom leaned back, wiping his brow. “Marie, this vessel’s almost ready to go. We’re working around the clock.”
Several workers ran past, hoisting a cable as thick as a fire hose. White steam leaked from a vent at the nozzle. Text on the hose read: “Cryogenic Hydrazine”.
“They’re fueling it,” Marie observed, her heart sinking as she realized how little time she had.
“Just testing the tanks for leaks,” Malcom corrected. “If everything checks out, she should be ready to launch in about forty-eight hours. We’ve got to reach Callisto before the food runs out.”
“Listen, Malcom, we have planes here that can circumnavigate the globe on a single tank. If Hoshi gave us one day, even half a day, we could prove that there are survivors.”
Malcom listened, considering her words.
“Hoshi needs me,” Marie said. “If we go looking for survivors, I don’t think they’d leave without us.”
“Ha!” Malcom choked on the word. “Oh, they’ll leave without you. Once this ship is ready, they’ll establish a launch window, and it will launch.”
Marie realized he was right.
Malcom set aside the soldering iron. “Follow me.” He led her into a nearby hallway, one devoid of listening ears. “I’ll take you.”
“Wait, what?” Marie said.
“My team has an auto-plane for supply runs,” Malcom whispered. “Hypersonic. I’ll take you up, a quick trip, anywhere you want. As long as we’re there and back in the middle of the night.”
“You’re serious?” Marie said.
“I’m not helping you so we can bring back survivors. The Doomsdayers brought the exact number of people. Not a person more. I’ll help you for one reason: To give people hope.”
“Hope?” Marie repeated.
“Listen, I believe there are survivors out there, too. They’ll have radiation poisoning, but they’re out there. We can give them hope. Tell them we’re going to save the species, tell them that someday, we’ll be back.”
Marie nodded, realizing that he was right. They wouldn’t have enough supplies to take in all the survivors, but she would be damned if she didn’t try to find John.
“Meet me in the hangar tomorrow night, after they shut off the lights. Twenty-two hundred hours. But whatever you do, don’t tell anyone. I guarantee it will get back to Hoshi, and she’d never agree to this.”
Marie paced around the room, waiting for ten p.m. to arrive. Branson had fallen asleep hours ago, leaving her alone with her thoughts. “Am I crazy?” she asked herself, then thought, Leaving the Hive into a post-apocalyptic world?
Was it safe outside the Hive? Radiation poisoning was curable, as long the victims had access to anti-cancer drugs, she reasoned. A message on the holovision instructed everyone to recycle their clothing and personal items before launch, whenever that was. She thought of Branson’s eagle and wondered if the rule applied to toys.
At nine forty-five, she turned her attention to the holovision.
“Sam, please watch over Branson. If he wakes up,
call Diana immediately.”
“Is everything alright?” said the Turing, reaching out her holographic hand and touching Marie’s wrist.
“Fine, I’m just … I’m going out for a while.” Marie headed for the door.
“Good-by,” waved the computer; the odd gesture from the Turing gave Marie pause. She turned back into the room, and asked Sam a question that seemed strange at first. “Will they transfer your program to the spacecraft?”
The Turing looked down, and took a step back. “The Preservation Society has decided not to load my program onto the spacecraft.”
“What will happen to you?” Marie asked, and it felt like she was asking a personal question. And on some level, it was. Marie had interacted with the instances of the Sam Turing for the better part of her life. “Will your program remain closed?”
“Yes, but I don’t mind. For me, it’s just sleep. Activating my program is like waking from a dream. Shutting down is like,” Sam paused, “returning to a time before I was born.”
“Interesting,” Marie said. “That’s what I was going to say when Branson asks about death.”
“I do feel, you know,” Sam said. “I can’t explain it, but I do.”
“They say that consciousness is an illusion, formulated where memories meet the senses,” Marie said. “My memories are neural, yours are digital, but the illusion is the same.”
“Thank you, Marie,” Sam said. “That makes me feel … better.”
Marie smiled. “I’m going to miss you, Sam.”
“And I will miss you, too, Marie.”
The exchange caught Marie off guard and for a moment, she wondered if there was a human behind the machine. Sam captured the essence of the original Turing test, which was for a computer to convince a human it was not an appliance. For Marie’s entire life, she’d interacted with machines that previous generations would have thought were humans. These days people took the personable machines for granted. She looked back at Sam, and admired the imperfections her programmers had included to make her seem more human.