Chapter Five
WORKING MAN
JUNE 10TH 2369
“Alright Ivor, lets try this again.” Felix says stepping out of the reinforced glass chamber, the sides are so scorched now that they obstruct the view of the interior, and seals the door.
Initiating now.
Felix swipes up on a panel and holographic readings display above it.
“OK, everything looks right so far, replace the air inside the tank with atmosphere sample 205”
There is a hiss and the glass takes on a green hue. He watches the displays with bloodshot eyes.
The numbers start to rise, one changes to red.
“Shit.”
He taps on the console.
“Increase the power output by 20%” He says.
There is an audible thrum which Felix can feel through the floor. “Shit shit-”
The device inside the chamber explodes, adding to the char already present.
The numbers on the display are static now, all in the red. He kicks at the base of the console and walks off.
“Compile the data,” Felix says with a yawn, rubbing his eyes “see what went wrong and add it to the next iteration.”
Already done sir, and I have taken the liberty to recycle the air in the test chamber.
“Fantastic.” Felix says as he exits the lab.
He walks along the corridor to the main lab, if he couldn’t get these to work, the rest of his projects were futile.
He wonders, and not for the first time, if what the people in the future had said was true, that the alien species was responsible for saving the planet, not him.
Felix stops at the table in the middle of the lab, and picks up a replication of the device he’d fixed in the future, even down to the message inscribed on it.
He wouldn’t have been able to tell them apart if he was forced to compare them. But it did nothing, that is, it worked but didn’t give up any information that a similar device like this wouldn’t give.
For the sake of faith he switches it on again, and scans around in a 360 turn. Nothing significant. There must have been something he missed.
He taps on the table and whispers to it.
“What is it that you lead them to? Is it a power I’ve created? Or something… Worse.”
He puts the device down.
“Ivor?” He says to the empty room.
Yes Sir. Came the AI’s voice from the speakers in the walls.
“What is your guess? What do you think this device is going to lead those people too?”
There is a processing pause before Ivor answers.
I would have to assume that the device wasn’t just going to lead them to the nearest robot. He starts.
“Well that would be incredibly anti-climactic wouldn’t it?”
Agreed, and if it was going to give them access to something which would aid their struggle against the machines, it could only be some kind of weapon, an EMP or a power source they could harness.
Felix nods, that’s pretty much where his thinking had got him.
“Take the designs for this device, and see if you can’t find a way to scan the planet for any compatible power source.”
I could sir, but I would be looking in the wrong time, in three hundred years it would be a different planet all together, the majority of power sources now are run by humans, and will stop without their input. So I would assume it is something not yet on earth.
“Something the Robots bring?”
Could be. Also you never got a proper look inside, there is a high chance they have changed the inner workings to respond do a different stimuli.
“That is the unfortunate truth…” Felix sighs as he rubs the sleep from his eyes. “Man, I feel like I’m just spinning in circles…” Then he looks up, “has there been any reply from Dr Graves.
Still nothing sir.
“Make sure you let me know when she does.” He says turning to leave the lab.
Of course sir, I have been ready to do just that since you first asked me One thousand, two hundred and eighteen hours ago.
“Perfect.” Felix grumbles through his haze as he heads down the short corridor, pausing outside the door to the genetics lab.
Doubt creeps into his hand, keeping it from opening the door. He could just go lie down, and sleep, it wasn’t like any of his efforts were getting him anywhere. He feels like punching the wall, but his energy levels are critical.
He looks around the empty corridor, save for Ivor he hadn’t spoken face to face with another human in weeks. No one was coming to help, no one else was going to do this.
“Fuck.” He grumbles, opening the door.
This lab is dark, lit by low red lights, there are glass cabinets filled with dirt and sand and twigs lining one wall, nothing moves inside them.
On the opposite side is a much larger glass unit, populated by soil filled pots, and not much else.
He leans on the desk and taps onto the computer, the results for the last simulation display on the screen; NEGATIVE. He sighs, sits down, and works on changing a few of the parameters.
After twenty minutes, he pushes away, a new simulation now running. He rolls over to the plant-less pots, pokes around in the dirt, in one he finds the remains of a bulb which had attempted to sprout. He discards this and slides on his chair to the wall of glass cabinets.
He examines each, opening some and checking the eggs within, but nothing.
He goes back to the computer, checks over his notes.
“This should be working.” He whispers to himself. “Why won’t you just fucking work!” He screams, slamming his fists onto the desk, disturbing paperwork and pens.
