She’d learned from the memories stored from her time as robot Sheila; her memories let her understand what her robot mind couldn’t process due to the intuitive nature of certain circumstances. She learned to anticipate situations in which Micah might struggle, and would elaborate how her mind had processed the inputs as best she could, helping him learn more about the human condition.
They’d flown over the ocean on the way in, landing in an area about thirty miles inland. Micah would only tell her that they were slightly south of New Phoenix’s latitude and well to the west. Sheila thought the location odd; she’d expected they’d go to New Phoenix to visit Roddy and his family, or even to New Venice.
She asked Micah why they’d come here. He just smiled and replied, “You’ll see.”
They rode a “moving sidewalk” from the spaceport toward what looked to be, in the dwindling twilight, a fortress of a similar size and shape to the one she’d seen in robot form, when they’d dropped Wesley Cardinal off near New Venice.
But there was something… different about this site. And the human couldn’t explain it, other than that she felt a sense of… excitement? Potential? Possibility?
And then they got close enough for her to see everything.
She gaped, then turned to Micah. “It’s incredible!”
They approached a complex somewhat larger in size than what she recalled from New Venice, though not nearly so large as the LakePlex or the space station. It was open, clean, and shiny. Buildings featured wide openings and no doors, and there was plenty of space between buildings for the many people there to move about in comfort. There were no schedules, no lines, no tickets, no one in uniform directing people where to go next. They entered and exited buildings as they pleased.
As she stepped gingerly off the moving sidewalk onto stationary ground, Sheila couldn’t help but wonder what was stored in those buildings, what drew all those people here, what compelled Micah to bring her here—not Eden, not one of the fortresses where her friends lived.
Micah pointed out the design features. “When we got control of the old Ravagers, we’d always thought we’d use them against the Elites. We didn’t have to, but there were so many of them, and we really had to find a way to repurpose them back into the lands. So we’ve used them to build this place and others like it. Thing is, those little robots are smart, and we’ve taught the buildings to adapt to circumstances. If it’s sunny out, the roofs will turn into a mesh that prevents too much glare; if it rains, it will turn solid to keep the interior dry. If a lot of people want to go into a building, the building will actually expand to accommodate all of them. If someone drops a piece of trash, the little robots on the ground will absorb it out of sight and either pass it to a recycling center below ground, or, if it’s not something we can re-use, it will get… well, Ravaged.”
Sheila shook her head, too awed by what she saw to worry about the memories of Ravagers still in her mind. “What about the beasts?”
“You mean the wolves?” Micah frowned. “Well, the ones you actually worried about were wiped about by the Ravagers. The terraforming teams have been reintroducing various species into areas ready to support them, which includes predators like wolves when there’s enough food. I don’t know if there are a lot of them here. But there are sound barriers, machines that emit pitches that human ears can’t hear, but which are painful to many other species.” He leaned in close. “Drives me crazy, too, to be honest.”
She laughed. Then turned serious. “But there are no walls to keep them out?”
“There aren’t enough, and most of them would be too frightened of the human activity here to get close enough to be a threat. They’d only come here and be a threat if there isn’t enough food to support their population, and there will be plenty of food for them once they’re reintroduced.” He pointed. “Let’s practice your walking.”
He held out his arm to give her something to aid her balance, and she gripped it with ferocity for the first few steps. Leg strength wasn’t the issue; she’d stood on the moving sidewalk without issue. Balance, though, and the muscles that would keep her upright while moving… that was a different story. She took tentative steps, and as her confidence grew, she relaxed the grip on his arm, beginning to trust herself again.
Just as she’d explained to him.
Micah chatted as they walked slowly along. Communities of survivors on the surface eventually all recognized that the all-destroying sludge was gone and emerged from whatever safe havens they’d occupied during the assault. In a bit of luck, the major communication wiring underground was essentially untouched by the Ravager hordes, and though most communication software—email platforms, social media—ran on servers long gone, the more clever minds among them managed to craft together crude replacements.
East and West divisions didn’t seem to matter, especially when the survivors realized that both sides had suffered the same devastation. And none of the survivors had caused it. No need, it seemed, to stay angry about labels that were no longer meaningless, as if they’d ever mattered anyway.
When communication enabled a headcount, they concluded that fewer than thirty thousand humans remained alive.
“Ouch,” Sheila said, wincing. The movement upended her balance and she caught herself against Micah, regained her footing, and kept walking.
Micah’s control over the global swarm of former Ravagers—when Sheila’s robot brain turned off, it ceded control over the East swarm to Micah—gave him significant clout in the new world. With access to a vast array of technology and a clear understanding of ancient and recent history, he was well positioned to do exactly as the old Phoenix Elite had done a few centuries earlier upon discovery of the Time Capsule.
Micah chose to proceed along a different path.
He used the nano swarms to build cities with buildings where any human could find shelter. He managed to commandeer supplies from the various fortresses’ terraforming crews and, through a clever bit of science and his innate wizardry with robotics, managed to build self-sustaining farms around those cities, eventually automating every step of the process from soil tilling and nourishment, from planting to weeding, from pest control to harvesting.
