Midlogue: Sesom

Fifteen hundred years ago.

Egeil Sesom followed the stone tunnel beneath a lake, bioluminescent vines lighting his path and water dripping ominously from the ceiling in several places along the long path. But it wasn’t the water that worried him, it was the council that awaited at the end of the tunnel.

The Council of the Ancients. The six of them were the only ones who remembered what the world should have been like. The only ones who had been there almost 6,000 years ago. The only ones who remembered humanity.

And today Sesom would suggest they bring them back.

He reached the end of the tunnel and pushed the heavy metal door open, and entered the Library of Life. It wasn’t a traditional library with book-laden shelves running around it. Instead, the shelves held endless cubbies with vials of fluid in them, storing not only the DNA of every creature ever to live on this world as far back as any of the Ancients remembered but the mind of Ardnax, one of the more unfortunate of their group. Instead of moving freely above ground, interacting and ruling the diordna nations, three of their friends had sacrificed themselves to become the minds of the vaults.

They’d all sacrificed part of themselves to become who they were now. Their bodies, their old lives, though truth be told there wasn’t much left to hold onto by the end. Sesom could barely remember what it felt like to be human anymore and wondered if the others felt the same. It almost felt as though his body had always been aluminum skinned, pale silver, untarnished by white oxidation, the clearness of his skin setting him apart from the rest of his nation, the aluminum Egeilen diordna. He’d been a woman back then, but when entering his new body decided to make a complete change. He would not be the same person anymore and decided to keep as little of his past self as possible. He would be born completely and utterly anew.

Near the entrance was a waist-high console with a triangular black glass top that could project images and texts from the library, and at the console sat Maharba and Selraef, the other two rulers of the world. Only four Ancients could meet at once since there were always two trapped in their vaults underground, their minds managing machines that kept the world alive. Ardnax would transmit the conversation to the other vaults through underground transmission lines connecting them, then share the votes of the absent two with the group, though they couldn’t do the same with the rulers. Not without an antenna above ground.

“Look who’s here,” Ardnax’s voice said. It seemed to come from everywhere at once, though somehow it wasn’t loud or harsh. It was as if he were speaking right beside you in a normal voice, but from every side of you at once.

“It’s about time you got here,” Drol Maharba said. He was the shortest of them, though when it came to the Ancients that didn’t mean much. Compared to the entire robot population of the world they were all very tall. His skin was iron grey, like those of his nation, though it bore none of the rust color that marbled the rest of the population. Unlike the rest of the diordna, the ancients didn’t decay. If they did it would cause all sorts of problems, and if the population didn’t that would also cause problems.

“Let’s get started so we can get back,” Maharba continued. “Selraef and I have a big battle coming up, and we should be available to make sure everything goes smoothly.”

Sesom nodded and took his seat at the unoccupied edge of the console.

“Sesom and Selraef,” Ardnax’s voice said. “I believe you two were the only ones that had something to bring to the council? Sesom, would you like to go first?”

“I’d like to start,” Selraef said.

Sesom breathed a sigh of relief. Truth be told he wanted a little more time to collect his thoughts before he made his proposal. He’d never get a unanimous vote, but depending on how well he presented it he thought they’d vote in his favor.

“Very well,” Selraef said. Copper skinned like the rest of her nation, though again without the green tinge of rust, she was the most intimidating to Sesom. Strong-willed, decisive, and unyielding, she was the closest thing to a leader the Ancients had, despite their efforts to divide up the power evenly among them. “My genetic engineers have developed an interesting theory that I think is worth pursuing. A long-distance communications network, using neuron-like structures that can be buried, like telephone wires, to connect cities and individuals. It’s still in the theoretical phase, and they haven’t figured out what the receivers will look like, but with a little encouragement I think it could work.”

“That sounds like a good idea to me,” Maharba said. “Though I’m not sure it’ll work. They’d need an oxygenated blood supply as well as some way to feed and hydrate it. I don’t see how it could work.”

“If it won’t work then there’s no harm in trying,” Sesom said.

“I disagree,” Ardnax said, and Selraef’s eyes reddened slightly with anger sight. She did not like being contradicted, especially by the vault mind beneath her own territory and whom she considered to be her partner. Each vault was monitored by one of them; Mahkram the recycler by Maharba, Ardnax the keeper of DNA by Selraef, and Yiskey the record keeper by Sesom. “To make that work your engineers would have to come dangerously close to recreating human DNA.”