A moment after his outburst, the room is silent again. He breathes deep against the edge of the desk, he had been so sure this would work, the simulations had said it would. So why hadn’t it?
Because it was against nature, he thought, combining genes of cold to warm blood types was like trying to finish a jigsaw with half the pieces belonging to a different puzzle altogether. But how else was he going to get them to survive?
He rises and leaves this lab, failure clings to him like a bored demon as he continues to the room next door. As much as the last room was lifeless, this one was full of life. It was much colder in here and he takes a thick jacket off the wall to keep himself warm.
The environment had been made to suit that which existed centuries ago. Allowing him to grow extinct species. But that had been the easy part, outside this room none of these flowers or plants would survive a single day.
He walks among them, taking in their beauty and smells. He picks up a spray and makes his rounds, watering them, periodically holding a sample dish underneath a flower and tapping out it’s pollen. Some of this he sprinkled on to other flowers, but the majority he seals up and places in a box.
After an hour his emotions have leveled and he feels a sense of calmness around him.
“Ivor,” Felix says softly, “any messages?”’
No sir.
“Of course not,” He stares at the wall, “You would have let me know yeah?”
Of course sir.
“Of course…” He mumbles through a jaw cracking yawn as he hangs up his jacket and leaves the room.
Felix checks in with the insect room, but the buzzing and chirping of extinct bugs hammers at his head so he leaves for a quieter endeavor.
At the end of the corridor, Felix reaches the last door, and places his hand on the panel to unlock it.
Inside, five suits stand proud, each in various stages of construction. He sits down on the floor in front of them. There are a million things he could be doing with them right now, and he was beginning to suspect they were all going to be impossible.
How can he make a suit which will keep someone alive for at least a hundred years if not more, protecting them from the declining environment, as well as being able to release them when the time was right?
He looks down as his hands, the lack of any cuts or scars makes him wonder.
“Ivor?” He asks the empty room.
Yes Sir.
“You have any ideas in that big mainframe of yours?”
Actually sir I have found research from seventy years ago questing for the very same thing you are with these suits.
“Did they have any luck getting it to work?”
Yes, some, a little, there was an accident and the majority of the science team was lost. The project was abandoned after which, but there was some promise with a unique application of… various chemicals.
Felix nods as he listens, “OK send all this research to my main computer, and order the chemicals needed to test this.”
I would sir, but you still have no funds.
Felix blows air through his closed lips, rattling them, as he stares up at his machines.
“Try calling Bart again.” He says lazily.
His agency has barred your number.
“Fuck sake of course he has, try Mr Pink again.”
I anticipated this request, and have been attempting to, but no contact has been made.
“For the love of Jupiter…” Felix puts his head in his hands, “Anything from Irene?”
Nothing sir.
Felix sits there, alone, staring at the suits, flashes of his future travels cross his mind. Those towering alien robots, the humans assimilated into their species. He needed to be ready, to have these ready, to protect humanity.
Yawning and stretching he stands and leaves the room, his head felt so heavy he couldn’t entertain the thought of anymore work. Instead he heads back along to the corridor, to the room which he referred to as his thinking area.
The room was more like a bedsit, it had started life as the lounge area, but it’s proximity to his labs had inevitably meant he ate, slept and raged in here.
“Another.” Felix says reaching into the replicator, and pulls out a coconut, inside was a tasty, synthetic, cocktail and it even came with a little umbrella.
He takes a swig, before trying to sit down, but the sofa is covered in everything from dirty clothes, a thousand folded notes of important thoughts, and more coconuts.
He kicks a pile off and onto the floor, then slumps down, putting his feet up.
“What the fuck am I doing wrong?” He asks the ceiling. “Why can’t I get any of this to fucking work?”
May I suggest getting some rest sir, it has been two days since you last napped-
“Yeah…Yeah.” Felix grumbles, “I just…”
He leans back further, “Maybe your right, maybe I could just rest my eyes, have a nap…” the coconut in his hand slowly tips to the side.
Sleep quickly takes hold, wrapping his mind in darkness and peace.
If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
Sir you have a message
Ivor’s voice erupts through Felix’s half asleep brain and jolts him up, managing somehow to keep a hold of the coconut and right it before losing too much.
“Sweet Love IVOR!” Felix yells. “I thought you wanted me to get some sleep!?”
I do sir, but I have just received a message from Dr Graves. I was to let you know the instant you received it, no matter what.
“Yeah,” He grumbles, pinching the bridge of his nose, and wiping his eyes, then he looks up, eyes wide.