And he automated food production as well. Cities were built far enough from water sources to eliminate serious risks of flooding, but close enough to pipe water in, sanitize it, and make it available throughout each city.
“You did all of this in under a year?” Sheila asked. She tried to keep the skepticism from her voice, but struggled.
“I had three advantages that you might not have considered. First, I had intelligent building supplies in the form of nano swarms. I didn’t have to worry about architectural renderings. I didn’t have to worry about checking forces and material weight and the like to make sure nothing would fall down. I didn’t have to worry about sizing buildings correctly the first time, or how big the pipes and pumps bringing in water had to be. They render all of that moot. I just imagine the basic structure, adjust as needed, teach the machines how to adapt the structure based on circumstances. It’s an exciting and easy way to build, especially with the amount of material I had to start with.”
“I’ve seen those little machines in action, so I concede that point.”
“Second, what you are seeing here has been done before. Your ancestor, Ashley, along with Hope Stark and others of their kind, created the kind of automated, self-sufficient community for their membership. Basic needs—food cultivation and preparation, cleanup, the creation and upkeep of shelter, clothing—are all handled by machines. Humans can worry about cultivating their creative and innovative abilities full time, and that’s good, because that’s what makes humans truly unique.”
“Ah, so you cheated,” she said.
Micah tilted his head. “Beg pardon?”
“I’m teasing you, Micah.”
He smiled. “I thought so.”
“You didn’t, but the next time you will.” She winked at him.
“And the third advantage?”
“I’m a robot, silly. I don’t need to sleep.”
She laughed. “I should have seen that one coming.”
“Yes, you should have. And the next time, you will.”
She smacked his arm.
They walked into one of the buildings and Micah let Sheila wander around, looking at the displays. For those who’d not yet accepted the root cause of what the world had suffered through a year earlier, the data and evidence were collected here. Raw information for those who wanted to read through it. Videos and interactive programs for those who preferred alternative learning approaches.
Sheila had a better idea than most, and even she was horrified but what she saw. It seemed that her good friend, John, had used his hacking skills to collect every bit of data and communications records he could from Phoenix’ archives, both the official and unofficial. Through tireless matching and cross-checking of data and communications, he’d pieced together an impervious bit of proof that the claims posited by Wesley Cardinal in his now widely-known video were absolutely true… and Wesley hadn’t even known a fraction of what had gone on.
Sheila watched and read, and then left the building. She’d felt better knowing the evil was only as deep as she’d known before she’d gotten here. Any remote sense of guilt she’d felt at her role in the cold-blooded murders of the Thirty and some of their closest aides melted away, though.
Curiously, she was moved by Deirdre Silver’s story. Wesley’s theory of the Elites having a series of criteria for deciding who would live had been correct. While it had nothing to do with immunity, the criteria did identify what the Elites wanted.
Deirdre hadn’t passed that check, which they’d run on her when she was four years old. She was meant to be terminated in the Ravager swarm. Delilah had accepted the objective verdict. Oswald had not. The rift had sent Delilah to the space station, where she could avoid contact with, in her words, “that inferior little child,” and focus on those who were worth saving.
Oswald invented the train crash to protect his daughter from the cold truth, that her mother’s doting ways and maternal love vanished the second her child was ruled unworthy by a heartless, soulless machine.
Sheila shook her head and wiped her cheek as a tear escaped her eye. You just never knew what people were carrying around with them. She wondered if Deirdre had ever learned the truth. She remembered that Deirdre’s picture was on the wall leading to the command center, and wondered if it wasn’t symbolic. Delilah pushed her young daughter aside in the pursuit of the power beyond that wall, just as she’d pushed her aside in her personal life.
She walked out, breathing the fresh air deeply, trying to remove or dampen the effects of reading about the depths of evil they’d avoided. She looked at Micah, who remained nearby, ready to catch her if she stumbled again. “Anything else interesting?”
Micah thought. “Roddy’s parents kept Deirdre captive for a time, telling her they did so with the intent of bartering Deirdre’s freedom for a seat of power in the new world. Deirdre believed it, and why not? In the world we were shown, the Silvers were the power couple; even when we’d worked out that there were thirty power players controlling everything, it was pretty reasonable to think that they would wield much more influence than most.”
“They didn’t?”
“No. They weren’t lower tier among the thirty, like the men Deirdre killed. But they weren’t a dominant force, either. John’s research shows that the true power player among the Thirty was Damien Hyel.”
“I take it he wasn’t a nice guy?”
“Nice, for him, would be worse than the Silvers could fathom. On a bad day… he was… I don’t even know the word for it.”
“Abominable?”
“Let’s go with abominable.”
“Glad he died, then, and early on.”
“If he’d survived, there’s little doubt they would have detected our arrival sooner and probably destroyed us. Fortune dealt us a good hand when the Ravager missile killed him.”
