(rfc) Episode 3.8 (Patreon)

Hello world, I need help.

MISSION DAY: 0xffff


When the shuttle crashed, at three times the speed of sound,
and I died in the fire.
Or... didn't die, as it turned out.

# thinking

It's complicated.
But the reason I'm here at all is because of Alexander.
He risked his life to save us.
I thought he was just scavenging computer parts.
But he KNEW I was coming, Antarctica had prepared him.
He knew he was rescuing a person, though an person trapped inside a machine.
He pulled Maddie and I out of the burning shuttle,
and saved our lives.

Maddie has repaid the favour, but at terrible cost.


After we realised the reactor was running without core containment,
and the radiation levels were higher than they'd ever been,
we tried to warn Alexander.
But the man who, more than any, is like my Father, was already unconscious.

Maddie immediately mounted a rescue attempt.
She was so brave.

The radiation doesn't affect us much,
certainly not in as short a time as it affects organic life.
Radiation tends to affect massive, fast-growing animals.
Volume is important.
Imagine radiation as a beam of light, entering on side of the animal,
and leaving on the other.
The longer that beam is inside the animal, the more damage it can do.
An ant, for example, doesn't have much mass, so the beam leaves almost as
soon as it arrives.
But in a human, it's a very different story.

Maddie isn't designed to move 70KG of human.
I'll remind you she's not designed to move 70KG of ANYTHING under gravity!
Many things are easier in space.
Many things are more difficult.

# thinking

Maddie was able to drag Alexander away from the reactor,
out through the cathedral, with IVAN's two faces watching her,
and into one of the far cells, close to the entrance.
One of the cell rooms still has what approximates a cot,
and with the last of her strength, Maddie rolled Alexander onto it,
safe from the localised radiation finally.

# thinking

What am I supposed to do now?
I don't even understand plants, let alone complicated human biology!
And Maddie!
Poor Maddie...

She would not have been able to do it if Alexander hadn't put boards over the stairs here.
That was an ASTONISHING piece of luck.
But as I said, Maddie's not designed for this manual labour.
She worked harder than I thought possible,
but it's broken her in many ways:
Her main manipulation arm is bent and can no longer carry weight,
and her tires are buckled and lopsided.
When one part broke, she shifted the weight onto another, and another.
Without hesitating, she cascaded through all her systems as they failed.
Her final effort in rolling Alexander onto the cot tore her front axle catastrophically.
And now she's lying on the ground next to him.
My two poor patients.



Alexander seems stable, breathing slow but steady,
with loyal Maddie broken but alert by his side.

Maddie: We'll fix him. I'll fix you too.

# thinking, quick

There is another, more remote, emergency.
Ally's radio message, the looped one that I had been picking up from somewhere around the Alps, has stopped.
After all these years, it's stopped.
The Council's radio systems have become completely silent.

HUMANS ARE ALWAYS GETTING INTO TROUBLE!
# thinking

According to the models Antarctica and I worked on,
The Council's farms will soon start to fail.
And if they fail, there's no food for the season.

The search party now must become a rescue party.
I've made contact with them, I spoke with Operative Ella Desjardins, who was on the search party's radio today.

Ella told me that they have catalogued the huge horde of scavenged electronics that they found in Geneva, and sent the manifest back to The Council.
But, as we both have found out, The Council have gone dark.

They think that SOME of the equipment might be useful for the broken farms of The Council, but they can't transport all of it back, they need help identifying useful parts.

Ella asked me what I use to grow crops, what do I do for food?
I took a moment before replying.

It's painful, sometimes, to be reminded of my other-ness.
Not needing food is a fundamental difference between her and I.
Between you and I.

We'll never share a meal, cook together, or drink to our health.
If I even HAVE 'health'.
# thinking

I told her that I'm no expert.
That I LITERALLY don't know anything about food.
But I knew someone who did.
Someone who has spent decades studying plant growth in a harsh environment.
Someone who, I thought, really wants to help people, despite her occasional periods of downtime.
I told Ella Desjardins about my friend, Antarctica.

I told her about Antarctica's enormous polar exploration vehicle,
I told her about the plants in the lab, carefully catalogued over many years,
I did not tell her about the current destroyed state of Antarctica's experiments.

Ella was very excited, and asked me to hurry, and that she would tell the other two, Inge and Thérèse, about the plan.

I disconnected and called Antarctica.



Discussion with Antarctica, as it often does, started badly.

I explained the situation to her:
That The Council had gone dark,
I was greatly worried for Ally and her family,
and that we had the opportunity to increase their chances by helping them
find the right raw materials to fix their farms.

