Chapter 3A: Coming of Age
“Three months to go.”
The girl wandered the hallways, practicing her newly regained motor functions. Thankfully after a month of pumping up on nutrition bars and protein supplements, her body finally recovered enough muscle mass to perform regularly. She does still get fatigued at times when performing heavy manual labor.
On her neck was a necklace with a USB drive in the shape of a gear. On it was the word ‘Gadget’ neatly ingrained into the plastic. She recently took a look inside of the storage drive only to find it was filled with far too much-unorganized information. But after reading just a few snippets here and there, she realized any one of the major projects she can copy would amaze the judges and elevate her ranking. Right now she is back to C+ rank after they tested whether her cognitive functions have deteriorated or not. After several tests and logic exams, they deemed her fit for release.
They reinstated her rank and looked on with awaiting eyes for her coming of age ceremony.
“Three months left,” She whispered again as she continued to wander.
When one is faced with a countless number of choices, it is hard to make the correct one. Like the illusion of choice that capitalist society brings to consumers, she has many brands to choose from, but only one name will genuinely skyrocket her up to Gaia.
Her first choice was the last project the old man was working on, the electric tree. It took the artificial oxygen recycling from the oxygen recycling plant and try to change it to produce power. On the seed ships, it is worthless as the reactor core provides more than enough power for all the ship’s needs. But perhaps after humans have found their new home and would require a more sustainable energy source other than solar or kinetic, they can use the trees. Not only would it be aesthetically pleasing, but it would also provide a much-needed service. They would count as infrastructure as well so the maintenance would be dependent on the government.
But for the plan to work, she would have to make a prototype. The old man was working on one before he passed but it was far from complete. He suddenly stopped all progress on it and moved on to what he labeled his ‘Magnum Opus.’
The next topic that she found interesting was the food situation. Currently, the entire ship’s residents live off of tasteless nutrient bars. They contain the daily recommended dosage of vitamin, minerals, carbohydrates, and protein. It’s an all in one packaged meal with the taste of water. The girl’s entire taste palate consisted of metallic and flavorless. Satisfaction of eating has been completely obliterated, and all sense of taste is gone. The AI doesn’t want to waste resources to give flavor to the food the humans are eating. To it, food is just a necessity like breathing and going to the bathroom. There is no enjoyment in the process.
After pondering on the countless topics she was given, she finally reached her destination. Or rather, what her wandering has brought about. She entered the oxygen recycling plant where everything changed.
The doors slid open, and a wave of fresh, breathable air blew by. With great gusto, she inhaled and felt refreshed as her brain was replenished with oxygen.
C5731A walked to the giant redwood at the center of the plant and sat down on one of its large roots. Taking the USB from her necklace, she plugged it into her holographic monitor. A display containing all the files which are now neatly organized bloomed from the monitor.
This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.
It had taken her an entire month just to sort out the whole mess. Countless years of research by the old man dumped into one small device.
She scrolled through the labeled files one by one, reading the synopsis she wrote for each.
“Electrical Trees, Food taste, Mineral separator…”
The list was nearly endless. There was even some in-depth research into psychology; child development, psyche, and much more.
The girl leaned back on the root and looked up at the distant leaves above. Piney needles lined the sky to create a blanket of green.
“What if there was an electrical tree the size of this tree?” She asked curiously.
Perhaps that was what finally help made her decision. C5731A might as well finish what the old man started, and take it up a few notches. Upscale the project from small meter tall trees to giant redwood. A single tree could power a small city. People could build on the tree and live in treehouses that are powered by the tree.
“Wouldn’t that be a sight?” She asked the tree.
But first, she must make a prototype.
______
Inside of twenty by twenty-meter lab was a girl in a lab coat. She was on her knees with a wrench clenched in her mouth. Perspiration was oozing from her forehead and dripping onto her glasses. Finally, she glued the last chip into the circuit board.
With a sigh of relief, she put the metal cover back on and screwed it in place.
“Finally,” C5731A said while taking off her knee braces.
In front of her was a seven-meter tall tree. Its bark was a shiny silver metal, and its leaves were crystalline bulbs. It looked similar to the tree inside the old man’s lab. With a press of a button, the tree lit up. She got close to the bark and blew on it gently. As the carbon dioxide in her exhaled breath entered through the tiny pores in the metal tree bark, it caused a reaction and traveled up the tree into its crystalline leaf bulbs. With a faint flicker, the tree got brighter.
“I-it worked!” She jumped for joy.
A lot of the design was already prebuilt by the old man with his original tree. She just had to go over the blueprint, fix some small bugs that appeared in the programming, and make a prototype of her very own. Every single piece of this new tree was assembled from her own hands. It took a total of two months to learn the concept of the magnificent tree and to go over the blueprint extensively. Then it took an entire week of endless labor to make the prototype.
The girl looked at the calendar on the wall. Circled in red was the big day.
“Three more weeks, just in time,” She smiled brightly.
Over the months she got used to her new body and regained all of her motor functions. She even managed to convince the nurse to let her start her research early using the excuse that her coming of age ceremony was soon.
The nurses knew just how important the day was for all teenagers, so they gave her an empty lab nearby the med bay to work in peace.
Writing up the paper is the final thing she had to do before her project is complete. Either way, she got three weeks to finish it, so she was in no hurry.
With a brilliant smile on her face, she sat down on the chair by the desk. A cup of water conveniently was ejected from the wall.
“Thanks,” She said to the AI.
The silent but helpful AI watched on, like the eyes of a god, eternally trained upon its subjects.
______
The coming of age ceremony, a time that every teenager worry about from the time they turned ten until sixteen. It was their time to shine, to show their ingenuity and to impress their elders. The seed ship sent a representative along with an AI judge. They will inspect the kid’s progress in academia and everything else. Finally, they will inspect the major project the teen was working on. If they did decent enough, they can rank-up. Most smart teens are middling around a C rank. The overachievers are C+ while the lackluster ones are C- or D+. If they manage to get to B rank before they turn thirty, they will be given a one-way ticket to Gaia, the mothership of humanity.
The ship Gaia was an enigma to many who was born on the seed ships. To them, it was their Garden of Eden, their Arcadia, the paradise they’ve always wanted. Since no one who has ever went returned, they could only wonder. Most stories they heard are from historical recordings from during the construction of the mothership Gaia and its seed ships.
Today was finally the day. It was the girl’s coming of age ceremony. C5731A waited nervously in a one-piece pitch black dress. She wasn’t used to wearing formal wear, especially a somewhat revealing dress. Her face was flushed with embarrassment, but she held firm. Today was her best chance to achieve the old man’s dream.
The door opened, and two beings walked in.
“Welcome!” She said with enthusiasm.