Sesom glanced around at the others, trying to gauge their reactions. Selraef seemed as unconcerned as ever, though Maharba’s face scrunched up in concern. Ardnax’s warnings on these kinds of things were not to be ignored, as he was the mind that ran the machinery that could produce new sets of DNA. Originally he’d been used to repopulate the plants and animals of a decimated continent by creating early forms of life, then producing a specific type of virus that could inject and replace DNA in plant and animal cells to create new forms of life. But once that was done and he was no longer needed they’d found a new purpose for him. Early generations of diordna didn’t like using metal to make tools as they needed it to eat so their bodies could replace the decaying cellular nanobots that made up their bodies and to provide the materials needed to sexually reproduce, so to get around that they’d decided to “leak” knowledge about DNA into the world and allow them to write new sequences and create their own form of biotechnology. That resistance to using metal had transformed over the years, to the point that now the thought of using metal for tools was entirely disgusting to the diordna, like a chair made from human bones would have been ten thousand years ago.

Early on they decided to use nanobots instead of factory production, to allow for a more natural lifecycle for the diordna. Once they developed the plans, Mahkram, now the recycling vault, manufactured his own parts so he could produce the first generation of diordna and then the diordna would produce subsequent generations themselves. A diordna body was, after all, essentially a nanobot factory, though Mahkram fulfilled a similar purpose on a larger scale, collecting waste for recycling and producing food for the diordna above ground.

“I understand that concern, but pursuing this course could lead to other discoveries we haven’t considered yet,” Selraef said. “You can monitor their code closely, Ardnax, to be sure nothing slips through. If dangerous code is written you can alter it in your production. The engineers won’t know what happened, they’ll just know their code didn’t work and take another path.”

“That could work,” Ardnax said. “Though I still think it’s risky.”

“All I’m asking is that we do this on a trial basis,” Selraef said. “We can come back in a few years and see where we stand. Does that sound reasonable?”

“Sounds reasonable to me,” Maharba said. “And eventually we might be able to have these kinds of meetings without risking exposure by crossing into each other’s territory.”

“Anyone have anything more to add?” Ardnax asked. When no one answered she continued. “Very well. Then let's take a vote. Who’s in favor?” The three of them at the table raised their hands. “Mahkram and I vote no, but Yiksey votes yes. Selraef will proceed with caution, and we’ll come back to this in the future.”

A small smile crept up Selraef’s face and her eyes turned slightly blue with pleasure sight. “Thank you for your trust. I won’t abuse it. And I’ll be sure to ‘leak’ some of the research to your spies so it’s more likely one of us has a genius that can figure it out.”

“Thank you,” Maharba said.

All eyes turned toward Sesom.

“Alright, Sesom you’re up,” Ardnax said.

Sesom took a calming breath before speaking. “We have a problem that I think we’ve been ignoring for too long. We’ve struck a precarious balance to sustain intelligent life, and I believe that balance is too precarious, so vulnerable to toppling. The resources that sustain diordna life are extremely limited, and we’re currently unable to produce or find more. We war with each other to maintain that balance between consumption and reproduction, but the recycling process is imperfect and we lose a little every time someone dies and their oil spills out into the dirt. How much longer can we continue like this? We need to make a change, we need…”

“Mahkram says,” Ardnax interrupted. “That we can maintain the current population for longer than diordna have lived on this planet. At least double that length. Another 15,000 years or more. In that amount of time surely someone will come up with a solution.”

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“Not if they don’t know we need one,” Sesom said. “I’m not suggesting we tell them everything, but something needs to change. Killing each other generation after generation so we can secretly recycle the corpses into nanobots for the farms is no way to live. What happens when this war escalates beyond our control? It could spell the end of intelligence forever. We can’t risk that. And constantly killing and knowing one day you’ll be killed is no way for anyone to live. We need a better solution. I’m tired of war. I think we need to find a way to make peace. We’re already losing oil every time they blow themselves up. Eventually, it will all be gone.”

Sesom looked at the others, preparing himself for the next step. They seemed to be listening, maybe even agreeing with him. At the very least they weren’t dismissing him outright.

“Ardnax is already working on a solution to the oil problem,” Selraef said, dismissing the argument with a wave. “He says that in less than a generation the whales he’s created will reach a high enough population that they can be harvested without problems, then all Mahkram has to do is make a small change to the nanobot code and all diordna kind will be able to use a different type of oil.”

Sesom looked to Maharba, who nodded in confirmation. They hadn’t told him they were doing that, though he supposed he hadn’t told them everything he’d been doing either. “Be that as it may, there’s still the problem of loss every time we recycle a body.”

“I’m guessing you aren’t waiting for suggestions on how to deal with that problem,” Maharba said. “What do you have in mind?”

“My solution is related to what Selraef brought up earlier about the recent advances in technology,” Sesom continued. “I think we need to reproduce humans.”

“Absolutely not,” Ardnax said. “Yiksey is staying quiet, but Mahkram agrees with me.”

