Waiting for the Machines to Fall Asleep

by Waiting for the Machines to Fall Asleep- The Best New Science Fiction from Sweden (retail) (epub)

  "Oh, it's you."

  "I'm Rasmus," I said. "The new guy."

  "The new guy," he repeated and lowered his rifle. "Good day to see other worlds for the first time."

  I nodded.

  "Did you see Ortega?"

  "Yes. He ... Marko accidently shot Ortega ... He died right in front of me."

  "Damn," Dan muttered. "I told them to leave me behind so they could get back and shut the wormhole down. We argued about it, but I'm dying. They knew it and finally agreed to leave me here. I would've only slowed them down."

  "I'm sure you're not dying," I tried but then saw the blood on his stomach, the equipment and on the floor. "What happened here?"

  The man coughed and grimaced with pain.

  "There's no point hiding it now, is there? We found this place some months ago, during our first trips here. It's not the first remnants of an alien society we've encountered, but this was different. Technology still working, far superior to anything we'd ever seen. Military things. Weapons that gave us new ideas. Most of the things were too complicated to understand or to move, so we set up a small research facility here as well. Most of the other guys don't know about this," he added. "Then the anomaly with the wormhole happened and we were afraid that the aliens had somehow found out what we were doing. But the situation here was all the same. Until today. Today something was very different with the wormhole. You don't know it, but it was. Perhaps the ship had something to do with it, but it was too far out, we couldn't get a good look at it. So we came here instead. About two weeks ago we found a data block, like a CD, if you like, and we started working on decoding it. Today it was done and that was when everything started to go bad. It was almost like the data block helped our computer to decode itself. The more I think of it the more I think that is what happened."

  "What was it?"

  "You'll have to look for yourself. There's a video over there," he said and pointed. "There seems to be a machine race inhabiting this planet. Maybe the whole solar system. We didn't see them on our scanners because we were looking for smaller, organic species. Stupid. Another thing I've been thinking about. We had it as an idea back home, but it was too immature to try out. When we ran our data analysis software on the data cube we found, we definitely got help. Why would an alien machine race have the same sort of images we do? They wouldn't, that's the answer. They have ID, I'm sure of it."

  "ID?"

  "Intelligent data."

  "Like AI?"

  "No. While we ran our software on their piece of data, the piece also analyzed us and produced something that we could interpret. They wanted us to see that particular video clip."

  "The machine race?"

  "Yes. When we had watched the video Ortega went outside for some fresh air and me and Marko resumed our other duties. That's when the accident happened. I have a quantum scanning device for data collection. I tried to scan the pillars in search for hidden data and technology, when it suddenly exploded. The blast cut my stomach open ... And here I am now. So stupid ... I think it was ID inside those sensors, you see. They didn't want to be scanned, so somehow they caused my scanning device to explode."

  I nodded weakly.

  "I don't know what Ortega saw when he was outside, but when he got back in he had changed. He said that we must shut the wormhole down so that nothing can get back here. Or 'find our coordinates if it wasn't too late already'. He tried to explain but there was little time for it because of this." He gestured at his wound. "What did Ortega see when he was outside? Why is it crucial to close the wormhole?"

  I froze. I knew what Ortega had seen. Absence of light. I had seen it too, but only the reflections of it. Ortega must've seen in much closer. He knew what it really was.

  "Where is that video?" I asked, heart pounding.

  "Over there, thirty meters ahead," he said, face twisted with pain. I was no doctor, but that didn't look good at all. I left him there, dying. A strange unsettling feeling of despair had started to prickle my skin. That absence of light, it was a key event. But of what?

  Further ahead in the strange hall the laptop was placed on a small table the soldiers had brought with them and the video clip was still on screen. I pressed play.

