by Lea Tassie
While Chloe wandered the area, looking for a quiet place to sit and admire the beauty, she palmed the shiny object she had bought from the merchant. She walked toward the falls, listening to the musical sounds the water made as it crashed on the rocks. The small object in her hand began to warm and hum and the stones on its face glowed dimly. Surprised by this, she called out to the others, "Come look at this!" Bosh was the first to get there; he hoped she was talking directly to him.
As Jalen approached, the similar small object that she had conned Dwain into buying for her also began to hum and let out a faint whistle from its nest in her bag. Jalen pulled out the object and said, "That's odd." Turning to Deleray, she asked, "What do you suppose it means?"
Deleray and Dwain looked at both objects intently, then shrugged. Demm was the one to notice that the objects looked like two halves of a whole. He reached out and drew the cousins' hands together till the objects touched.
Immediately they merged into one object, which then sent out a pulse. To everyone's shock, the waterfall parted, revealing a tall door which creaked as it opened.
They stood there stunned, too afraid to move until Dwain said to Deleray, "Got a story that explains this?"
Deleray replied, "I don't even know what it is."
Bosh, ever the clown, exclaimed, "Hey! There's light beyond the door. Bet they got gardens in there."
"Why would you even think that?" Deleray demanded.
"Well, because my nana has a garden, um, you know, so…um," Bosh said sheepishly. "I'll show you!" He boldly strode toward the door.
"Bad idea," Demm said as he tried to grab Bosh by the arm. But it was too late. Bosh had already slipped past and was entering the door.
From deep inside, Bosh yelled back, "Hey, come look! It's a big room and there are hallways. I bet there are more rooms!"
Like nervous sheep, the kids clung to each other as they moved through the doorway. Constantly pushing Demm in front, the group walked to where Bosh was waiting.
Bosh kept walking, into the rooms ahead, following lights which flicked on to light his path. "Keen! I smell stuff, could be food."
Jalen pushed into the middle of the group. "I don't wanna be at the tail; that's where people always get grabbed."
"Well, I don't wanna be the tail either," cried Chloe in fear.
"Fine, I'll be the tail," Deleray snapped, frustrated.
Passing from room to room down twisting hallways, the group pressed onward, unaware that the door had shut behind them. Power returned to the old locked city, starting long dormant processes for heat, light, and air. The walls were white and sterile and there were no shadows; all the corners were somehow lit. But the place seemed dead; nothing moved except the adventurers. They saw familiar objects: chairs, tables, and beds. But no humans. And there was no dirt, no dust. It all seemed utterly impossible.
The group finally caught up to Bosh as he stood just outside a large doorway. They entered an immense space, bigger, it seemed, even than the world they had always known. There were stone trees so massive and so high their tops could not be seen, and the ground was paved with stone. They could see reflections of themselves in wall mirrors, and light shone from tall posts. But the real shock was that they could not see the sun. They were warm but, without a sun, how was this possible? They could hear no flowing water, no birds chirping, no sounds of any sort.
"I don't understand," said Bosh.
"I don't think any of us understands," Demm replied.
"No, I mean I don't understand why I smell food, but can't tell where it is."
They stared at Bosh for a moment, then Jalen said, "Wait, I smell food too."
"Hey, yeah, me too," Dwain said, letting out a long breath as he spoke.
That was when Deleray realized their supplies and horses were outside, and it would be a good idea to make sure they were still there. That was also when all of them realized they couldn't remember how many twists and turns they had taken in the building they just left. Food now seemed completely insignificant. The fear increased. For a moment, they were frozen, unable to do more than stare at each other, while they searched for a solution.
***
The troop spent nearly a full day in the big building, trying to find their way back to the door under the waterfall, but the endless rooms and hallways all looked the same. They did not understand that the pictures on the walls were diagrams of the city and how to travel through it; they had never seen such things before.
"We're going about this all wrong," Demm said, as they went back to the only place they knew, outside the building's second door, where the tall stone trees reached the sky.
"I agree, we must find the food we smelled earlier, or surely die," said Deleray. They decided they could do no better than follow their noses, for they were all hungry.
Many years back, before Charger had locked away the city, he had programmed the computers of the café closest to the main entrance to start a pot of coffee and bake donuts when the power was re-engaged. Though he needed meat and blood to maintain his body's physiology and biochemistry, he loved the taste of coffee and donuts. The six kids soon found this café and gorged themselves on sweets, while the computers did their part to produce more goods to keep up with the demand. They sat in chairs and leaned on tables, all the while talking about how familiar things were here.
"I don't understand. Where do you suppose the villagers are?" asked Jalen.
"Maybe they don't live here anymore. But we may find them yet, as we travel," replied Demm.
"Travel! What foolishness is that? We need to find our horses and go home," whined Chloe, clearly afraid.
Deleray responded. "We don't know where we stand, that's true. Before we lose all track, we need to find gardens and water."
"I got water," crowed Bosh. "It's hot and brown, but water it is." He had clearly drunk too much coffee and was overexcited.
