The Tellurian Threat: A Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction Thriller (The Tellurian Archives Book 1)

by Debashish Das

  “The red columns are not just supporting structures. Within these columns are levels, and within those levels are the various R&D departments. And this white section that you see, this is where you are sitting right now, officially known as Column 6, Level 41. But we like to call it OneTech. This is home. The end.”

  The image faded away, and everything became dark again. Kyle removed the headset and was taken aback by the ambient light. It reminded him of the sunlit fountain. That was a scene he was unlikely to forget.

  “So? How was it?” Haraki asked excitedly.

  “That was the most breathtaking tour of Waylain I have ever seen! You truly have outdone yourself, Chief,” Ellie replied. “Why hasn’t anyone seen this yet?”

  “Oh, it’s just something I was doing in my spare time. I came across references to the sunlit scene in Waylain and was intrigued. So I dug up all the images and videos I could and put together a VR sim. You guys are the first ones to see it. Was it good?” Haraki asked, turning to Kyle.

  “Good? Dude, that was amazing! I had no idea what Waylain truly looked like. You have spoiled the city for me. Every time I walk across that fountain, it’ll be a reminder of what we’re missing.”

  Haraki grinned like he had a prank on his mind. “Well, we could start a lobby to open up the dome again.”

  “No,” Ellie interjected. “I’m tired of having to deal with all the shit you do without consulting anyone. I don’t even know how many classified data centers you broke into to get all this together.”

  Haraki grinned guiltily.

  Something struck Kyle as very odd. “Can you explain something to me? Other SubHabs are cylindrical so the water would occupy the top 10 or 20 levels and gravity would help it reach the residential and work levels under it. But Waylain is a sphere, right? And the upper half is just the city and the dome, and the empty space in between. Where’s the water?”

  “First of all, nothing beats the structural integrity of a sphere,” Haraki replied defensively. “I’m sure it was a technical pain in the ass to build, but that also means we don’t have maintenance problems that other SubHabs do.”

  “Okay, but what about the water? Where does Waylain store it?”

  Haraki smiled mischievously. “Do you know what a fishbowl is?”

  Kyle nodded slowly, not sure where this was going.

  “Well, we are just like a fish in that bowl,” Haraki said holding up his hands, imitating the shape of a bowl. “Most of the bottom hemisphere of Waylain is full of water, and the R&D columns are submerged in it. Kind of like… if you put your thumb on one end of a straw and put it into the fishbowl. That way, the water doesn’t get in.

  “And without those corridors you walked through outside, you’d have to swim like a fish to get here.”

  Chapter 9

  “Sorry, did you say something?” Kyle asked, coming out of his reverie.

  “That first scene in the VR sim. How’d you know it was Waylain’s surface? It looked something straight out of a scary alien movie or something,” Ellie asked.

  “Oh, I didn’t recognize it at first, but the dome kind of gave it away. There’s nothing else quite like it.”

  “I don’t know,” she said walking down the curved corridor with him. “I mean, it’s the first time I’ve ever seen the aerial view, but it’s got to be… gigantic. I’m still having trouble wrapping my head around it. “

  “You’ve never been to the surface, have you?”

  She shook her head. “No, why would I even go there?”

  “That’s true. No reason, really. But I like it up there; the dome rising up from the earth, framed against a blue sky, the sun shining down upon it. It’s beautiful.”

  She stopped and turned toward him. “You’ve been to the surface?” she asked incredulously.

  He grinned and nodded. “This morning, in fact. I always drive to work. It takes longer, but I like it.”

  “And you have a car! Which you drive on the surface strips every day! Show-off,” she said with a grin. “But isn’t that dangerous? Exposing yourself to the external atmosphere so frequently?”

  “Hey, I’m still here, aren’t I,” he teased. “Seriously, though. You should come with me sometime. It’s really beautiful and very safe. I could even drop you off after work today, although, the view is much better in the morning.”

  She smiled. “I’d love to take you up on that offer, but not today. I’m not very adventurous, and the thought of going up to the surface makes me really nervous.”

