5
Maria hefted the pack of supplies onto the transport as Tobor sat on the ramp, arms resting on its knees, and hands clasped.
"I would prefer if you allowed me to assist you Miss Patterson."
She shook her head as she swung the pack into the appropriate compartment, letting out a slight grunt as she did. "I want to do as much as I can before I become a modern day Rapunzel."
Tobor left its sitting position and exited the craft. It moved over to her Kayak and lifted it off the concrete hangar floor with ease before she could stop it.
"I said I wanted to do this myself," she protested.
"And I said that I preferred to help you."
She glared at the robotic assistant. "You aren't a very good servant."
"And you would not make a suitable damsel in distress, so that makes two of us that do not fill our assigned roles well."
She looked at Toby, a smirk crossing her face and then walked in front of it, stopping its advance into the craft. She smiled and grabbed a handle on the front of her kayak and helped to bring it into the transport, where they both secured it to the deck with ratcheting straps.
"Toby I," she began but stopped suddenly, not sure how to continue. Her emotions were a mass of thoughts and feelings. She had been with Toby for the better part of her life. It was as much a part of her family as Dad and Mom, and she was going to feel its absence as intensely, if not more, since they spent much of their time together.
"I'm going to miss you."
Toby stopped what it was doing and looked her in the eyes as much as a faceless machine could. "Make no mistake Miss Patterson, so long as I continue to exist I will protect you from any threat. No matter how far away you may feel you are."
Her eyes began to well up, but she quickly wiped them. She had no doubt her robotic companion had every intention of keeping that promise. She leaned over the kayak and wrapped her arms around its cold metallic and plastic composite frame. The synthetic muscle fibers in its arms stretched as it rested a hand on the back of her head and gently stroked her hair. After a moment she pulled away sniffling but smiling.
"Alright Prince Charming, it’s time to let this princess go free from her castle before she gets locked in another.”
___
Maria didn't have a lot of experience with the old world prior to its collapse. She remembered various trips around the world such as the Pyramids, Great Wall of China, and especially the Colosseum in Rome. She could never get enough of that site. After visiting it, she had begged her father to purchase one of the 4D simulations so that she could explore the various facets all on her own whenever the desire struck her. It was that same ancient and broken down look that attracted her to the sights below and tantalized her with possibilities for adventure and exploration.
She looked down and out of the cockpit of the transport, where she sat in the copilot seat. Below stretched the remains of Washington D.C., the capital city of what had once been the most powerful nation on Earth. Even to this day, her father was still utilizing its vast network of bases and research facilities around the globe to project and develop the family's power. It was a testament to the tenacity of those people that their legacy still lived on even after all their cities had gone silent.
She wanted to explore the ruins of such places, to go where few ever went, to learn their secrets, and to experience the echoes of those who lived there before. But, she doubted she would ever get permission. The cities were dangerous places and often inhabited by ferals. Besides, her dad was well into his reclamation program on this city. With war on the horizon, the timetables of the reclamation units would likely be sped up and new components added to the continent-spanning network in order to harvest more resources from the old world. Buildings that were too tall or wide were leveled by crews of demolition bots. The debris swept up into the intimidating maws of the processors. From atop the slowly moving earth crawlers drone transport craft lifted off carrying reclaimed alloys, recovered and processed from the wreckage.
Those transports would carry their deliveries of metal to various storage depots and from there to factories that were enlarging the family's military might every day. This method of recycling had proven effective at providing them with vast amounts of useable resources without having to limit themselves to mining. The giant machines would consume every part of the metro area with the smaller suburbs being dismantled by armies of robotics laborers. Only two things were left in the wake of the machines, verdant new soil containing freshly placed plant life and any existing railroad and fiber optic data infrastructure deemed necessary for the transfer of resources and information. Last, there were the memorials. Her father wanted to create a world where man and nature could live together, but he understood how important it was to not lose the past. The giant machine was nearly halfway done with the D.C. Metro area, leaving only carefully selected artifacts of the old world. Within the year, it would creep along Highway 95 toward Richmond and continue its path down the East Coast until it ended in Florida completing the first phase of its journey.
The transport sailed out of sight of the former capital city, and she sat back in her seat. She looked at her robotic companion in the pilot seat. Its hands rested on the controls even though it was actually controlling the craft wirelessly. Toby did so at her mother's request since the idea of the aircraft flying itself bothered her.
"No," Tobor stated.
"No, what?" she asked, over exaggerating her shock.
"The cities are too dangerous for exploration."
"Toby, I'm shocked at your presumptive attitude. The idea never even crept into my mind."
The robot turned its head toward her, silently gazing at her and then returned its attention forward. She laughed,
”I'm going to head back and triple check the equipment."
Tobor nodded and responded, "We will arrive in less than forty-five minutes.”
