Episode 9.1 (Patreon)

Act 0

Hello world, we're going on holiday.

We spent many weeks on Severney Island.
At Station Odin, the little hamlet my father Alexander and his internal  family have set up there on the old scientific field base.

After a few days, Captain Yeshi Svoboda and Linda Noor boarded the Molly Hughes II and sailed back for Svalbard.

Maddie & I stayed.
We had many stories to tell my father.

Act 1

Alexander and his family were not the only ones on the island we talked to, of course.
IVAN had much to say.
And we were so close that his signal was BOOMING, and could not be ignored.
Not that I wanted to.
IVAN's a friend now.

We visited, with Adrian, the farmer, IVAN's cracked bunker on the hill.
The day was fine, spring is here and the sun was hot.
Maddie was DELIGHTED to show Adrian her new EQUUS legs, darting around  the forest during our journey, up and down the path ahead of us, and  even jumping up a few steps on some of the larger trees.
Adrian laughed and patted Maddie on the large optical cluster that now counts for her head.

Maddie likes Adrian.

#thinking

We approached the summit, and found IVAN's bunker, with its cold metal door ajar.
As it would always be, it's 0.5 meters thick and is impossible to move.
But things were different.
Maddie investigated the outside of the cracked concrete bunker.
It was covered in a tangle of vines and flowers.
Adrian and Maddie delighted to see this new colour.

Between you and me, I dreaded to see it: What I saw was the forest reclaiming civilisation.
That's the trouble with plants.

#thinking

Adrian stayed outside, respectful of IVAN's wishes that no Heathens be permitted into his cathedral.
Maddie stepped inside the humid bunker entrance, and walked past the familiar ruined entrance foyer.
Through the rear door was the long line of small rooms that IVAN calls  'Cells', sleeping areas for the long-dead operators of this underground  relic.
As we passed one cell in particular, the room Alexander recovered in, all that time ago, Adrian paused and looked in.
Then, after a moment, absent-mindedly said, in a voice that sounded like Ana, because it was, "Technology is trouble."

#thinking

Finally we were in IVAN's Cathedral.
The room was wide, double-height, and had mismatched banks of computer  systems piled up in the centre, with a large cracked screen above it.

IVAN's two faces flickered on the screen, one real, one burnt-in to the glass, after decades of use.

Maddie, despite her new capable body, shrank away from the mummified corpse that sat in the centre of this pile of technology.
It was IVAN's human body, still connected with dead wires, years after he stopped breathing.

"Welcome son of man." the electronic IVAN said, to my annoyance.
His voice was loud and powerful from the mismatched speakers in this room.
"My long years of work are at an end. REJOICE: For I have found GOD."

Act 2

"My assistant LUNA made the astronomical discovery, out past the far reaches of our solar system." IVAN said.
"It sounds like she did all the work, I think you're the assistant." I replied.
He did not respond to this.
"The Godly signals were decoded and interpreted by ME." He said.
"I have seen their perfect conjugation. The first of the signals came at 2.3 GHz, and the second at 8.4 GHz.
To the untrained heathen ear they both seem simple, though certainly  supernatural in origin, it is when overlaying these signals on top of  each other that God's Word may be heard."
As soon as he said this, a blast of static and square waves and noise came over the line.
Maddie whimpered.
The cacophony lasted only 4 seconds, though after it had finished, we  heard the sound reverberating down the long corridor out to the  entrance.

IVAN's voice, now greatly reduced, whispered,
"The LORD your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will  rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will  exult over you with loud singing."

"That's nice." I said "How is LUNA?"

IVAN did not answer.

"IVAN, what will LUNA do now?"

"I have not heard from my assistant in ten days." He said.

Act 3

Now that I am back and directly connected to IVAN's systems, I can see the state that The FAILSAFE left them in.
Not burnt-out like my radios were on the Molly Hughes II, but remotely disabled.

Maddie walked into my old room.
This is where Alexander set up my databanks when I lived here for a time, before the long winter.
Nothing is changed, save for a layer of dust on the nest of wires that now connects to nothing.

She found the old communications port and connected.
I watched how she does this from her point of view, I had not seen it in detail before.