  The picture was in a weird grayscale color and had static interference, probably due to the decoding, which made it feel ancient. There was a landscape with small trees and bushes that looked alien, like palm trees would in Sweden. The image changed to a room of some sort where a robot, like the guardian I'd encountered, walked around. At first it was hard to make out the scale, but considering the mechanical beast the room must be gigantic. There were several of them. Waking up by the looks of it, slowly rising from all over the room. There were other machines as well. I could spot smaller units underneath the bigger ones. They reminded me of crabs, but with more legs and claws. And there were even bigger machines, which made the guardians look like ants in comparison. Enormous things with legs or arms, cylinder shaped and with pipes sticking out at random places that could be some sort of weapons, or organs. Mechanical behemoths. One of them showed something that looked like a big computer screen that contained some figures. I couldn't make much out of it, but it seemed they were coordinates. Coordinates to where? There were hundreds of different lines of numbers. Thousands.

  The image changed again and showed the Yellow Sea. The machines were everywhere. They walked along the shore and in the acidic water. Suddenly one of the really big ones fired a projectile in front of it. A greenish screen appeared out of thin air and the machine walked through it and disappeared.

  The image changed yet again, to another environment with mountains and some sort of conical building in the distance. The green screen appeared and the machine came out of it. Where was it? Another planet in this solar system probably. I imagined that I recognized Henning's description about this planet being locked up within the ellipses of other planets, but there was no way of knowing. The thing I knew for sure was that the images of them creating wormholes at will and warping to other places made my skin crawl.

  The video ended. I couldn't tell much from it, but I understood enough. The soldiers must've grasped that much too. There was something about it that made it so terribly clear. The machine race sometimes woke up and controlled their home planets. They possessed warping technology and they were intelligent. The one thing I couldn't understand was why Ortega wanted to close the wormhole so badly. Had he found signs of hostility that I hadn't seen? Even though I didn't like it I could imagine how the guardian must see us. Some sort of intruder that should be eradicated. It wasn't much different from accidently stepping into a cave with a bear cub. If the mother was there she would protect her cub and herself. She wasn't evil for doing so.

  "How long was Ortega out there?" I asked.

  No answer. I walked back to the soldier and found him dead. Eyes fixated on a point in eternity. I took another grenade and left the rest with him. I had to find out what Ortega had seen. The absence of light was the answer. And it had come from the ship.

  I left the bunker and went back out into the foreign world outside. I followed the tracks back to a point from where I could pinpoint in which direction the ocean was and then I started walking. Soon enough I could see the Yellow Sea and out there the reflections from the ship. Ten minutes later I realized that I had very little water and hardly any food. I wished I'd taken some with me, but I hoped I didn't have to stay long. While walking there was another of the silent booms. It made me sink to my knees, feeling terribly small and vulnerable. It came from ahead of me. From the Yellow Sea. I covered my head with my arms and waited. After another four minutes it ended and I could go on, legs shaking.

  Eventually I was at the shoreline. The ship lay in place, dormant. I sat down and waited. The light phenomena seemed to come in cycles. I had seen it twice already and perhaps it had happened while I was in the bunker.

  My mind started wandering, thinking about school, the company and the series of chance momen
ts that had brought me to this place. I missed Earth and I became determined to go home.

  The soundless boom hit me like a slap in the face just after the absence of light appeared. It indeed came from the ship. I couldn't understand what I saw. There was a big gray rectangle in the sky, projecting like a giant beam of non-light. It produced a flat surface, a veil, a hundred meters up in the air. Then it began to inhale. The lack of sounds once again brought me to my knees with terror. But this time I clearly saw and understood what the non-light was. A rain fell from the sky. A constant absurd stream of things, sucked from an unknown world. I could see strange three-legged creatures flailing wildly in the air. I could see them screaming, but I couldn't hear it. I saw vegetation and strange vehicles, twisting and bending from some invisible force. Dirt, stones and what looked like parts of buildings. Everything shredded and trashed while it tumbled down to the Yellow Sea. The stream was endless. The creatures were numerous. All dying in this bubble of silence. It ended, just as swiftly as it had begun. The veil disappeared and the light and sounds came back. I could suddenly hear the thunderous sound when all the materials crashed down into the waves, bouncing off the ship hull. I heard guttural, unnatural screams. At the end I could see some cloth or fabric slowly falling, like snowflakes toward a surface coming to rest. Because the Yellow Sea was rapidly calming down, absorbing new content.

