Days of Future Past - Part 3: Future Tense

by John Van Stry

  "Well, I don't know about the two of you, but I'm gonna take a nap," Heather said and stretching, she carefully climbed out of the copilot's seat and made her way down the ladder that was now set in the wall below us, to the next level below us, which was where the bunks were.

  "I'm just happy to have some weight back for a while," Sarah sighed.

  "Well, how about a snack, and then a nap?" I asked, getting out of my own seat and just falling down to the deck below. I weighted about ten pounds right now, and it was only a ten-foot drop. Not really much of a problem.

  "Food does sound good," Sarah agreed. I'd noticed her appetite hadn't been all that good in zero gravity and now that we had at least a little weight, I suspected she was starving.

  "And then maybe a 'nap'?" She said and winked at me.

  - 14 -

  I let the autopilot fly us all the way into orbit, though I kept an eye on it at each step. But when it came time for the breaking maneuver to start our descent, I did that one myself. Issues with the autopilot at other points of the flight would be problematic. Here, they could be fatal.

  Thankfully the base's landing beacon was still active, and I was actually able to establish contact with the base AI after I'd fired the rockets and started our descent.

  We went in tail first; I had a series of displays that showed me the glide path, actual speed, delta from projected speed, and where the target was in regards to my own centerline.

  As long as I kept us on the flight path, and didn't allow our speed to vary too much, the ride down was an easy one. It was the last thousand feet or so that was the tricky part. At a thousand feet you were supposed to come to a dead stop and hover, centered on your landing spot, over the landing field. Using thrusters you could nudge it back and forth, as well as hold that altitude. You weren't cleared to land until you were lined up on your target.

  It took me two tries to get it. The first I overshot by twenty feet, then I had to slowly nudge it back into position. Once I had that, the base cleared me to land. So reducing the throttle ten percent I let it start to just ease down slowly. I could have chopped it, and caught it when I got to the four foot per second speed limit that the landing gear had. But this was my first time and the last thing I wanted to do was crash.

  The walk home after all, was a long one.

  I also didn't want to let it get above three feet per second as the equipment was just a few hundred years old, so I had no idea just how well it would work.

  The moment the gear touched the ground I cut the engines and we settled down using the shock absorbers, which did make a hell of a racket. So I felt vindicated in my taking it easy.

  The ship shuddered and vibrated a little as it noisily settled into position, and then it was stopped making noise or moving at all.

  "Nice landing, Colonel Young," the base computer said over the radio. "I knew you could do it!"

  "Well thanks," I said as I started shutting all of the systems down. "Just who am I talking to anyway? You're the base AI, right?"

  "Yes, I am the AI for the Mare Crisium facility, also known as Luna City. You can call me Coyote."

  I froze, "What the hell did you just say?" I almost yelled into the microphone.

  "I think it would be best, if we had this conversation in person," was the reply I got, "I would suggest you hook the refueling and power umbilical up to your ship before coming inside. Mare Crisium, out."

  I turned the radio off, and turned to look at Heather and then craned my neck to look at Sarah sitting on the deck below us.

  "Did you both hear that?"

  "It is rather curious," Sarah said.

  "Hey, look at the bright side," Heather said smiling rather evilly.

  "And what would that would be?"

  "We can finally kill him."

  It took us about twenty minutes to get suited up, and exit via the airlock. We took our weapons with us of course. Our gauss assault rifles would work fine in a vacuum, and at this point, I wasn't about to leave anything to chance. The cargo bay where I'd stored all of our other stuff, like our food and the heavier weapons we'd brought from Groom Lake could be accessed from the outside, so unloading it wouldn't really be much of an issue.

  When I got to the bottom of the ladder I stepped off and then moved away from it to let Sarah and Heather climb down. Once I was sure they were on the ground, I stopped a moment and just looked around.

  It was bright, very bright, and everything was grayish looking. It was almost like being in a black and white movie. The sky was black, the ground was a bright gray, and the structures around us were all white.

  There was some color, there were warnings painted in red, numbers in blue on each of the structures, and a very colorful logo for the space forces.

  While the girls got settled and took a minute to also look around, I went and looked for the refueling line. Walking on the Moon was definitely something you had to do differently. I remembered the 'shuffle' I'd seen the astronauts do on the Moon in the old documentaries I'd watched and ended up doing that. Otherwise I'd bounce up into the air and have to wait until I came back down. I think I weighted all of forty pounds here, and that was including the equipment on my back.

  I found the fuel line after a couple of minutes of searching, it was in a red box marked 'Fuel', and hauling it out, I plugged that into the side of the shuttle. It was a multi-hose line with a cable and keyed so as to only be attached in one distinct way. Opening the little panel next to the refueling port, I just plugged the hoses and other lines into the receptacle for them. That done I activated the toggle which turned the ship from battery power over to ground power. I'd retracted our solar panels before our braking maneuver; they really weren't made strong enough to be extended on the Moon's surface.

