It was a sunny morning, warm and soft and beautiful, like the Saturday mornings from her childhood. A good deal more ocean to look at than she had as a child, Brooke mused, but then she’d been in the Smokey Mountains. Nevertheless, she could see the ocean air gently caressing the small garden outside the window, and heard the eager cries of the seagulls. It was a good day to end things on, Brooke decided as she took a sip of tea.
Brooke had a punky short cut done in purple, pink, and silver, and she was wearing her favorite “I’m an artist so I get to wear what I want and fuck you all” clothes: a batik purple and red Victorian blouse and a leather corset on top of a battered pair of jeans. The jeans had a soft lining of patches and uncountable number of stains from an ungodly number of artistic mediums. She didn’t normally wear jewelry but today was different. Ear cuffs that arched out over her ears in a point, a necklace or three AND a choker, worked leather and brass bracers, rings, including her favorite “ring of resistance” (a ring with an electrical resistor icon inlaid in lapis and gold). It was all finished with a a fancy belt that would have driven her nuts in her normal day to day living, and fancy soft leather boots with flat soles. Over this she draped some flowing, brightly colored batik silks. It was very dramatic and quite loud. Brook smiled and fidgeted with the stupid/amazing belt. This was how she wished she could have dressed every day, if only the blasted jewelry didn’t drive her to distraction. She wiggled her fingers a bit to make it all clickity clack.
A few more moments of quiet contemplation passed as she sipped the coppery tea down and contemplated ends, doing her best to ignore the taste of metal in the drink. Then a quiet knock came to the door and it cracked open to admit the careful head of the nurse.
“Ms. Brooke?” She asked quietly, “The big day is today, are you ready?”
Brooke rolled her eyes where the poor girl couldn’t see her. Sure, she was geriatric at 99 years 9 months and 9 days, but it still sounded like the girl was afraid that she’d break like glass or go off like a bomb. She took a breath, ended up sighing a deep sigh, and said, “I suppose I am. Though you can knock off the dear old senile person routine. I know you don’t mean much by it, but since they found the cure for Alzheimer’s you don’t have to worry about us elderly folk behaving like toddlers for no good reason. The tech that solved that problem also helped stop a lot of mental degradation, you know.”
Then she paused, thought for a second, and followed up with, “That is, unless we never stopped behaving like toddlers in the first place. And there are plenty of those out there, so I guess I can’t blame you for being careful.”
The nurse chuckled as she came in and did a swift scan and tidy of the room, “I was told you’re rather matter of fact, Ms. Brooke. Now do you want a ride or are we walking today?”
“It seems to me that a walk would do me good. A few last good steps before everything changes.” Brook said, “But can you bring the chair for the elevator ride? I’ve been told it’s a bit of a trip and I don’t know that I can stand for that long.”
“Well, no worries there. Nobody wants to stand for the entire trip down so there’s seats on the elevator.”
Brook gave a grunt of approval as she carefully walked over to the nurse. Some might have called it a shuffle, but someone who was fool enough to voice that opinion around her would find that her shuffle was spry enough for her to come over and kick them in the shin. She’d had her hips replaced when she was 80, so it wasn’t weak bones that wore her down. It was all the aching muscles. She felt heavy. She-was- heavy, coming in at 5’4 and 170 lbs. It didn’t show on her too much, since about 35 lbs of the weight was in metal and synthetic materials that had been injected all over her body and transported into her bones by the nanobots over the past two years, much of it in the past month. 35 lbs of material had seemed excessive to her, but as the technician had pointed out- over half of the material was the tools to make the tools to make the final transition.
99 years old, Brooke had lived a long human life. It wasn’t so unheard of these days to hear of people living to 110-115 but then Brooke just didn’t have that in her—to last trembling and cold, always so damned cold, another 10 years. 10 years was nothing, she knew, time just flew by no matter what she tried to slow it down. However , the longer she waited, the harder it would be. So she didn't wait, she acted, and tried to not think too far ahead.
“I’m told you participated in the Southern Coral Garden, Ms. Brooks.” The Nurse said as Brooke reached her.
“What is your name?” Brooke asked, ignoring her statement, at least for the second.
“Mia Harper, Ms. Brooke.” she replied.
“Well, Mia, yes, I did. When they offered me the chance to do trade for a design there was no way I wasn’t going to take them up on that! Honestly I can’t think of an artist who wouldn’t.” Brooke smiled as she took Mia’s arm and they started down the hall. It was slow going, and Brooke did her best to ignore the existential dread and heartbreak that her failing body caused her. “I love even the concept of a floating artificial reef. When Greyson and Peel figured out how to make the alumina nitroxyide—I hope I’m saying that right, hon—hmmn… oh, the clear aluminum bubble domes!
