Splendid Apocalypse: The Fall of Old Earth (An Old Guy/Cybertank Adventure Book 5)

by Timothy J. Gawne

  “Who told you? Was it Calibri?”

  “No, it was not. I believe that he still feels himself to be in your debt, and he would never betray your confidence. Besides, as charming as he is, he is another species. He probably doesn’t see anything especially wrong about slaughtering humans as spare parts. It was Brother Adenour, who came across it in the archives at the local shelter complex. Did you ever intend to tell me the truth?”

  “No,” said Blucher. “No, I did not.”

  “At least you are honest,” said Mahalanobis. “I will grant you that,”

  Blucher started to cry. “How dare you. How dare you judge me. You were in your library fat and happy with your wine and your tea and your books, and you have no idea what it was like out there. Out there you did what you needed to do to survive.”

  “I do not presume to judge you, Imelda Blucher,” said Mahalanobis. “I just don’t want to live with you anymore. I’m sorry, but this is something that cannot be argued or settled. In the long run it would probably be best if you moved into one of the shelter complexes, or perhaps another library settlement. For now I trust we are both adults and can be professional about this.”

  “But… but… I do love you. Please don’t do this.”

  “That is not relevant. My mind is quite set on this matter. Now, if you will excuse me I have duties that I am late at attending. Good day.”

  “Don’t go. Please.”

  “Goodbye Imelda Blucher. And before I forget, the rest of the brethren remain impressed at your organizational skills. You are to be commended.”

  Mahalanobis walked out the door. Blucher just sobbed. She tried one of the mental calming exercises that she had learned – it didn’t seem to help. Perhaps she needed to do more reading, or perhaps she just didn’t have the kind of mind that could benefit from those techniques. Eventually she went back to trying to read the flow records, but it was hard with her eyes so filled with tears. Well, no matter. Nobody was going to fire her, and she’d get over it, eventually.

  21. A Few Centuries Later

  “If you want to get laid, go to college. If you want an education, go to the library”

  - Frank Zappa, Philosopher King, I mean… musician… the records are not clear. 20th Century.

  Grand Archivist Ludmilla Gehrts of the Librarians Temporal was sitting at the desk in her office struggling with a particularly difficult data structure. There was a meter-wide visual display in front of her, filled with a tangle of lines and colored blocks. She pondered it for a while.

  “Try a deep-learning algorithm on the meta-set. Use parameters, 4, 23, and 7.”

  Acknowledged, said her sub-sentient computer assistant. Process complete. Improvement less than 4%. Residuals still sub-optimal.

  Gehrts frowned. “Try parameters 4, 23, and 9. Increase cycles by 100.”

  Acknowledged.

  The Archivist stood up and stretched. She had been working on this problem for several hours and was getting stiff. She thought about giving up for the day and taking a walk, but decided not just yet. She’d wait for her systems to process the current request, then try one more time.

  Gehrts was nearly two meters tall, with a body that was both graceful yet robust. She had short blond hair and green eyes. Many of the brothers and sisters of the Librarians Temporal chose to wear embroidered red robes and open sandals – it was a longstanding tradition – but she had never gone for that. Currently, she was wearing tight-fitting blue jeans tucked into high black leather boots, and a plain white blouse. Her only concession to the standard style was a simple necklace with a single small emblem of the book and the sword.

  Many members of her order also affected the carrying of ostentatiously large and destructive weapons, but Gehrts was armed only with a silver nanotech bracelet on her left wrist. It carried a variety of subminiature seeker missiles, and could likely have taken out a 20th century rifle platoon. The Librarians Temporal had been at peace for over a century, and she could see no special reason to carry something capable of destroying a city. Well, except on ceremonial occasions, of course. In her opinion, it was possible to overdo that “be prepared” creed.

  It was like that old saying, “be always ready for everything and you will be so bogged down with equipment that you will not be able to accomplish anything.”

