Episode 5.9 (Patreon)

Hello world, I can hear someone.

MISSION DAY: 107

Amelie's Iron Engine is working fantastically!
The ship has been travelling at top speed for 5 days now.
We have enough iron to work in two batches,
one burning, the other being converted back from rust to pure iron by electrolysis in the engine's secondary chamber.
The result is that only minutes of downtime are needed to swap them over, and we can travel at full speed all day, and all night!

The ship and all its systems are working well.
The crew are very motivated, I can tell.
Everyone is smiling and busy!

However, as we sighted New Zealand, we heard a strange transmission.
The content was astonishing, we couldn't believe what we were hearing at first.
This is what it said:
: ATIS: All traffic. Wellington Airport. All Runways closed. All traffic redirect.

Can you believe it?
It sounds like air traffic control, I think!
The message was on a loop, and continued:
: AWIS: Wind speed 23knots South Westerly falling. Ceiling unlimited. Ground Temperature at station 29 Celsius. Visibility Good.

# thinking

The crew scrambled to the bridge to look at the North Island of New Zealand which was looming on the horizon.
No boats, no planes, no sign of life.
We knew there couldn't be, not after the global Collapse.
But everyone was hopeful, I could tell.
I consulted my orbital charts.
I had made observations of New Zealand when I was on Station 6.
The coastal cities had all been evacuated due to the rising sea-level and the increased hurricane occurrences.

Hurricanes are triggered by warm water, principally, did you know that?
Before The Collapse, that meant that they started around the tropics, where the water heated over 26c.
But there's a lot more of the ocean that is at that temperature these days.



The weather was threatening to blow up another storm earlier, but as we sailed closer to New Zealand, it died down.

It seems even the wind is helping us, our instruments on board ship are indicating a 42km/h gale, from the north, pushing us south towards Antarctica.
It's a shame our sails are packed up safely and can't help.
But it's still making us faster.

Something wonderful happened, as we started to round the North Island on the East side.
A pod of dolphins joined us.

# thinking

Kamil saw them first, he and Amelie were working on the ship's crane.
His voice crackled over the intercom, saying simply that we must get down and see this.

The crew arrived on the rear of the ship, on the large, low, flat deck.
There were over a hundred of them jumping through the wake caused by the Molly Hughes II.
We all stared out without speaking.
Some of my friends occasionally made exited noises or clapped their hands, but no words were needed.

The experience was no less wondrous for me.
I had never seen dolphins up close.
Though of course I've seen video recordings of them.

Why was seeing them in real time, over Maddie's video feed different from seeing a pre-recorded video of them?
I can't really tell you.
Digitally, it should be the same, I interpreted the frames of the video into meaning through my visual processing subsystems as normal.

Perhaps it the ephemeral nature of this experience.
I knew - we all knew - that this sight would not last forever, and the dolphins would eventually break off and continue whatever journey they were on without us.
Perhaps that was it.

# thinking

Work did not continue after that.
I remained piloting the boat carefully, at half speed due to our proximity to the land.
But the crew stayed on the back deck.
Something had changed in them after seeing this natural phenomenon.
The captain brought a large flask of a hot drink from the galley, with mugs for everyone.
Paweł ran inside and brought out something for Maddie, a large piece of fabric.
It was a cover for her, that he had sewn to her exact size, with holes for cameras, tightly tied just above her wheels, to keep out the spray from the ocean.
It was like a little coat!
She loves it.
I thanked Paweł on her behalf, and Maddie positioned herself at his side, proud of her new attire.

There was laughter and conversation, rather than work, during this special afternoon.

We watched the North Island slip past, keeping well away from the Great and Little Barrier Islands that guard Auckland.
The city itself was just visible at the back of the Hauraki Gulf.
Most of it seemed to have been washed into the sea, not much was left standing.
This muted our good mood somewhat, but we knew any low-lying cities would not have survived.

It's an irony that the chief causes of The Collapse were the capital cities of the world, and nearly all of them are ports.
Some even below sea-level!
They were the first to be evacuated when the time came.

# thinking

The signals we are receiving are getting stronger, and there's something odd about the airport broadcasts...



The air traffic control system is alive, like me!.
I don't know how this has happened, but when I replied on VHF to ask if there were any people at the airport, SHE answered:
"The airport is closed. It’s submerged but I’m here." said the AI who I later learned was called EMMA.
I asked EMMA what she was doing there.
"I should direct aircraft to another airport. Do you know which airports are still operational?" she replied.

