Earth Keepers

by Jorge Alejandro Lavera

  Disoriented, Nephele couldn’t find the exit, which had gone completely dark. Panic started to overtake her. She didn’t know how long she could hold her breath since swimming wasn’t her strong suit. Suddenly she felt something grab her. A hand took her by the arm, throwing her to one side. In spite of her intuition to fight it, she let herself be carried along and after a few moments she realized that what she thought was the side was actually up and they were leaving the transport. The water pressure in her ears was intense when they finally got out through the hatch and started to emerge. The ship was already lost in the deep when their heads reached the surface of the water, taking in breath they desperately needed.

  “Thank you, thank you so much,” thought Nephele, and Alesia slightly inclined her head.

  Fortunately, it was still daylight. The two women situated themselves at the back of the column of swimmers heading towards land.

  The fifty-four got to land, wet and with nothing but what they were wearing, but happy to be alive. The beach was wide and sandy, with trees with abundant vegetation close by.

  “The ship sank, we have nothing, we’re alone,” lamented Alesia.

  “If we’d gone ahead, there would have been parts of the ship left but we’d be dead from the impact,” Nephele defended herself.

  “I know, I know...despite everything, I think we did pretty well, considering the circumstances. I have all my weapons, do you?”

  “Me, too,” answered Nephele checking her uniform, and noting with surprise that the little creature was still stuck to her leg. She shook it and it lazily unrolled itself.

  Everyone was recovering, shaking themselves, getting to their feet and thinking about what to do next.

  “We have to get to the continent. We’re going to divide into groups to look for food and material to make a refuge...” Alesia was interrupted by something that hit her in the chest. Not understanding, she looked at the lance that gone through all her shields and perforated her heart. She looked strangely at Nephele and lost consciousness before falling to the ground. The last thing she saw was her face of panic and incomprehension. Other lances started to fly over the group, injuring those they hit, while everyone shouted in surprise and separated. They ran, but there was no place to hide, except the trees and that’s where the attack was coming from.

  VAULT

  Atlantic Ocean, June 30, 1947

  The energy level had dropped slowly but inexorably for thousands of years. Buried at the bottom of the ocean, the vault had conserved its precious contents throughout the ages and catastrophes, but its small reactor was finally giving out. Lonia knew how many years she could preserve the contents if she didn’t do anything, and how many if she tried a rescue attempt. Isolated from all contact with the outside, she evaluated that doing nothing and waiting for a replenishment of the reactor fuel, which should have been produced centuries ago, could mean losing everything. On the other hand, consuming its precious remaining energy in an attempt to achieve a rescue that might never happen, would be her end. But if there was no one to replace the fuel or perform the rescue, why save the cargo?

  Lonia might only be a program, but she was intelligent and had a very specific goal. Protect the contents of the ship at all cost.

  Alerted about the lack of fuel by the indicator, she decided she couldn’t risk doing nothing and losing everything she had stored. Her consumption of fuel was tiny. A little light or even a little heat was sufficient to recharge, but here closed up, in this dark, freezing place, she had to use energy periodically to maintain herself and it wasn’t infinite. Therefore, she decided to initiate the process to initiate a rescue.

  All of the external sensors had been inoperable for a long time. However, according to the last recordings before losing them, she knew that somehow she was buried under the earth. Her original location was far from the center of the island of Atlantis, inland but almost on the coast. She had clearly perceived that nothing was left when it was destroyed and she had thrown herself into the water. She also knew that the engineers who had planned and constructed the vault had predicted practically any eventuality. The vault was a sealed chamber inside of a ship capable of withstanding almost any force of nature.

  For the eventuality of being buried, she had access to strategically placed explosives. Without any more delay, she detonated half of the explosives around the perimeter. It produced a considerable earthquake, but nothing else happened. She listened around with sonar and could determine that she was really buried under hundreds of feet of earth. And above there was something else, something diffuse. The earth that surrounded her had cracked and she could see how something on top of it had somehow descended and infiltrated the earth, further lowering the temperature around her.

  The intelligence of the computer suddenly understood what was happening. The diffuse material was water. The earth that imprisoned her was underwater, and was actually under the seabed. The chamber had air ducts that led outside, but they were clogged. She also had enormous compressed air tanks in case the ship was manned in space. She opened the tanks, increasing the inside pressure to the maximum, directed the pressured air to the exits that opened to the outside, and detonated the explosives at the top of the ship.

  This time the explosion produced a much stronger tremor and her sensors could detect that a huge mass on top of her cracked. Large fragments began to tear apart and float, at the same time that water took its place. Lonia increased the internal pressure, injected air under the ship, and waited.

  The tremors increased. The ship swayed and shook. The metal creaked from the forces it was supporting even though its ovoid shape was meant to withstand any kind of force. Suddenly she tilted. She lit a minimum number of propellers on the appropriate side to compensate for the inclination. The vault started to vibrate and with a final shake, freed itself from the ground that had held it for so many centuries. The ship started to slowly float, rising under the water. Lonia turned off everything now to save energy.