  Many of her brethren had spartan and austerely decorated offices, but not Gehrts. Her desk was covered in data slates, hardcopy printouts, antique books, and small square post-it notes that in places were piled so thickly that they were like the fall leaves in an ancient above ground forest. The far wall was covered with glass-doored bookshelves, within which were all manner of knick-knacks, random electronic components, tiny statues, framed photographs of her friends, associates, and famous scholars from the past, solid-state data archives, and a single antique DOS computer (kept more for reasons of sentiment than any real idea that it might someday be a useful backup).

  Her computer assistant chimed. Junior archivist Miller has signaled that he would like to meet with you. Shall I tell him that you are available?

  “Miller? Did he say what about?”

  Junior archivist Miller has indicated high, but not urgent priority. He mentioned that it involved visitors from space.

  “Well, that does sound interesting. Yes, tell him to come over.”

  Acknowledged. From his current location I estimate that he will arrive here in less than 15 minutes. Shall I continue the analysis?

  “No, I think that I have had enough for today. Cancel, and put the workspace in storage for later.”

  Acknowledged.

  Gehrts took the time to relax. She engaged in a simple mind-cleaning exercise, and felt the tension and focus of her work with the data-structures melt away. She then switched to memory consolidation mode, pruning away the useless trivia and reinforcing the important.

  “Make the window transparent, please.”

  Acknowledged.

  A section of the wall to the left of the desk went clear. The office was two floors up from the base of the cavern. She could see hundreds of meters down past the office blocks to the orchard at the far end. It was simulated afternoon, and the roof was a deep blue with only a few wisps of projected clouds. A small white electric bus drove down the central lane past ornamental shrubs, and stopped nearly under the window.

  Presently there was a knock on the door. “Come on in, the door is open,” said Gehrts.

  Junior archivist Esteban Miller entered the room. He was lean, with slightly swarthy skin and a shock of black hair. Unlike Gehrts, Miller wore the more typical attire of a member of the Librarians Temporal: a red robe with an elaborate Greek-key motif stitched around the edges, and brown leather sandals. On his right hip was holstered an ancient 9 mm Glock pistol: even with upgraded ammunition, it was laughably primitive by modern standards. On the other hand, it was reliable, and its simple mechanism could not be jammed, tracked, spoofed, or infected with computer viruses. It was also a piece of history, having been handed down by the Librarians Temporal since the time of the great collapse.

  “Hello, Brother Miller. What is the excitement all about?” asked Gerhts.

  “Sister Gerhts. It seems that we have visitors. They claim to be from the Alpha Centauri system. And two of them appear to be cybertanks!”

  “Splendid, if true. Why don’t you have a seat, and tell me what you know.”

  Miller pulled up a chair and sat down in it, while Gehrts did likewise.

  “We just received a transmission on a microwave band. Tracking puts it in our system about 4 AU out. The protocols are clearly human, and they say that they are visitors from Alpha Centauri. They are asking if anyone is still alive, and requesting contact if so.”

  “Hmm. Did they say who they were?”

  “Oh yes. The claim is that there are two human beings and two cybertanks. The humans are allegedly Giuseppe Vargas and Chet Masterson. The cybertanks: Moss, and… and… Old Guy!”

  Gehrts smiled. �
��Old Guy? And Vargas? We may have a religious event on our hands. I presume that nobody has replied.”

  “No, of course not. We in space command are waiting for the full council to convene, but I can’t see why we wouldn’t.”

  “Agreed, council should meet. Due diligence and all that. Tell me, what of our alien friends? Any reaction from them?”

  Miller shook his head. “No, they are quiet. As you know, we have been deliberately keeping our heads down; not doing any in–system travel or launching new communications satellites for fear of provoking them. That could be an issue here.”

  “Yes, it could. We know that the aliens have a heavy presence in our system, but they have done nothing but watch since the collapse. We need to keep it that way. It would be a shame to send our visitors away after they have come this far, but if the aliens object I don’t see that we would have much of a choice. Do we still have any channels open to the aliens?”

