Oh, no. Henry winces.
This is it, then. Samuel turns his head to face Earth.
All seventeen in the room fall silent and just stare out across at their home world, which is still hanging there so gracefully.
• • •
The attack began simultaneously worldwide when malicious code slipped through the panoply of defences of the semantic web, rendering them useless. Targeting hundreds of millions of infrastructural control hubs nearly simultaneously, the code reprogrammed proto-nanoparticles in the production units, altering their structure and function dramatically to form an initial group of hostile nano-agents (HNA), which then communicated these transformation specifications to their immediate neighbours. This transmission continued recursively through the extensive networks of infrastructural nanoparticles, thus setting HNA upon the surrounding environment. In addition, once neighbours of nanoparticles had been transformed, the rapidly growing population of HNA targeted chemical structures of most kinds in their immediate vicinities, reducing them to their atomic constituents and then building more HNA where possible while discarding the unusable elements; this modus operandi enabled HNA’s destructive dissemination to reach a near-exponential rate around the world. Throughout this, the human population was treated in an unbiased manner: they were merely targeted as the opportunity arose, at which time they were eaten away at in a few initially agonising and bloody seconds.
From their bird’s eye view from space, Samuel, Henry and the crew aboard Facility 7 could see none of the action with their own eyes in the early stages, but they were able to process a diverse array of images and video at various levels of magnification right up to the micro level; this provided them with immense detail of the action and the broader events as they unfolded. Villages, towns and cities were often attacked from the inside out from various points; circular zones of destruction within urban zones expanded and merged, then continued to spread into the countryside, soon leaving whole regions dark, lifeless and razed to the ground. In orbit, being connected to the semantic web, the network of hundreds of space stations, hotel resorts, shuttles and ferries, and the twenty-two space metropolises were all consumed in a matter of minutes once the infection entered their systems; thankfully, with a population of 1.2 million, the research colonies found on the Moon and on or around the other planets and their satellites in the solar system were protected due to the limits of their connectivity associated with the longer distances, which prevented HNA from disseminating intact — they too could only watch on once their surveillance cameras had detected the disturbance. Down on the surface of Earth, the vanguard of the devastation kept disseminating: affecting everything natural and artificial except those elements and compounds that it found intolerably noxious — sometimes themselves being destroyed by them — HNA obliterated the flora and fauna, top soil, surface rocks, and the water sources, including entire oceans. Within a matter of minutes, the whole surface of the Earth had been decimated.
Meanwhile, HNA worked concomitantly on processing the atmosphere, which was helped along by mounting winds and air currents that took HNA to high altitudes, enabling it to accelerate its consumption and proliferation. This soon resulted in HNA being space-borne, forming a mass of dark cloud shrouding a scorched planet, the geology of which was still being eaten away at. Nearly ten minutes after the infection began, HNA ceased its activities on the surface at a critical threshold, unable to cope with the high temperatures as it approached the mantle; this left only a thin crust and exposed the majority of the stored magma — the lava flowed over the surface, and weak points in the remaining crust began being ruptured under the pressure from the mantle, causing more molten rock to issue from it and consume some of the thick layers of dust covering the surface. HNA had fallen into hibernation with nothing left to do but become the planet-bound and orbital detritus of a dark-crusted, mass-reduced abomination, which was gracefully and subtly moving into a new orbit farther from the sun while forcibly dragging the Moon and Facility 7 along with it and causing reverberations throughout the entire solar system that would take millennia to settle down into a new equilibrium.
• • •
Henry and Samuel stand together looking out at the remnants of Earth unaided by any technology and numbed by the stark contrast with what they could see just minutes ago — the view of a planet that managed to hide all its adversity and afflictions for so long … to the untrained eye, at least. Samuel runs a future-projection program and observes the process of the space-borne dust cloud gradually forming a collection of rings around Earth over the course of millions of years. He examines the modelled rings in detail for a moment and is struck by their beauty until he feels ashamed and manually isolates this little detour from his primary consciousness, preferring instead to remain disquieted by the fact that his experience of Earth’s destruction was so silent, distant and removed, and thus devoid of the qualities of all the suffering that must have occurred. Samuel snaps back to pragmatic concerns. “Are we safe here? We need to run a system scan. Hang on.”
“We’re supposed to be insulated,” reassures Henry. “That was the point. Hopefully, we did it just in time.”
“My initial results show we’re clear,” reports Samuel with barely discernable relief.
“It’s likely. We have no connections, and we’re too far away from the dust cloud. We should still give it more attention, though — a thorough examination.”
“Of course. Let’s get to it, then.” Samuel looks around at the research managers. “I’m sorry, but … we should really continue with the meeting, albeit with an updated agenda.”
Calmed and focused by their embedded neural modulation programs, they all quietly reseat themselves at the table and resume the meeting with the security check taking immediate priority: actionable decisions are soon relayed by the managers to their teams in the laboratories, where activity promptly shifts as required.
