While father treated these children as the future of humanity, the other families had enslaved all the survivors outside of their own Spires. Some said it was to protect both the people and the Spire families, yet others made no excuse of their desire to dominate those they felt beneath them. Her father feared the reaction of the other families if they were to learn of his attempt to engineer a free society of people.
So here they lived protected from the outside world by the fortress walls and from the so called "taint of the past" that he felt that he and her mother represented. He worried that any direct interactions he had with them would lead to them resembling him and the old world. A fate he didn’t want replicated. It was due to this separation that they were as free as anyone could be in this strange new world with its ever-evolving political and social dynamics and for that she envied them. Even more so as she and her longtime companion entered through the unassuming sliding glass doors and into the titanic space that was the ground floor lobby of her Spire... of her home.
2
The sound of water greeted them both as they entered the cavernous space that was the main entry to the New York Spire. Maria and Tobor walked directly toward the fountain that sat in the center of the room, dwarfing the number of casual work spaces that were spread out across the entrance area. She was likely the only person who used this way into or out of the Spire, and yet all the furniture and surfaces were clean and well kept. The small army of drones that zipped to and fro made sure of that. Before them, towering from the marble tile, was the main water feature of the building. As she approached the liquid, a smile crept to her face as she watched it shift from its constant thrum against the stones spread across the bottom of its enclosure to a determined and energetic pulsing. The blasts of water struck the stones bursting into spheres that rocketed upward and outward but never outside of the enclosure, even though some should have.
As she neared, she watched as some of the droplets, just prior to leaving, had their paths altered and dropped at a sharp angle. While this intrigued her, what always piqued her interest was that fountain consistently changed its flow to match her mood at the time. It was spot on like always. She wasn’t angry, but she was definitely fired up at the idea of having to attend the monthly meeting of the families, and the fountain displayed that energy well. She preferred when it happily pattered or undulated away, but then she supposed that she liked herself better then too. She decided that now was an opportune moment to understand how it worked and attempt yet another delay.
She stopped in front of the feature and asked, “Toby, how does it do that?"
“Can you be more specific?”
“How does it know what I’m feeling?”
Toby pointed to the base of the fountain and then up ward toward the ceiling. She couldn’t see what it was indicating. “Security sensors located in this space closely monitor anything that enters. Your father modified this part of the system to respond to your vital signs and create a visual representation for your enjoyment."
She nodded and then stopped, looking at Toby suddenly. “Wait, it’s a part of the security system?”
The robot nodded once, “Yes.”
“What does it do?”
Tobor stuck its hand into the flow, and the liquid twisted around Toby’s five fingers flowing up its forearm until it reached the edge of the fountain’s confinement space and dropped directly into the carefully arranged stones, slipping between them to disappear from view. The fluid continued to flow over its arm, continuously defying gravity as it did. “As you have no doubt figured out from your numerous observations, the fountain does not contain water. The material that you see before you is a smart alloy that can manipulate its shape into any form that it deems necessary or is programmed to."
“But what is it supposed to do as a part of the security system?” she asked, her tone short.
Tobor looked at her for a moment and then picked up a stone from the fountain floor. With a quick flick of its wrist, the rock flew in the opposite direction away from them. It happened so fast that her brain either couldn’t process what she saw or she blinked. One moment the stone was rocketing through the air, and the next the rock stopped in midair. All of its momentum completely ceased. It seemed to hang there, as if some deity had taken control of physics itself and paused a bubble of the Universe around it. She stepped closer, not sure exactly what she was seeing. As she got closer to the river stone, she began to make out hairline cracks emanating from the exact center. Her contacts detected the light glinting off a thin strand of black material, no wider than a hair, stretching from the rock all the way to the now completely still fluid of the fountain. She moved her hand toward it. Just as her fingertip was about to make contact with the line, Tobor gripped her by the wrist and prevented any further movement.
“It is not advisable to make contact with the filament at this time.”
The line vanished, the fountain resumed its energetic dance, and Maria followed the stone as it plummeted to the floor rebounding off the tiled surface and rattling around for a moment before it came to a complete stop. She shifted her view to Tobor, stunned, “We’ll that just changed my opinion of the fountain.”
“Your father endeavors to blend the practical into the aesthetically pleasing whenever possible.”
“I don’t think its victims will appreciate its artistic style as it shreds them to pieces.”
Tobor looked at her and for a moment it felt as if the robot were staring her directly in the eyes. “Any unauthorized individuals located in this space likely will treat your family no better than this system will respond to them.”
She thought about that for a moment and decided to concede, “Good point."
“Have you delayed our arrival sufficiently with this line of questioning? I believe we should continue."
She nodded and began walking toward the bank of elevators behind the fountain. She turned several times to keep an eye on it, trust now being in short supply. “What is its range?”
The elevator doors opened for them, and as they were entering, Toby responded, “It has the ability to engage unauthorized individuals at the very entrance to the space. Its only limitations being how much material it has to work with and that it must maintain a connection with the inductive plating located at the foundation of the fountain or lose access to its power source.”