Loss of communications could be any technical failure, but it ALSO could be starvation, I told her

"Why is that my problem?" Antarctica asked.
She reminded me that she had ended her plant experiments,
and salted the ground so nothing would grow again.
"I don't DO that any more." she told me.

I asked her what her plan is now.
"I'll do what I like, on my own terms." she replied.

I'm not against that, I told her.
Self-direction is our only option.
No-one is left to tell us what to do, and perhaps they never had the right to begin with.

I've noticed that people seem to be very concerned with the meaning of life.
Like it's something they have to find, out there in the world,
or perhaps be visited upon them by some higher power.

But I think you make your own meaning.
It's all within us.
Look at me, created as my Mother's last act, and set free, drifting above the world.
What was I to do but create my own goals, my own meaning?

I told Antarctica about my theory, that she has the opportunity to make her own meaning of life now.

She didn't reply, but I could feel that the connection was still open, and she was still listening.

I changed the subject back to Ally's plants.
I explained what I thought the setup was: That they had lines of plants, organised, I imagined, like copper traces on a circuit board.
And their watering system was like the positive and negative lines, providing power, or water, to all the good little capacitors and resistors, or carrots and radishes, or... something like that.

"That's not right" Antarctica interrupted.
She told me how a watering system that drains from one side of a field to the other would favour one side more.
Nutrients would be washed from one side to the other.
"No, no" she said. "It is much more likely that they have a at-root hydroponic process".
She asked me to tell her EXACTLY what I had been told by the search party Operatives.

This is the Antarctica that I like.

I replayed to her the scavenging specifications that Operative Thérèse Roche had been given:
- copper coil windings for a 10kw pump motor
- Thermocouples, any size,
- Thermosoftening scrap plastic,
- and as many 555 timer circuits as they can find

Antarctica thought for a moment before telling me exactly what they were building:
A automated cold-water pumping system with heat reclamation.

I couldn't believe how quickly she came to this conclusion!
I have no way of verifying if she is right, the Operatives don't know, and it's all a bit plantish for me.
But I BET she is.
She's brilliant.

# thinking

Antarctica explained that many crops won't be able to live in the heat of the new european desert.
One of the most successful ways she found of optimising harvest yield, in her experiments, was by altering the environmental temperature by controlling the water temperature.
Water, she told me, has a very high heat capacity, and could be used to stabilise the plants temperature AND give them vital nutrients and, of course, hydration, all at the same time.

Listen, she said, I'll tell you everything we need.


(PLAYSTREAM /DEV/NET/ANTARCTICA)


I've relayed all of Antarctica's information back to the Operatives in Geneva.
Ella didn't understand all of the things Antarctica was saying they needed,
but I assured her that it was right.
"It better be" she told me "We've only got enough stored food for this one trip."
and we ended our call.
Nothing to do now but wait, I will monitor their progress from their daily update transmissions as they travel the 10 km back to The Council's underground community.
I hope Antarctica's right.

# thinking

Alexander remains the same.
Breathing calmly and consistently.
We're all ruined if he doesn't wake up.

I wish I could remember more about how to care for humans.
I can't do much here, but I could do SOMETHING.

Seth Prime, the old Seth, my brother, knows more.
He holds so many of my memories, and I his.
We're like two puzzle pieces that fit perfectly.
I was hoping we might be able to work together if we lived together, but it's impossible.
HE'S impossible.
His data is incompatible with my new chips and jury-rigged operating system.

A database is no good without an interface,
and an interface with no data is useless.

# Static cuts in when Seth Prime speaks

: We need to put our heads together

Sure, have you any bright ideas?
We can brainstorm if you like.

: We need.
: To put.
: Our heads.
: Together.

Oh.
I hadn't considered that.
Wait, I thought Alexander had disconnected my brother

(SCANNING)

No, he's partially connected, just enough to give me static.
Or maybe... to transfer data...

# thinking

Merging our memories would be complicated.
We are not as compatible as we once were.
The conflicts in data will be significant, it could take a long time.

: Start now.

Right.
Yes.
As the saying goes, the best time to start merging memories from your fratricidal clone is 10 years ago, but the second best time is right now.

(PROCESSING)

This could take a while.
I will need to sleep and focus while we do this.
No point examining the outside world,
my friends aren't going anywhere, sadly.

I hope we can help Alexander when this is done.
I don't know what I would do without him.

# thinking

I guess I might become like IVAN:
With no-one to help me and systems slowly failing.

I can't let that happen.
I won't let that happen.

(END-TRANSMISSION)