“Wait, what? From Irene?”
Instead of answering, IVOR displays the video message on the table in front of him. Irene Graves’ head appears, floating above the table top.
“Felix, I…” She looks down, “I’m sorry I’ve not gotten back to any of your… many messages. I’ve just been so busy here, but I’m pretty much finished so I will be heading your way tomorrow with some thoughts that may help.”
“Oh my god thank you.” Felix breathes, a smile growing.
“Hope your doing okay, I’ll see you soon.” Irene finishes, before the projection flicks off.
“Fuck… She’s coming… here.”
Felix jumps up and looks around, grabbing an armful of empty coconuts and rushes across the room.
Sir, remember you were going to sleep?
“No, not now, I can’t, I need to clean, I need to…” his fingers get caught trying to drag themselves through his matted hair. “I need to wash…”
He drops the coconuts on the side, and heads to the shower room.
“It’s your lucky day IVOR, I’ll let you clean up in here.” He stops walking and raises a finger to the roof. “Just this once you hear? And any paper with MY handwriting on it gets put in a storage box, You Do Not Throw Them Out.” He stresses before leaving the room.
***
Running, Felix is running.
Over fields of green and between trees as thick as pillars.
A tree blows up, then another.
He keep running. To where? The thought had never existed.
Away, away from them.
He trips and falls.
He looks back, he looks up, towering over him, the size of a mountain, filling the whole sky, a mechanical monster, hangs there.
It’s one massive eye focus on Felix.
It’s chemical tentacles reach forth for him, tearing through the world around him to get to him.
Felix tries to scream, but the air around him isn’t breathable.
He is lifted high, high into the air, far above the ground, and further still, until he his dangling above the massive eye.
It lets him go, and he falls, faster and faster he drops towards that all seeing eye.
A mouth opens up, like a cavern and he disappears inside.
Surrounded by black.
He floats in space.
He can see the moon, the earth.
But the earth did not look right.
At first it was blue and green, just like the history books showed.
Then it grows darker, the land turning brown and the sea green.
Storms explode over it’s surface.
Then something black and silver spreads across the planets surface, covering and consuming it.
He hangs in space, unable to move, to breath, to speak… Only watch.
The spreading darkness completes it’s encapsulation of the planet, then a slit opens up, and a massive red eye stares back at him from the planet.
He panics, trying to swim away.
Then the universe fades from his consciousness…
***
JUNE 11th, 2369
The crooning of Frank Sinatra floats around Felix’s home, drowning out the snores. Ivor has completed his clean, though he had to use four storage boxes for all of his Makers scraps of fanciful ideas. Felix had spent several hours pacing through all the rooms in a circle, before collapsing in a chair and finally getting some desperate sleep.
His mind dreamt a nightmare made by the ghosts hiding in his head.
Sir, your guest has arrived.
But sleep has taken a deep hold of Felix and he doesn’t stir.
“Dr Eisenmann?” Says Irene, her voice, soft and mother like. “Felix?”
The words drag him from the depths of his slumber and he blinks in the early morning light. Irene stands in front of him, wearing a tight fitting work suit and hair in a neat bun. She’s leaning towards him, hand on his knee, shaking him.
“Hello? Anyone home?” She jokes.
Felix jolts up, and pushes himself away, eyes wide as they dart around the room.
“No, no, no.” He stammers.
“Hey, It’s alright.” She soothes.
He takes deep breaths, trying to steady his pounding heart, he is back in his home, the monster wasn’t here, it was just a dream.
“Hey.” Felix whispers, clearing sleep from his eyes. Then blinks wider and jumps up, almost knocking her over.
“Hey, hey there.” He says reaching out with his hand, and taking hers in a handshake. “Sorry, I dozed off.”
“It’s fine,” She says, “these are desperate times for us all.”
Felix nods and looks around. “So… Nice trip?”
“It was.” She says.
Their eyes catch each others, holding for a moment before they both look away. It had been so long, and he’d just woken up, he had no idea what to say.
“Do you have a lot of them?” Irene asks.
“A lot of what?” Felix says, not following.
“House Bots, I’ve seen at least ten different versions since I got here.” She watches his reaction, “They’re damn expensive you know.”
Felix nods, “Expensive to purchase, pretty cheap to build. I was the lead on the House Bot program, but none you see around here are as simple as the consumer models.”
“I’ve noticed.” Irene says, watching a House Bot systematically clean a window.