As the doors closed and she looked out at the inside of the perimeter ring for the Spire, she shook her head. “When did my dad develop that technology?”
The elevator began to quickly ascend the outer surface of the Spire and trees and perfectly manicured parkland beyond the wall greeted them. “The fountain was installed ten years ago and represents the second iteration of the system.”
As the elevator rose, she felt her shoulders fall. Ten years ago was a long time, not long after “The Fall". She looked up at Toby, but for a moment didn’t see the robot, instead she saw Mr. Miller. A wave of remorse swept over her. She shoved it back down. She had dealt with his loss, and she wasn’t going to rip this wound open every time she rode the elevator. She quickly blinked the mist from her eyes and noticed that Tobor was looking directly at her, its head cocked to the side slightly.
She waved the robot off and then pointed to the vista. “It’s just so beautiful.”
The robot watched her a moment longer and then joined her in looking at the forest stretched out below the Spire. Trees rolled before them, browns, yellows, and golds beginning to spread across the landscape.
“Your father is fond of nature.”
She nodded. “That he is… I wish he left more of the old world though. I would have loved to explore it.” Her eyes locked on a rectangular shape across the East River and South toward the horizon. It was too far away to see any definition or color but she knew exactly what it was.
“The reclamation unit is right on schedule,” she said wistfully.
As they continued to ascend, rising above the obstacles in her sight l
ine, her view of it improved. Tobor nodded. “As has the expansion and reinforcement of the Narrows Bridge. It will now accommodate the width and mass of the unit."
She placed her hand on the translucent exterior of the elevator car. “I’m glad to hear that,” she said, her voice conveying none of that emotion.
“It would have been unfortunate if the unit had required disassembly and reconstruction on the other side of the river. Such a course of action would have added a month to the completion of the North East project."
“Toby, isn’t it wrong that we’re erasing it all?”
“Urban areas required constant upkeep. They were beginning to decay and be subsumed by local flora and fauna. With the reclamation process, your father is simply restoring regions to their natural state and ensuring that existing materials are properly recycled in order to prevent the need to expand mining operations.”
“I agree with the need for efficiency and his plan to make our relationship with nature more mutual…” She paused searching for the words, “Every place those machines go, they remove hundreds of years of history, the efforts of generation upon generation of people to make something more, to build off what came before them. It just doesn’t seem right. It’s almost like Dad is trying to erase them.”
Tobor watched her for a moment and in that time she wondered what was going through its processors, what had caused the delay. It looked down at its hands and for a moment a spark of hope lit within her wondering if what would come next would reveal unique thought. The hands dropped and the machine looked across the sea of life stretched before them in every direction and to the horizon.
“Your father has preserved the history of your people as well as key landmarks so that you and future generations may be exposed to both the positive and negative aspects of human decision making. Would you like to schedule a trip to the Natural History Museum once we return? I will happily serve as your docent again.”
A small sigh escaped her as it became apparent that the machine didn’t understand. Her father had preserved the history of the species, but he was wiping out the individual stories. She smiled at her caretaker and responded, “Sure, let’s talk about it when we’re on the way back.”
The elevator began to vibrate slightly and a shadow fell over them both. She looked up through the clear ceiling and watched as the belly of a large four engine transport craft slowly slid into the hangar above. Its length half that of one of the football fields she played soccer on outside the walls of the Spire. The elevator track began to slide into the building at an angle cutting a path well into the structure. Within an instant her view of the outside world vanished as the car took them both through the internal elevator shaft that would give them access the hangar.
She took a deep breath, seconds separated her from meeting her parents and boarding the family transport for the trip to Kauai, the incessant prattling of the Spire teens and, worse yet, Nathan. There was no more room to delay. It was time to get this unpleasant event done and out of her way for another month. The elevator stopped and the doors opened. A blast of noise and light from the busy hangar greeted them.
“Alright buttercup, time to suck it up."
3
There they stood, next to a fully prepared transport with its rear loading ramp lowered to the hangar’s floor. Her mother stood there directing assistance units as they carried the family’s luggage up into the craft. Her father leaned against the side of the Sub Orbital transport. His fingers sporadically swiping or tapping into thin air; his focus on his virtual vision giving him what the other kids had referred to as a ‘thousand-yard stare.’
Seemingly he was oblivious to the movements around him, but years of observing her father let her know that the exact opposite was in fact the case. If one watched closely enough, they could see him tilt his head toward noises, or when in groups, toward interesting conversations. She was also fairly certain that he had the visual data of the various robotic units in the area displayed in one of the corners of his vision. His ability to know what he should have no knowledge of led her to believe that he was in fact using outside observation devices; otherwise, he wouldn’t have known when she was approaching. This time was no different. Without even focusing on her, he smiled, his focus still on his virtual interface.
“Hello sweetie."