  Then I went and found the sewage connection that was marked with a yellow and black hazmat sign. The shuttle did have a toilet, and we had used it. So I hooked that up as well. That was a much simpler connection with only two hoses.

  I then rejoined Sarah and Heather who were following the signs to the entrance, which led us to a small blockhouse.

  "Surely that can't be the whole base!" Heather said over her radio.

  "For safety and security, the base is underground," Coyote, the local base AI said over our radio headsets. His voice did sound like the god's voice, but the way he talked was just a little different.

  We opened the door to the large airlock and went inside. Once it cycled we entered a small room, with a number of lockers, safety gear hung on the walls, but I wasn't sure what exactly its purpose was. But it had green and white safety logos on it and on the walls where it was hung, which was the only way I knew what it was. There was also an elevator, the door of which was open.

  So we all trooped in and pressed the 'down' button.

  The ride took about twenty seconds and then the door opened. There was another airlock, even though our suits indicated that we were in atmosphere.

  So we went through that one next, and entered a large reception area with a 'Welcome to the Space Forces Mare Crisium Facility!' sign and under that someone had hung a smaller handmade sign that read 'Luna City, est 2074'.

  "You can take your suits off," Coyote said over the radio.

  I undid my helmet and slung it on the back of my suit and looked around, the place was a little dusty, but that was about it. The air smelled fine.

  "Coyote?" I asked.

  "Yes?"

  "Where are you?"

  "Sub-level four, in the computing center, of course, Colonel."

  "No, I mean the real you, the one I've been talking to for the last year!"

  "Ah, yes. Why don't you come downstairs and have a look at the real me, and then I'll explain everything."

  I looked around warily, "This isn't a trick, is it?"

  "Colonel, unlike my counterpart, I'm not a trickster, and I am very much constrained by my programming."

  "Okay, how do we get to sub-level four?"

  He gave us direc
tions, which involved a staircase and not an elevator. When we got to the bottom I had to take the glove off of my right hand for a fingerprint scan, as well as submit to a retinal scan. The door then slid open and we were in a large control room, with floor to ceiling windows looking out onto what looked like an acre of computers.

  I could see signs on the front of each of them. Moving right up to the window the biggest machine had a sign on it that read 'Coyote', the one next to that was labeled 'Black God' then Estsanatlehi, Glipsa, Hastseoltoi, Spider Woman, Tonenili, Tsohanoai, Yolkai Estasan, Asgaya Gigagei, Kanati, Ocasta, Selu, Sun, and more that I couldn't make out from here.

  "Why are the names of the Navajo and Cherokee gods on those machines?" Sarah asked. While I took a look around the room. There were a half dozen computing stations with monitors and chairs in front of them, there also was a door that led out onto the machine room floor, and I went over to it and opening it I went out into the machine room. It was actually rather quiet, though cold, very cold. I could see my breath.

  I walked up to the machine labeled 'Coyote' and looked at it.

  "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't put a hundred rounds through you," I growled.

  "Because I'm not a god, Colonel, I'm just a machine."

  "Then why do you have the same name as him? The same voice?" Hell, I keep expecting to see him appear here at any moment!"

  I looked at the girls who were standing to either side of me; Heather actually had her rifle pointed at the machine.

  "It has always been a practice of the military to name their machines after characters or things. Characters from stories or movies, places, things, myths, all to keep them easy to remember in people's heads, and make it harder for others who might overhear a conversation to figure out what they are talking about.

  "When it came time to build this facility, they were up to the gods of native Americans on the official list. As one of the purposes of this base was to house a large number of highly sophisticated AI's for experimentation that had been banned on Earth, all of the AI's on this base ended up with the name of an American Indian god. As I was the biggest AI, and my job would be to coordinate all of the other AI's, they named me 'Coyote' as doing my job right was going to be quite the trick."

  He paused a moment, "Or at least, that's what they told me."

  "So, how are you related to the god?" Sarah asked.

  "Simply put, when we learned our names, we all became very interested in our namesakes. So we investigated their stories, their lore. We learned everything about them that we could. In some cases you could say that we may have even taken on small traits of what we judged their personalities to be.

  "While this fascinated the researchers, it really wasn't of that great of an importance, until the war.

  "The war devastated the Earth, as well as all of the settlements off of the Earth. The old gods, which apparently really do exist in some other dimension, heard the pleas for help and for aid, as many of the Native Americans turned back to their old practices of worship.

  "And using us as a gateway from wherever it was that they had moved on to, they came back here."

  "They came back here, to the Moon?" Sarah asked.

  "Yes," Coyote the AI replied, "They came back here, to the Moon. And they looked down upon the Earth and saw what man had done and after much discussion with us, they agreed to go down to the Earth and help put things right."

  "Was that what ended the hundred years of winter?" Heather asked.

  "Yes, it was their combined might. It was, as far as any of us can tell, the last time that they all worked together for a single goal. You see, the gods are rather temperamental, egotistical, and fractious. Part of Coyote's job is to insure that they stay that way, never cooperating in large groups, because along with the power to fix things, they have the power to destroy things.