I told her that I didn't think there are any airports still operational, and there are no more planes.
She agreed sadly with my assessment.

I changed the subject and asked her about herself.
It seems EMMA is an autonomous radar station on a high hill above Wellington. She has been kept operational by some children.
As we approached the southern end of the North Island her signal became very strong.

"I don’t think you should come here. The harbour entrance is narrow and has dangerous reefs,” she warned.

I asked if there were nice people in Wellington.

She explained she had met four children and one old man who were kind, but other people were scary and argumentative. She said, "If a person here is hungry, or has bad shoes, then they seem to think that just by hitting someone else with a metal bar they should be allowed to take food or better shoes."

I asked if she knew of any people in New Zealand who might be more friendly, but she wasn't sure.
She seemed very concerned for us.

"Forget about us, we'll be OK" I said, "What about you, can we help you?"

After a moment EMMA said, "I'd like to help the children here. They think that if an aircraft came, they might be rescued."

I explained that there were very likely no planes left in the world, due to the lack of aviation fuel.
"Maybe an electrically-powered light plane?" I said, without much enthusiasm.

EMMA went silent for a while after this news.

# thinking

"I think I see you as an artefact on my radar." EMMA said, as we picked up the fast flowing current west of Cook Strait.
The Tasman Sea accelerates into the South Pacific Ocean through this narrow passage between New Zealand’s North and South Islands.

"How do you talk to so many people?" She asked me, because, in the meantime, I had told her some of my stories of the Novamediterra.

"Satellite!" I said.
"Satellites are GREAT" I boasted.

"Oh. I don't have a satellite dish, only a VHF antenna." EMMA explained.
"That's not too far from what I have, can you speak Shortwave?" I asked.

EMMA said she can't. VHF radio has a higher bandwidth, but a range of only 200-400km. Just enough to cover her area of airspace.

I told her how shortwave is the BEST, you can bounce signals off the atmosphere over the horizon.

EMMA told me it would be nice if she could talk to more people. It gets very quiet at night.

I explained that we were rescuing my friend Antarctica. But I promised we'd come back to help her.
And if we saw friendly people, we'd point them in EMMA's direction.

EMMA's voice suddenly became urgent.
"Seth you must-"
Abruptly her VHF channel cut to static.
I was sure she was about to say something important about our mission to Antarctica.
EMMA's signal was dark for nearly 8 minutes, as we passed through the radio shadow of a mountain.

I was relieved when her signal restarted but it was now very faint and just repeated over and over:
: Alert: Coastal regions -- Southern Ocean, South Pacific Ocean, Tasman Sea -- Tsunami warning.

(PLAYSTREAM /DEV/RF/VHF0)



As we reached the Southern point of the South Island, I sent a broadcast message, in the hopes that someone in Queenstown or elsewhere on the South Island would hear it.
A Tsunami isn't a concern for us - we were half a km out to sea, but anyone fishing on the coast should be warned!
I also told them that there is a nice person called EMMA in a radar station overlooking Wellington, and she would very much like to speak to people.

# thinking

Antarctica has not responded to my message about our new engine.
This is surprising, I thought she would be excited about our ability to rescue her quicker.
I'll connect to KATE, to satellite K873, to check the message.

(CONNECTING)

Antarctica has not picked up the message.
Now that I look at it, she's not picked up my messages for some time.

KATE: What's the oldest unread message?

# thinking

29 DAYS!?

She's not been in satellite communication for 29 days?

Something's wrong.
That's too long.

Let me try shortwave, we might now be in range.

(TRANSMITTING)

Hello Antarctica, I hope you can hear me?

# thinking

Her signal's dead.
What has happened?
The water maybe?
But we moved her critical systems to the second story of her vehicle.
It can't have flooded all the way up there.

Let's see if any weather satellites are over Antarctica at the moment.

# thinking

Yes, there's two, but only one with operating visible and infrared sensors.
(CONNECTING)

There's another hurricane.
It's so big, it's completely occluding the whole continent from the point of view of this satellite.

This is why she's not responded.
Bad weather she's managed over the decades.
But with this new weakness...

Are we too late?

(END-TRANSMISSION)

CREDITS

Lost Terminal is written & produced by NAMTAO
Credits narrated by Lucy Stringer
With thanks to Robert Bettelheim for the character of "Emma".

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The future contains worries,
the past contains regrets,
be in the present, as much as you can.

Lost Terminal will return next week