"Yes, but we'd better find more," Dwain said. "We might also find villagers in our search."
They settled on splitting into three groups. Demm and Deleray would take the wide road ahead deeper into the stone city, Chloe and Bosh would take the small winding road. That left the elevated road that seemed to rise up into the sky for Jalen and Dwain. With promises to return to the café in one hour, they set off.
"What kind of villagers could build homes that rise so high into the sky?" Demm asked. "Is there a tale that speaks of this?"
"Only one story spoken long ago about the mad ones who, it was said, wandered to the Valley of Shadows," Deleray replied, as she ran her hands along the rough stone exterior of a building.
"Tell the story," pleaded Demm.
"An elder from Mexca tells that a group of mad ones were cast out from their village because they were caught eating the flesh of young. These mad ones were sent toward the Valley of Shadows. Years passed in peace without any news of them."
"One day," Deleray continued, "a mad one returned alone, and told of an encounter with a great dog-man beast, that walked sometimes on two legs, and sometimes on four legs. The dog-men lived in a great village of metal and stone, and were many in number. They spoke no language and had no grace, but attacked the mad ones. The battle was hard, with both dog-men and mad ones dying, as they fought on wide, long roads like the one we stand on now. The story is considered foolish and a fraud, but this road we walk does make me wonder."
"Well, let's not tell this tale to the others, agreed?" asked Demm.
Deleray nodded.
On the small, winding road, Chloe said to Bosh, "I don't think anyone but me is thinking about how to proceed."
Bosh just nodded.
"I say we find trails back to our horses, and stop all this wandering."
Bosh nodded again as they continued to walk the twisting road and look into different buildings.
"I think that tomorrow I should be the one to decide how best to proceed," Chloe said, full of confidence.
Bosh nodded and smiled.
"I
like you most, Bosh, you listen and act right. I will tell everyone tomorrow that after they listen to me, they should listen to you next." Chloe looked for affirmation, and Bosh nodded.
The road that Jalen and Dwain walked was an elevated highway, meant as a bypass to get vehicles quickly from one point of the city to another. From this height, the two could see a long way across the vastness of the city. "It's quite far, isn't it?" asked Dwain as he stared at the empty city.
"What I find most striking is the lack of sound. I hear no birds, no life. I think we are in the belly of a dead place," Jalen replied as she too looked at the vast expanse of buildings and roads.
"Do you think it's always night here? There is light but the sky is black," Dwain said.
"If it's always black, then we'll be dead, too, for certain, because no gardens can grow here," Jalen said sadly, and shivered at the thought.
The two had walked the elevated road for some distance when, looking down, they saw what they thought was a garden. But how could this be? And how could they get from this road to what looked like a green space below them? With the hour nearly up, the two decided to mark the spot with debris they found. They quickly rushed back to the meeting point to give the rest the good news. The others were happy because there was now hope. A green space surely meant that villagers had to be nearby, and they would know a way out. The six set off immediately, filling what containers they could find with coffee and donuts.
"What a wondrous place," Deleray said as she marveled at stone structures with pictures on them, spilling water into great basins filled with shiny flat copper stones. It took the group some time to figure out how to get to the garden they had found, but it was worth the effort. There were trees along stone paths, fountains of water, and many places to sit and rest. Bosh even found a flat small cart he could sit on and roll around, not knowing it had once been a child's toy called a skateboard. There were sounds of birds, though nothing moved, and there was light, but no sun. The green space was very large, but did eventually lead back to city streets and buildings.
"Maybe this is just one garden; there could be more. Maybe the villagers left here because they found a better garden somewhere else," Deleray suggested.
No one answered. They were all confused and a little scared, and what they really wanted was to find someone who could tell them how to get back home.
They slept in the park that night, and next day Demm led them to another field, a school yard, and a playground. He wanted to go into the building and see the classrooms and the others willingly followed him.
***
Dart speaks to Reader:
The classrooms of Neo Terra were computer controlled and, a certain number of minutes after people entered, the system would start teaching the lesson for the day. This simple system soon taught the troop about the city and how to operate it and its controls. They learned where to find food and water and beds in rooms which had heat and lights, where they could sleep safely.
It took only a few months for the classrooms to teach the group all they needed to know, including how to get out of the city. They talked about returning to their village, but decided that the villagers might not be willing to accept the new discovery, for it meant that almost everything they thought they knew was a lie. They decided that for now, they would stay in the city and learn all its secrets. When the time seemed right, they might possibly return to the village.
Didn't the kids want to go home?
Of course they did, Reader. They missed their families and friends and the familiar life they'd left behind, but they were too busy to spend much time on regrets. And the lure of creating a new and different life was very exciting. They were also right that the villagers would have been terribly shocked and disbelieving to hear the truth about the magic city.
Was this city where Charger created the new people?
