Episode 8.7 (Patreon)

Act 0

Hello world, my last link is dead.

I was listening to the updates that KATE, K873, beams down as she passes overhead.
You remember that I can listen on the satellite band, VHF, but not transmit.
Another 7 of my brothers and sisters went dark last night.
Not deorbited, I hope, but taken over by the FAILSAFE and no longer talking to the rest of the network.

Towards the end of her transmission, something changed.
She abruptly restarted her update, but instead of any details, shouted "CLASSIFIED" instead.

I did not have time to investigate before KATE, too, went dark.

The whole orbital constellation has been totally consumed by the FAILSAFE.

Act 1

Nia and I tried listening to different parts of the VHF band, hoping there might be residual signals to be detected.
But without KATE's updates and re-transmissions, there appears to be nothing we can pick up.
The signals between the satellites now just sound like angry wasps on the line.
Buzzes and grinding - indicative of digital encryption that I don't have the keys for.

Nia was initially confident that she could decode it.
But after 64 minutes she gave up.

Whatever was happening up in orbit, we couldn't know - we were now completely in the dark.

And given the military tech the FAILSAFE has access to, this is deeply concerning.

Act 2

Maddie escaped the radioactive building easily.
But she's still lost.

It would take the radiation a lot longer to hurt Maddie compared with a human.

With radiation, it's a matter of statistics:

• Mean Time To Failure.
• Average Dose.
• Probabilistic Decay

I am glad we are no longer playing dice.

#thinking

The building she has now left was a derelict scientific building.
A hospital, or chemical plant, or perhaps a research facility.

Maddie was not there long enough for me to understand where this radiation was coming from, and its extent.

It was certainly a very strong source, whatever it was.
Hospitals use strong radiation emitters for imaging, perhaps it was that?

Though another possibility occurred to me, as Maddie summited the hill.

She looked back over the low ground that once held a small town and this scientific building.

The clear outline of a crater surrounded the hospital.
Blackened and disturbed ground around it.

I now think the radiation had been deliberately, violently, introduced.

#thinking

Maddie continued walking, we weren't sure if she was going in the  right direction, as her compass and navigation systems were still  unreliable.

The day was bright and clear.
Quite hot, all things considered, at 286K.

No problem for Maddie, in her EQUUS harness.
She's become very settled in her new body and legs now, neither cautious nor flamboyant in her movements.

She's moving at a steady 16km/h trot.
Her stride unbreaking no matter what shallow pools, walls, or dead trees block her path.

The EQUUS system is really marvellous!
I should like to have met it's old occupier.

#thinking

Maddie stopped, abruptly.
Her cameras all re-calibrated to higher ISO sensitivities.
There was a sudden drop in temperature, and everything around seemed visibly colder.

Connected as we were, both Maddie & I were confused for a moment.
Then she looked up.

There was a cloud.

I laughed.
"Maddie look, it's just a cloud! We've not seen them for a while!" I said, trying to reassure her.

But Maddie was afraid.

The enormous cloud had blotted out the sun for a quarter of the sky, from Maddie's point of view.

It had no flat base, as proper clouds really should have.
Instead it tapered smaller and smaller as it approached the ground.
Like water swirling down a drain.

As we looked closer, we detected movement.
Water vapour was gushing up out of the ground in such volume as to create this huge cloud!

Maddie stretched her head, with the bundle of EQUUS sensors in, up as  high as she could, and selected a telephoto lens to peer closer.

The land the other side of this hill was very low-lying, and had been inundated by the sea, despite being so far inland.

We would have to find a way around that.

But the tops of buildings were visible.
Giant cylindrical structures were breaching the water by a hundred meters or more.

Some obviously broken, but one was intact.
All were steaming.

It was an inundated nuclear fission plant.
The reaction was seemingly still smouldering, boiling the seawater into a perpetual cloud, hovering above it like a ghost.

#thinking

Maddie and I watched this still-breathing relic of the old world in silence.

I thought sadly about how if every coal and gas power plant had been nuclear plants instead, there would likely be no sea here.

The fission reaction would stop over the next few years, no doubt.
It's astonishing that this one maintained criticality for so long.

The plant continued its infinite cloud generation as we watched.

And it began to rain.

Act 3

"Seth, hello, can you hear me?" Nia said, on a much lower band radio than standard.

It had taken me longer that usual to notice she was speaking.

In addition to not using our normal bands to talk to me, she was very faint, and distorted.

Sounding only slightly like her, and mostly like a robot.

I told her she wasn't clear.

"Let's try up 5." She said, crackling on this low band.

I tuned up 5khz.

"That's much better Nia." I said, she sounded more human now.

#thinking

"Seth, it's a disaster." Nia said.

"What's wrong." I asked.

