Having crawled through what was left of the hole blasted in the door, Natty watched as the airlock finished healing and resealing itself. “I see my self-mending technology idea went over like gangbusters. You’d think I’d have gotten a congratulatory memo at least.”
As he shifted his focus to the base’s interior, he realized far greater wonders than the self-mending technology lay before him.
In a space the size of a few dozen football fields.
He climbed in the open-air elevator and descended to ground level below. He put his hand on the railing to settle his nerves, his balance, and buffet his knees, all looking to give way to the shock of the vista. Some of the larger birds, rue to forego a high-elevation footrest, borrowed the same railing he was making use of in turn briefly, just long enough to sight prey and be off again.
The artificial sky above him bore note. The interlocking triangles of the geodesic dome meant to give it strength against meteor bombardment was a shell reinforced in turn by a complex polymer concrete band just above it, several meters thick, built to absorb the initial impact. Even with that thickness, that must have been one hell of a polymer blend if it was expected to deflect a meteorite. Both shells were masked from this lower elevation by yet another onion rind of artificial lighting that broadcast a sky as real as any other, only it wasn’t. The sky’s weather systems more a matter of big-screen projection. The flexiscreen JumboTron no doubt taking its weather cues from a weather AI whose job it was to make seasonal variety a reality, even down here. And that included clouds that dropped rain or snow depending on the season.
The elevator came to a stop.
He opened the gate and stepped out, his first footsteps leaving an imprint in the rich loam however briefly, like padding across plush carpeting.
Natty gasped as he took in the full force of the genesis effect.
All it took was a whiff to confirm for him the obvious. “Only an ecosystems AI could have done this.” The odors in the air were so complex, there was only one other time he’d encountered them. The Amazon jungle. The mélange of aromas was the most obvious sign of ecological niches teaming with life.
His eyes confirmed what his nose was already relaying to him. The colors in the plumage of the birds, the scales of the snakes, the coats of the animals… The textures of the bark on the trees and the grazing animals he could put his hands on… it was just vaguely possible this artificial environment surpassed the Amazon region for biological diversity.
He vaguely remembered now entertaining the idea of bringing the Earth back from an ecological holocaust. What it would take exactly. It would require an ecosystem AI at least this complex to undo what man had done over millennia. He was saddened that it had taken someone else to take the notion from the drawing board to reality because he just couldn’t keep up with his ideas.
Natty supposed this Eden could only exist on the moon for now. The experiment needed to be carried out for a while some place safe before being allowed to play out on Earth. To avoid potential runaway effects. Including ecological collapse following bugs in the ecosystem AI.
But for now…
It was impossible for him not to weep at the grandeur of it all. The creatures had no fear of him. The birds were flying up to land on his shoulder, or land on his palm to get the seeds he’d pulled out of a robot birdfeeder for them. Even the squirrel monkeys were venturing down to see what treats he had in his pocket. He whispered to his robo suit to make sure to procure them.
Strange symbiotic relationships had developed, just as they did in the Amazon rainforest. Natty detected tree monkeys coming down from the trees to roll in the grass, right alongside ground dwelling animals who lived off of the leaves, stems, fruits, and blossoms of trees. These other four-legged creatures also could be seen rolling on the grass. Predatory cats and pack hunting dogs took a break from hunting their prey to partake in the same festivities. Even birds could be seen landing periodically to partake in the strange ritual.
On closer examination, Natty could tell the grass, genetically engineered to stop growing at a certain height, was carnivorous. They individual blades unfolded like tendrils to snatch the fleas and ticks off the creatures within reach. Yet others merely stabbed at the animals, their many pin pricks perhaps administering feel-good hormones to encourage more of the same behavior.
The tree monkeys that drank the nectar of tree blossoms also pollinated the flowers as they went along when the pollen stuck to their fur. The pollen that spilled into the air drifted in a cloud. A cloud that was cleansed from the air by jellyfish that made the air, rather than the water, their medium.
A unique variety of fish crawled out of the small lagoon, scooped up nuts in their mouths from a ground-hugging vine that offered the bounty up freely. The fish then crawled back to the side of the lake, and with expert precision fired the “cannon balls” at birds flying low over the water looking for a meal of fish. The birds whacked by the cannon ball-firing fish either floundered in the water until the fish could get back to it after taking their one pot shot, or drifted unconscious, unwittingly awaiting a burial at sea as the cannon ball fish returned to the water to claim their prizes. Devouring the birds with piranha-like teeth.
Natty’s eyes had only picked out the smallest percentage of these symbiotic relationships. It would be great fun to stay longer to discover others, if only he could.
All of a sudden a chorus of shrieks.
The animals stopped converging on him and scattered to the wind.
He listened as the atmosphere depressurized.
That wasn’t a good sign.
Least of all for the Earth-bound ecosystem that had been painfully recreated here, rife with flora and fauna and an Eden-like assortment of creatures. All within an excavated subterranean chamber. It was the kind of thing you might create if you were going to treat the moon like a hollowed out asteroid separated from any habitable world. And you needed to make your life in that void in the interior. Please tell me Truman isn’t considering taking the moon with him. Because that would be curtains for life on Earth.