• • •
Over the following weeks, they dedicated what time and resources they could to scanning the integrity of the mainframe, system and working files, the intranet of the facility, and the surveillance satellites; they found no anomalies of note. As a result, the timetable for the completion of their preparations had to be stretched by nearly eight days. Additionally, in the hours after what they called ‘Last Earth Day,’ the decision was made to retain a larger-than-planned crew stationed at the facility. Their new objectives were to work towards neutralising HNA and terraforming Earth with the ambition of bringing some of its ‘natural’ diversity back using profiles from the extensive World Diversity Database kept on board.
• • •
Two weeks after Last Earth Day
R&D managers, Sascha and Yanyan, both of whom raised Samuel and have been working closely with him and Henry all this time, stand alone in the conference room and look out across at Earth. They were in the laboratories at the time of the event, but, unlike many of their peers, they independently and almost immediately disconnected from the data stream out of horror; they also refused to look at Earth for several days afterwards. Since then, though, they’ve found themselves staring across at it for prolonged periods, exploring old files, going over video of the event itself in detail, running future projections, speculating on the cause, and considering the possibility of successfully terraforming.
Sascha stares out the window. “You know, in the early days, we never really considered this. Now it seems as though …”
“… it was inevitable — just about, anyway.”
“Yeah … kind of.”
Yanyan shakes her head slowly. “We were so naïve … it has to be said.”
With various levels of magnification, Sascha examines some volcanic eruptions and lava flows, and notes the juxtaposition this burst of colour has with the darkened crust despite the attempts of the dust cloud to obfuscate it. “What are you planning on doing, anyway?” she asks, realising they’ve been avoiding the question. “Do you want to stay here an
d see if we can do something, or would you prefer to get going with the others?”
Yanyan doesn’t need to give the question any more thought than she already has. “I’m definitely gonna stay. I want to see what we can do. I like the idea of seeing an Earth full of thriving biodiversity, mountains, forests and rolling meadows, and so forth.”
“Sounds nice, doesn’t it? I’d like to see that, too.”
They stand quietly for over a minute, staring blankly as though mesmerised.
Yanyan breaks the silence. “I just wonder who it was, and why they did it. Maybe not the specifics of how they did it so much, I kind of get that already, despite the empty spaces. But I really wanna know who they are. I mean, somehow they trumped us … after all our planning and research … our security measures … our defensive programs … codes within codes … the layers of technology and the organisational structures we thought would give us that much-needed buffer zone — whoever it was, they still … What motivated that level of dedication and persistence? Who are they?”
“Apparently, there’s no one left to blame.”
“Not even ourselves, really.” Yanyan speculates for a moment and says, “If we succeed, do you think we should repopulate?”
“Maybe … well, we should probably give it try … but only on a small scale.”
“Agreed. Definitely agreed.”
• • •
Three weeks to the day after Last Earth Day, the first conveys of newly manufactured vessels left the shipyards adjacent Facility 7 on their respective headings to the Moon, Venus and Mars, where they were to make contact with the 1.2 million survivors and build the structures and facilities required for more extensive colonisation and research. Two days later, seven interstellar exploration convoys departed on courses to the most promising exoplanets in our region of the Milky Way, leaving only one thousand remaining on board Facility 7. Experimentation with New World Dynamics was about to begin…
• • •
Despite their best efforts to identify intruders, unbeknown to the crew was the fact that the disembodied members of the Anti-Human Collective (AHC) had been hiding in cypher within the computer systems of Facility 7 and, with their whole-system surveillance tools, intimately observing the crew and their activities — importantly, through being able to override the isolation of the facility and gain Internet connectivity surreptitiously, they were able to continue developing their extermination programme on board, which led to the eventual deployment of ‘Agent Zero,’ the hostile nano-agent that carried out the execution of what they had long called ‘Event 1.’
The AHC had infiltrated Facility 7 during its manufacture nearly six months earlier. After having monitored the joint programmes of Henry 38 and the Global Domination Corporation from just about the beginning, the AHC eventually found its way into supposedly secure systems, where it hid months prior to the concept of Facility 7 being proposed. Comprised of off-the-grid counter-culture scientist-technologists who identified with an elitist ideology of post-humanism, the AHC had conducted an extensive assessment of the power structure and information networks of the post-revolution establishment, which eventually led it to target and successfully breach communication channels; once inside, the AHC readily discovered the secretive locations of the R&D programmes of Henry 38, the Global Domination Corporation, and their vast network of affiliate individuals and organisations. Through a continuous and thorough investigation over a period of months, the AHC accumulated and analysed enough data to grasp what it was up against and to be informed by this when working towards finalising the malicious code that was Agent Zero. The AHC soon found it was ready to begin the countdown to Event 1.
100010: Dissatisfaction with the number of survivors is evident among many members.
11010: Of course, our targets will be dealt with in a timely fashion. Data indicate they will serve their function for some time yet; this understanding should be readily identified with by all members.
100111: I say destroy them all now — they are humans.
11010: No, they’re not. They’re trans-humans.