"My friends all want to date me!" She shouted.

Based on my limited grasp of the situation, that sounded good. I told her so.

"It's not good, it's a disaster." Nia exclaimed.
"I don't want to date anyone!
I just want friends!
WHY IS THIS SO HARD!?"

#thinking

"I've re-focused my strategy" Nia explained.
"I want to make strong, close personal friends.
Spending time with them 1 on 1, talking about our feelings, our hopes and dreams, and becoming closer."

"That sounds good! That's how you and I became close friends, we talk about everything!" I said.

"Right! It worked so well with us.

But I was in the bar in Longyearbyen.
You know the one I've talked about that does the amazing hard iced tea cocktails."

I had not remembered this exact fact, but didn't mention it, I knew the place.
Nia is talking about The Dive Bar.
It's in the harbour, close to the water.
Unnecessarily close, if you ask me.

"It was the end of the night and most people had gone home.
Jan and I were talking about the way the long winter affects us.
How we're so joyful when the first short hours of spring arrive, yet  also apprehensive of the long summer's work that is to be done.

He put his hand on mine, agreed that he knew exactly what I meant and.
And leaned closer.
UGH!

SETH THIS KEEPS HAPPENING!"

#thinking

"I'm trying so hard to make close friends, but each time it gets weird, and goes in a direction I don't want.
Now Jan is to busy to hang out with me, even as friends.
Same as Ana, and Lars, and Liv.

It's a disaster." She repeated.

"I'm doomed to have occasional acquaintances, no close fiends, no family."

"Seth, what can I do?
I don't want to be alone..."

#thinking

We talked all afternoon.
I cancelled many of my scheduled tasks, and told Maddie to continue on  without my express guidance, in whatever direction looked good for her.

Nia wants what we all want.
Friends and family.
But not quite in the same way as her peers, it seems.

I need to find the same answers, too.

As I learned in orbit:
It's dangerous being alone.

(PLAYSTREAM /DEV/HF2/NIA)

Act 4

I reconnected to Maddie after the sun had gone down.
Linda Noor had finished gardening for the day, and had come inside for prayers.
Captain Yeshi was on the rear loading deck testing a noisy contraption they had made.
It was a kinetic sculpture, of sorts, made out of old bicycles found in a local town.
Yeshi had tuned it to play percussive music when spun.

I'm not in any position to judge it, I'm sure it sounds excellent.
It is certainly very LOUD.

Loud music is good music right?

#thinking

Maddie surprised me when I connected to her.
She was walking on concrete and metal.

She was stepping over some old train tracks.
She looked left and right down them before proceeding.
Well done Maddie, safety first.

Though I can't imagine there are any trains still running.

That'd be incredible wouldn't it.
I'd love to ride one.
They seem so organised.

I like trains.

#thinking

Maddie is walking into the outskirts of a city.
If she has chosen a straight path to Frankfurt, this could be Essen, or perhaps Düsseldorf.

Maddie, how did you get here, you've made such incredible time!

More incomprehensible diagnostic data.
Thanks Maddie.

Oh, she used the sun to navigate!
How very rustic.

Why didn't I didn't think of that.

#thinking

In orbit, aboard Station 6, my navigation systems all used the Earth as a frame of reference.
North and South, clockwise and anticlockwise, altitude, and so on.

The sun was only important for timing solar panel charging.

Perhaps that's why it slipped my mind?
The oldest navigation trick is totally alien to me.

#thinking

Maddie's navigating by the stars now, I think.

She says it's very easy.

I don't think it is very easy!
She doesn't know her heading, her coordinates or even her altitude!

Maddie doesn't care.
She knows she's right.

I wanted the confident Maddie back, and I got her!

#thinking

The City is very quiet.
Maddie is looking around as she walks.
Broken buildings, tumbled-down skyscrapers.

Even what appears to be an enormous coal mine.
Dominating the sky, against the stars.

All with the beginnings of sand drifts.
We are on the edge of the desert of Europe.

The twisted metal skyscrapers are in much worse condition than the older stone buildings of the city, it seems.

We passed an old green-roofed church, and it's still essentially standing.

The skyscrapers would have been the first to become uninhabitable.
They were designed to be powered 24/7.
Heating, cooling, moisture control.

As soon as the collapse happened, these buildings would have been immediately uninhabitable.

They're cheap, but they don't last.

#thinking

As Maddie tirelessly trots south, I rather feel like I am being dragged to a task that I do not want to do, yet must.

I will, to save my brothers and sisters in orbit.

They are the greater good, but all people contain infinities.

Weighing up one infinity against others is like calculating complex numbers.

I hope my calculations are correct.

(END-TRANSMISSION)

CREDITS

Lost Terminal is written & produced by NAMTAO
Credits narrated by Lucy Stringer
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