“As do I,” Maharba said, obviously shocked by the suggestion. The only one that didn’t seem fazed was Selraef. “It’s too dangerous. I know it’s been a long time, but have you forgotten what happened? Diordna and humanity nearly destroyed each other completely. Two species competing for the same space and resources will always destroy each other, and the result will either be the death of one of them, or mutual destruction. And we came dangerously close to mutual destruction last time. You really want to go there again?”

“I don’t think that the problem was resource competition,” Sesom said. “It was hate. We all became diordna before the wars. Every diordna at that time was human, just with a different body. There were problems, but things worked for a while.”

“Worked for a while?” Ardnax said. “They made us slaves because they were afraid of us.”

“I know that,” Sesom said. “I haven’t forgotten, no matter what Maharba thinks. But we can do better than they did. Make humans, treat them as equals instead of inferior. The intelligent population can grow without the risk of collapsing when something goes even a little wrong. We can stop fighting and start living, and we can allow the rest of diordnakind to do the same. Humans and diordna don’t use all the same resources. We’d be able to divide them up, reduce the diordna population to a more sustainable size, and balance it with a new human population. We lose nothing in terms of economic potential and increase our ability to survive and develop into a greater, more advanced society. If we can stabilize ourselves we could even develop technology that would allow us to leave the continent and find more resources for both humans and diordna. And we don’t risk what happened with the humans before, the population reduced to just the six of us, or worse, zero.”

Maharba scoffed. “You’re dreaming. It’s a pretty vision, but unrealistic. Nothing ever works out so cleanly as that.

“I understand that,” Sesom said. “But we’ll be here to guide it all. We’ve done it so far, with only a few major problems. But we can do better for this world than we have. And we should do better.”

“You make a compelling argument,” Selraef said.

“You agree with him?” Ardnax said.

“I didn’t say that,” Selraef said. “I just said it was compelling. Good even. Not that I agree with him.”

“How do the other two feel about this?” Sesom asked, hopeful. He didn’t think Ardnax would agree to this, but Mahkram might. And he’d already gotten Yiksey’s support. Selraef could be a second vote, she seemed open to the idea. Sesom himself, a third or fourth. He would want one more to be safe. Maharba or Ardnax.

“I think it’s a terrible idea,” Ardnax said. “As I said with Selraef’s proposal, it’s too dangerous. Mahkram says she’s thinking, though she thinks your plan is unnecessary. Yiksey remains quiet.”

It was about what Sesom had expected, and he found himself praying that they’d agree. He didn’t know if he even believed in a god, but he found himself praying to the god of the diordna, Dytie. I guess I’ve picked some things up from them. It can’t hurt anyway.

“Does anyone have any more to say on the matter?” Ardnax asked. Selraef and Maharba shook their heads.

“Let me just say one last thing,” Sesom said. “I think it’s time we stopped fearing the mistakes of the past and started doing things differently. It’s inhumane to keep forcing our nations to kill each other. The problems of the past were a product of an imbalance of power, nothing more. We can do better. We must do better. We must allow our nations to progress instead of suppressing their desire to create new and exciting things. If we allow them to, they can bring us to a better future. And if diordnakind dies then our greatness can live on in the new humans we have birthed, as the ones before us live on in us. Please. Try this with me. For ourselves and diordnakind.”

Sesom fell silent, meeting the eyes of the others who had them. Selraef still looked contemplative, and to Sesom’s surprise so did Maharba. Maybe he had won them over? He sincerely hoped he’d said the right things to convince them, as he didn’t know what more he could say to do so.

“Let’s vote then,” Ardnax said. “Those for?”

Sesom raised his hand, looking to the others hopefully.

Neither of them raised their hands, and Sesom’s heart sank, his eyes blackening a little with sorrow sight.

“Mahkram and I also vote against it,” Ardnax said. “Yiksey is for. Four to two against the proposal.”

Sesom’s shoulders slumped. The vote was nearly unanimous against him. Despite his preparations, his careful planning and writing to be sure he had the right words, he’d failed.

“I guess I didn’t honestly expect you to agree with me.”

“Shall we end things there then?” Maharba said. “As I said, I have some things to take care of above ground.”

“Actually,” Selraef said. “There was one more thing I wanted to say.” They looked at him, curious. “I have to confess that I knew Sesom would bring this up. I received reports from some of my spies recently that you’ve been… encouraging research that gets dangerously close to what you just suggested.”

“Is that true?” Ardnax asked.

Sesom nodded. “I thought I’d lay some groundwork for this plan. And if I’m not mistaken, Selraef has been doing something similar with hers before bringing it to the council.”

“That’s different,” Maharba said. “Her plan isn’t nearly as dangerous as yours.”