  I finally got what Ortega had understood some time before me, and the realization made me cold. This machine race opened portals to other worlds. Any planet targeted by these wormholes would be completely defenseless, the entire planet could be sucked dead. Of everything. Erling's safety mechanism wouldn't stop that.

  They weren't controlling their planets during their wake periods. They consumed. They fed off everything. Flesh, technology, materials. Everything melted in the sea of acid. Ortega's words rang in my ears. "They must never find our coordinates."

  That was what the video meant. The machine race found coordinates to other planets somehow. Perhaps when a race achieved wormhole technology. Then it was an easy task for them to pinpoint the location of a tear in the spatial space, and then alter the destination of the wormhole for the unsuspecting travelers. They would inhale Earth, leaving it a dusty, dead shell.

  The ship rotated slowly out there, ominously. It took me some time to get on my feet, but I knew what I must do. Whatever the cost I must try what Ortega had failed to do. I must make it back and close the wormhole and warn Erling. With some luck the machines had not yet recorded Earth's coordinates.

  I got up and started walking towards the wormhole. Sooner than I really wanted I was nearing the cliffs where the wormhole should be. In the distance I could see the guardian. Maybe it was trying to hide, but given its size it didn't do a good job. An idea had formed in my head, one that made me terrified. I had to distract it, that was the only way. I covered behind one of the black stones, took out one of the grenades and weighed it in my hand. I pulled the pin, took a deep breath and tossed it as far as I could behind me. Then I ran, covering behind stones and hoping the guardian wouldn't see me.

  The grenade went off in a thunderous blast that nearly scared me to a halt. It also woke the guardian and it came running, a massive force of deadly metal. It passed the stone where I was hiding, one giant mechanical leg smashing the ground right beside me, making the very earth tremble. I started running towards the wormhole. I was nearly exhausted, but fear and adrenaline gave me strength. In my right hand I held the other grenade. My idea was simple. Try to get back to Earth, and if I couldn't; get as close as possible so I could toss the grenade into the wormhole so that it would blow up the S.E.L.D on the other side, closing it forever.

  I tossed a quick glance over my shoulder. The mechanical monster was at the spot where the grenade had blown up. It had turned around, its yellow eyes staring directly at me. It knew.

  I screamed and tried to run faster, but my foot hit a rock and sent me sprawling through the air. I landed face down, heard a crack from somewhere within me, got up and kept running. Nameless fear flowed through my veins. I could feel the thing move, sending shivers up my legs each time I touched ground. I ran even faster, cliffs getting closer. I couldn't see the wormhole. My heart sank, but I ran to the right, following the black, crude cliff wall. The guardian was close now. I could feel its eyes on me. Fifty meters ahead I could suddenly see a grayish square against the black. It had to be the wormhole. Had to! Now I was close, twenty meters away. I managed to pull the pin on the grenade and held it tight in my clutched hand. What if the wormhole rejected me?

  I never got to know. I was two meters away when I felt something grab my leg and I was abruptly and brutally stopped by a force pulling me back. I fell forward, crashing to the ground. I had a second to think and with all my remaining energy I tossed the grenade into the wormhole. It vanished. After a few seconds, as I was lifted high up in the air by the mechanical arm, I could see the wormhole quiver, and then it seized to exist. Left was just the black cliffs. It was closed. The guardian broke my leg with sheer power and the pain almost made me pass out.

  As the machine carried me toward the Yellow Sea several things ran through my head. Did the machines already have the coordinates to Earth and were we just waiting for our inevitable doom? Would Erling and the people on Earth understand what the grenade meant? They were, after all, working with limitless science without morals and ethics. I could only wish that they never reactivated the wormhole. Because if they did, sooner or later the machines would inhale Earth, nullifying it of life.

  As the machine brutally carried me, leaving me hanging like a rag doll from its steel grip, I could see the air above me. It shifted between non-light and purple. High above I could see the surface of two other planets, like twin coins. Behind them was a pale sun shimmering, laughing at me. Then the guardian swung his arm and released me into thin air. I crashed down into the Yellow Sea, immediately sinking.