  The pressure was enormous, but the ship still resisted without effort. The computer let it float slowly towards the surface, lowering the internal pressure according to the external, otherwise it could explode like a bubble. It rose for hours, inert, until it detected it was reaching the surface. When the right moment arrived, Lonia activated all of the engines to maximum power and the ship not only broke the surface but came out flying. Once in the air, a ring projected around it, deploying sensors and stabilizers. There wasn’t any land within reach, but it detected an artificial apparatus flying at low speed and medium altitude, heading west. It tried to communicate but didn’t get a response. She rose and intercepted it right away. She analyzed it and detected that primitive engines propelled it, and it carried creatures aboard, but they weren’t Atlanteans but humans, or at least they didn’t respond to any of her signals, though they had definitely seen her since they maneuvered to get away.

  From that height, she could sense the presence of a continent towards the west. She decided to abandon the attempt to communicate and headed towards land. She examined the weather patterns and determined the best latitude to achieve and optimal recharge of the capsules, while processing the air she was going through to get the hydrogen needed for the reactor. By the time it was ready to situate itself on land, the recharge was complete. Now she just needed to contact someone Atlantean to let them know that the treasure was safe.

  She was choosing the best site to land among several possibilities, when she was hit with the impact of dozens of small missiles that destabilized the ring. Her sensors detected a small manned ship that was attacking her. A small electromagnetic pulse directed against the aggressor was enough to turn it into scrap metal, but it flew at such a speed that its own impulse caused it to hit her. If the primitive weapons hadn’t been enough to destroy her, the impact against the mass of the other ship damaged her stabilizer and she was forced to make an emergency landing. She fell in a sort of field full of plants, animals, and machines that she could
n’t identify, surrounded by the rest of the metal. She thought about what to do. Her contents must be preserved, but only the authorized recipients must see them, and so far, she hadn’t found them. She retracted the engines, sensors and stabilizers that she’d deployed before, returning to the shape of a flattened sphere, and prepared to wait.

  “What the hell!” lamented the rancher looking at the disaster caused when the ships fell in the field near Corona.

  “Look there, boss. There are dead animals,” signaled the cowboy who accompanied the rancher, as he tied his horse next to the other one.

  “Someone’s going to pay for this, damn it,” furiously shouted the rancher, Mac, while they walked around calculating the damage. “When did you say this happened?”

  “Well, a couple of days ago, I saw smoke around here, we came over right away in case there was a fire and we found this. We went right away to tell you. We haven’t touched anything.”

  “You did right, Harry. The best thing will be to call the police, we don’t want problems with the insurance company. I’ll go to the city to tell the sheriff.”

  “That’s two days of travel. Why don’t you call him?”

  “The metal must have cut the telephone lines when it fell. The phone’s been dead a couple of days. Ugh, it must be 110º,” Mac protested, moving his hat to try to reduce the heat, though even so he had to wipe his forehead with a handkerchief.

  “What’s that?” asked Harry, seeing something shiny. He got closer to get a good look at it. He put his hand to his mouth and was going to call his boss when the boss interrupted.

  “I see it. It is gold? A balloon?”

  “No, it has a gold tone, but it’s also silver. And it’s solid, it isn’t a balloon. Boss, boss, doesn’t this look like something from space?” said the cowboy, excited.

  “Look at the size and shape, it looks like a giant egg. Harry, it would be best for you to guard this area until the sheriff comes. I don’t want any neighbors coming by and then the government accuses me of something being missing, is that clear?”

  “Very clear, boss, don’t worry,” he said, but hesitated for a minute. “This is important, but can’t it wait since tomorrow is the independence celebration?”

  “I don’t think we can waste any time, Harry. This thing is quiet for now, but it looks intact. What if it suddenly decides to disappear?” asked Mac. Looking around, nervous, he hurried to his horse. He’d go see the sheriff. And the head of the military, who was a friend of his. And since he was there, the editor of the “Roswell Daily Record” newspaper. A little publicity wouldn’t be a bad thing for his ranch. Maybe they could get a little money out of this after all.

  Four days later, July 7, the sheriff examined the remains in person and sped back in his patrol car to report the findings to the military, who had secretly been searching for one of its lost hunting aircrafts. The next day the area had been razed by troops, trucks, and other military vehicles, which carried the last bolt to the nearest base in Roswell. When they finished, some specialists took care in spreading some old scrap metal in the area and telling the press that what they had actually found was a weather balloon, denying the newspaper’s report of the day before that they had found a flying saucer.

  Throughout the following decades they tried everything to open the ‘egg’, as the few called it who had access to see it secretly. From diamond drills to asking it to please open, suction cups, explosions, laser beams, people who swore they had paranormal abilities to communicate with it, saws, hitting it, sounds, lights... nothing worked. The thing was impenetrable to any physical or mental force, as well as sonar, radar, x-ray and any other method. They hadn’t even succeeded in dislodging even one shaving. The only thing they had been able to determine with certainty was that, because of its weight, it must be hollow and they’d never encountered a metal like that on Earth.

