Episode 10.4 (Patreon)

Hello world, The experiment has been a qualified success.

20 days ago, Lev spent a day carefully preparing the mushroom growing equipment.
He washed the buckets that his brother Lyosha had found in the mall.
Soaked the wood chips that Tanya had made in hot water.
Drained, and carefully inoculated the damp wood with mushroom spores.

The mushrooms have grown so fast!
Lev cut tiny holes in the sides of the buckets, and there are flat white mushrooms sprouting out of them now!

But it is not enough.

Act 1

The family sat around the table for breakfast.

"It's delicious." Tanya said.
"Really good!" agreed Lyosha.
"I'd eat it." Smiled Alec, as he ate another spoonful of mushroom soup.

Lev looked down at his own bowl, shoulders rounded, without saying anything.

Lev had harvested all the mushrooms, cutting off each cluster that had sprouted out of the holes in the buckets with a knife.

Then made a big mushroom soup for the family.

Everyone ate hungrily, there was plenty to spare, second helpings were eaten, and thirds.

But that was it.
Two weeks wait for one meal.

Lev wept quietly.

"It was a really good idea Lev." Lyosha said, hugging his brother.
Alec nodded.
"I've not had better food since St Petersberg." Tanya said, reaching across and squeezing Lev's hand.

Maddie sat in the corner, by the open door to the carriage.
She was looking between the family members.
I guessed that though she might not understand what this meal meant, she understood that her friends were sad.

I do understand what it means.

Have you eaten today?

"Right." Tanya said, after helping Lev bring the lunch plates and pots into the kitchen.

She wrapped her arms around her two children, as Alec stood, arms crossed.

"Back to scavenging." She said.
"We are Omarovs. We are resourceful.
We have a train, we have clean water, and we have electricity."

Alec uncrossed his arms and stood a little taller, I noticed.

"We just need a little food. We have everything else!" Tanya smiled at her family.

"Children, back to the city, find us something delicious for dinner.  Your father and I will make some repairs on the train today."

"YES MAMA" Both brothers said in unison.

Lev grabbed his lightweight white cloak, for keeping the day's hot  sun off him, and after a moment's hesitation, Lyosha did the same.

"Come on Maddie!" He said, following Lev out of the door.

Maddie stood and peered outside into the desert city, then looked back into the domestic car.

Tanya was sitting at the table with her head in her hands, Alec standing behind her with his hands on her shoulders.

Maddie turned and jumped onto the rails.

Act 2

Lev headed to the east, towards the boats and huts around the dried out lake valley.

Lyosha crouched next to Maddie.
"Can you find that mall again?" He said.
"There's no food anywhere else I think. These blocks all look the same to me, and we only have a few hours."

Maddie produced some gentle beeps of encouragement, and set off at a fast walking pace in the opposite direction to Lev.

Her sharp feet stepping precisely on the centre of each rail as they passed through the trainyard to the city.

The pair were walking through the crumbling apartment blocks, which  looked like broken teeth in the wasteland, when Lyosha grabbed Maddie's  bags.

"Stop." he whispered.

Maddie looked back at Lyosha, tilting her head left and right in confusion.

"Do you hear that?"

Maddie processed the audio signal faster than I did.
She dropped to the ground, her orange and black legs splayed out into her spider-like gait.

My processing finished.

We were hearing the howling of wolves.

Maddie's video feed was a blur of movement.
My pattern matching couldn't keep up.
I saw Lyosha running, dry bushes breaking as they ran through the scrub, and finally darkness.

Maddie's cameras adjusted to the low light levels.
Increased ISO power was needed.
They were inside a building.
But it was small.
And made of rotten wood.

Around them were rusted metal tools, a spade, a sharp spade, a wide spade.
I don't know what these tools are called - they probably weren't all spades.
Farming equipment.

They had found some kind of shed or hut.

The howling was closer now.

Maddie could hear Lyosha breathing fast, muttering.
"They didn't see us"
"They didn't see us"
"They didn't see us"

As he closed his own eyes in hope.

A loud crash shook the hut.

They had seen them.

The tessellated metal roof and wooden walls shifted slightly, and dust fell onto Maddie and Lyosha.

Maddie, from her low stance, looked around quickly.
Glimpses of canine noses appeared in the holes in the walls, shining  teeth snapped at the crumbling wooden walls, and she could hear barking  from all around.

In a moment Maddie's video feed shifted.
Before it was an accurate visual portrayal of the world, but now there was extra metadata overlaid on a grid:

Tensile strength estimation, tactical verticallity maps, and even a 3d map of a canine skeleton.

"Maddie, what is all this for?" I whispered to her.