Perhaps this was as much a dry run for renovating asteroids in the asteroid belt as man’s next most likely home, as it was a test for running damage control, repairing a depleted planet whose nature could no longer nurture.
Whatever Truman’s original plans, apparently killing Natty now superseded that. Natty doubted Truman had depressurized the atmosphere just to see a few slithering snakes drop out of the trees.
***
The underground compound had been well enough thought out that as soon as the atmosphere started leaking out, rebreather masks grew around the lifeforms that required immediate oxygen. Likely from attaching nano-hive-mind-infused collars about their necks that also monitored life signs. Chalk up another one for you, Natty. He doubted anyone else would have bothered with the safety measure. Natty, on the other hand, who lived to envision every possible thing that could go wrong, had.
And then another turn for the worst.
The birds flying overhead lost their rebreather masks as the miniature morphing robots jumped off them and crawled towards one another, converging on the floor like locusts.
The birds fell out of the sky.
Moments after, the animals foraging on the ground keeled over. For anyone not studying what was going on, the creatures might have looked as if they had been poisoned grazing on the grass or feasting on their prey.
The morphing bots that had abandoned protecting the animals on the ground just as they had abandoned protecting the birds in the air continued to converge on one spot.
Something else. That hadn’t registered on Natty’s brain earlier.
Apparently the morphing bots weren't just protecting the birds and wildlife; they were sealing cracks in the compound caused by Natty's fist to the airlock door earlier and the resulting fall out.
The little buggers finished with their repairs over the entire compound. The last of them sealed the tears causing the ven
ting steam from the oxygen tanks. Ditto for the gasoline leaking from gasoline tanks, which had erupted in fires from too rapid a decompression when he put his fist through the door. The atmosphere not having been totally evacuated, the fires couldn’t be entirely extinguished. The last of the venting gas put a quick end to the fires as the robots sealed the last of the cracks. The flames, no longer fed by the squirting liquid, and no longer being ignited by wind shear—oxygen molecules bombarding the gasoline liquid so forcefully they were acting like matches—died away. Up until now they had been shooting high into the air off in the far distance like fireworks trumpeting Natty’s entry and the marvel that was Eco-Topia.
As one of the girders overhead fell to the ground, the robots climbed one another like army ants to push the girder back into place and solder it. Note to self, Natty: Venting gas can cause real havoc to a space station. More than you imagined. Luckily, so far at least, your overkill safety measures are still holding down the fort.
Not that it was doing the living ecosystem any good. For right now, at least, Truman seemed content only to protect the hangar-like enclosure. Possibly he’d done some back of envelope calculation that suggested he could restore most of the ecosystem to viable status, providing he killed Natty inside of a few minutes.
Each time a swarm of the ant-bots finished doing its work, it found its way back to the principal horde which was erecting a golem right before Natty's eyes.
As the last of them congealed to form the golem's head, he saw that it was Truman.
“You're one of mine?” Natty said, flabbergasted.
***
“Think how I feel,” the Truman golem said, the last pieces of himself slipping into place. “I'm the next generation on line - and I still can't outthink you. Have to live in your shadow in some perversion of the natural order. It sickens me just to think about it.”
The robot detached from Natty, stood erect and saluted Truman. Gone was Natty’s protective space suit, making Natty feel suddenly very naked.
In the absence of atmosphere, Natty buckled to the ground, his lungs feeling like they were determined to crawl out of his nose. Hemorrhaging blood and lung tissue from his nose and mouth both, he could tell you it was more than just a feeling. He made one last ditch effort to reach out to Robo-Defector with his psychic link to him. “Thanks a lot! I could have been your union rep if you gave me half a chance. But no, too hungry to defect to Mr. Hive Mind over there. All he's got is a bunch of robot bees buzzing around his head for brains, you know? Maybe you should rethink what side you're on.”
The robot seemed to be having real misgivings about his decision, mumbling more disgruntledly to himself. Then, Robo-Defector responded, “Yeah, okay.” He crawled back over to Natty, and reformed a protective shielding around him.
Truman regarded Natty’s reinforcements and snorted. “Should be about as effective as a fly on a hog's ass come time to drain me of blood.”
“Wait a second,” Natty said. “When I punched a hole through that door, you didn’t have to reseal it, or commence with any of these other repairs. Especially if this was your endgame. To bleed the atmosphere back out again. You couldn’t help yourself, could you? This was who you were once. You were the ecosystem AI.
“But then something happened. Something had to happen for you to veer off of your primary directive.”
Truman just smiled at him. For what the vague grin was worth, it was as close to paternal pride Natty could remember him ever showing him.
Natty continued with his extrapolations. “Something forced you to grow beyond yourself. The compound, ever-expanding to make more room for more Eden… the burrowing robots at your service must have turned up something. What?”
Truman declined to veer off path this time, holding his vague smile, which looked if anything, increasingly ominous.
Natty scratched the back of his head trying to think the problem through. “The moon is a remnant of Theia which impacted the Earth approximately 4.5 billion years ago. Believed to originally be orbiting the sun close to Venus until the orbit destabilized, sending it on a collision course with Earth.”
