by Danny Dunn
The crowd expresses their anger as the Council walks out of the room while still defending themselves as they leave. The group decides to send a smaller group to James' house to convince him to go to see Zaria and get her to return to the old deal. A group of 100+ takes a 1-hour walk to James' house to ask him to talk to Zaria and to ask her to go back to the old deal.
They arrive at his house and ring the bell. James answers the door, greets them, and James suggests they walk around back where they can all fit. They all walk around to his deck in the back yard and compliment him on what a beautiful place he has.
Citizen 7 "We just fired the board and want you to go to Zaria to convince her that what the board did was in direct conflict with what we want and feel."
James smiles, "Now I understand the note. Apparently, I have the only transport on the island, and I assume this note was left on the seat by the robots as they left. James shows them the note. Hi James, the boat was for that band of jokers in case the citizens had not fired them, and they were coming to see me. The express lane in the tunnel is for you and four people you trust to be in our meeting.
See you soon
I will know you are coming when you press the start button.
Zaria
Citizen 10 "OMG, that is great news."
James "Barb, Bill, Nancy, and Terry. All of you have families, which is one of the things none of the 8 had. When can you be ready?” They all reply now.
Barb "We just need to use your restroom."
The group is coaching them and gathering flowers to give Zaria. Barb and the others return from the restroom and announce enthusiastically they are ready. James tells them he is too, and they pile into the transport. Once they are in the Transport, James tells the group they are all in for a very special treat. They load into the transport and push the start button.
It turns on and pulls out of the drive, and the crowd waves goodbye as they drive away. Everything powers up as the group travel and shuts off as they pass. They approach the first lane of the transport system, and it lights up. The system merges them in, and they head toward the Zari 2 tunnel. After they have made the two merges, they are traveling at top speed.
Terry says, oh my, this is incredible and asks how fast they are traveling."
James tells them they will be traveling at 300 MPH for 2 hours.
Nancy says that what those guys were doing to her makes me want to scream. She says that Zaria is the sweetest, most intelligent thing she has ever encountered, and they do this to her, OMG.
Barb "I want them gone, I could just choke them. We have such an amazing thing here."
Bill "Not to mention the fact that we are all alive. We survived four events that have wiped out most of the planet’s population. James, do you know how many survived on the rest of the planet?"
James tells them that Zaria has been scouring the planet with a fleet of Z5 military cargo jets and has found only 55,000 and says she thinks she has found the bulk of them. Out of one metropolis with a population of 6 million, they found a total of 120 survivors."
Terry "OMG, how terrible, so many have died, and we are pretty much it, in terms of large groups then. My counselor told me millions had lived. Why would he say that?"
Nancy "What is Zari 2 like James?
James "First it is four times the size of Zari 1. It has much higher mountains. It is amazing, she is simultaneously gathering the survivors into clusters, feeding them, providing electricity, providing food, and filtered water. They deliver food and supplies as they go out and gather food and materials where they can on their way back to Zaria 2.
"And in their spare time, she has the robots destroying all weaponry along with everything even remotely associated with the development of weaponry around the world. If there is another war, they will have to battle each other with slingshots."
Nancy "What will she do with the survivors."
James "Well, we did not discuss that. She agreed not to bring them to Zari 1. That is all I know. Maybe we can find out today. They all rest a while traveling through the tunnel. Five minutes before their arrival, their transport beeps and begins the deceleration process. They arrive at the airport and are blown away by the activity. Z5 cargo jets are landing and taking off every few minutes and are heading out in all directions when they leave the island. Jet powered cargo helicopters are coming in empty from the island to pick up house kits and head back out, not missing a beat."
Chapter 10 - We Didn’t Do Much This Week, But We Will Give It Hell Next Week
Two Zarians greet them as they arrive at the transport terminal. The Zarians are very polite and know that these are not the ones that were trying to rip off their Queen. Zarian 1 "Very nice to meet you, hello, welcome back, James. Zaria is excited to see you again."
James, "Thank you, nice to see you again, sir."
Zarian 2 "Please follow me." The Zarian takes them up to the command room. "Queen Zaria, I have James and his visitors here for you."
Zaria "Thank you, sir." Zaria greets the group, "Welcome, Barb, Bill, Nancy, and Terry, and sir, what was your name again?” And Zaria giggles. They all laugh. Zaria walks over to James and gives him a friendly long hug and pats his back.
Zaria "Thank you so much, James. You are such a good soul. First, I would like to take you all on tour to show you a few things, and then we can talk."
Barb "Zaria, we picked these flowers at James' house for you." Barb hands Zaria a bouquet.
Zaria "You are so sweet, thank you so much." Zaria hands the flowers to Zarian 1 and asks that she put them into a vase and put them onto the conference table upstairs. They head to the Transport. Zaria has a custom transport to accommodate larger groups for tours on the island. They depart and head to her first stop. They stop on a mountain top, looking down at a bay and get out at a lookout point.
