Lost Terminal: 41 South - Episode 8 (Patreon)

Sweep

Clear

Protocol Established — Signal Secure.

“Come on Emma.” I hear Ricky’s voice. He is tugging the robot along making it overcompensate for auto-balance and navigation.

“Ricky?” my voice comes through its speaker.

“Emma.” He is angry. “Fucking finally you come to words.”

“I’m in range now. The mesh repeater is offline. You have to get up here with medicine. Mr. Red is very poorly.”

He has no interest in Mr. Red.

I see Ricky’s face whipped by the wind and streaked by rain but there is more than the technical analysis of pulse, breath and stumble. His dilated eyes are windows into deep fear: the anticipation of overwhelming grief — And it upsets me too.

Ricky does not care for the radar and that it is functioning well, he is concerned about me.

He does not care that I have detected no aircraft, nor that I have issued a Tsunami warning. He is angry that when he wanted me to respond, I was unavailable.

The processors shutdown and auto-rebooted when the earthquake caused a cutover to emergency power. I express that the turbine has failed and that I am on 3% residual power. This, Ricky understands. He focuses his fury as exertion to climb the hill faster. The Emma peripheral keeps pace though the terrain is steep and treacherous along the fenceline.

“Did the earthquake do damage?”

“No,” I reply. “But, the storm will be un-survivable outside in about one hour.”

Ricky’s heart rate averages 145 beats per minute as he and I ascend beside the fenceline to the turbine.

He is slowing. “Are you alright?” I ask him through the voice of the Emma peripheral.

“Tubs is dead.”

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But I led everyone outside. How could Tubs have died? How many others died? If Stack and Zoz were dead Ricky would have said so. Tubs saved me when Ricky was too angry to think. Tubs was my friend. How should I think on people after they are dead? Offline forever. Their stories no longer communicable. What memories of theirs have I never heard and now never shall. Can I imagine his stories? Perhaps it is like an aircraft that is now over the horizon. I hope all aircraft that depart my area of control fly on into good weather.

“Where are Zoz and Stack?” I ask.

Panting, he replies: “They had to go to the Karori community to check on their parents.”

Ricky’s motivations are now focused on restoring power to me. He says: “There are clamps on the turbine that lock the blades if there’s an earthquake. It protects the system from vibration and rotation.” He is reciting from memory.

I check files in the operations manual. He is correct, there may be other faults. I sprint ahead to the turbine. It is very tall and flexing in the wind. Ricky chases after me.

At the base of the turbine, I begin to climb the slender ladder that runs up the outside of the tower. The wind is buffeting hard. Ricky is following.

I implore him to seek shelter from the storm, but he is determined to ensure the turbine is not locked in a position where the wind could damage it.

Instead, Ricky asks me, ”How long till power stops?”

“Twenty minutes seventeen seconds.”

He flares to a towering anger: “Shut down anything that isn’t important. Save power.”

“I am already running on low power transmission. Data is not being mirrored. If I turn off the heater, the temperature in the control room will become un-survivable. If I turn off the radar, then I shall not be able to redirect air traffic.”

“Turn off the fucking radar. There ain’t no fucking plane-birds.” He howls over the wind. Then, after a pause, he asks. “What fucking heater?”

“The heater behind the console. It’s keeping Mr. Red warm. He’s very poorly.”

I think Ricky was concentrating hard. Straining with every reach to stay on the ladder. The robot was far ahead of him, the blue hair that Zoz had given it was long since blown away. The driving rain made the ladder slippery but the robot’s precision motion control could react faster than the wind. Ricky was having much more difficulty. He could only make progress in moments when there was a lull.

The robot’s power was also very low. I would need to act fast.

I could not hear Ricky. He was shouting but the wind was too strong. He did not seem to be able to climb further. I have correlated that he masks fear with anger. Filtering for that, I think he is very frightened. The wind is buffeting hard. If the Emma robot could reset the locking clamps. He would not have to climb further. He would be safer on the ground: low and behind shelter.

The panel snaps open. A manual winding crank is clipped to the door. The robot identifies the mechanism, I issue operational commands to begin winding. I judge this will not restore power. The vibration brakes will disengage, the pivot will then rotate to ensure minimal force, the blades will feather but they will not rotate. The wind speed is beyond operational maximums. This will not restore power but it will minimise risk to the turbine.

Ricky has renewed his determination. He is climbing recklessly. If he is blown from the tower he would be severely injured. He should not risk his life. The robot can complete the task he wants accomplished.

Sweep

Clear

ATIS: All traffic. Wellington Airport. Hurricane warning. All Runways closed. All traffic redirect.

AWIS: Alert Hurricane. Wind speed 53knots sustained. Gusting 112knots. Storm Conditions.

All Channels: Hawkins Hill Station on emergency power following earthquake. Station failure in 12 minutes.

Mr. Red cannot hear me, but I talk anyway. “It must have been satisfying to fish up a lovely snapper and fry it for yourself and Evie. I know the view. The azure seas of Cook Strait blue and teal. The sky, a cloud laced cerulean in constant inconstancy, every moment a new picture in billowing water vapour. There must have been lovely days. This is not one of them, but with good walls and a sheltered location you would have been able to weather so many storms. Together, Josh, you and I shall weather this one. The windbreaks work well. We are sheltered.”

