The Stark Lonesomeness of Survival

After I tell you this I hope you don’t blame me for what I did. It was the only rational thing.
I will start from the beginning, though most of it is second hand and guess work and I’ll admit some I made up just to fill in the gaps. I didn’t come in until later, but I’m the only one left to tell it. The victor gets to write the history they say, though who’s to say I’m the victor.
This is about a device and how this device changed the world. To tell the truth this device didn’t look special, like a simplistic black iPhone knock off with an odd shaped camera. Its user interface left a lot to be desired, the battery life sucked, and it had a proprietary battery source. For all its faults though it was perfect.


-----



Lab in San Diego
March Second, 2011
401pm

“I think that should do it,” Brain said, putting the case back on the test unit “I think we’re ready to fire it up”
The lab was well equipped and well lit but small. Three people crowded around a table, eyes fixed on the black reflective surface of the device.
“We’re still not sure what it will do though,” said Thomas with the slight whimper he got when he was nervous.
“Though Thomas is a simpering coward,” Sarah said “He’s right, we are only guessing. My best guess is it will explode, it is a closed system but it is getting power from somewhere at an incredible rate. Power that we don’t understand.”
“Only one way to find out” Brain said picking the device up, Sarah and Thomas both exclaimed and reached for him, but before they could stop him he’d powered it on.
With its flickering screen they resigned to watching as Brian Stewart Gardner consigned them to whatever fate lay ahead. Brian was an only child brought up by a struggling single mother. Scholarships and hard work had gotten him far, but he’d been laughed at. His theories called worthless and worse dangerous. Brian had drug himself up from the dirt and was on his way to a good life, but after he’d lost his daughters all he had was his work. He’d been laughed for years, though he knew himself to be correct though. He’d shown them the math, but they dismissed it, then Vincent had come along and shown him how to contain it. A way to channel the noise, harness it and make it power, this was the thing Brian needed, something so awe inspiring, so amazing, something to show them all. Something to bring them back… Though Vincent had left he didn’t need him anymore, Brian thought he’d finally done it on his own.
It vibrated a little in his hands as it came alive, Sarah leaned in to get a closer look. Sarah had written the code, which would hopefully allow them to channel the power. After its stark boot up it loaded to a utilitarian icon selection.
“Okay, so how far do we want to go with it?” Brian asked.
Sarah Elaine Stewart fought her own reluctance. Sarah was born in the first human settlement on the moon, Luna Prime. Second generation, but she was one of the lucky ones to have made it back to Earth. They were farming the moon for hydrogen, but it was essentially a labor colony. It did have the trappings of a school program and however weak it allowed a bright kid like Sarah to excel and escape. Both her parents would be killed in the Luna Prime disaster. Sarah really had only taken this class because Vincent had been in it though more as a joke really, she’d heard Professor Gardner was crazy, but the results of the Professor and Vincent made her believe. Then Vincent had disappeared and she felt it was her job to carry on.
“Push the smoke shaped one,” Sarah said pointing at the screen “then it will say seek and you hit yes”
Brian moved to do what she said, but Thomas grabbed his arm. “This is so fucking dangerous, we need to stop.”
Thomas Gustav Ramirez had lead a sheltered life, his intelligence had been recognized at a young age. Private schools, private tutors, nannies, stewards and structure had made him, for lack of a better term, a coward. A brilliant coward perhaps, but he was still more in love with theory and books than he was with people or conflict. Professor Gardner’s class was said to be all theory and fun impossible pure theory at that, he’d worked with the professor for five years, working on complex math. Things that worked out on paper but couldn’t work out in life, but then Vincent Myre had come in two years ago and given form to Gardner’s vision. A way to generate the power and channel it in a thing small enough to hold in your hand, it was too good to be true. The theory seemed to work though, the materials held up in testing. Then Vincent had disappeared six months ago, yet they proceeded on with his designs. Now everything was moving too fast for Thomas and this Sarah girl didn’t make things any better for him, she was as big an instigator as Vincent had been.
Sarah pulled him off of Brian and he gave up easily, as was his way. Brian looked at him with a flash of anger then went back to what he was doing. Just as Sarah had said, the smoke icon lead to a prompt that asked ‘seek,’ Brian looked at Thomas and hit yes.
Nothing happened at first and then the screen’s HUD came on. Battery, Air temperature, oxygen content, gravity, and wind speed and direction along the top, with an icon which said OK. It could also say NO2 for no oxygen, NPWR for not enough power to transfer, CRSV for a corrosive atmosphere and so on. On the bottom of the screen it had six icons, an arrow pointing forward, a squiggly line, a dimmed out arrow pointing backwards, a target, a magnifying glass, and a folder.
The screen remained dark, then it blinked on to show an early prototype of the device in its stand on the table, Brian moved the one in his hand around to face the door and the image on the screen lifted up from the table and then swung to show Sarah on the other side of the room and standing next her was Vincent. Sarah nearly fainted when she saw him, they could hear a whispering from the speakers.