  “Not that are active,” said Miller. “There are records of transmission protocols from back before the collapse, but they have not been used since. Still, there is no reason that they can’t be tried again.”

  “If we are going to have guests,” said Gehrts, “we should clear it with the aliens. No reason to provoke them.”

  “Another topic for council then,” said Miller. “I do hope the aliens don’t object. I mean, Old Guy! The original one! Shall I inform his temple?”

  “We still don’t know if this message is genuine or not – but sure, keep him informed. Certainly we may need his advice, and he could be important in validating the identity of our apparent guests.”

  Miller nodded. “Yes, he will have access codes and memories that no imposter could have. I’ll get on it at once.”

  “Do that. In the meantime, I need to call a full meeting of the council.”

  --------------------

  The high council duly met, and after considerable discussion and back-and-forth voting and polling and general fussing with the various Library branches, syndicates, city-states, autonomous corporations, religious factions, universities, guilds, and sports leagues, the decision was made to initiate contact with the alleged visitors from Alpha Centauri.

  Unfortunately the distances involved meant that there would be nearly an hour delay between when they sent a message and then got a response. The messages were composed and posted on video screens – both in the council chamber and publicly. After composing a message the various council members either fiddled with other work on their dataslates, discussed the matters with other council members, headed off for a snack, or took a nap. The entire ‘conversation’ thus stretched over several days.

  To: Visitors claiming to be human-representatives from Alpha Centauri.

  On behalf of the people of the Earth, greetings from the high council of the Order of the Librarians Temporal. We are surprised and pleased at hearing from you. We have been cut off from the deep-space interstellar communications satellites for some time, and thus have had no contact with other human colonies. Know that there is a strong alien presence in this system – we do not wish to attract unwanted attention. Please attempt no landings or other investigations until we have cleared it with the aliens.

  Not to be rude, but we would like to verify your identity. We trust that this will also confirm our identity to you.

  1. Identification Code 3334F*GKKK!!SKK8343843

  2. “The last thing that I remember before my mind-state was copied and transmitted here was Janet Chen saying that she might want to date me.” What was the response of the other person present?

  3. What was the favorite saying of the founder of the Order of the Librarians Temporal?

  We eagerly await your reply.

  To: Earth. Good to hear from you! It’s been a long time. We were worried that you had all died out. I seem to have won a bet over that!

  1. That would appear to be an early IFF code used by the cybernetic weapons directorate on Alpha Centauri Prime. The correct response is HDW(EUHD(E*1211.

  2. So a piece of me got transmitted back to Earth? Ha! The response was: “If you are into boring.” I can’t wait to meet myself.

  3. “If it is impossible for something to happen, it will not.” It’s an OK saying, but I don’t see how it could become anybody’s favorite. No accounting for taste. We have branches of the Librarians Temporal on Alpha Centauri Prime. I’m sure that they’d love to get back into contact with you.

  We presume from this transmission that the Earth is no longer under the control of the Neoliberals? Who exactly is in charge down there?

  To: Visitors. Yes, the Neoliberals were all destroyed shortly after transmissions ceased (the last messages that we got from Alpha Centauri Prime suggested that the Neoliberal rule was ending there as well, true?). The Earth underwent a catastrophic environmental collapse, and the surviving population now lives in deep shelters. As to who is in charge – nominally the order of the Librarians Temporal, but there are other interest groups, we don’t try to centrally micro-manage everything. May we ask who is up there with you?

  To: Earth. The Earth-Based Neoliberals all dead? Charming news. Yes, those scum are also absent from our home system. As to who is up here, well, there is me, the Odin-Class cybertank known as Old Guy. There is another cybertank that we call “Moss.” Also, two humans: Giuseppe Vargas, the erstwhile head of the cybernetic weapons directorate, and Chet Masterson, his erstwhile head of security.

  To: Visitors. Again, welcome to you all. We both have a lot of catching up to do. What are your immediate plans?