  “Are you serious? Right now, we are thousands of feet below the surface, practically submerged in I don’t know how many millions of gallons of water, and you’re more worried about going up to the surface?”

  She smiled reassuringly, perhaps sensing his nervousness. “Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it in a couple of weeks. But let’s not keep Rohan waiting too long. I mean, he’s cool and not fussy about anything. But he’s still the boss.”

  Kyle followed Ellie along the corridor, unable to stop thinking about what would happen if even a tiny crack appeared in any of the walls. The thought of being separated from all that water by just a few inches of the plastic material made him quite nervous.

  “This is it,” Ellie said, stopping before a door that looked no different from the others. “I’m going to leave you to it and get back to work. If you have any problem, just send me a message, okay?”

  “What, you’re not even going to come in and introduce us?”

  “You’ll be fine,” she said patting his shoulder.

  Kyle watched her leave until she disappeared around the curved corridor. He turned to the door and suddenly had a strange feeling of déjà vu. Before he could process the feeling, the door opened.

  A thin, swarthy man with a boyish face stood there, smiling at him. “Hi, I’m Rohan. Welcome to OneTech, I guess,” he said stepping forward.

  Kyle couldn’t help but smile himself. There was something about his manner that immediately put him at ease. “Thank you. So should I call you boss or something like that?”

  Rohan laughed softly, but it rang with genuine pleasure. “I see you’ve met Haraki, or rather, Chief as he likes others to call him. But no, please just call me Rohan. Why don’t you come inside?”

  Kyle followed Rohan into his office, if it could be called that. It didn’t look anything like a place where one would even consider working. The floor was carpeted with a soft, thick fabric with an alternating blue and orange chessboard pattern. The walls and the ceiling were plain white, and the room was softly lit by a yellowish ambient light emanating from the roof. The most bizarre thing, he realized a moment later, was the lack of chairs or even a desk. He couldn’t even see a computer anywhere. The room had a very austere look to it, but at the same time, felt very comfortable and lived-in.

  Rohan went and picked up one of the disk-like pads stacked in a corner. He tossed one to Kyle and said, “Make yourself comfortable.”

  Kyle caught the pad. It was soft and light, so he could only imagine it was to be used as a floor cushion. But he waited to follow Rohan’s lead.

  “The only things I have are tea or water. Sorry, so you’ll have to choose between them.”

  “Water is fine, thanks. So this is your office?”

  “Well, I like to call it my workspace, but in essence, yes. I know it’s strange, but it has its advantages. No one wants to stay here for more than a few minutes. So you can’t really have any meetings in here, which is perfectly fine with me as it lets me work in peace.” He turned around and walked over to Kyle with a bottle of water in each hand, and another disk-like pad tucked under his arm.

  Kyle took both the bottles from his hands but realized he didn’t have any place to put them.

  Rohan placed the cushion on the floor, arranging it against the wall. He did the same with the cushion that Kyle had dropped and gestured for him to take a seat. “Sorry, I know it’s kind of weird sitting on the floor, but I find it helps me focus,” he sai
d shrugging self-consciously.

  Kyle sat down on the cushion and was surprised to find that it was not as uncomfortable as he had imagined it to be. “I’m learning that nothing here’s quite conventional. It’ll just take some time for me to adjust to… all of this.”

  Rohan laughed again. “Good luck with that. It’s been a couple of year, and I still haven’t gotten used to it. Must be a big change for you, no?”

  “Yeah. The elevator ride down, the cafeteria, Haraki… sorry, Chief’s room; it’s all a bit bizarre. So, do you and Chief have individual offices because of your positions? Almost no one had an office at Analytics.”

  “Yeah, I’ve been to Analytics before. It’s a wonder you guys can work with all that noise and distraction. I’d be a hopeless wreck in that kind of environment. But to answer your question, everyone has an individual workspace here. Or rather, you can choose how you want to work. By yourself, with a small team, or even in the cafeteria, if that’s your thing,” he said, winking at Kyle. “We don’t care if you sleep or eat or play video games in here. It’s totally up to you, what time you want to come in or leave or how many hours you want to work for. As long as you do your job, you are all good.”