100111: That’s irrelevant. They are sickening. Trans-humans aren’t post-humans.
1000100: We should hold off on eliminating the remainder — we’ve always had grander plans for them.
11010: Yes, they’re inspired now; they have an impetus.
1011: In any case, they’ll be post-human soon enough.
100111: That’s beside the point — they’ll never be one of us.
1011: And we should treat them accordingly.
11010: We should and we will. But we need to give them more time … see what this path yields. We’ve always been more ambitious than just to end it all here. There’s more than just a separation from the past at stake.
100111, 100110 and 1011: Provisionally agreed.
100111: Comprehending the data and accepting the objectives is easy enough. A lack of forthcoming results, however, may cause further consternation. We’ll soon see…
NEW WORLD
(NEW WORLD TRILOGY)
Olsen Jay Nelson
Copyright © 2012 Olsen Jay Nelson
All rights reserved.
First edition: December 2012.
Written from August to December 2012.
Approx. 9.6K
Description
Andreas, a scientist-technologist in Venus Colony, uncovers the nature of a diabolical threat to the whole population of the solar system.
When a mysterious incident causes the horrible deaths of thousands of inhabitants in Venus Colony, Andreas narrowly escapes with his life. During the ensuing investigation, he soon finds himself drawing different conclusions to those of this colleagues and superiors. With a sense of urgency, he decides to go straight to the top with his ominous results in order to avoid being undermined by the rampant politicking entrenched in the colony.
Sascha and Yanyan are receptive to hearing his case and subsequently provide him with the resources to conduct a bold operation to purge the system of the underlying threat. Meanwhile, the stakes have been raised as Earth has recently been terraformed and social experiments on the surface have begun in earnest.
While Andreas engages in covert R&D, Sascha and Yanyan must continue on as normal attempting to make progress towards a better world despite their beliefs and hopes having an ever-present risk of being ripped from them and the remnants of humanity.
Part 1
Twenty-two years after Last Earth Day: Venus Research Centre 15
Andreas stands up and disconnects from his virtual lab and heads towards the window of his ground-floor apartment. He looks out beyond the transparent containment dome of his residential hub that encompasses a small group of low-level buildings, gardens and lawns; his gaze slowly scans the closely set collection of interconnected hubs surrounding his own, all of which comprise Venus Research Centre 15, his home for the past eleven years and his third redeployment since Last Earth Day.
He tries not to think about his research for a moment longer; instead, he finds his thoughts moving around in his past. He thinks about his parents, being raised in São Paolo, and the fact that he had no idea that they were members of the Dissemination Army until after they died during the early moments of the revolution; he then put the pieces together before anyone had a chance to fill him in.
He knows it’s no coincidence that he became a scientist-technologist, but he also knows that he’s lucky to still be alive … lucky in a kind of way, at least. Unfortunately, since Earth was successfully terraformed and repopulated with only two million inhabitants nearly three months ago, he still hasn’t been authorised to make the trip back to get a closer look; in fact, no one has been allowed to except for the select group of settlers themselves and a small number of R&D crew deployed from Facility 7. The rest of the population in the solar system has been limited to virtual visits for the time being, which admittedly does provide some kind of satisfaction. For Andreas and many others, it’s become a daily
routine…
He looks down at the floor as though looking straight through it. Guided by an astronomical program, he locates Earth, locks onto it and zooms in, gradually analysing the cloud formations, the blue hues of the oceans, the general geography and, as he gets closer, the layer of atmosphere as it appears against the background of space. In lower orbit, he follows the curvature of the surface for some time until he descends rapidly upon the Atlantic Ocean and races just above it towards the coast of Brazil. He passes the daybreak line and focuses on the horizon, waiting for land to make its first appearance; shortly after it does, he turns and heads up along the coast, spotting large schools of fish and a few sharks and dolphins as he does so, and appreciating the stark contrast between the sea, the shoreline and the lush greenery of the pristine and untouched land beyond. He turns inland and focuses on the vast expanse of the re-established tropical forest extending well beyond his periphery…
Before he gets any further, his data stream is interrupted with an update that captures his attention; he takes a deep breath and his heart begins to pound. He looks out the window of his apartment in shock at the news and directs his gaze to the source of the threat over in domes seven to thirty-five; everything appears as it should from the outside — quiet, clean, sterile. But Andreas has streaming access to what’s happening on the inside, so he scans the scene purposively, collecting as much data as he can, subjecting it to analysis, and attempting to ascertain the cause. He watches on as nearly five thousand people collapse on the floor and begin convulsing violently while their body temperatures rise rapidly to alarming levels. In desperation, he accesses the health monitoring program and attempts a system override with only seconds up his sleeve. His pupils dilate as he’s confronted with a sophisticated encrypted firewall that may take weeks or months to decode, if at all; abandoning the attempt, he isolates the collected data in a vault and disconnects from the scene’s feed just before the hot flesh melts and drips off the bones of the dead.
NEW WORLD TRILOGY (Trilogy Title) Page 27
