“The victor will always be the judge, and the vanquished the accused and thus history is written by the hands who’ve slain their foes. The echoes of the lost becoming forgotten in the river of time.
This is true in every case except one…” The professor paused, looking at each of his students individually. With a sullen tone he continued.
“The world fell, the promise of a new bright age. That humanity would leap from our pale blue dot in a sea of stars, and venture into the cosmos. A peaceful race, a moral race. Until that dream became the echo lost to time.
The Righteous, decided that dream was not for us…
Bombs bathed the world in fire, and disease spread like a flood.
They tried to snuff out that dream, but the echo still remains. Structures that reach towards the heavens above. Though they’re empty and in ruin now.
Like icarus we reached too high, and the god of abraham smited us down.
Yet the echo remained…
We all saw the plan science had in store for us. A hope that took us into the heavens.
We also saw God's plan when the so-called “Righteous” dragged us back into the mud from where we came.
It took 500 years, but that echo became a roar. We destroyed the instrument of calamity. The last great barrier to the heavens. Religion at last, vanquished.” The room was silent as the professor finished his speech. Behind him the windows slowly started letting light in and the students could begin to see what lay beyond.
Gasps could be heard, tears were shed, but nobody said a word.
Kalen had heard his parents discuss the history of earth. He had never seen it though. As no stillmems or other memory capture devices were permitted here. This is the pilgrimage every “Guide” is required to make before receiving their assigned solar system. They say a “story” or an “idea” can destroy the world.
I didn’t believe it… till now.
Buildings stretched a few hundred feet into the sky; and there were thousands of them, but there were more that had collapsed. Even those that remained standing were in ruin. The most striking thing though... The entire world, everything out to the horizon was gray and covered in ash.
His classmates stood as if in a trance, and walked to the window. The room was round with a panoramic view. The tower they were in was in stark contrast to the desolation around them. A tower that rose into space. A needle from the hellscape below rising to the heavens.
Kalen walked around the perimeter, looking at the world of ash miles below.
Everything is gone…
The professor walked to the middle of the room. He spoke softly, not having to speak up over the oppressive silence.
“Humanity, limited to this small oasis in the greater cosmos. Only had a population of 8 billion souls. Before we finally reached the stars, we were only seven thousand...
Humanity, all of our potential. All of our music, our art, our progress. All of the 8 quadrillion humans alive today, inhabiting thousands of solar systems. None of us would be alive today, had that final bastion of our species fallen to desolation. We were a candle in a storm that refused to die.”
The professor raised his hand. Moving his index and thumb as close together as he could. He spun around the room. Making eye contact with each student.
“We were this close to extinction..” He said with finality.
Kalens eyes drifted back to the ruins below, as a memory surfaced. He had asked his mother what the most dangerous thing in the whole universe was. This was of course after learning about nuclear, thermonuclear, and antimatter bombs. Yet, her answer was not what he’d expected. Since it, on its own, couldn’t harm a single person. So he had ignored her words.
“Faith” She had said simply, while running a hand through his hair lovingly.
Now he saw.
I believe you now.. Mom.
The silence lingered for another twenty minutes, before they were asked to take their seats again. The windows stayed transparent as the room descended to the surface. Kalen was fascinated by the space elevator they were on. Their ship had docked at the space station tethered to “Galileo’s Ascent” As the first space elevator had aptly been named.
Kalen watched the ground approach at a controlled yet rapid pace. He was unfamiliar with the muffled sensation. The g-forces tugging at his body during space travel were always nullified and replaced with the ships own gravitational field. But he understood. He saw that the elevator was slowly acclimating their bodies to earths gravitational field.
He remembered reading about early explorers experiencing severe physical side effects of entering new planets. Our natural biological bodies evolved for life on this planet. So to go to a planet with more or less gravitational pull would have excruciating side effects.
Thankfully our bodies are no longer limited to our old biological parameters.
Kalen did feel a sense of rightness as their descent came to its end.
When they reached the base, they had been briefed. They may only take one keepsake, and if anything of scientific value was found it was to be confiscated by the researchers that manned the outpost. The base was a simple warehouse. Sanitary white with glass domes scattered throughout its interior, several of the domes had the opaque privacy glass activated. They were walking to one such dome, though, this one was transparent.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
Once they all entered the room, the professor began.