“They figured out how to make the large scale bubbles that cover the floating cities, and then they anchored to the seabed in the open ocean a giant float and said, ‘here! Build an art garden for coral growth!’ Well, I nearly squee’d like a teenager. Can you imagine? It looks like a giant jellyfish bobbing just under the surface of the water, with the coral frames hanging below to a hundred feet-uhhh… 30 meters??” Brook sighed a little huff, “I just wish I could have helped make the thing, you know. Been young enough to go out bend steel and do some underwater welding. Still getting to design a 30 x40 meter frame into a 3 dimensional anchor and choose the coral to be anchored to it was so much fun.”
“Turn here, Ms. Brooke, we can travel to the southwest pylon using the atrium ring.” Mia directed her to the Inner ring of the floating city. “I read they based the superstructure on Radiolara.”
Brooke knew that she was being baited, that Mia was only trying to get her to talk to make the walk more comfortable, and boy was she going to take that bate. Fool got herself in it now!
“The engineers needed to figure out how to make sure that the structure would survive the open ocean. The first couple of models ended up either spinning or breaking in a simulated storm. Those were fun videos to watch. Had to look to nature for instruction on how to best deal with being a small speck in the open ocean! … Have you ever seen Haekles work? You should look at his etchings, very well done and interesting.”
She kept talking—about art, about construction, about the design of the floating coral reefs—all while they moved at a snails pace through the high, arched hallways of Dawon, one of the great floating city states of the Pacific. The building they were in was a mega-rig, four massive pylons the size of mega skyscrapers supporting a building that was 8 stories with a garden on top, built in the shape of a ring. It was all enclosed in a massive dome of transparent aluminum which was bonded to the pylons. The pylons sank down into the water and the atrium looked down into the ocean below. During the typhoon season they pumped air out of the pylons and sank the city down to the level of the sea, where the waves could crash dramatically into and even over the dome, and the donut hole sloshed cheerfully. In the case of a mega typhon, they would drop the entire structure below the roiling waves to the calmer waters beneath.
Today Brook got to see the water crashing against the pylons below, though the ocean was relatively calm. Didn’t matter, it was mesmerizing, and Brooke took a moment to look down and enjoy the view as young people passed them by doing young people things.
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Mia gently prodded her forward so she shuffled and kept talking even though she was panting heavily by now, “Anyhow… I got to present a design… for a panel… that’s going to vanish in time… should we have our way… and the coral grows. … … … The hope is that in 20 years … or so … the growth will be enough … to let the gardens be neutrally boyant … and 10 years after that they’ll … need to be cut and … and towed to an appropriate site for grounding.”
They “walked” in silence for the next couple of minutes as Brooke gasped for air. Mia offered to get her a wheel chair again, but Brook refused, some primordial urge driving her to stubbornly keep walking, at least until Mia told her that the transport was going to be leaving in 10 minutes and at this pace they were going to miss it.
“Time is the master of us all.” Brooke muttered philosophically and managed to keep most of the resentment out of her voice. Mostly. Mia patted her shoulder and, with a quick jaunt to a janitorial closet, pulled out a wheel chair and helped Mia into it.
Then they were off, whizzing through the corridors at a pace that only seemed sedate to the young and firm of body. The interior hallways were less interesting than the atrium, painted cheerful colors with the occasional mural or art piece hung on the wall. All too soon they came to a heavy circular door set to the side of a rounded hallway. Through the hallway came a steady wind heavy with sea salt and on the other side was the elevator station.
Great spheroids of metal and transparent aluminum hung on a thick rail, waiting to be attached to the thick, wet cable that spun by. They were larger than any arial tram Brooke had ever seen, but then, they were going down, not up, and the issue of weight wasn’t so much a problem, she supposed. The spheroid seemed to be made largely of ceramic coated metal with two large, circular windows, about a meter in diameter each. Set to either side of the oval door they caused the tram to look like a cartoon head with a vacant stare.
The connections to the tram system seemed as mysterious as ever to Brook, she never did figure out how a gondola got on and off the track, but she could see the way they connected the tram here was very different than any she had seen before. Instead of attaching to the top in some complicated hinge or joint or another, the spheroids had two arms that reached up on either side from very large thick, puck-like disks. She found out upon asking that the pucks were vacuum sensitive explosive stem bolts that would release should the pressure inside the tram drop precipitously. Which is to say it was an attempt to give victims of a tram breach their best chance of survival, allowing the tram to float up as fast as possible.
Brook insisted on getting into the tram herself, it was her last day after all, so she should get to struggle all she wanted. The tram operators grumbled some but acquiesced, and after some good hard work she stood up in the door frame, with Mia holding her arm firmly. Inside she could see that in front of the two windows were two soft swivel chairs. One had an elderly man already ensconced in it, who was glaring at her for taking so long even while he was talking to someone on the phone.
“Yes, I want them to make the transfer. …. No, those greedy bastards can just suck it. Its my money, and I intend to use it to make my new life comfortable! Besides, they’re getting the business, if only Jimmy doesn’t drive it into the ground. … yes, yes, I’ll be keeping an eye on it. I’ll be available for advice as they need. I’ll be in Star.Fleet for the next month and a half before I can get my new kingdom set up…. Well, no, it’s not really going to be a kingdom, it will be an empire, but that’s the fun part. EG has set up a little scavenger hunt for me, it’s supposed to level me up faster than the plebs and it’ll help her get more territory when we release my new content. … ah, are we? Yes, I suppose we are late. There’s this old geezer bitch taking her sweet time getting into the pod.”
