After yesterdays story about Armageddon, I thought I would start a story about a nuclear holocaust. This idea always fascinates me, and often I write the beginnings of them but never have the stomach to finish them. The below is kinda a-typical of the tone I use. 

 

***

Happy / EVA / After

 

A fragment of newspaper is blown down what used to be called Bishopsgate in London. It says something about bombs, but detail is lost as it swirls away. It gets caught in an eddy of wind, and swirls around the vine and pigeon shit encrusted bronze statue that juts out of the ground. The buildings have started to collapse in on themselves, their foundations broken by an inevitable rot. The curved roof of Liverpool Street station has long lost its glass, cracked because no one is there to maintain it. Light streams in as sickly vines reach down, like tendrils from an invading parasite.  Japanese knotweed sprouts out of most of the pieces of ground that is broken to the soil, and giant slabs of cracked concrete and tarmac lay on one another, forming a destroyed house of cards.

 

There is a beautiful silence that has never been heard before, and the only noise is the creaking and crumbling of the carcasses of commerce crashing to the ground. That, and the whistle of the wind through all these new tunnels. A fractured music.

 

It picks up the paper, which tumbles through the station, past the empty concessions and sound proof glass kiosks, and out by the old banks. On one of the walls, in large, unruly letters, a phrase is written.

 

‘There is nothing now’. It has faded, but can still be seen.

 

What happened?

 

All that is clear is it is some time after man.

 

 

***

 

Disturbance detected in upper atmosphere… 73-00-18 and counting

 

Radiation levels nominal, safe levels detected across the country

 

Handshake approved, initiating facility warm up

 

Research unit 1^st Class – Königstern – Population 1 human, 2 mechanical

 

Waking protocol initiated

 

Error in waking protocol

 

Error

 

Error

 

Error corrected. Waking Waking Waking

 

Woken

 

***

 

Computers in the facility’s belly whirred, as fans turned, and he was woken. A thin line of spit had hardened from the corner of his mouth to his chest. It pooled just under his Adam’s apple.

 

Lights around him blinked and flickered. Their strobbing made unconnected images flash in his mind. Jumbled echoes, possible memories, possible random brain impulses.

 

Who was he?

 

He took hold of the tube which was in his nose, and slowly he began to pull it from him. For something that was smooth, it felt like strips of broken glass, and when it finally came out completely, his throat and nose exploded with air. He let out a giant sigh, and spent the next 5 minutes just looking up at the ceiling, breathing. He coughed up some phlegm that had hardened in his lungs like cement. Slowly the lights around him were warming up, brightening gradually, reflecting themselves in the smooth white walls.

 

Who had woken him? Who was he? Where was he? The fundamental questions were sparking and fizzing in his head.

 

Then, in all the silent chaos, as he stumbled about , clutching his head, trying to calm it down, it all stopped. And he saw a beautiful field of corn. In it stood a lady in a pale blue dress, her hair was a copper red, and the clouds stumbled over one another, rays of light highlighting clutches of field. Her eyes were closed, and a smile played over her lips. Her hair was whipped into a frenzy, and then fell gently to her shoulders.

 

Before he knew he was doing it, he whispered ‘Eva’ and he was back in the facility.

 

He was alone .

 

***

 

 

Wake assistance robots

 

Contact established with Sigourney and Lance

 

Sigourney start up initiated

 

Lance start up initiated

 

Lance Start up error – loading emergency boot up

 

Safe mode loaded.

 

Assistance online, en route to subject.

 

 

***

 

He sat himself down by what he assumed to be a table. It was a solid white cube that seemed to glow gently from within. As he sat there, he heard a click, and a panel opened in the table, and a small screen rose gently out. After clicking into place, the screen flickered, and an old man’s face appeared. He had half moon spectacles, hair like a monk, which was as white as salt. Little liver spots flecked his saggy neck and mottled his forehead. His eyes were piercing black, and suggested an intellect that was ferocious.

 

Then, without warning, speakers invisible to him blared into life, jolting him.