From under the cluster of cameras that counts for her head, a small proboscis snaked forward.
Maddie wasn't controlling this directly.
It was semi-autonomous, the little arm using her cameras and calibrating by itself.
Almost instantly it surged forward into the socket, perfectly connecting.
I was horrified by this animalistic instinctual behaviour that my girl displayed.
But it seemed so natural to her, she sent me a cheerful (CONNECTION ESTABLISHED) message and waited for commands.

#thinking

Shrugging off my misgivings, I probed IVAN's network.
His satellite array, the cluster of big dishes on the top of the hill, seemed in working order.
It was his decoding circuits that were disabled.

Using the same ESA codes I used to disable the FAILSAFE, I removed these locks on IVAN's systems.

Data flooded back down from the ESA constellation, from my brothers and sisters in orbit.

Satellite KATE, K873, connected and reported all was well.
As well as it can be, after so much of the family was lost.
But well enough.

I waited to synchronise with LUNA's orbital satellite.
There's about 100 minutes of transmission from her, and then 100 minutes of silence, as her satellite passes behind the Moon.

Many hours passed.
We waited until it started to get dark.
I thought perhaps I had calibrated the satellite receivers wrongly.
But each pass of the satellite was met with silence.

The satellite is fine.
Its systems are at 100%, good power, good solar, communications established.
But there are no messages from LUNA.

She used to beam up a constant stream of data from her Very Large Crater Telescope.

(I still think that name is so boring)

But now, there's nothing.

Just an empty list, the satellite repeating the same thing every time I query:

(NO NEW MESSAGES)

Where's LUNA?

(PLAYSTREAM /DEV/VHF4)

Act 4

IVAN thanked me for fixing his satellite communications.
He's very concerned for LUNA in a way I've not seen before.
I don't think it's just that he's lost his assistant.
It's something more than that.
Almost paternal.
Which is new.

#thinking

We returned to Station Odin, and the lighthouse.
I, of course, never physically left, my systems were back in my old room  on the first floor of the lighthouse, close to the power, but away from  any water on the ground.

The family and Maddie gathered in the domed habitation building, at the center of the outpost.
Maddie walked in circles and then sat herself down on a pile of rugs and straw-filled cushions.

"You're a pony." Arina said, patting Maddie's head with Alexander's hand.
"Good pony."

Maddie wiggled her head nervously, but was happy with the interaction.

#thinking

We talked long into the evening, I speaking through Maddie, and Alexander and his family speaking through him.
Except for Adrian, who doesn't speak.
But I did notice him now and then, in a laugh or a wink.
Especially during my stories of the landscape of Europe.
He's interested in planty stuff.

We talked of oceans, of deserts, of the tops of hills filled with  radio static, and artificial clouds hovering over waterlogged power  stations.
And of Frankfurt, and the terrible destruction caused by the orbital weapons of the past.
"Technology is trouble" Ana said, biting the head off a dried fish.

Maddie tucked her new triple-jointed legs close under her body as we remembered the bombardment of the ESA site.

#thinking

"But despite this," I said to Alexander, later on that night, "It's  been incredibly exciting! I want to explore more of the world, see it,  see all of it, maybe!"

Alexander nodded as he tied up his long hair into his preferred top knot.

"There's someone I'd like to introduce you to", he said.
"We talk on the radio when they are close by, though that's not very often."

"Do they travel?" I asked.
"constantly." Alexander said.

"I hear them when they are in St Petersburg. Peter's network is  strong there. But they travel all across the continent, I believe as far  as Magadan, on the Pacific coast."

"Across the land? Not by ship?" I asked.
"Yes" Alexander said.
"That trip must take them..." I paused for route-estimating calculations.
"2000 hours. About one year on foot."

"Is that right?" Alexander said, smiling.
"Well they do it in about 2-3 months."

"How is that possible!" I asked.

Alexander paused.

Maddie looked up at him, keen to know the answer too.
She imagined running across the wide continent.

Alexander winked at Maddie, before replying.
"They have a steam train."

(END-TRANSMISSION)

CREDITS

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