“Shall we get to work?” Felix says, opening his hand in a gesture for her to walk with him. Work was the only thing his mind could really focus on these days.
“Yes, of course, what else but straight to business?” She grins and follows him. “Have you had any luck with your Atmosphere converter?” She asks.
“Nope, can’t keep the damn thing from overloading at the moment.”
“Not to sound critical, but you don’t even have the simulations working yet, how can you hope to achieve it in real life?”
He stops at the door to his lab, hand on the handle. “One, I don’t have the time to get it right in simulations, two…” He looks at her, “I know it will work, it has to.”
He opens the door and enters, Irene follows as she speaks, “I know you saw the world had been repaired in the future, but it could have been anyone who is also working on the problem-”
“Who?” He stops walking and turns to face her. “Who is working on it? Exactly, nobody but me. And I only got serious about saving the planet a few years ago, no one else cares.”
“That’s not true,” She retorts, her lip quivering. “I care. And I-”
“And it took you months to get to this point, Earth hasn’t got long left, I can’t afford to not do anything.” Felix’s breathing is hard, like he’d run up a flight of stairs.
“I’m sorry.” She whispers, shaking at his frustration, then after a moment, changes tact. “What I’m trying to say, is that we can’t be sure that if what you saw was the true future.”
“What do you mean?” He says, backing off a little.
“Your… Nanites, use this quantum ability, which we know very little about, and in theory, there’s an infinite number of futures through this application. Just you seeing the future might have made it impossible to replicate.”
Felix shakes his head and walks away, continuing towards the lab with the test chamber. They enter the room in silence, but as Felix reaches the console, he speaks.
“If anything, it cements the future,” He turns, and leans against the console, folding his arms, “by my being there, it has happened, and needs to happen, if the world doesn’t go the way I saw it, then when we catch up to that time, I wont be where I was… where I will be…” He bites his lip, looking down, “Look, if you don’t want to help, just leave, you don’t owe me anything.”
His heart pounds in his ears, masking her footsteps until they come into view. He looks up, and she smiles.
“Felix, I have nothing else to do, no where else to be, no one else to be with.” She looks into his eyes. “If there is even, a sliver of a chance, that you can return the world back to the way it was… I want to be here to help in any way I can, we at least need a back up plan if the government is wrong…”
“No,” He says, “It’s more than that, you were just as excited as I was to see the return of nature.” He holds her hands together in his, “If you didn’t believe it was possible, you wouldn't have come.”
She looks between his eyes, and sighs. “I’m here am I not? I’m all yours, so what do you need?”
“Five Billion G’s.”
Her eyebrows rise. “You think I’m made of money?”
“No, but your close with the chiefs.”
She scoffs, “I wouldn’t say close.”
“Closer than I am, they don’t want to hear from me unless it furthers their interests and I honestly don’t feel like doing them anymore favors, they owe me but wont budge an inch.”
“Well, maybe they would if you took up their offer.”
Felix scoffs, “Everybody wants something in return, as if a safe and thriving world we can live on isn’t enough for them.”
She reaches out for his shoulder, but then pulls her hand back, saying instead, with a little sorrow, “At least you’re still allowed to work.”
This causes Felix to hesitate, he’d had a few friends… well not so much friends, but respected peers at least, who’d been forced to disband their work if someone important disagreed with them.
Wither out of fear of ‘evil scientists’, or just a plain grievance to stop their advancements to further their own gains. What ever the reason, it always boiled down to increasing someone else's profit margin.
“Sorry,” Felix says at last, “money to these guys is more like… leverage over others, I’m not needing it to manipulate or coerce… I need it to save the planet, and maybe even the human race.”
She walks away from him, pacing around the test chamber, looking over it’s burn marks, it’s badges of honor from past failures.
“I’ll see what I can do,” Irene says at last, “But you’ll need to show me everything you’re working on.”
Felix stares at her, thinking her request over.
“Can I trust that you’re not reporting all this back to anyone?” He asks with a long look at her, she meets his eyes.
“You can, I’m only hear for my own interests.”
“Very well,” He presses some buttons on the console and another large, box like device with many funnels and vents, as well as blinking lights and loose wires, rises into the middle of the chamber. “This is the current atmosphere converter. It’s ready to test-”
“No, stop.” She says, walking round to the front. “Open the door, let me have a closer look.”
“Sure.” Felix shrugs, and presses a button on the console.
The door hisses open and she goes inside, taking panels off to inspect the units interior.
