Cloudfall Chapter 1 (Patreon)

Last updated 2024-08-30

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Welcome to Cloudfall.

Chapter 1 is far from complete. I'm just going to post what's been written and edit/revise in real time! When something becomes canon, I'll send out a notice that it's been updated.

Chapter 1

Sienna Rahman rolled her eyes as she took a seat at the main console at Security Station M in the shopping district of Stratus Three. The feeds were, once more, lagging and monitor 5 had yet again frozen.

Life in the cloud city—in all the cloud cities, for that matter—had been far more difficult since the Sundering. But unplugging from the internet had to be done, once the AI matrix decided it knew better than the humans it was supposed to serve.

Sienna stood and leaned over to check the cable of the jittery monitor. It was tight, as expected.

"Hey, cutie… How's it looking?" It was Luke’s voice coming from the doorway behind her.

"Cutie?" She turned to face him, pretending to be angry. "I'm a Public Security Service officer on duty. Don't forget that!"

"We're cops. No need to stand on formality… We just need some brass buttons."

"I'd give you a whole box of brass buttons if you could get the monitors to stop glitching."

"Did you check the cable?" Luke said, approaching as Sienna moved aside.

“Oh gosh! I never thought to do that!” She steeped her tone with sarcasm, rolled her eyes, shook her head, and rolled away to give Luke room to move in.

Luke turned Monitor 5 around and scanned the others. "They're all jittering again."

“Network lag, I think,” Sienna replied.

Luke disconnected Monitor 5, toggled the power, and reconnected it. The feed refreshed, the image snapping back into motion.

“Which cop in this room has the best boyfriend?"

Sienna shook her head. "I was going to say I have the best partner—and I wasn't going to limit it to just this room."

“What about the boyfriend part?”

Sienna pointed to a second chair, then sat down at her station. "Since I'm the only Public Security Service officer in the room, I guess it's me."

"I'll take it!" Luke rolled his chair up and started cycling through feeds on Monitor 2. “So, we have dispatch until lunch?”

“Yeah, then we hit the streets and do some real work.”

Sienna zoomed in on the entrance to the home-pod tower building where a man seemed to be loitering. She recognized him and shook her head.

Luke noticed. “What are you seeing?”

“It’s that Evans guy protesting the Sundering again.”

Luke punched up the blotter app. “We should log it.”

Sienna reached for the microphone and began dictating. “Begin… Event time… 2198 SE 30 05.98.15. Subject known as Carl Evans observed protesting outside a residential pod tower in the shopping district of Stratus Three. Reported by Sienna Rahman. End.”

“It’s hard to believe we’re thirty days past the spring equinox,” Luke said. “It feels like New Year’s Day was just yesterday.”

“Thirty days have flown by,” Sienna replied. “It’s harder to believe Governor Kenwood has these guys pushing to reconnect the AI matrix to the grid.”

“It’s even harder to believe enough people agreed with him for him to get elected in the first place.”

Luke shook his head. “When Stratus Four fell over, everyone said it wouldn’t have happened if the AI still ran the gyroscopes. Governor Kenwood’s latched onto that and is running with it.”

“This isn’t going to end well.”

Luke cycled through a few more video feeds, then sighed. “Well, we have a job to do, but…”

“But what?” Sienna asked.

“But we need to eat lunch before we go on patrol.”

Sienna smiled. “I like how you think. Do you want synth, or should we splurge and get something from the downland?”

“How about we go to Potatoes Real? Downland baked potatoes and synth toppings?”

Sienna nodded. “They have downland tea, too.”

Sienna wished she could afford to buy all downland food, imperfect or not. Most in the medical field argued that food grown on the planet’s surface had subtly better nutritional value. They pointed to trace elements in the soil that hydroponic synth varieties didn’t have.

Most foodies insisted that the taste was better.

“I might splurge today,” Luke said, “and get downland cheese.”

“Why not?” Sienna smiled. “We can afford to splurge once in a while.”

“We could save a lot if we had a double pod, you know…”

Sienna closed her eyes and shook her head. “Haven’t we put this discussion to rest already?”

Luke nodded. “Yeah… but when we get married…”

Sienna smiled and laughed. “There’s a lot of steps between where we are and a double pod. Have you even asked me to make our relationship official?”

Luke punched up a different view from outside the pod tower. “I’m working on that. You know… perfect moment… perfect lighting… perfect mood. I want it to be something you’ll tell our kids about.”

“Our kids? Luke Vargas, you’ve got your thoughts latched onto the future.”