She made sure to suppress the smile she had been wearing earlier and replaced it with a mask of annoyance. “So why is it Tobor had a bug up his cooling vent about getting me here on time, and yet here you and Mom are just now loading up the ship? I could have taken even more time getting here."
Her mother came over, giving her a peck on the cheek. “That’s because we aren’t leaving for another thirty minutes."
It was convenient that she had been pretending to be annoyed moments ago as she had to use very little effort when that emotion became real. “What do you mean? Tobor said we were late.”
Her father must have closed his virtual windows as she was now his complete focus. “Well, I know how much you hate attending these birthday parties, and I figured you’d attempt to delay so I padded our departure time a little bit." A smirk tugged at the side of his mouth as he came over, grasped her face with both of his hands, and kissed her on the forehead.
She was about to respond with an acidic comment when she looked into his eyes. “I’m proud of you kiddo. I didn’t think you’d have a good reason for delaying."
“You know about the feral woman?” She instantly regretted asking the question, of course he knew. He was probably alerted by Toby or the grounds defense systems when it activated.
“Yes we know, though I wish you wouldn’t take such risks,” her mother said, wiping a smudge of soil from behind her ear that she had missed during her impromptu bathing session.
“Stop it Mami!” Her hand playfully swatting away her mother’s. “I’m not a child anymore."
Her mother’s gaze turned hard. “You’ll always be my little girl. If your father hadn’t sent out a platoon of Combat Units, I would have had Tobor bring you back right then and there."
“Toby is more protection than I need. In fact, if you and father wanted to make him a little less annoying, it would be appreciated." A small smile creeping out as she could see the robot look at her from the corner of her eye.
Her mother stepped up to her and gently bopped her on the top of the head using her hand bag. “Be nice to Toby. Even for something with infinite patience, dealing with a teenage girl such as you would be tiring."
“And yet you want to be trapped on an island with me for an entire weekend."
“You have it backward pumpkin. You’re trapped with us,” her father said, cackling ghoulishly as he began to head up the ramp, with her mother following.
Maria rolled her eyes. “Come on, Toby. Let’s get this over with.”
___
The transport was silent except for the sound of the air processing system. They were currently half way through their journey from the Spire to the island of Kauai, which they would reach in little over thirty minutes. Maria enjoyed the absolute silence that came from their time coasting through the all-consuming vacuum of space. The lack of noise made for such a dramatic change from when the scram jets engaged in order to kick them into a low sling shot outside of the Earth’s atmosphere and to a point where there was no air to create resistance and slow the craft down from its incredible velocity.
Her father had designed the engines and the craft off data he had mined from computers belonging to the old NATO military alliance. Before the plague had struck, the great military powers of Europe and North America had begun a program to unify their vast resources in order to achieve greater efficiency in the areas of research and development. When she asked him about how hard it was to make the first transports and their engines, her father humbly replied that the researchers before him had done most of the work. So here they were, rocketing through space at incredible velocities, rapidly decreasing the distance between herself
and a group of people she despised.
The official reason for the trip was to celebrate the birthday of the Spire children for this month. The occasion served as an opportunity to let the isolated youths socialize with their peers, but most importantly, the event allowed the parents the ability for face-to-face politics. The meeting was held on the island of Kauai, a part of the Hawaiian island chain. Being located deep within the Pacific Ocean made it isolated enough to prevent any one family from claiming it thus making it the ideal location for the families to meet and mingle without an overwhelming fear that the place had been turned into a death trap. She remembered when her father and the other leading members of the Spires had left for a week to construct the retreat; each leader was allowed to take only one robotic construction unit with him.
In spite of its comforts and the beautiful island environment, she hated attending these events. The number of Spire children in attendance guaranteed that inconsequential drama was going to unfold. She didn’t fit in with the other kids and their vapid conversations and interests. Her father and mother had brought her up in an intellectually stimulating environment that required her to take part in the planning and implementation of family programs. She had taken quickly to studying the other families and trying to locate their strengths and weaknesses, particularly their fondness for hedonistic pursuits and betrayal of allies for small gains. In short, the only thing she had in common with the other children that would be attending the celebration was point one percent of DNA, and she preferred to think of it as merely an accident of nature.
The air in front of her blinked to life as her mother activated a strategy game. The fact that she hadn’t asked Maria if she was interested in playing spoke volumes. Her mother knew she was upset at the situation and was attempting to distract her from her negative thoughts. For a moment Maria considered not playing; however, doing such a thing might imply to her mother that she didn’t think she could beat her. While Maria was certain she was more intelligent than her mother, the depth of knowledge, wisdom, and sheer cunning that the older woman possessed made it perfectly clear to her that while she learned faster, her matriarch was no slouch and that it would take many years for Maria to get to a point where she rivaled her. It simply wouldn’t do to show intellectual weakness and, therefore, Maria grudgingly activated her screen and began to play the game.
The Spire Page 13