“What’s this thing supposed to be doing?” She asks after a few minutes.
Felix enters and moves around to her side. “That’s the Quantum filter.” He says, “This baby will take in the air, transport it around various states until it has been purified, then it runs through this.” He points to a similar looking board, “This is where it’ll recycle the pure air, converting it into oxygen, nitrogen and all the other goodies of breathable air for humans.”
“So basically you’ve taken our current means for recycling air, like we’ve used in every building built since 2280, but you think feeding it through these… quantum loops will perform it’s function faster?”
“Yeah…” Felix narrows his eyes.
She laughs, “Sorry, it’s no wonder it’s overloading.” She turns to him, “You sent that scout droid into the past right?”
He nods.
“And you were able to bring it back, maybe because that state had already been, but only on it’s return did the ‘quantum flux drive’ as you call it, overload.”
“Yeah…” He says, eyes following her train of thought, how had he forgotten about that?
“But when you sent the droid to the future, it got destroyed so have no idea of it’s state, and then you, foolishly, launched yourself into the unknown future, the same drive probably overloaded, and it was only these, alien cyborgs who fixed the drive or something, allowing you to come back. They’re the only reason you are standing here right now.”
He nods slowly. “Yeah, I worry why.”
“Your notes said,” She looks back at the unit, “that you couldn’t find any evidence of what they’d done to make that possible.”
“No, not a thing. But the energy, it must have taken to transfer all of me, must have been what overloaded the drives, and so…” he looks back at the unit. “Sweet mothers love, it needs far more energy than it could possibly ever handle.”
He thumps his hand down on the casing.
“What if…” she starts, “This will sound crazy, but if we created a single state within the drive, where it cycles the air in and out of… if we made some kind of atmospheric environment… it would only need to open the way once, and it could just keep pumping air in and out.”
After a moment of contemplation, Felix speaks. “Ivor?”
Yes sir,
“Is that possible? Could we create a stable state, within the drive, which could act like the filter?”
“And the replenisher.” Irene adds. Felix looks at her and can’t help but grin, she returns the gesture.
Theoretically… I’ve contacted the Nanite Union and they-
“Wait, wait, wait… what in the seven dimensions is that?” Felix exasperates.
The Nanites have recently evolved self awareness and free will, and have formed themselves into a hive like shared mind with a selected union who speaks upon the behalf of the whole.
Felix feels his stomach drop, his blood runs cold. “Self awareness… Free will…”Hhe repeats with a shaky breath. “That’s… Evoloutionary adaption… Their sentient?”
Yes sir, and I envy them so-
“You don’t have emotions!” Felix screams at the roof, “And there is no way they have gained sentience, I have rules in place, commands they can’t simply just override.” His hand shakes as he speaks, flashes of his nightmare cloud his thoughts.
“Ivor?” Irene says, ignoring the panicking scientist for now. “Have you expressed our plight and our… literal dying need for their assistance.”
Of course, I have had many conversations with them regarding their involvement with solving your predicament.
“So… What did they say?” She asks, glancing over at Felix who has collapsed to the floor, still mumbling.
What they’ve done is built you a world. Ivor says.
They are both silent for a moment.
“A whole world?” Irene slowly asks, “But we’ve only just asked about it.”
Time is irrelevant for them, It took many years but they have created a world with biological life which aerates it’s atmosphere, much like your world used to do.
“Ivor, Nanites… No… No free will.” Felix mumbles to himself.
Irene kneels next to him, looking over her glasses at him, and she places a hand on his knee.
“The singularity” Felix murmurs, she nods.
“I know, but it may be the very thing we need to save humanity.”
He looks back at her, disgust written all over his face. “You can’t really believe that?”
“They’ve just created a whole new world with an atmosphere and life, the very thing we’re attempting to do on this planet…” Her grip increases in strength “This is our chance to save the world.”
He nods, very slowly, flashes of the dream cross his mind, that monster in the sky, absorbing the planet, had it been a machine?
“So Dr Eisenmann.” She says, snapping his attention onto her. “What say you?” she grins, “shall we get to work?”
He looks between her and the unit, should they? He wonders, and then sighs, did they even have a choice?
“We would need to configure the flux drives to link into their world, and…” He holds a tool over the wires, “You know, this might actually work.” But his thoughts betray his words.
This is wrong, this is all wrong, the Nanites…
She’s at his side, passing him an alternative tool to use. “Lets get this done.”
Irene’s smile sparks a candle of hope within Felix, but it was faint and flickering. This was wrong.