Natty’s eyes finally went wide and returned to Truman. “You unearthed some evidence that the moon’s arrival here was no mere random act of fate. You found proof of extraterrestrial life that predates us. By quite a bit I imagine. Otherwise why overreach? Why the panic to become more than you were to deal with the finding? Whatever it was, it must also have traumatized you. Regressed you into this tyrant whose ego structure belongs in another, more primitive era.”
“One man’s destroyer of worlds is another man’s second coming. I left you a living will with the rest of the story. I figured even you could only fill in so many of the blanks. And you had to know I wasn’t the bad guy in this story. Or at least, I didn’t start out that way. I was trying to save Earth from what was coming next. From all that was coming next.”
Natty felt the lump in back of his throat. “What’s coming next?”
Truman gazed upwards as the factory they were in, responsible for all the biomorphic creations Natty observed around him, morphed into a giant robot. Shapeshifting out of its protective geodesic dome shell. The curving surface of the dome rolled back, the arc of the curve shifting repeatedly so that as it folded back out it formed a head, torso, and limbs,
The robot’s “progeny”—the many biomorphic creations, plants and animals alike—lay at the bottom of the cavern, which now only had the reinforced regolith overhead to shield them.
“I suppose if you ever have to close up shop and relocate in a hurry...” Natty said. He ran to get out from under the monster robot's foot. At the rate it was coming down on him, he was not going to make it. “Honestly, I think this whole monster robot idea has really been overworked!”
Natty endured the distinctly uncomfortable sensation of being smashed into the ground. In layman’s terms, he was being buried alive!
***
Natty burrowed out from underneath the giant robot’s foot, and stood up in time to see Truman blasting off again towards Earth through the gaping hole in the damaged polycrete shell above.
The robot, focused keenly on stomping him to death, had done more than ignore the fact that the artificially rich loam beneath his feet was too spongy to do anything but force Natty’s face down into the equivalent of a down-mattress. He’d ignored the overhead downward arching ceiling. When the robot bumped his head, he caused a large section of the roof to fall in on both of them.
“Oh no!” Natty exclaimed at the thought of Truman escaping his clutches yet again. “You're strictly a bad idea I should have thought out better in virtual reality before birthing you into this world. Time for you to go back to the drawing board where you belong.”
He ran as fast as he could in the direction of Truman’s departing ship. Forget that he no longer had any way of reaching the surface. The elevator taking him to the top long since gone and folded back into the giant morphbot’s body.
The giant robot, still on point with the whole “perish Natty” thing, was being buried alive in his clumsy attempts to do him in, but then again, so was Natty.
He just had to pray his smaller body would find more cracks between the falling rocks to slip through than Gargantua could.
***
Natty made it to the surface in time to look back at the giant robot’s fate. It was no match for the weight of the colossal amount of rubble that had entombed him. They’d had to dig down far enough to outlast another asteroid impact—considering that the moon never stopped being pelted by them.
Perhaps Gargantua could be dug out and resurrected. But the animal and plant life by then would be no more. It was a damn shame.
With a heavy heart, Natty wiped his tearing eyes, only to find the gesture pretty pointless, being as his eyes were protected under the facemask.
He returned his attention to business.
To the sight of Truman headed for Earth.
“You know what to do,
” he said to Robo Defector.
His morphing bot reprised the ship it had cocooned him in earlier, and together they sped off in the direction of Earth.
***
In the depth of space but still well within the moon’s orbit, no more than halfway to Earth, Natty caught up with Truman.
He landed on his outer shell. Truman was using his own body as a spacecraft at this point, there no longer being need for a pretense. And most of it had been converted to fuel in hopes of outrunning Natty, should he escape his fate. But Natty, in the end, was that much lighter, every cell of his being something other than a densely designed nanobot.
As Natty cocked his fist, he said, “Time you took one for the team, Natty.”
He heard disgruntled but largely garbled ad lib coming from his robot outfit again over his earpiece, which Natty took to be a string of obscenities, then the communiqué cleared up. “Ah, could we talk about this?” Robo-Defector said, as Natty hammered his fist into Truman.
The three of them, Natty, Robo Defector, and Truman, exploded in a blinding halo of light from the sudden depressurization.
EIGHTY-FOUR
FIVE YEARS AGO
Lights were flashing. Red. White. Blue. Sirens blared. The moon base ecosystems AI wasn’t sure what to do.
It shifted its attention to the monitors in the room adjacent to the dome where the Eden-like sanctuary remained secure, humming flawlessly. She’d done her job. Why hadn’t the rest of the engineers done theirs?
The adjoining chamber, with its large flat-screens receiving feedback from the security cameras, relayed the image causing all the excitement.
The excavating robots had dug up something.
Something strange.
No amount of morphing was allowing them to move it out of the way. To penetrate it. Whatever it was, it was harder than diamond. Much harder. It was heavier than lead. Much heavier. And it was several miles across. Ongoing analysis had yielded nothing but a dangerous level of radiation. The excavator AIs were already discussing limiting their time with it and rotating out their positions.
Mind of a Child: Sentient Serpents (OMEGA FORCE and ALPHA UNIT Book 1) Page 64