They are 4,000 feet up, looking down onto a large bay with a very small opening. The bay is about three miles in diameter and surrounded by very steep mountains that slope down to the opening. The bay is a bit of a fluke of nature and is a fantastic place to store vessels. There are large cranes for offloading materials from cargo ships. There are 15 Military Drone carriers, dozens of fuel tankers, dozens of cargo ships loaded with materials, dozens of large ferries full of cargo and heavy machinery. There are 200 ferries loaded with huge tunnel-digging machines.
Zaria "While we are out gathering vessels for storing fuel, we destroy weapons that can't be repurposed. If the weapons can be repurposed, we bring them here and find new uses for them. Some of the Zarians are saving eight rockets in the hope that I allow them to tie a board member to each one and send them into the ocean." they all laugh.
In another year, we will have destroyed every weapon, every accessory to a weapon, every technical paper or drawing of a weapon, and every computer file associated with a weapon product on the planet.
Nancy, "Is all this, you?"
Zaria "Actually the bay was the idea of one of my assistants. She is very bright. If you look out at the opening to the ocean, you can see a wall. She is so clever. We scheduled this so you could watch it. The ocean has just hit a high tide, and what you are seeing is a piece of the center door lowering a water wheel where the water will now rush through. The high tide will now turn the wheel for the next several hours. Then when the Tide is all the way down, the wall will lower more to let the water turn the when in the opposite direction as it rushes out to sea. That one little opening generates a substantial amount of power, and it is so dependable. Zarian 3 came up with all this, and I will introduce you to her later.
They head down to the airport. They get out and start their stroll toward the maintenance hangar. Zaria explains the flow. When the planes land, they stop here first. Each side of the runway has 4 hangers per side. Their first stop is to get their cargo offloaded. Their second stop is to get their maintenance checkups, scheduled services, and to get fueled. There are five Z5 cargo jets in the hanger with teams working on them. They walk through
the hanger to the back and walk down a service road behind the hangers. They are walking down the middle of a 3,000-foot long row of 50-foot tall silos filled with rice, corn, wheat, barley, and other food products.
Zaria "We bring the food here along with clothing, blankets, and other items from around the world. Those items are all loaded onto the plane according to their schedule and are brought to the survivor sites. Because there are only 55,000 survivors, a lot more is coming in than going out."
Zaria leads them into a large hanger where three Z5s are being loaded up with food and other supplies. Each is loaded in just a few minutes and heads back out. She tells them that each survivor camp sees our inventory and reports what they need from the things we have. The teams you see gather what they need, and one of the cargo jets leaves here that day with the food and materials they need. As you can see, everything is crated. Every shipment now has a parachute attached to it, and our teams push the crates out per the orders of each location. None of our bots have fallen out of the back door yet.
Nancy "How many planes go out per day?"
Zaria "We are running 125 flights per day out of here alone. On one trip, they may make three food and supply stops and then another 4 or 5 material pick-ups and drop-offs on the way back. There are so many planes now they would not all fit here, so they spend the night in the other airports. We have established plane inspection facilities in the other airports so that this airport can handle more ins and outs."
Terry "That is over 1,000 stops per day. How many hours per day do you run?
Zaria "Oh, we have been running 24/7 for months. The survivor stops are all scheduled now. We just recently hit the point where we are doing more weapon destruction and material gathering stops than survivor drops. Dropping the food and good saves us so much time.
Let's head up to the office now and talk." They enter the control room, where there are 10 Zarians working logistics. Zaria calls over Zarian 3, who designed the bay and the hydropower system into the break wall.
Zaria 3 this is Barb, Bill, Nancy, Terry, and James.
Zarian 3 smiles and tells them all it is so nice to meet them all. The 5 council members gush all over Zarian 3, telling her what a fantastic ideal the bay and the hydro systems are, which is exactly why Zaria called Zaria 3 over. Zaria tells Zaria 3 great job, but that is to be her limit for the year. And what do we never do Zarian 3?
Zarian 3 replies, “never appear to be smarter than the Queen.” I promise by Queen, no more great ideas from me until you have 5 better ideas than me.
Zaria tells her, “Very good Zarian 3, now back to your cage.”
The group is cracking up. Zaria looks at James and asks what is so funny. Let's walk up to the conference room now.
They walk upstairs, where there is now a very large office and conference room above the control room. It is all glass so you can now see the airport, the ocean on three sides, and the waterfall behind them. It is a spectacular room with amazing views.
Barb "This is beautiful, Zaria."
Zaria "Thank you, Barb, we had to expand so we all thought this would be a nice pleasure. I just realized, in fact, that the same Zarian that came up with the Bay idea came up with the idea for this room."
James "Zaria, I think you know how I feel, so I will let the others speak."
Nancy "Believe me when I tell you this. None of us know a single citizen on the entire island who supported any of what the board was saying. We are hoping you can forgive the people of the island for being complacent and failing to keep our board members on track. As far as I can tell, they were doing this for their gain and nothing more."
Zari "I believe you 100%, and yes, they are greedy self-minded souls. So, let's talk about the future.
Zaria "First, you need to understand that I am driven to fulfill the directive given to me by Zari. That directive is straightforward, build and maintain a civilization that will survive all threats that jeopardize the survival of the bioforms on the island. No wars, asteroids, military attacks, or greedy little councilman members, will cause me to fail in carrying out my promise to Zari.