  Lonia knew she had fallen into the hands of someone who must not have access and she took the necessary measures to protect her integrity according to the techniques they used to try to overcome her resistance. She could have felt proud of her efforts, but she was discouraged by the anxiety of not receiving any answer to her calls. No one answered her signal, but she was capturing an infinity of signals of all kinds that, though incomprehensible, surrounded her. Years and decades passed, but Lonia didn’t give up. As long as she functioned, she’d keep trying to find her authentic owners. Meanwhile, the humans had tired of useless tests, and frustrated by the lack of results, they’d left her abandoned in a warehouse, where she lay inert like a secret and inexplicable museum piece.

  Many decades later, one week in the year 2027, the signals were silenced. At first there was a saturation, as if all the creatures were trying to send as many messages as they could at once, and then in a short time, the system was decongesting, until it fell silent in parts. And finally, silence.

  Lonia increased the range of her receptors to the maximum, waiting for some signal and kept waiting. Until one day a signal arrived.

  “Noooo,” was what the computer captured. It wasn’t exactly an order or even an attempt at communication, but the only thing that mattered was that it was an Atlantean signal. The problem was that it was quick and didn’t repeat. She could barely determine that it came from the south of the same continent. If Lonia had been a person, she’d have thought she was hallucinating. No signal like that could reach that distance, but she wasn’t a person, she was a computer and she didn’t argue or doubt the facts. So she ignited her thrusters and destroyed the hooks that held her, gained altitude and began to fly slowly towards the south. She was not designed for such a transfer, so she’d have to recharge many times during the trip, but she had to find the source of the signal.

  CLIMATE CHANGE

  Rho, January 2, 2028. 6:00 a.m.

  Juan Carlos woke up before Althaea. He was surprised to realize he was cold. He checked the climatization of the apartment and was even more surprised to discover that the heat was on. What was going on?

  He decided to look out the window. He pulled back the curtains and saw the sky covered with dark clouds and everything in sight covered in snow.

  “What the hell...”

  “What’s going on?” asked Althaea worriedly, looking at the sight over his shoulder.

  “I don’t have any idea, but no way should we be having this kind of climate in the middle of summer. Let’s go to the control center.”

  They dressed hurriedly and when they entered the center, Sofía received them with a worried face.

  “Good morning, daughter. Do you know what’s going on?”

  “I’m afraid so. I was hoping it wouldn’t reach us, but the winds finally made the climate change here, too.”

  “That what wouldn’t reach us? What winds?”

  “In the northern hemisphere, they detonated a lot of nuclear arms...and a couple of volcanoes erupted that filled the atmosphere with ashes and particulates. Since the winds circulate with the direction of the rotation of the planet, until now they’d stayed in the northern hemisphere, but the change in Ecuador finally destabilized our hemisphere as well. This is nuclear winter.”

  “What?! How long will it last? And how will it affect us—will we get radiation, or lose crops?”

  “It’s 21º outside now. I think the maximum will be above zero if the climate doesn’t get any worse, but the truth is that we’re going to have problems with external gardens. There is almost no radiation, luckily.”

  Juan Carlos looked out the panoramic window when he suddenly froze.

  “Althaea.”

  Both women looked, alerted by his tone. They followed his gaze and Althaea shouted so loudly it made them all jump.

  “Lonia!”

  The huge ship, which floated a few yards from the tower, moved back a little and started to land, smashing part of the park.

  “Greetings, Atlanteans,” they all heard in their minds.

  Juan Carlos and Sofía were full of questions and Althaea t
ried to answer them all while they went to see the ship. They had to order polar outerwear and when it arrived, they ran out, almost running.

  “Oh, Lonia, I’m so happy to see you! Is your content intact?” exclaimed Althaea while she rested both hands on the ship.

  Lonia opened access to the interior, just where Althaea was resting. The solid metal seemed to liquefy and retract, revealing the entrance ramp to the ship. Althaea entered without hesitation, verifying the cameras full of capsules and the indicators showing the state of Lonia’s brain.

  “To answer your question, all of my content is perfectly intact, but I’ve lost all the redundancy.”

  “But it’s incredible that you’re here. For centuries, we’ve thought you were lost. Why now? Why didn’t you show up before? And what happened to the copies?”

  “All of my copies were destroyed. Considering my mission and that I was the only one left, I thought it would be safest to keep my content hidden until I found you. After the sabotage of Atlantis, I never got Atlantean signals again. Until recently. Besides, it took me quite a while to get here. Solar energy is greatly diminished, and my reactor ran out of fuel.”

  “We can fix that! But before anything else, we need to make at least one copy. Do you have the information for how to do it?”

  “Of course, I have all the historical knowledge of Atlantis.”

  “Remember that now Atlantis and all its technology don’t exist anymore.”

  “Creating everything from zero is going to take a considerable amount of time.”

  “Well, it doesn’t have to be from zero. Human technology is primitive, but they have computers and 3D printers. Connect with the control center to see the current state of technology.”