By the time she finished reviewing her equipment and ensuring its integrity, she could feel the transport bank and a slight dip in her stomach signaled their descent. She activated the side view screens and watched as lush green trees zoomed by alongside. The Ocoee River raged below; its white foam leaping into the air as if trying to greet them. The craft banked again this time tightly enough for her to feel the need to grab onto, as her mother had put it once, an "oh shit" handle. The sudden turn ended with a rapid vertical drop in altitude, and she felt herself go weightless for a brief moment. The momentary sensation forced a smile across her face, and she let out an excited yelp.
“Thanks Toby!” she shouted over her shoulder, luxuriating in the adrenaline stimulating aerial acrobatics her friend was putting them through. The loading ramp at the rear of the compartment opened and the rush of noise from the engines and the chaotic river below assaulted her senses. The transport came to a stop a meter above the water. They were so close she could smell the spray from the churning river. Tobor strode from the cockpit having placed the craft on automatic controls or, more likely, wirelessly controlling it.
“We have reached your launch site,” the robot stated, its voiced raised to be heard over the roaring water.
Maria raised her eyebrows in shock. “Are you really going to let me drop out of the back of the transport and into a raging river?"
Toby nodded. “I had intended on pushing you out myself.”
She smiled. “To what do I owe this pleasant change in protective nature?"
Toby undid the locking mechanism from the kayak. “I possess no material objects to give you as means to remember me by; therefore, I have decided to provide you with an experience that you have long desired."
The robot placed the kayak on the deck centimeters from the lip of the ramp. She watched as flecks of water and foam landed on it. Toby pointed toward her pack and continued talking as she retrieved it, “I want for you to have the opportunity to explore and test yourself as you have always wanted."
She handed the robot the pack and knelt b
eside Toby as it quickly secured the bag to the small boat. Once Tobor finished she threw her arms around it and hugged for all she was worth. “Best gift ever Toby," she said as tears welled up in her eyes. She fought them back with some rapid blinking and the cuff of her water jacket. Toby returned the hug and after a moment stood up extending its hand down to her.
“I will take the craft several kilometers away and remain until you signal me to retrieve you. Please be safe Miss Patterson. I could not go on existing knowing that harm befell you, and I had not attempted to prevent it."
She nodded and then stepped into the kayak, taking the life vest from her robotic friend and putting it securely on. As she sat, she removed the paddles from their top holder only to have a helmet gently placed upon her head. She laughed, looked at Tobor, and asked, “Really?"
It nodded its head, not finding the situation humorous. “It is the only concession that I request given the number of boulders and unseen rocks beneath the river’s surface,” Toby responded.
She kept laughing but secured the chin strap. “Happy?"
“Not a word that could be used to describe my current emotional state." With that the robot grabbed the back of the craft and pushed her into the water below.
For a moment she was overwhelmed by the cacophony of noises that assaulted her as she fell through the mist laden air and then plunged deep into the freezing water, both she and the kayak actually going under. She resurfaced, the buoyancy system pulling her back on top of the water no matter how much fluid made its way inside. As she surfaced, she cackled in excitement not thinking how she must look or sound if someone were observing her. After all that was the whole point of this trip, to be on her own, to do what she wanted without having to worry about the expectations of others. Above, the transport was already pulling away into the clear blue sky. Toby really was going to let her have this time to herself to explore with little to no restrictions.
She paddled for several hours, enjoying the thrill of the rapids and even ignoring the projected route that her contact lenses had strongly urged for her through the treacherous water. On several occasions, sheer strength and dogged determination had been what separated her from success and a very negative situation.
Muscles begging for relief and a stomach demanding her attention forced her to pull onto the bank of the river in a relatively calm section. She had to navigate around several fallen trees that now lay partly in the flow of water decreasing its power and creating a small pocket of calm. She paddle the small craft until it grounded and then stood upon wobbly legs as she hauled it from the Ocoee. With one last tug, it cleared the water, and she fell back on her butt and let inertia carry her further into a laying position with a solid thump. She laid there for minutes, breathing heavily, with sand and detritus from the forest pressing into her clothes. If it hadn't been for the angle that the life jacket was forcing her back into, she might have fallen asleep from exhaustion. Instead, she summoned the energy to roll onto her belly and miraculously used her arms to push herself into a seated position.
She looked around taking in the thick growth of the forest and the beams of sunlight that illuminated patches throughout the trees. The rich smell of moss and damp soil teased her nose and the unexplored depths of the forest beckoned to her. She smiled and began unlatching her vest. “Rest is for the weak and the boring."
She exchanged the flotation device and her water slippers for her hiking pack and shoes, which had been secured on the back of the kayak in a water resistant package. She sprayed skin protectant on her bare arms and legs, inspired to do so by her early memories of mosquito bites and a tumble through poison ivy. With that, she set off into the once mastered and now wild forest. She turned the thermal sensitivity of her lenses up to high, not wanting to stumble onto a bear or a feral by accident. She wasn't too worried though, a quick check of the local satellite data showed nothing larger than a deer within a few dozen kilometers of her.