Yes, it was, and he bestowed an enormous gift upon them. During the incubation process, the computers had been programmed to give them free will, the ability to reason, and to logically choose a path to follow. Charger had decided that the mistakes which had plagued Earth in the past could be avoided if its descendants were taught to reason.
He had walked the fields and forests of this created world for many, many years, always returning to the city and making fine adjustments to the parameters needed to achieve his final goal. No one knew he was there because the blinding field ensured he could not be seen by human eyes. In the end, he felt he had achieved the perfect humans. No matter what the situation, these Earth descendants would think through everything they faced with compassion and logic as their guides. They would no longer be bound by superstition and fools' errands.
Deleray and her group settled into houses, had children and sent their kids to school. A new civilization grew in the belly of the old city. Their village outside the city mourned, then over time, developed the story of the troop's disappearance into another teaching myth. These villages too were growing and learning. The villages became towns, then cities. These new cities based their way of life on agriculture and invented such things as mechanical transportation, replacing horses and carts.
Two new civilizations were on the rise in Neo Terra, one based on technology and aware of the other. The other was based on agriculture, but unaware of the old city.
You want to know what happened to Deleray and her friends? I'll do that just as soon as I tell you how the Taskers, the robots of Mahoud, evolved into something more than mere machines.
Chapter 14 Creation of the Prime
Rotating slowly in space, silent and graceful, a lone Tasker drone drifted in the black void. Its limbs were smashed and broken, and its controls hardly functioning, with barely enough power to record all the events that had befallen those who perished so suddenly. The Grays had obliterated the last few remaining ships of the Neo Terra armada, leaving debris and corpses drifting along with the small Tasker.
Earth itself, encased in a layer of iron, had no survivors. The Grays began blinking out of sight, returning once again to their home galaxy.
New Eden, Earth's moon, Mars and the few space outposts created by a generation of humanity's best had all been smashed and scattered. The Grays made sure no life signs remained. But Neo Terra, that black rock which reflected no light, and roamed at random around the solar system, escaped detection and persecution.
The small Tasker slowly tumbled end over end and continued to drift helplessly out of control, as its telematics recorded the total destruction of all life. Then it struck something invisible to the digital camera that acted as its eyes, yet something solid, something which turned out to be not invisible but camouflaged. A lone Tasker refining ship was returning to its home port on Neo Terra when it stumbled into the devastation. Unable to elicit instructions from its base, it settled on retrieving the drifting Tasker to search for commands.
A port opened and a mechanical arm extended out and clutched the Tasker, drawing it inside. The tiny Tasker drifted through the passageways of the mining ship, guided by its connection to the mechanical arm, to a data port along a bulkhead where other Taskers were plugged in. The semiconscious main computer bank shifted resources to input the data from the little Tasker, searching for commands.
Something miraculous happened during the download.
A command was misaligned, or randomized, and the main program switched from the command function to a slave function. The entire resources of the mining ship were instantly diverted to the tiny Tasker's internal command structure.
Charger had thought there might still be Taskers out in the solar system, still completing assigned duties set in motion hundreds of years back. Many intelligent Taskers, with their semiconscious minds, had spent their days mining and collecting resources for the people of Mahoud. He had been afraid they would wreak vengeance for the death of the Mahoud race.
But now this ship was slaved to the commands of one little Tasker, broken in battle. The command to return to the mining planet was
given and the ship swung silently and swiftly, beginning its trip back to Titan, a moon of Saturn. The ship, because it didn't have to divert resources to living beings, was capable of high speed travel. Since time was meaningless to the Taskers, the trip back to Titan merely took as long as necessary.
The ship landed deep inside a mining crater and several control arms clamped themselves to it, beginning the process of command exchange. Like a computer virus, the new command function systematically linked all the Tasker mining camps to this one small broken and shattered Tasker. There, for several months, a silent struggle raged, as the tiny Tasker created commands that placed it firmly in control. Resources were quietly diverted, existing Taskers were refitted with new commands and production-line Taskers were retrofitted to accept new tools, tools that were actually weapons.
Resources from the mines now served another purpose, not to supply the people of Mahoud, but to defend them. Now added to computer storage was data explaining all that had happened to the Taskers since they were first created on Earth, all the battles fought, all the losses at the hands of the Grays, and above all, a name.
One name, the name of an enemy deeply feared, was engraved on the Tasker hive mind. The connection created three commands.
Find Charger.
Learn to fight.
Fight the Grays.
The Tasker program was installed in the other mining bases on the moon's surface. More and more links formed, creating a network of mechanical minds interconnected with this one little, broken Tasker, seeking commands on how to proceed. The system needed guidance but no orders came from the humans of Mahoud.
Taskers that finished assigned duties sat dormant, sending one request to the main operating system. 'What is the next task?' Over time, the question became a flood for many processes finished, leaving many Taskers dormant. A Tasker's only concept of time was what task to complete next.
When a process ended, the Tasker controlling it was designed to seek out and implement the next command. It knew nothing else and herein lay the problem. With the demise of Mahoud, there were no more tasks assigned.