 

‘Crrrk…Hello, If you are watching this, then the computer has decided that it is safe for you to wake. You will experience disorientation over the next few days as the gravity of the situation takes hold. This will be made doubly difficult due to the complete absence of any human beings, but we have tried to mitigate this by providing you with 2 automated guides. They shall meet you soon, and are called Lance and Sigourney. They will explain what they are able to do for you when they reach you.’

 

The video screen went blank.

 

After an imperceptible pause, the screen flared back into light a lady appeared on screen, not the one in the field. This was someone else. She had dark black hair, which was tied in a pony tail. She had light green eyes and he felt an overwhelming sense of kinship with her. Out of the corner of his eyes he saw a mirror and noticed the similarity between them.

 

‘Trrrk….Hello. I don’t know what to say to you sweetheart.’ She turns and looks off camera, ‘What should I say.’  An off screen voice mumbles something, she nods. ‘Sweetheart, I am your mother. My name is Helen. They asked me if I wanted to be the mother of mankind. It is not the kind of offer you refuse. They said my DNA made me right for this experiment…no not experiment, this insurance . They said I could name you. But I can’t think , I don’t know you, I may never see you. A name seems wrong, wrong to name hope. Wrong to name the future. So just be happy sweetheart. Don’t worry about labels. Be all you can be , and know I loved you with all my heart. Be the best of us.

 

Be Happy’

 

The screen went blank. After a short pause, the original man appeared.

 

‘Lance and Sigourney will reach you in 5 minutes. They are en route. This will give me time to explain what happened.’ He paused, and looked to the floor, an air of resignation and disappointment flooded from the screen, and when he looked up, his eyes were redder, as if fighting back tears. His voice trembled. ‘You are part of an insurance policy the world’s governments implemented when we realised that the world was on a one way course to destruction. Nuclear arms, and weapons considered even worse, were soon to be loosed on one another, and we realised that no one would survive. Scientists like myself had spent a long time trying to mitigate this by safely storing the world’s knowledge, something I will come to later.  We put in place, around the world, resurrection pods. They would release safely stored human beings when the world which we would inevitable destroy would become habitable. If you are hearing this message, the world was destroyed, and now it is safe for you to return. Sorry for not sugar coating this, but time is of the essence. When Sigourney and Lance reach you, they will inform you of the next steps.’

 

The screen went blank, and lowered itself into the cube. He was alone again, with the thoughts of a barren, desolate earth. Memories continued to swim in and out as his synapses fired. Then, on the edge of hearing, he heard rustling, and a strange hum. With a violence that shocked him, a door in front of him opened. There stood, or to be more precise, hovered a grey cloud. He could make out that it seemed to be a swirling mass of tiny particles. The particles took a more humanoid shape, and where a mouth would be, a depression appeared.

 

‘Hello, my name is Lance.’ It seemed to say, vibrating in the cold air of the room.

 

Then, from the floor, on which he noticed was a small metal pool, rose up a thin tripod. Lights he had not noticed before ran up the three legs, and it formed a pyramid.

 

‘And my name is Sigourney’. The sound seeming to resonate from the air itself, all around him

 

He passed out. It was too much.

 

***

 

Technical Specifications

 

Lance – A collection of nano robots, based on bees. Has a logo rhythmic progression of intellect, resulting in a hive mind. Avoidance techniques based on shoals of fish where they move in unison to those robots that exist either side of it. Been impregnated with a pragmatic character to ensure protection of subject. Able to communicate to every computer system on the planet. Quantum level processing allows it to assess risk with a 95% accuracy level. Developed to analyse dangerous environments, Lance is robust.

 

Sigourney – A memory metal, this reactive substance has been impregnated with the ability to form an almost infinite series of shapes, and has been interwoven with several fibres to ensure it can withstand extremes of temperature, impact, radiation and general wear and tear. Although programmed with a more maternal character, she too has one primary object, which is the preservation of the subject. As a result, Asimov’s 3 rules do not come into effect. The only important thing is the preservation of the subject, resulting in the ability to kill any threat. The same is true of Lance.

 

***

What will happen next? Well the idea was he would traipse across a feral UK to find Eva, and then they would realise that they had to get to an international enclave somewhere...probably in the north or south...or maybe equatorial. As you can see I thought it out robustly. It was going to be a treaty on a quiet world where we don't exist anymore.

- Anand