  I understood what the Yellow Sea actually was. It wasn't acid, but something similar. The fluid dissolved everything, made it energy. The water was cold efficiency. I could feel it creeping on my skin. Under it. In the background I could hear music from the water. Raw, crackling tunes seeping into my body and rocking me gently to sleep. It was a song of tranquility and death. The world around me fell silent to the melody of the Yellow Bard.

  "The Rats" – Boel Bermann

  Have you seen any rats? Report them!

  The property owner is responsible for keeping the property rat free. If the property owner does not correct the problem, you can contact your local environmental committee. The local environmental committee deals with the removal of rats in the city's public areas, not in private living spaces. If you see rats in Stockholm's public environs, you can report this to your local environmental committee.

  Rats spread diseases!

  Rats run rampant in Sweden. They thrive everywhere around the cities and are primarily found in damp environments like cellars, tunnels and sewers. There they select larger spaces to store food or build nests. Rats are omnivorous and are known for spreading serious diseases.

  Rats are an urban menace!

  Searching for rats is difficult work. When the committee receives a report of a rat sighting, they begin the process of determining where the rats have their nest, how they gained entrance, and what they live on. The most effective way of getting rid of this pest is to spread a poisoned powder in their nests and on their trails. The powder contains an anti-coagulant that causes internal bleeding in the rats when they breathe it in. When rats are poisoned, they rarely die above ground. They will typically crawl into their nests and die there.

  Rats. One of the world's most adaptable mammals. They live side by side with us in our cities. They eat our leftovers and clean up our waste. We don't see them. They know better than to remind us of their existence. They conceal themselves in the darkness. They squeeze into the sewers and hide beneath our homes. We are afraid of them, but they keep out of the way and try to s
urvive. Stockholm is as much our city as it is the rats'. These days, I try to treat the rats as decently as I can. I perform research on a large number of test animals in my lab. I observe them. I try to understand their behavior and communicate with them. They watch me in a way I can't decipher. They seem intelligent, as if there were something more there. But it is difficult to say if they are expressing fear, caution. Perhaps they are trying to make some kind of connection with me. Maybe they are observing me as much as I am observing them. I have researched their species for a long while now, but there is still so much I don't understand. I have left parts of my research to others now, because I can't stand to see the consequences. It is probably because I have been infected with their disease. I was careless in my early research; now we all take better precautions. I believe it is the virus that has given me such strong feelings of empathy for them, but I am still uncertain. The only thing I know about the specific virus I carry is that it causes some kind of hormone imbalance. It makes the infected emotional and weak. I try to hide it from my colleagues as best I can, but it shows. I need to handle all these emotions, which is why I have begun writing down my thoughts. I have gotten too close to my research animals.

  Some of the research gives me nightmares. I'm aware that much of it is pure torture for the fragile creatures. When I began my research, I wasn't as close with them. They were simply expendable goods and what I did, I did in the best interests of the public. But I can no longer look at it that way, not now that I feel such empathy for them. I wish I could just turn off my emotions, but I have seen mothers die to protect their infants. I have seen their children play for hours. I have seen them cooperate with each other to perform complicated tasks. I can discern nuances in the sounds they make, warning each other about danger, greeting each other, and even squeaking with pure joy. I see them more and more as living creatures, and less as research objects. The public generally refer to rats as pests, saying they are dirty and carry viruses. The committee often discusses things at a local level and my research team and I have to answer questions more frequently these days. The committee's methods are increasingly extreme in these current times of illness. Traps are set, poisoned food is placed out near their nests, and various kinds of extermination squads wander the streets at night. But the animals are so intelligent. If just a few manage to escape, the whole population of rats are soon aware of the danger. They communicate to a much larger extent than we ever realized. They avoid the traps, leave the food to rot, and hide when the extermination squads make their nightly patrols. I doubt the authorities would have even seen them as a problem if they had not increased in number so shockingly fast. The radioactivity has mutated them in ways we could never have foreseen. Their gestation period, which was already considerably fast, has shortened drastically. They are having larger litters than before, despite the fact that their bodies have a difficult time coping with more than two pups at a time.