“Turn it up,” Sarah barely got out “buttons are on the left side.”
Brian hit the top button on the left hand side a couple of times and the whispers became distinct voices.
“…ell it looks like it we’ll be ready for testing in a couple days,” it was Brian’s voice, Brian turned the device around and the screen filled with a very unflattering perspective of his own face. Brian backed up and there he was on the screen holding tweezers and a soldering iron.
“That was the one that didn’t work!” Thomas explained “That was like a year ago.”
Brian shushed him quickly, “we don’t know if they can hear us.”
Despite his fears the people on the screen continued on. Brian pointed it back at the door with Sarah and Vincent, the Sarah on the screen smiled and hugged Vincent.
“You did it” the Sarah on the screen said and Brain was so captivated by it that he almost didn’t notice the Sarah next to him fall to her knees.
“He’s alive,” she whispered “We can save him” Sarah got up slowly “We need to get close, I’m not sure what the range is and then Professor hit the target button”
Thomas stood still, looking back and forth between Professor Gardner and Sarah. Resolve came slowly to the Professor’s face.
“That’s far too risky at this point, don’t accuse me of being Thomas” Brian looked harshly at Thomas “But we need a little caution, what this means is that I was right. Vincent will always be alive somewhere and we need to test the getting there before we do anything to hasty. Maybe its providence we’re seeing the first prototype. We shouldn’t rush into it.”
Sarah and Thomas stood behind Brian and watched as the people on the screen reenacted what they had done a year ago. Brian moved the device as things happened, Thomas came on screen and helped out the others. Like a fly on the wall they watched.
Thomas took a deep breath then exhaled sharply, “Okay if we’re just going to watch let’s change the channel. This already happened, let’s see if it gets the future.”
“I hate agreeing with Thomas, but he’s right. As you said how far do you want to go with it?” Sarah asked.
“Here we go then, I take it that I hit the arrow?” Brian asked looking at Sarah. Thomas fidgeted, but took another deep breath and didn’t say anything.
Sarcastically Sarah said “I tried to make it simple.”
Brian hit the button and the scene on the screen changed. Brian moved the device around and on the screen Thomas and himself stood around the white board discussing one of Vincent’s early proofs.
“Hit it again” Sarah said and Brian did.
This time on the screen the board was blank and Brian was just moving into the office. Dutiful Thomas at his heals telling him that it was a good lab and they could work with it.
Brian chuckled softly to himself “those were the days… So does this thing do anything but rewind? It is amazing but-“
Sarah interrupted, “Hit the magnifying glass”
Brian did and a menu came up, the top item was required elements, second required entities, flowed by node strength, branch points, and finally an OK symbol, at the bottom was a button that said run.
“Now hit the top one, required elements. Then hit default, which is our atmosphere.” Sarah instructed and Brian followed along though he’d help her design it “required entities we can skip I think, let’s go a full ‘it’s a wonderful life’ and not include us necessarily. For node strength go as low as you can-“
Brian stopped her, “I know how to do it, as low as I can for node strength so we get as far from our hub as possible, then the most branch points, and leave it as OK and then hit run,” he said it as he did it.
The screen changed again this time it showed a desolate city. From the perspective of the device they stood in the middle of a strange square. The architecture was like nothing they’d ever seen, black, high, and narrow. In the small space of the lab Brian moved forward but though he had to press close to the real walls he got close enough to one of the buildings to see it was made of obsidian. He walked back to the middle of the lab and slowly panned the camera around.
The square was surrounded by the obsidian buildings in orderly rows, there were two incredibly tall towers on either side and several side streets.
“This place looks abandoned” Thomas said.
Sarah replied bitingly “Yes, yes it does Thomas thank you for saying what we could already see”
“Stop fighting you two, you’re worse than my children…” Brian paused for almost an unnoticeable second while the memories he’d conjured with that statement cascaded through his mind, the hope.
If they noticed they didn’t say anything, they hadn’t heard Brian talk much of his children. They quieted down though.
“Now that we’re all acting like adults” Brian said, “let’s try this thing out. There is no one around, the atmosphere is good and these building s look interesting. I say we try to travel.”
“I’m in” Sarah said firmly.
“Really?” Thomas asked sheepishly, “I don’t want to be the only one here and have to explain it when you die, I guess I’m in.”
“Ahh, Thomas always in for altruistic purposes,” Sarah said patting him on the back.
“Here we go then, get close,” Brian said motioning them in.
When they all stood huddled around the device in his hands, Brian hit the target button. For a second dizziness overtook them and they all nearly fell down, they blinked in unison as they the air changed around them. When they opened them again, they stood in the square that had been on the screen and the screen showed the lab they’d just been in.
“Hit the folder and save the last world, so we don’t lose it,” Sarah said, just remembering.
As Brain moved to do that the battery icon blinked, it was at just a little over half now. After he’d saved the location of the last world, their home, he turned to Thomas hoping to ask about the battery, but Thomas was off examining one of the monolithic towers.
Thomas motioned for them to come and join him and so Sarah went followed a little reluctantly by Brian.