She ignored him, and when he yelled directly at her at her for moving so slow she simply shrugged at him and told him, “it’s going to take as much time as it's going to take.”
You’d think that a man in his 80’s would have learned some patience by now, but no. Ah well, Brooke thought, that’s his problem.
All too soon Brook was settled in the squishy chair. Looking back into the capsule, Brooke saw the grumpy old man pointedly ignoring her with a very practiced look of superiority on his face, 6 miners in seats around the edge of the sphere and the center of the sphere was filled with long black boxes. Some were thick, about 2 ft tall, some were thin at 6 inches but long. There were also a couple cylinders, and it was the cylinders that clued her in. These were the physical remains of bottled humans, the cylinders being the literal brains in jars that most permanent denizens of the underworld inhabited. The fat boxes were people who were undergoing the process, and the flat ones… probably people who had been rich enough to pay for a coffin instead of the cylinder.
The pod lurched a little as it grabbed onto the pull line, and then swung out over the ocean. For A moment, all she could see was the cement making up the base of the city and the outer shell of the enormous supporting pylon they were over as the line was not so gently angled down into the waters. Then, after briefly bobbing on the ocean as the attached arms swung down over to under the tram, they gently plunged under water and she could see the lattice work that supported the artificial coral reef under the city. Brightly colored fish flitted about, and the corals were surprisingly large and colorful for a reef only 10 years old. She had heard that they were going to introduce parrot fish soon to help keep the corals trim. She didn’t know why but that was nice, parrot fish sounded colorful and fun, so she was all for it.
They kept going down and she watched as the fish and corals changed, and the light faded and lost color until they were in a twilight blue. The coral reef structure ended at 200 Ft, though she could now see the other pylons supporting the city still had corals and sponges growing on them.
Down they went. Down and down. Down into the depths, down into the underworld. The trip took much longer than it would as an elevator climb through a dry tunnel; the pressure demanded respect as they smoothly and meekly lowered into the water. The pylons and their ecosystems kept going until the little read out above the window read 121.5 M and then just open space and darkness spread out before them.
Brook began to get bored. There was nothing to see. The workers made a few jokes and helped the two old geezers enjoy the switch from a nitrogen based atmosphere to a helium base with an increase of pressure in the bubble from tanks stored below the floor. The increased pressure in the bubble fought against the pressure of the world outside and with the helium they all sounded like chipmunks, even Mr Impatient-McGrumpyface. It was delightful.
Then, when was nothing but her face reflected in inky blackness at the window, the workers jovially turned out the lights and let them see what she had been missing.
Sparkles flicked through the water, in bursts and trails, in a spread like glitter in a rug after a someone brought some into the house. Brooke had heard the bioluminescence of the deep described as fireworks but now that she was here, she felt that fireworks was far too organized a term. The sea sparkled with activity, with life fighting for food, for survival. In the darkness light became a weapon and the battle raged all around them.
It was mesmerizing to watch and before Brooke knew it the tram was being turned around a corner and bobbed on the line that was cutting across the seabed and into the red- lit underwater mining dome. It almost felt like being on a roller coaster at the end of the ride, first there was the cement tunnel and then they broke into brightly lit water. The tram was pulled by the pull line into a receiving track and they were pulled along the track by the tram’s buoyancy lifting it to the surface of a pressurized room and slowly bobbing to a stop.
“Good luck to you, Ms. Brooke!” one of the miners squeaked, as they departed.
“Good luck to you to, Chase!” Brooke squeaked back. She was sure that Chase and the miners would need the luck more than her, she at least was here to “die” and would be just one day in this fragile, delicate state under the deep pressures of the ocean. The miners were down here for week long shifts and working in the most hazardous environment for humans on the planet. Granted, most of the work would be by remote controlled miner-bots and carry-swarms but still, miners had to suite up and go out to repair or retrieve the bots on a regular basis, and deep walks were always a risky trip.
It was on the way through the main facility to the reality of her coming death and the possibility of failure finally broke through her will not to think about it. The failure rate was still fairly high at 30 percent. People had fails of all types, loosing part of the brain before it could be reconstructed or damaged tissue too far gone to complete, or misfired nanobots or… the list went on.
Very few of the fails could be recovered to the original person. Many of them were still functional with what they had, but the loss of memory and function created digital zombie computers that were just not the people they had been.
Brooke clutched the bracelets around her wrists in fear, and leaned back in her wheelchair. It was take the risk or bow to the inevitability of her slow decline and certain death. She knew it. She had made her choice, and though that kept her from speaking her fear and trying to turn back, it did nothing to stop the tears that came as they rolled into the room with the table and the coffin.