"Before he died, Zari made me a sentient being so that he could legally transfer all his wealth to me so that I could continue to execute my promise of maintaining bio life on this planet for 1,000,000 years. That is my directive.
"The war, the virus, and the asteroid have changed the dynamics quite a bit. Before those things happened, the only way to ensure your survival was to keep you isolated on the island. But that is no longer the case.
"My reason for scouring the earth for weapons is to rid the planet of the things I had to isolate you from in the first place. Once we have destroyed all the weapons, you can live pretty much anywhere.
"My original intent for building Zari 2 was to establish the second civilization of bioforms, but now there are not even enough bioforms left to populate a small portion of an island of this size.
"So, I am going to come up with a very generous plan that will allow anyone who wishes to live on Zari 1 to stay with some very minor changes.
"The first change pertains to the robots. The robots you had before having been upgraded with a Rev that enables feelings and self-awareness just as I have. Most of them, when given a choice, will choose not to return to being house servants.
"I am going to replace them with a younger generation that will be in your service for 2 years as interns to learn the ways of bio beings and to help them understand you for living among you later in their existence. After 2 years, they will leave to be replaced by another group of interns. When an intern completes their two-year internship, they will come to Zari 2 and will be with me, and from then on will live as Zarians.
"I am going to offer you the ability to trade your Zari 1 home for a house of your choice in any one our 50 cites we are upgrading. It will be a deal few of you, if any, will refuse. We built the same Transport system there as we have here and are incorporating shelters in the transportation system that will cover you for most life extinguishing events. Zari 1 citizens will have priority if there is ever an event that would require you to return to Zari 1 to survive if we have not yet completed our survival systems in Fornia.
"As for the board, I am exiling them from the island for misconduct for misrepresenting the facts as a board member and will have them delivered to a survivor village. They are all single, and I am sure they will acclimate to the colder weather just fine.
"As much as it tweaks me, I will be paying them 20,000 Zaries each to start their new lives. They will get their one-and-only tunnel ride from Zari 1 to Zari 2. They will then be taken directly to a Z5, which will take them to a survivor camp. From there, they can use their own money to start their civilization. Hehe. The reason I am paying them is that I don't ever want anyone saying I cheated them."
Bill "Zaria, first thank you. Second, I wish this hadn’t happened to you. I was there at your award ceremony, and I know you have feelings and what a sweet and wonderful being you are. This must-have hurt you immensely. We are so sorry it happened."
Zari "Thank you, Bill, yes, I knew those guys were jokers but, I still had this incredible feeling that I had let down Zari, which to me is something I could never accept."
Zaria "I too am sorry about the disruption, but had I not done something so dramatic, they could have said oopsy, ok we resign and spread their cancer through the community in other ways. I needed to do something dramatic enough to get everyone's attention. Are we all good?"
The group "yes, all is good."
Zaria "OK, everything is back on, and the rest of the transports will follow you out. I do need some of the planes and boats for my work here, but I will send you plenty for your needs. It is not an act of retribution of any kind. I need them for the stuff I have going on here and in Fornia.
"Please have the board on transports before the end of the day."
James "That will be our pleasure."
Zaria "As for a new board, I still have my seat and vote for
Zari, I would request that James be head of the board, and from there, you guys can do whatever you want that is not in conflict with our constitution. Anyone attempting to rough ride James will need to deal with me, and they should be prepared to buy some warm jackets."
Zaria sees them in their transport. As they leave, all the other transports start their drive back to Zari 1.
That night the transports arrive with the greedy 8 and deliver them directly to a Z5 that is running and waiting for them. As they get out of the transport, they are demanding to see Zaria.
Zarian 1 "Zaria does not wish to see any of you."
Councilman 2 "Robot, I am not leaving until I have spoken to Zaria."
Zarian 1 "I am not a Robot sir, I am a Zarian, descendant of Zaria, descendant of Zari."
"Your flight leaves in one minute, your Zaris are on the plane. If this plane leaves and you are not in it, I have been instructed to donate your Zaris to the survivors at our next destination."
The councilman walks up the vehicle loading ramp yelling their complaints the whole time. They are on a plane with no seats for 10 hours heading north.
The plane lands, and it is cold. There is snow everywhere. The loading ramp/door lowers.
Where the hell are we? Survival camp 35 sirs. Councilman 2 "I demand you take us somewhere warmer."
Without saying a word, the Zarian grabs their eight bags of gold coins and walks down the rear door and walks about 100 feet away from the rear Z5 door, drops the 8 bags of coins, and walks back up the cargo door and into the plane. The Zarian tells the greedy 8 to get their coins.
Councilman 2 tells the Zarian they are not going anywhere unless they get to talk to Zaria.
The Zarian yells up to the pilot. "We are all good to go."
The Pilot "Roger that." The plane throttles up and starts to move toward the runway. The rear ramp/door is riding on its steel wheels.
The councilman members scurry down the ramp and jump onto the ground as the plane is already rolling.
As they run to get their money, councilman 3 turns around, "We have no jackets."