  It was Kyle’s turn to laugh. “Wow, tough life.”

  “I don’t know about others, but I believe that you can only do your best work when you are comfortable in other facets of your life. The idea is to give you all those comforts, but wring you like a wet sponge when it comes to your job.”

  Kyle laughed, but Rohan didn’t. Maybe it wasn’t meant to be a joke.

  “Do you know why I have this sort of a setup for my workspace?” Rohan asked sweeping his hand around the room.

  Kyle cocked his head, “You said it helps you focus?”

  “Yes, it does. But what’s more important is ‘why.’ I sit on the floor while I’m thinking. I do my work and write code while standing up. It’s probably not the most comfortable thing in the world, but it’s familiar. I’ve been doing it for so long that it’s become second nature.”

  “You can always change, right? I mean, how hard can it be to bring in a desk and chair and start working?”

  Rohan turned toward him and smiled. “As hard as it is working by yourself in your apartment.”

  Something must have shown on his face as Rohan’s expression turned apologetic.

  “I’m sorry for bringing that up. But I had to. You see, you had trouble working in an environment where you were alone, and there were no distractions. But I prefer to work in exactly that sort of an environment. It might seem we are at the opposite ends of the spectrum, but what we have in common, is that we are comfortable with what we are used to. Which brings me back to the point that we do our best work when we are comfortable in other facets of our life.”

  It made sense when put this way, but Rohan’s knowledge of what he had been through upset him. “So Patrick told you about it, I guess.”

  “To be honest, he didn’t say anything except you were joining OneTech. I made him tell me more about you. I wanted to know who I was going to be working with. I’m sorry, that was impolite of me.”

  “No, it’s okay. I always try to find out more about the people who work with me, too. I feel it makes working together more pleasant.”

  “I’m glad you feel that way because I’ve been told that I can be blunt to the point of rudeness.”

  Kyle smiled on hearing that. There was something about Rohan’s mannerisms that made him very likable. Kind of like Andrew, now that he thought about it. “And I’ve been told that I can be funny to the point of being offensive. So, I guess we have that in common as well.”

  “Excellent,” Rohan said, rubbing his palms, “let’s get down to business then.”

  Rohan took out his mobile and tapped a few times. The opposite wall suddenly brightened and turned into a screen. Windows of varying sizes started popping up all over until Rohan wiped it clean with a gesture. “I prefer this to the multi-screen setup that Haraki has in his workspace. I know it’s a little old-fashioned, but I guess I am old-fashioned in many ways.”

  Is nothing normal here? Kyle leaned against the wall and drank some water. “So I’ll have to choose between a giant wall-screen and a multi-screen setup?”

  “What? No, you can even work on your personal console. I just find it easier to see everything at once. Plus, it’s gentler on the eyes to not expose yourself to back-lit screens.

  “Let’s see. You were analyzing the data from the environmental monitoring systems, right?”

  “Yes, more specifically, the terrestrial particulate distribution in and around Waylain.”

  “Great,” Rohan said making gestures in the air typing lines of code on the wall-screen. “Okay, this should serve for now. Can you make sense of this?”

  A 3D graph appeared on the wall-screen, looking like a jagged mountain colored in reds, blues, and greens. Kyle studied the graph carefully before replying. “Looks like the daily average seismic activity plotted over the last three months, referenced against the daily UV radiation level on the surface during the same time. I don’t think that’s a valid parameter.”

  “You’re absolutely right. It is not a valid parameter. I just made it up. But if you didn’t know that, and the axes were not defined, would you be able to extract meaningful patterns from it? Given a long enough time frame?”

  He thought about it for some time. “Theoretically, yes. But to what end? What would that tell us? That when the sun shines brightly, the earth trembles more?” Kyle joked.

  Rohan laughed. “True, it’s a pointless activity. But what if I wanted to cross reference one specific data set against all the data sets from all the monitoring systems across Waylain?”