Evade Outlast Survive

She replied, as the pack burst through the broken wall.

Act 3

The animals were not wolves.
They were not hunting.

They were a pack of feral, but friendly, dogs.

They seemed delighted to have found the hidden pair, and Lyosha was almost in tears with relief.

"YOU'RE A GOOD BOY!" he said to one.
"YOU'RE NOT DANGEROUS ARE YOU!?" he continued to another.

Maddie was confused.
She had climbed the wooden wall of the hut, and was holding her black foreleg up, with it's sharp point ready to strike.

"Easy Maddie, they're friendly!" I said.

Maddie's video feed glitched, and the extra information disappeared.
She looked around her more slowly, then looked at her foreleg, and back  up at the wall, before lurching and falling to the ground, landing on  her feet, of course.

The pack of dogs joined Lyosha and Maddie for their journey.
There were 5 of them, jumping and rolling and playing with each other,  and with Maddie, as the group passed through the quiet city.

Maddie soon led Lyosha and the pack to the mall.
But as they neared the entrance, the dogs fell back.
They seemed nervous, not wanting to get close to the mall.

"Come on Maddie." Lyosha said, as he walked through the Mall entrance.
Maddie paused, sad to leave her new friends, before turning into the ruined building.

The sound of the dogs barking echoed through the entrance, each bark  layered over the others until it was like a roar, and then as we lost  sight of the entrance, turned into whining and yelping, then nothing.

Hello dearies.

NANA said, from the intercom system that Lyosha and Maddie had returned to.
The same one built into the ruined wall of the mall, on the upper level.

"Hello NANA!" Lyosha said. "Do you know where we can find more food?"

Well that's a fine introduction.

NANA said.

Not going to tell me your names first? Straight to business?

Lyosha paused, looking at Maddie.

"But we talked a few weeks ago. I'm Lyosha, and this is Maddie."

I think I would remember you funny people. Who is the third person?

Lyosha looked at Maddie.

"Seth? He's... our friend."

Nice to meet you three. You're looking for food?
NANA can help you there!
My stock systems suggest that there is another can on aisle 7, near the televisions. Eat, eat, you must be hungry!

Lyosha shook his head and balled his fists.

"No you told us that before! There's nothing in aisle 7, nothing in the whole shop!"
He said desperately.
"Please, we're very hungry, don't you remember us?"

I've never met you three before in my life.

(PLAYSTREAM /DEV/DISK0/LOST)

Act 4

Lyosha, Maddie and I returned fruitlessly from the mall.

NANA, the person, or system, or whoever she is, did not remember us at all.
I'm not sure she remembers much.

The dinner that evening was very light.
A few herbs and vegetables made a thin broth.

The whole family went to bed early.
Everyone was tired.
They're tired all the time these days.
And even I can pattern-match that their bodies are getting thin from hunger.

Maddie, what can we do?
I'm scared.

I dreamed of the man again that night.
He is dressed in orange overalls and black boots.

The world was another natural scene.
Full of plants and water.
Not somewhere I'd feel safe normally, but in the dream I somehow did.

He was kneeling next to a small pool of water.
Around him were grasses, buzzing insects and warm yellow sunlight.

He was carefully looking down into the water.
I thought he was looking at fish.
Fish live in water.
Or perhaps for an object dropped carelessly.
You wouldn't catch me dropping stuff into water, I'd be nowhere near it.
Unnecessarily salty.

The man was doing none of these things I had guessed.
He looked into the water, and then brought his hand up and touched his face.

It was at this point I realised I couldn't pattern match his facial identity.
He had blonde hair and pale skin, certainly.
That much was being decoded.
But his features, his eye colour, the geometry of his face, all was error glyphs and warnings.

None of this makes sense to me.

I think I am in the man's dream.

How is that possible?
Is he connected to the network?
But how is he dreaming through it.

Peter does this, sometimes.
Wanders through the repeater network as slow unconscious packets.
But he's an AI, like me.
Well, related to me.

(it's complicated)

I think this man is human.
I'm sure of it.

As I thought this, he looked up in my direction.
Looked at me without eyes.

The man stared at me for a long time.
I couldn't keep time in the dream, but it seemed more than 64 seconds.
After this period of intense connection, he sat back a little, and raised his right hand in a gesture of greeting.
His right hand, unlike the rest of his uniform, wore a black glove.
I had no body to wave to him with, no hand of my own in the dream.

So I spoke to him.
"Hello, my name is Seth, who are you?" I said.

The man lowered his hand.
He did not reply.
Made no sound.

And slowly looked back into the water, touching his face with his gloved hand once more.

And I woke up.

(END-TRANSMISSION)

CREDITS

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