“Better than dwelling on the past, if you ask me.”

Sienna smiled. “Probably. Learn from the past, plan for the future…”

Luke nodded. “You got that right. And live in the present. Meaning I’m thinking about baked potatoes.”

Sienna and Luke continued monitoring the main console at Security Station M in the shopping district of Stratus Three until it was time to take a lunch break and then go on patrol.

“Potatoes Real never lets us down,” Luke said as they started walking along the travelway in front of the stores. “Downland cheese was money well spent.”

“What time do we have security call for Senator Roivah?” Sienna asked.

“We pick him up at 05.50. Let me double-check…” Luke opened his handheld and checked the latest updates on orders.

Sienna waited for him to nod, then said, “So, three hours hoofing the travelway.”

“The cargo-tram from Stratus Five should be in by then,” Luke replied. “We should get to the lift core and keep watch on the unloading.”

“Let the madness commence!” Sienna laughed. “Why do people get so worked up? It comes three times each week.”

“I guess because the shippers want to be first in line at the lift portal when their tram car unloads.”

Sienna was then reminded of something. “Did you ever learn why the ag-tram was late last week?”

“Not officially, but I heard some shippers say a tree had fallen across the tramline and damaged the rails.”

Sienna nodded, then watched a storekeeper adjusting something on his kiosk. “Well, we can get to the core for lift time, then make our way to the security call for Roivah. Should be a fairly routine afternoon.”

“Routine is good,” Luke replied.

Sienna and Luke made it to the lift core well before the cargo-tram from Stratus Five arrived. The usual crowds gathered and those receiving shipments crowd the unloading area, but nothing disorderly occurred. By the time the last of the tram cars reached the loading zone, most of the crowd had taken their deliveries and moved on.

Luke and Sienna checked the time and started for the 05.50 duty to guard Senator Roivah. They had plenty of time before their shift, so they patrolled slowly as they walked along.

As they approached a corner news viewer, a recording of a speech Governor Kenwood had given a week before was playing. He was addressing a gathering of journalists.

“I’m not suggesting a full reconnection,” he said. “But we all know many of the systems that make life in the Stratuses possible were designed around AI controlling them and keeping them stable. I need not remind you about what happened at Stratus Four. Partially reconnecting wouldn’t threaten our independence.”

As Luke and Sienna kept walking, Luke said, “He over-simplifies things. All of the systems he's talking about are connected to the Internet. There’s no way to just connect the AI matrix to the waterworks directly.”

“I’ve thought autonomous AI,” Sienna said, “always seemed safer.”

“And a lot more limited.” Luke pointed at a shopper at one of the booths that seemed to be trying to make sure no one was watching him. “Let’s say hi.”

Luke and Sienna walked over and Sienna said, “Do these comms come in red?”

“What?” The shopper looked over. “Oh… I don’t know.”

Sienna watched him walk away. “Senator Roivah isn’t winning the Governor’s favor with his views.”

Luke nodded. “He’ll say limited reconnection isn’t possible… not without totally changing the grid.”

When Luke and Sienna caught up with Senator Roivah, they exchanged nods with the previous guards and took their places near him. He was debating with one of the reporters who favored Governor Kenwood’s initiative to reconnect the AI matrix to the systems that ran the Stratuses.

“Senator, you have to admit the systems depend on constant AI-managed adjustments.”

Roivah shook his head. “It’s nothing trained humans with calculators can’t handle. You’ll recall that the AI matrix decided resting every seventh day meant turning off the lifts, lights, shuttles, and everything else it considered a threat to people resting.”

“That was an anomaly,” the reporter replied.

The senator shook his head. “First of all, you can’t call something that happened fifteen weeks in a row an anomaly. Secondly, you’re a reporter, so you shouldn’t be answering your own questions.”

Luke and Sienna exchanged a look. Senator Roivah was unflinching about the facts and unwavering in his belief that expert opinions should prevail over media sensationalism.

When their detail ended, they logged out of the timecard system and started back to the pod complex where they each lived. They got to the lift entrances and Luke put his arm around Sienna.

“I really do want to make things between us official. I just want you to know I mean it, and I’m not just acting on the fact that we spend all our time together.”

Sienna smiled. “Well, if you're afraid, let me know. I could ask you just as easily.”

Luke shrugged. “Seems like I’d be copping out…”

The lift to her tower arrived and the door opened. “Well, then I guess it’s single pods for us for a while yet.”

Luke nodded as she entered the lift and the door closed behind her.

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