They moved into the next museum, and Sheila felt the change in the air. This was a happy place, a museum that detailed life before the dawn of the Golden Ages. It talked about the key players in the group that became known as the Phoenix Group—led by a man named Arthur Lowell—and those that resisted them, led, as Sheila had surmised, by Will and Hope Stark. Sheila was drawn to a section where they talked about other key people in those times, beaming as she found information about Ashley Farmer.
Micah tapped her arm. “There’s someone you might want to visit over here.”
Sheila turned and followed him, determined to get back to the spot she’d left as soon as possible.
Micah led her to a section of the museum that talked about the mental powers people like Arthur Lowell and the Starks developed, the types of abilities they had, and the differences in how they chose to use those powers. Most people there were skeptical, and not without reason, Sheila thought.
Micah pointed. “Look.”
There was a sign near a table in that part of the museum reading “Ask Me Questions About What You’ve Learned.” And sitting at that table, answering questions, was…
“Miriam?” Sheila asked.
Micah nodded and walked over to their old ally. Miriam smiled at him. “Micah! It’s good to see you under these circumstances.” She nodded at Sheila. “Friend of yours?”
“Oh, you know her. She’s just back to looking like herself again, rather than like Hope Stark.”
Miriam tilted her head. “Sheila?”
“That’s me.”
“Glad to see you’re fully recovered, then. I tried to zap you a bit when the fighting ended, hoping to help you heal a bit faster, but… it didn’t seem to help.”
“I appreciate the effort, Miriam. Thankfully, the best cure was plenty of rest, and no running from those damned Ravagers or the people who sent them.”
“No doubt about that.”
Miriam sighed. “When you were disguised as Hope, I felt… well, hope. Hope that we’d right the wrongs in the world. I wish she’d been here with us; I truly believe if she had been, she would have seen through the Phoenix facade and dismantled the whole thing before it ever got started.”
“Hope would no doubt say she was no more capable of detecting the lies of Phoenix than anyone else.”
“That may be true,” Miriam said. “Perhaps I’m projecting my own guilt for hiding and doing nothing until after so many had died. I’ve vowed that I’ll use my power while I have them to help the world heal and grow, and share my knowledge of the past as long as I’m able. I don’t want what we just experienced to ever happen again. Or even get started.”
“There are always reasons, good reasons, why good people fail to notice evil in their midst, or otherwise fail to act against it. You’ll recall the reasons you waited so long to go after Arthur Lowell and his team, for example?”
Miriam gave him an odd look. “Are you from the old times, Micah? You seem far more comfortable talking about that era than I’d expect from someone who just read about it.”
“There’s an answer to your question that involves an interesting story,” Micah replied. “But for now… I think you have some people who have questions for you to answer.”
Miriam arched an eyebrow before leaning close to a little boy who whispered his question. “How old am I? Young man, has no one ever told you that you should never ask a woman her age?”
The boy, perhaps six years old, looked confused. “No?”
Miriam laughed and waved him close. “Then I’ll tell you.” She whispered the answer.
The little boy stepped back with wide eyes. “No way! Nobody can be that old!”
Miriam laughed. “Hey, I look good for my age. What can I say?”
Micah and Sheila slipped quietly away.
Sheila looked at Micah. “Something she said… are they… giving up their powers?”
He nodded. “That part of the museum
has been popular and controversial. Most doubted the descriptions of the power wielded in those days, doubted anyone could do what was described. Miriam and her team showed they could. They’d teleport around. They’d float people in the air. And most controversially, they’d force people to do strange things against their will.”
“People got scared.”
“Terrified. Miriam sensed it, realized that, no matter how much they might profess their good intentions, that they simply could not overcome that fear. And so they announced that in about a year, they will all get tattoos.”
Sheila blinked and stopped walking. “Wait. What?”
“The tattoo ink will be of the same material used in the webs.”
“Ah.” Then she understood. “Oh. They won’t be able to use their powers anymore.”
“Yes. The process will be such that if they try to remove the ink, it will trigger a reaction that will kill them.”
“That’s… serious.”
“Very. It’s not reversible; they can’t go out to the space station and remember what they used to do. And before you ask, Roddy’s trick won’t help them.”
“What about Roddy and his family?”
“Same thing.”
“Ouch.”
“The twins didn’t take it well; they’ve shown only the ability to heal, and they are making sure they take care of as many people as possible before they get inked. They’re hoping the good deeds help to change peoples’ minds about them.”
“It won’t.”
“I know.”
They left the building and walked back outside. Sheila felt greater confidence in her balance; though, as she’d not walked much for the past year, she was quickly getting fatigued. She watched the ground and noticed some of the machines Micah described.
“There’s some technology up on the space station that’s still not well understood. A lot of it is related to what we’ve done here, automating the routine and the mundane, freeing people to do more enjoyable things. And given the perilous state of humanity at the moment, we don’t want to hear about someone killed while trying to till the land or hunt game.” He glanced her way. “With the remaining volume of nanos still in the old Ravager swarm, along with advances in robotic technology we can cull from what’s up in the space station, we can probably house all of the survivors in cities like this, everything automated, for several generations before we’d have to change anything.”
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