“As you all know, we could hardly be considered biological anymore, as most of our parts have been replaced with synthetic organs. We don’t even need to breathe like our ancestors who’s homes we will explore today had to. The reason we need these suits is for the extreme temperature fluctuations. Even our modified bodies cannot handle being cooked in an oven,and immediately thrown into sub zero conditions. Aside from that, even if we don’t have to breathe, it’s still nice to draw breath.” The professor finished with a smirk drawing a humorless chuckle from Kalens peers.
The suit was uncomfortable initially, as the interior lining was some kind of gray goop. It took a minute for the gel to absorb his body heat and mold to his skin. After the brief moment of uncomfort, it was like a second skin, only adding a bit of weight to his form but not inhibiting his movements in any way. Kalen examined the gloves before putting them on, inspecting the gel.
“Curious how it works?” His professor asked, startling him out of his thoughts.
“Yeah, I felt it adapt to my body temperature pretty quick, but doesn’t that mean it will adapt to the external temperatures quickly as well?”
The professor nodded along, seeing the logic.
“Good good.” He said, grabbing the other glove and gesturing to the external side.
“So it's actually quite a simple concept, difficult to make as far as the material science goes but like I said the concept is simple. The external shell of the glove reflects almost all thermal energy and radiation, and..” He paused, now gesturing to the gel inside. “ The gel here insulates the temperature inside. There are plenty of gels that could do that; however, this one is special. This is Nanogel. It insulates from one side only and reflects from the other. Remember how I said the shell here reflects ALMOST all thermal energy, well the gel here makes up the difference.”
Kalen looked at his suit with newfound appreciation, he also thought the suits looked pretty badass. Sleek black compression suits with a faded silver hex pattern woven into the hard shell. It was an interesting sensation feeling a hard shell on the outside but it flexing with his body's movements effortlessly on the inside.
“You done checking yourself out there Kal?” A feminine voice said playfully.
He felt his cheeks flush for a moment before collecting himself and looking at the woman in front of him. She looked good in the suit and it took just a moment too long for his eyes to reach her gaze. She was fair with red fiery curls and bright green eyes.
“You looking at me or the suit?” She asked with a smirk, both of them knowing the truth.
“Obviously, the suit.” Kalen replied confidently. “I was just interested in how the suit formed to a female's body, since they all looked identical.” He said as if it was the most normal thought in the world.
She raised an eyebrow as she came to stand next to him. The class was branching into groups.
He relaxed his shoulders as the awkward conversation passed. Just then she leaned in close.
“Does it fit nicely?” She whispered in his ear.
Just like that his entire face was beet red. He heard a giggle next to him.
“Hey Cat, why does Kal look like he’s been holding his breath?” Kendra said with a knowing smirk as she stood next to Cat.
She leaned forward and whispered to Kal, like she was telling an important secret to him.
“You know you don’t have to breathe right?”
Kal gave up and played into the joke. “Not helping,” he shot back. Both of the girls just giggled softly.
“Where is Dylan?” Kalen asked, looking around as he said it.
“Well I was flirting with Josh, but after I saw these two picking on my best friend. I heroically decided to come save you.” He said, shoving his way between Kal and Cat.
He then joined in the whispering “You guys do know he doesn’t know how to flirt, right”
“You know I can hear-”
“Why do you think I do it?” Cat started, “Did you see how red he got?” Kendra continued.
Kalens mouth was hanging open at this point.
“Easy girls you might break him” Dylan finished.
“Not you too” to which all three giggled like children.
“Okay, I see you all have already broken off into groups. This is good. We have two weeks to explore before our ship goes back to port in Alpha Centauri Prime. Your helmets can radio for help anywhere on the planet. Remember to only take your suits off in the HabPods. Your suits should protect you from almost all dangers, but these are ruins and a building collapse can still kill. Lastly, please treat Earth with respect. This is the birthplace of our species”
Each group headed towards the Rovers. They were land skimmers built for exploration. They could move at near the speed of sound and were large enough for their party of 4 to comfortably sit and store their packs. Inside. There were two extra seats for what Kalen assumed would be larger classes than his. On the outside they were Bright white oblong orbs. The doors opened from either side. It surprised Kalen because he hadn’t spotted the seam that the door could have opened from.