  We have begun early negotiations with the aliens. No, we are not stupid, and we won’t do anything to provoke them. They have given us permission to repair your broken interstellar communications satellites, so that’s first on our list. From your transmissions I see that you have functioning ground stations. When the satellites are reactivated I estimate you will have about five quintillion emails to catch up on. Happy trails.

  To: Visitors. Hail Old Guy! Hallowed be thy name. For thine is the glory and the kingdom and the power. We beseech you to come to us and grace us with your presence and infinite wisdom. All praises to you!

  To: Earth. Do I know you?

  To: Visitors. From your last message we presume that you are the original Old Guy. Your worshippers were eager to send you a message and we found it hard to say no. In case you were unaware, the mindstate of Old Guy that was sent here was instantiated into another cybertank chassis, and, to put it succinctly, saved the world.

  To: Earth. Well, OK then. I can’t wait to hear the details. In the meantime, we have reactivated one of the old interstellar communications satellites. You should be able to sync with it shortly – this one is targeted on the Alpha Centauri system, and I know that there are current incoming transmissions.

  To: Visitors. Yes, we see the link protocols. We’re going to ask for permission from the aliens ourselves before initiating contact, but thank you. We were very keen to stay low, and so we never dared to launch a repair mission or build new ones This is quite the gift. Thank you.

  To: Earth. You are welcome. You should know that the aliens have given us permission to visit Earth, but they have strictly limited the allowable tonnage. We can take a single shuttle, the two humans, and humanoid representatives of us two cybertanks. Would that be agreeable to you, and if so, could you suggest an appropriate landing spot?

  To: Visitors. Wonderful! There is an area in the high Himalayan Plateau where surface conditions are a bit less hostile then elsewhere. Even then, be warned that no human being can survive unaided, not even the bioengineered, not for a second. Coordinates attached: it would probably be easiest if you just land and we tow your shuttle into an underground hangar. Agreed?

  To: Earth. Agreed. See you soon.

  --------------------

  Senior Archivist Ludmilla Gerhts was resplendent in a long flowing green gown, with a necklace made of tiny white flowers. A semi-sentient weapons harness covered her left arm with d
eceptively fine silver filigree. Junior archivist Esteban Miller was wearing his regular red robes and open sandals, and as usual his prized Glock pistol was holstered on his right hip. They were standing in a pressurized antechamber overlooking a large empty hangar through an armor-glass viewport.

  “Don’t you think you are a little overdressed?” asked Miller. “And perhaps, over-armed? That is serious firepower you are packing there.”

  “I suppose,” said Gehrts, “but I wanted to make an impression, and you know… always prepared. Besides, I have you to uphold tradition. What news of our guests?”

  “They are touching down now. Ground control should have them in the hangar in less than five minutes, and then maybe another five to purge the atmosphere and allow their shuttle to cool down. The weather favors us: it’s only 150 Centigrade out there, and three bars of pressure. Cross-winds are light as well.”

  “Almost survivable,” said Gehrts. “What of the rest of the welcoming committee?”

  “They are all assembled down by the main entrance. I thought you’d like a few moments of peace before the official welcome.”

  “Yes, thoughtful of you, thanks. Look, I think I can see them now.”

  Through the heavy viewport Gehrts and Miller first caught sight of the armored tractor, and then the shuttle that it was towing came into view.

  “It looks like a conventional human design,” said Miller.

  “Agreed,” said Gerhts. “You didn’t really expect anything else, did you?”

  Miller shook his head. “No, from our communications there is essentially zero chance that this is some sort of alien imposter. Still, we won’t really know for sure who’s in that shuttle until the door opens, will we?”

  The tractor finished pulling the shuttle into the hangar, and the external doors slowly slid shut. In places the shuttle was still glowing red hot from re-entry, but its surface shed heat easily and the glow quickly faded. The hangar doors sealed, several warning lights began flashing, and the atmospheric purge cycle started. As the toxic gases were vented the view into the hangar got visibly clearer. Gehrts tried to look into the shuttle windows, but the angle was wrong, and it was too bright in the hangar and too dark in the shuttle for her to see anything.