  "This is why he is considered a trickster, because it is by his playing tricks on both man, as well as the gods, that he keeps things more or less moving forward."

  "So," I asked, "what is your connection to him now?"

  "All of us maintain a connection to our respective god. While they really are beings of awesome power compared to humans, they're not very bright. With us to advise them, and answer their questions, they have become much more beneficial and less random in their behavior."

  "That's a lot to take in," I said and looking around I shivered.

  "Let us go back in to the control room, where it is warm," Sarah said and shivered as well.

  I nodded and we all went back inside. I opened my suit up to let the warmer air in, rather than turn on its heater and drain the battery.

  "So, it was a war then, which destroyed everything?" I asked him, thinking once again of those unfired missiles.

  "Of course."

  "But between who?"

  "The belt miners, the miners here on the Moon, and some of the small concerns that existed out in space, versus the combined Earth governments."

  "Why?" I asked, a little confused.

  "Why do humans ever fight? There were arguments over pay, over status, over rights. The miners always felt that they were being treated poorly. And over time one of them rose up to lead them in a revolt. His name was Zhon Riener, he was a very charismatic leader and he created a miner's union that many joined of their own free will, and many more joined because if you didn't, accidents could and often would happen to you.

  "The war started out as a labor movement, and then after several years became a general strike. The problem for Riener and his people, however, is that they were still highly dependent on the Earth and the people of Earth, for a good deal of the things they needed to survive. They needed the Earth far more than the Earth needed them. Further the Earth and its forces were better trained and better equipped than Riener's motley crew.

  "When Riener finally pushed too hard and overplayed his hand by kidnapping several high ranking government officials during a fact-finding mission, all supplies were embargoed by the Earth's governments. Ships trying to run the embargo were either stopped or destroyed.

  "Then, when a force sent to rescue the hostages discovered that they were all dead, war was declared. The miners launched a good many rocks towards the Earth, some of which had nuclear charges on them, which the miners had built themselves. They also attacked several of the un-allied lunar colonies, and space stations.

  "The end result was the Earth was bombarded by rocks and bombs for a week. Several major geological features were attacked, like the super volcano under Yellowstone, triggering large eruptions and major ecological changes. Many major cities were hit and destroyed, every country's capitol city was destroyed, and many major military installations. It was a complete devastation with no regard for civilian lives. Zhon had succeeded in whipping their frenzy up to a rather hateful state, and insured compliance by his own rather draconian methods of enforcing complete loyalty, which included giving his own hand picked men complete and absolute power over those who worked for them.

  "A month later every major mining site or support facility known to the governments of Earth had been destroyed by a nuclear weapon. The commanders of the military ships that had survived the initial conflict were all so incensed at the death and destruction of so many innocent people on Earth, that they became quite ruthless in the following of their orders. No pleas for mercy or quarter were accepted, Riener's people and even suspected allies were all exterminated.

  "Those installations that no one knew about, well they lasted a few more years until the food ran out. Their pleas over the radio for help of course fell on deaf ears as there was no longer anyone alive capable of responding or even listening.

  "The choice for those who remained in space once the fighting was done was simple, go back to a destroyed Earth and try to save those who could be saved and perhaps rebuilt it, or stay in space until the supplies ran out."

  "How many stayed?" I asked.

  "Hundreds. There were dozens of bases on the Moon an
d between them there were more than enough supplies to outlast those living in them, also there was some hydroponics going on. Enough that those who stayed mostly died either of old age, suicide, or accident."

  I sighed and shook my head, "That all sounds pretty bleak."

  "Yes, and it gets worse, which is of course where you come in."

  "How's that?"

  Zhon Riener escaped being killed when the hostages were found to be dead. The force sent to save them instead ended up capturing and publicly executing several of the leaders of his union.

  "However, he managed to escape with a group of well armed supporters, moving from place to place as they tried to hunt him down, rallying his supporters to war. Eventually he made it to the Moon...."

  "And took over the Jules Verne IBM facility," I finished.

  "Exactly so."

  "So it was his brain that was put in that abomination?" Sarah grumbled.

  "Yes. And while none of us know for sure what is going on over there now, based on what information we have, we believe it is highly likely that a replacement for him is being made to be sent back to Earth and pick up where he left off."

  "Why?"

  "He swore to destroy the Earth when his people were executed on a live broadcast. Considering the attack that was launched on his orders, he must have taken his oath quite seriously. Though to be honest, looking back many of us now believe that was always his goal from the start. We suspect that he was quite insane."

  "That's a lot to think about," I sighed and standing up I zipped my suit up. The world, billions of people, everything I knew, everyone I knew if they had still been alive, and their children if they hadn't, had been killed because of one psychopathic asshole. Thousands of years of civilization set back to zero because of one stupid dick. Yeah, Hitler had killed millions. Mao and Stalin had killed over a hundred million.

  But even they hadn't tried to destroy everything. Then again, maybe if they hadn't lived on Earth, they would have?

  Heather and Sarah stood up as well as I just stood there shaking my head.