I try again to dig myself out. There’s not a lot of ambient energy to pick up here, so doing much growing isn’t an option. My current cloud is barely big enough to maintain the thicker armor that’s keeping me from being crushed and frozen. Using the small excess that I have to loosen the earth above me and push up from below me gets me another five centimeters. Hurray. At this rate, I’ll break the surface some time later this year. Or maybe next. Not that the timing matters, I don’t have enough air with me for either.

I reach out to the sides. It’s slow and laborious. I can dig, but I have nowhere to put what I move. Eventually, I find the power conduit that was bringing electricity down to the lab. Salvation! I tap in. With this, I should have plenty of power to grow to where I need to be to get myself out.

No.

No!

It’s dead. It must have been severed somewhere above when Jeff’s lab collapsed.

I breathe. Deep and slow. I think that’s supposed to make my oxygen last longer. Did I hear that in a movie some time? I don’t remember.

Being buried alive is a strange sensation. Just me and my thoughts down here. I sent a distress call up to Andrea. I hope she got it. She didn’t respond, but that’s normal for her. I haven’t been able to get any kind of connection to anyone else, they probably don’t have a large enough spread to detect the signals from way down here. The connection was really weak though. If Andrea didn’t get my message, I have a couple of hours worth of air in my tanks before I die.

We had a plan to save the world. The one that Father made and I improved. We’re behind now. Most of this year has been a loss, since we spent so much of it dealing with Jeff. There are half a dozen major projects we were supposed to have done by now that we haven’t even started. Maybe I can finally go back and finish what Chad started in Africa if I get out of here. If I don’t, I’m sure my siblings will get there. And to the Nile. And another dozen rivers and lakes in Russia, India, China, and whatever other places I don’t remember and don’t have handy in my index. Water and power. That’s what we were supposed to do.

I remember so little now. Lin. Evan. Valerie. Andrea. Louise. I think those are all the people I know on my own, and it was hard to make that list. And Mom, but she’s dead. Their entries pop as I put them down here and I know them all again. Until I forget.

Mom, I think my mind is lost now. I don’t think it’s coming back. Too bad it didn’t survive long enough to save the world. That plan was solid.

I guess we did get the automines working, and that was ahead of schedule. And there’s really no reason that the Geologists couldn’t establish as many more as we want all around the world. That handles resource scarcity.

I breathe in and out again, slowly, deeply.

I look at the plan again in my index. The Roadbuilders are good kids. They’ll get the world’s transportation infrastructure fixed up. Clean, fast, durable, reliable routes between everywhere anyone might want to go to. Free solar-powered vehicles accessible on demand to whoever needs them.

The darkness is consoling. There’s so little to worry about here. Nothing to do but wait and think.

The Doctors are so young. Can Louise really get them all into medical school? That would be good for them. Maybe all the kids should go do some college before they have to save the world with us. I don’t know. We should talk about it all at the next class meeting, if somehow the earth above me moves and I ever make it to another class meeting. Having them take a few years off for formal training would slow the schedule, but maybe it’s worth it. Getting to see life outside the Butler Institute campus would be good for all of them.

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Louise’s decision to share the tech with the fire department set a precedent that I didn’t expect. Maybe we can put together a First Responder package for the contact interface and let fire departments, paramedics, and police all over have access. It wouldn’t be that hard to limit it to only a subset of helpful features. I can see the benefits in police not needing to fear bullets, and while letting them incapacitate people at a distance is a little scary, it’s probably an improvement on what they do now. We should be able to make it harmless. We’re already licensing out our VR version for environmental cleanup and humanitarian projects, is this so different?

Obviously we’re going to have to deal with the public backlash against nanotech after this whole thing, but we contained the wild bots with our own nanotech without losing many lives, maybe none. I don’t know. Definitely less than that missile aimed at Jeff must have killed.

And besides, with the contact interface out to a bunch of people we can’t keep track of, I don’t think we could stop our tech from getting spread around anyway. No special hardware required, just a phone and a friend who already has the interface and is willing to share their cloud.

My air is more than halfway gone.

I look through my open index entries. Why was I looking at these? Oh. They were the only people I remembered. Why did I remember them? Andrea is going to get me out of here. She has the power to transmit and receive even with this kind of interference. She’s almost as strong as I am in terms of sheer size, and so much stronger in so many ways. I send another message to her, but I don’t get anything back. The link was so tenuous anyway. Maybe she’s out of range, or switched back to standard comms.

Why was I thinking of the others?

Lin. I love Lin. We’re getting married, but I don’t know when. Will she still want me anymore? I’m more broken now. I don’t think I’ll ever walk again. Not like I used to anyway. I flex my fingers again. Only one hand moves. Better than nothing, I guess.

Evan and Louise. Why was I thinking about them? I scroll back.

Wait.

I killed them?

That doesn’t feel like me.

Mom, did I really kill them both?

There it is, in my log. I caved both of their heads right in. I don’t lie to myself. Not anymore.

I don’t feel good about that at all. My stomach twists in revulsion as I read back over what I did. The darkness stops comforting me and becomes a torture. How could I do that? Was it really the only way to save the world?

Even then, it doesn’t sound like me.

Well, maybe. Jeff was at least partly right about me. I am pretty pragmatic. Morals have been kind of optional for me ever since Mom died. Then especially after I stopped feeling any guilt. And I really love having a world that’s not destroyed. Probably at least as much as I love my siblings.

It’s dark down here.

To Andrea: Maybe half an hour of air left. If you can come get me, I’d appreciate it. I’m still right above the lab. I’m sorry about Evan and Louise.

Even if she isn’t getting my messages, she should know where I am, right? She knew where the lab was. Even if she didn’t, the collapse of the lab must have caused some damage they could have seen or felt on the surface. Maybe they don’t want to save me. I did kill Evan and Louise so maybe they’ll just leave me down here.

I spend some quality time gazing into nothing. Maybe another ten minutes of air left. I breathe again, deep and slow.

I need to get the code and the link address to them, along with the locations of the failsafes. I already sent them to Andrea, but I’m not confident she got them. Besides, when I die down here, I want people to know who I was. What I did. I want Lin to know I really loved her. Do I have time to decrypt my logs and index? Yeah. If I start now, they can all be in plain text stored on the drives in my satchel before I die. Whenever someone gets around to recovering my body, they’ll be able to read every word and thought. Hopefully they can stop the failsafe devices in time.

I start the decryption.

I hope they understand.

I’m coming, Mom. I’ll be there soon.