Sesom clenched his fists in frustration. Unfortunately, that was true.

“What do you intend to do then?” Ardnax asked. “Now that we’ve voted against it you’ll have to find a way to walk your engineers back.”

“I will do what I feel is best, as always,” Sesom said. He didn’t say that might mean going against the wishes of the council. He’d made plans for that possibility, including plans to protect Yiksey should the others turn against them and try to stop them. If things went bad she could transfer her mind to an abandoned vault Sesom had found. They already had copies of her records stored there, it was just waiting for her mind. “And allow the rest of you the same courtesy.”

“If you take things any farther we will have to oppose you,” Selraef said. “I would hate to see you truly become our enemy.”

“If we treat each other as enemies everywhere but in here, and ignore each other’s council, then what is the difference between what we are and enemies?” Sesom said, more frustration entering his voice than he wanted. “It would be a stretch to call us friends after all these years.”

“Mahkram wants to know why you proposed this now?” Ardnax asked. “This is a concern you could have brought much sooner, or later when, as you believe, things got dangerous.”

“Why not now?” Sesom said. “Our scientists will figure it out on their own eventually. We all know there is a limit to what we can achieve if we continue this way. Sending our best and worst to die together just to allow new generations to live only slows our progress as a people. Why not break those limitations with me? Why not set our people free?”

“We cannot do so safely,” Ardnax said. “That’s why.”

“There’s something that concerns me,” Selraef said. “You think that what you’ve just proposed is best for us all, correct?”

“Yes,” Sesom said. “If I didn’t then I wouldn’t have brought the idea to you in the first place.”

“So when you say that you’ll do what you think is best and allow us the same courtesy, what you mean is that you will continue on this course?”

Sesom met Selraef’s eyes, glaring at her. He didn’t intend to just abandon what he thought was good and necessary.

“The council decided against this,” Ardnax said. “You would oppose all five of us? If one of us does that then what’s the point in having the council in the first place?”

“If we can’t make decisions for our own nations, what’s the point in having them?” Sesom said in return, standing to go.

“You won’t change your mind?” Selraef asked.

“Will any of you?” Sesom replied, pausing. “Even if you can’t see that this is right, I have to do it. If I don’t I may never forgive myself for not trying.”

Selraef sighed, standing. “Then I guess we’ll do what we think is necessary.”

Sesom nodded and turned toward the door, taking two steps before a hand fell on his shoulder, stopping him. A searing pain shot through his body as something pierced his back once, twice, three times, the third one punching right through his spine. His entire bottom half went numb and he collapsed.

Sesom turned to face his attacker from the cold metal ground, life oil leaking out around him. He saw it more than he felt it, though one of the stabs was above the point where his spine was severed. Selraef stood over him, stone knife dripping with dark near black oil.

“What’re you doing!?” Maharba shouted, leaping to his feet and knocking his chair to the ground. Sesom barely registered the words as he struggled to focus, gasping in pain, trying desperately to fight the oncoming death.

“What I feel is right,” Selraef said. “Just as Sesom agreed we should do. If he makes a human it puts everyone at risk. We all know this is for the best.”

Maharba didn’t respond.

Sesom prayed silently for help, though he wasn’t sure what kind of help he expected. After all, his prayer from moments ago went unanswered, so why would this one be any different? He was dying, and the only living beings that knew where he was were standing over him.

“Ardnax,” Selraef said, though Sesom was having a hard time focusing on the words. “Don’t tell the others yet.”

“Too late,” Ardnax said, his voice fading as if it were moving farther away. Sesom’s mind was slipping away. “As always I’m transmitting a description of events in real-time.”

Selraef huffed angrily, and Sesom vaguely felt them move him, his head swimming with pain and oil loss. He would die, but maybe he could survive long enough to… what? Get a message to someone? The Egeilen would be done without him. The war was thought to be a holy war, the ruler chosen by Dytie against those who claimed that title falsely. What would happen when their “Chosen” vanished, proving that he was not supported by their god?

“Yiksey isn’t responding,” Ardnax said, but it was so quiet to Sesom that he didn’t know to celebrate her escape.

Sesom had to survive long enough to spare them destruction somehow. Under the right circumstances, a diordna body could survive nearly anything, though the technology was held only by the Ancients. Unfortunately, Sesom didn’t have any of the equipment he needed to survive. Still, these most ancient of bodies were superior to the rest of diordnakind. Not only did they not decay, but they could reallocate resources, shifting metal muscle nanobots to other parts of the body if he could focus strongly enough on the process. The body as a whole would resist the change without his equipment, but he could extend his life a little. Hopefully, it would be enough.

Sesom briefly saw the stars overhead as he was dragged from the underground tunnel before he fell unconscious.