Before they’d arrived at Sol Prime, or earth. They had reviewed old earth maps and decided which areas they wanted to explore. Kalen had struggled translating the 2D maps of old to the modern 3D ones. That 4th grade class had been one of the most difficult courses he’d taken because they made the students do all the calculations by hand. It had taken him a week and nearly 100 pages of calculations to translate the simple topographical map of the moon Enceladus to a 3D one. Now onboard AI’s could do that almost instantly.
The Hologram popped up in the center of the rover as they stepped in. All the seats were facing the center so they could talk. The interior of the massive gull wing doors turned transparent as the skimmer lifted off the ground, giving them an unobstructed view of their surroundings.
“Please input location” The onboard consciousness said in the Kalesi accent of their homeworld.
Cat leaned forward and grabbed the Hologram of Earth. She shrunk it down to a comfortable size and looked for the right location.
“We are here,” she blew up the area she was pointing at so they could all see, and overlaid it with old earth maps. It showed up as “Northern California” . They had to learn old earth English, Mandarin and Latin before they came here so they translated easily enough.
“Why did we have to take all the language classes if the AI can just translate it for us? Dylan complained.
Kendra was the one who answered. “Because, smartass. We can’t take the AI with us. So what if we find something out in the world and we can’t read it?”
Dylan mimicked her question back to her before responding. Getting an amused smirk from Cat and Kal.”Then we just take it back to the rover to translate it.”
Kendra stammered.. Trying to think of some sort of comeback. Normally we could just capture Stillmems and send them back to the rover but all of that tech had been disables when they reached the space station orbiting earth.
“And what if it’s too heavy to bring back?” Kalen asked, smirking, taking pity on Kendra and paying back Dylan for joining in earlier.
Kendra harumphed victoriously. She turned to Cat. “I approve of this one” She said, smiling ear to ear as she gestured to Kal.
This time Cat was the one to turn red.
“Ohhh, you guys think you’re so smart. How did you even get into the Guide’s program?” Dylan said. “If it’s too heavy then we just move the rover to the object, duhh.”
Everyone else just rolled their eyes at him.
“Okay, So we’re in Northern California, where is that in relation to where we’re going?” Kalen asked Cat. She nodded, thankful to be back on task.
Kalen you wanted to see the Pyramids in Egypt, Kendra you wanted to see the Northern Lights, Dylan… you wanted to see Chernobyl for some weird reason, and I wanted to see Rome, because it was the longest lived society on earth until our own. You know, an actual reason.” She said while making eye contact with Dylan.
“What? I have a good reason…” He paused suspiciously like he was trying to think of a good reason. “Aha! It was the first time we discovered that we could permanently alter a planet. That consequences weren’t limited to the reach of a sword or the distance a bullet could be fired.” He said, the last part imitating the professor's voice.
“You just came up with that, and don’t shamelessly quote the professor like that.” Cat snapped back. “But fine, that actually is a decent reason.”
“It’s not like your real reason is that, and I quote.. “Nuclear reactors are cool”... Nooo, not at all” Kalen said, sarcasm dripping from every word.
“Who’s side are-”
“Boys!” Kendra yelled, but without any harshness in her tone.
“He started it” The boys said in unison, pointing at each other.
“If we hadn’t shared our transcripts, nobody would ever guess you’re both 20” Kendra said tiredly.
Both boys just had shit-eating grins plastered on their faces.
Cat just sighed, and mumbled something about being paired up with children under her breath, as she input the destinations.
They watched the other rovers take off in different directions as Cat plugged their destinations in.
Finally their Rover then took off. They stayed quiet for a while. The sheer scale of the desolation bringing them into a solemn mood.
They were moving at great speed, a few hundred feet off the ground. Small towns were reduced to the concrete foundations they were built on, rusted boxes rested in straight lines on what the ancients called roads, the boxes were the vehicles they manually drove. Cities passed by in a flash, and massive ditches and valleys dotted the barren landscape. They used to be rivers and lakes.
“I didn’t think ideas held enough power to destroy everything,” Kalen said softly.
A moment passed in silence between the four. Cat was the one to break it.
“I keep looking at each of their vehicles. Each one was a person. I’ve been asking myself, what wonders could each person create, what was their individual story. All that knowledge… potential. It's just gone... and that's just one vehicle. The scale is just…”
Dylan leaned his head on her. Tears falling down his face. As they all just watched the dead world pass them by.