She strode up the incline and encountered a metal railing, mangled and corroded, running perpendicular along her path, stretching forever in both directions. She stepped over it and onto black asphalt material. A light blue path appeared in her vision spanning from left to right identifying the road as the I-64. She instructed her lenses to overlay an image of how it would have looked before the collapse and marveled at the differences. What had once been a smooth and well-maintained black surface disappearing into what must have felt like infinity for its users was now a ragged landscape of fallen trees and boulders. Hardly any smooth parts remained, instead the surface was broken into chunks by roots and fifteen years of weathering. Part of her yearned for the organization and utility of that long since ruined road; while at the same time, she equally enjoyed the raw purity of nature that never slept and was persistent in its goal to reclaim and dominate the surface of the earth.
It reminded her of the many conversations she had with her father. He would often remark at the tragedy that had befallen the human race as an opportunity for nature to balance and make right the destruction humans had been wreaking upon the surface of the Earth for generations. The first time he had brought it up, the observation left her with a sense of uneasiness. She later identified her sense of disquiet upon realizing that her father had made an intellectual error. In his mind, humanity was an aberration that was disruptive to the world and itself. Having no place to fit in, humanity changed the environment to fit its own needs.
So the next time the topic came up over dinner conversation, she countered his point by observing that humanity was simply behaving as nature had intended for it to. The human race was simply living and thriving off its environment as any other organism would and that without humans the world would be diminished. Humanity was the Earth’s only hope to propagate throughout the universe; otherwise, all it had worked eons for would be consumed in the sun’s fiery transformation into a brown dwarf. She remembered that conversation well, not because it was the first time she had ever openly disagreed with her father, but because he seemed to genuinely contemplate her statement. Standing here now, in a perfect example of raw nature reshaping the landscape and filling every available niche with its presence, she was certain that she was beholding a perfect example that humanity and nature had far more in common than her father credited them with.
She followed the cracked and tortured road for a mile looking for the pass she could see on satellite imagery that would let her get around the sheer rock wall running along the road way. As she walked, she chewed on one of her meal bars in an attempt to quiet the beast that resided in her belly. She finished it and buried the wrapper in a small hole she made with the heel of her shoe. Her father required that all the wrapping materials for their food be biodegradable when exposed to moisture. The wet soil of the forest floor, so close to the river, would see to it that the wrapper would dissolve in less than a week. At this moment she was relatively sure that the wrapper would disappear before the hollow feeling in her gut. The snack would calm her hunger for a short while, but after a full day of kayaking and now hiking, she was going to need to stop for a meal soon. Besides it was nearing dusk and she would need to make camp, but before she did, her goal-oriented mind required that she complete the trek she had started, culminating in reaching high ground to view the valley that the Ocoee had been carving for far longer than humanity had been on this continent.
It didn't take much longer for her to find the steep pass and make her way up the slope to the top of the cliffs. The sun was beginning to set and she found a spot at the edge of a sheer drop to take in the spectacle, it wasn’t the highest point but it would have to do for now. Rising from the forest before her was another rock wall and her climbing goal for tomorrow. The roar of the river in the valley below ushered the sun below the horizon. Once the last wisps of Earth’s star had vanished from view, she used what little light was left to start a fire and set up her tent. Fire starting was one of her hobbies, a fact her parents had learned the hard way when they had le
ft her alone for the first time in chemistry class. For many months after that her mother would regularly refer to her as “The little pyro." So Maria took the time she needed to use her flint material to create a fire. Setting up the tent, however, was a chore that she stopped finding enjoyable not long after the third time she did it.
She readily took advantage of the self-erecting technology and watched as the generator electrified small tubes that created a skeleton for the tent and then powered a pump that sent a gel through them. So long as it was in direct contact with an electromagnetic field, the gel would remain malleable. Once fully raised, the pump and power source shut off, and the gel lost contact with the field that ran along thin wires located in the tubes, causing it to instantly harden. With it fully spread out, she hammered in the pins through the anchor hoops securing her home away from home to the ground. Her father had offered to design self-inserting pins that would dig into the ground themselves; however, with a tent that put itself together, she thought it might all be too easy so she refused.
With nothing but the dancing light of the fire to guide her, she entered into the tent. As she went inside, the fabric of the outer walls glowed creating a level of light that was easy to navigate by. It was actually three separate rooms, all tall enough for her to stand upright in. The first area was the mud room/dining space, a thin sheet of material and zipper segregated it from the sleeping area. To her right was another floor to ceiling sheet of material with a zipper opening that led to the restroom and sink. She unpacked the collapsible toilet and secured it to metallic strips located in the tent’s outer wall. She rolled out her sleeping bag, removed her sweat drenched clothes, and placed them into a small bag with a bacteria tablet, a cup of water and then sealed it shut. She squished them together until the tablet dissolved. It was designed to function overnight, and the genetically engineered bacteria would consume only materials that were not included in the clothing, converting waste into oxygen which the bag slowly released. The bacteria would then, upon exhausting their food supply, turn on one another until only a negligible number remained, dying out mere minutes after they completed their task.
The Spire Page 18