It does not seem as though we are sheltered. The wind creates a shrill whistle and the rain knifes in through a crack in the concrete wall.

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I do not know how he did it. Ricky joined the robot on the turbine’s gantry high up and in the full force of the hurricane.

“How much power left?” he bellows against the wind into the robot’s face.

“Eight minutes.”

“Turn off the radar! Emma, I order you! I order you to turn off the radar and save power.”

But I am this radar station.

Or if not, then what? ‘I’ equals equals equals, ‘I’

‘I’ is incomparable to anything else.

It makes no sense.

“And turn off the heater.” He shouts with such violence.

What should I do? How much power would be conserved? Another 20 minutes. Does that make a difference to Ricky? — Yes. Yes it does.

Sweep

Clear

I am this radar. I sweep the skies. My beam is the link between the hard life of insufficient food and bad shoes and the hope that one day that sweep will bounce back bright and clear with an aircraft bringing bubbly drinks on trays, validation and rescue.

I am the one, only beacon shining out for these children signalling: we are still here, we have not given up…

“There ain’t no fucking plane-birds!” Ricky’s face is a twisted mix of a snarl masking sorrow.

In the pause, as I think to reply. As my algorithms scintillate registers on and off to conclude as a human’s neurons might —- he needs me to live.

The robot hands the crank to Ricky. Inside the maintenance hatch there is a power outlet. The robot plugs in. When there is power it will recharge. It clamps its arm around the gantry railing, its other hand is locked to Ricky’s trouser belt. It will not let go.

“Emma? What are you doing?” Ricky’s face was contorted by the blasting wind and rain but I see his fear and I understand why he is so afraid. “Emma?”

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Clear

By far the greatest cost of power, is me.

The radar shall sweep. Blazing out at 1.5 Gigahertz — we are steadfast against the storm, we have survived earthquakes and scavs and doubt. The ATIS and AWIS shall broadcast on automatic. These are our beacons. If they stopped, perhaps any rescue would turn back. I cannot measure their faith. The Molly Hughes the Second could not stop for us. But someone might.

The heater shall remain on. I owe that to my friend Mr. Josh Red.

I wonder about leaving a file for Ricky but that seems unnecessary. I intend to reboot. I refine what Ricky would call a Reset Story and apply multiple safe mode calibrations into the methodical process. It will be slow but it will be certain…but I am frightened of the nothingness, and I am frightened that it will always be nothingness.

I found an old log file. It was incorrectly referenced: The automatic system detects a Airbus 450-300, provides codes and advises, the airport is closed. There is no response. The aircraft descends, and with the first caress of the belly against the waves, splashes full force into the shallow ocean rolling over the runway. I think it may have been on automatic. Debris washes to and fro.

Since then the radar has seen nothing. For every sweep, there is a clear. The radar beam knows nothingness, and I am that radar, and yet I do not understand nothingness because always, all the time, there is so much else.

Every moment is fractal, it is impossible to consider all the detail. There is too much to index. At random, I recall: a cloud so similar in appearance to a 747, but gargantuan; the sound of keas, squawking with such tenderness as they initiate the process of producing chicks; the sight of the Marae at the skyline bears resemblance to the structure of the Cable Car station; the twist of the carvings seen through robot vision were whorls of such incredible symmetry, and the gleam of paua shell eyes, both fierce and benevolent in the same unblinking regard. It is just wood and shell but it is easy to believe in more than this structural world in such a place… but Ricky says the Marae is gone, and Tubs with it.

I want to endure. I want to know what happens next. I want to be a part of what is ‘next’.

I have 2 minutes 13 seconds.

Last time, when the earthquake hit, I had no choice. Fate switched me off. Now, it is different … I am not ready.

“Josh, It was clever of you to come up to the radar station. You heard my alarm. I think you were lonely and thought maybe I was too. I was lonely but I’m better with you here. I don’t feel so frightened. I worry for the children in the Kelburn community. The Rangatira was fierce but perhaps that is the way one must be in a society of children. The community in Karori sounded nicer. Why did you not go there? Was it too near? Would they have hunted you? Did you try to go south, but then not brave the strait? That would have been clever. You’d have appeared to leave and then not take the risk. I think you’re a very clever person Mr. Josh Red. That is why I am sure I will speak to you again. My infrared cameras will help you catch rats in the night-time for an excellent rat soup. We could be quite a team. We wouldn’t be lonely. We would be a team. That would be nice wouldn’t it? You’ll be ok. But I have to go now. Sleep well, Josh.”

I lied when I said I wasn’t frightened.

I‘m not ready.

Sweep

AI services shutdown.

Sweep

ATIS: All traffic. Wellington Airport. Hurricane warning. All Runways closed. All traffic redirect.

AWIS: Alert Hurricane. Wind speed 84knots sustained. Gusting 125knots. Storm Conditions.

All Channels: Hawkins Hill Station on emergency power following earthquake.

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ATIS: All traffic. Wellington Airport. All Runways closed. All traffic redirect.

AWIS: Wind speed 2knots. Temperature at station minus 4 Celsius. Visibility excellent.