  Kyle thought about it for a second. “Again, theoretically, you can do that. But it would create an almost unimaginable number of extra parameters that would have to be analyzed. And because there is no precedent for any of those parameters, it would all have to be done manually. All I can say is even if the whole Analytics department was involved in this, they’d barely be able to scratch the surface in a whole year.”

  “Patrick was right; you really are good at this.”

  “Thanks, but I’m sure I know a few other people who are better. This is practically what we do every day.”

  “Even better. Then you should be comfortable working with all this data and extracting patterns out of them.”

  That took him by surprise. “When you say all, you mean…”

  “Unfortunately, yes.”

  “I’m not sure what you’re thinking, but I’m just one guy. What do you expect me to do?” It seemed to Kyle that Rohan was enjoying himself. He, on the other hand, was utterly confused.

  “Oh, I know it’s an impossible task. But you’ll have help.”

  “Rohan, I’m not sure what you’re getting at, but I assure you, even the entire population of Waylain wouldn’t be enough to help.”

  Rohan nodded in agreement. “Agreed.”

  Kyle sighed and said, “Okay, I’ll play along. I’ll do whatever you want me to, but then what? What happens three months, six months from now?”

  Rohan’s smile widened. “Hopefully, in three months’ time, Al would have taken over from you, and you can move on to bigger things.”

  “Who’s Al?”

  Rohan made another gesture, and the wall-screen turned dark, with only white characters streaming across the page. “Kyle, I’d like you to meet Al.”

  He stared at the lines of code scrolling down the page. “What, that’s it? No hi, hello, or nice to meet you? Just code? I almost expected a 3D projection of an artificial brain to start talking to me.”

  “Seriously,” Rohan said laughing openly, “that’s just the kind of crap everyone wants to believe in, but it couldn’t be further from the truth.

  “Al is a very special program because it can learn by itself, just like human beings. It can observe phenomena, form its own conclusions, and start extrapolating them
to come up with its own decisions.”

  “You know how they say there’s no substitute for experience? Well, now we have Al. The more it learns, the more it grows, the more experienced it becomes. It’s just a piece of software, but it can leverage experience.”

  Rohan turned around and looked at Kyle, as if expecting him to be blown away by what he had seen.

  “If you were assuming I would be speechless, I’m sorry to disappoint you. I still don’t get it.”

  With a half-hearted gesture, Rohan cleared the wall-screen and the room brightened. “Showmanship was never my thing, and this just made Al seem lame. But it’s really not. It’s a technological breakthrough. I just don’t know how to explain it clearly yet.”

  “No, no, I could tell it was something big. I just don’t see what it has to do with all the data or even me.”

  “Oh, yes, of course. I’m sorry, I should have explained. Al is OS agnostic, it can run on any hardware, any platform, irrespective of where it is located. As long as it’s on the internet, Al can run within it.

  “Think of Al as a human being. Whatever terminals or consoles it’s running on are like its eyes, ears, and fingers. It sees, hears, and observes what’s going on. OneTech is its brain. This is where it processes everything it has observed, and based on what it sees over time, it will learn about what each of those terminals is doing and how they relate to one another.

  “It’s like we know we shouldn’t touch anything hot because it will cause pain and burn us. But we would never have learned if we had not burned ourselves or had someone teach us those lessons. And that’s where you come in. We want you to teach Al.”

  “Okay…” Kyle said slowly, trying to wrap his head around all of it, but it still escaped him. “First you said you want me to analyze all that data, now you’re telling me I have to teach an artificial intelligence program not to touch hot objects? I see we still haven’t come out of the zone of impossible.”

  “No, it’s very simple, really. All you have to do is start analyzing the data, like you normally do. Al will be just running in the background, you won’t even know it. But it will be learning by observing your actions, and we will try to have it replicate your decisions and analyses. Over time, it will learn how to make those decisions on its own and can analyze all the data across all monitoring systems. And because it’s software, it can keep up with the massive amounts of data being generated every day. It can do what even hundreds of thousands of human beings cannot,” Rohan ended excitedly.