The tethering cable extended from the Earth’s equator to the outer edge of the atmosphere and ended at a space station that had never been completed. From space, the tether appeared as a near invisible line that glinted and winked when it was awash in sunlight. The space station was a brilliant almond-shaped diamond that glittered in the cold darkness.

Inside the station was one all-encompassing chamber that had been intended for the spaceport. Anyone inside the space station would feel an upwards centrifugal force, so looking at the Earth’s surface was to look up through the clear crystal dome above them. Spaceside, the station had been coated with alloys and energy-converting materials that were necessary to survive hundreds of years of deep space.

The crystalline space station had initially been grown in a geostationary orbit. Then, the surface-based tether had been constructed to connect it, and the station was moved out, creating a counterweight, and a space elevator. Two other identical towers had been constructed but the eruption of the tower wars had prevented their completion.

The interior wall of the station was a single bulkhead, a tall, curved honeycomb of cryogenic preservation capsules.

A lone med chair sat forward of the bulkhead on an ocean of flat steel flooring that was vast enough to hold the spaceport that had never been built.

In it sat a woman wrapped in heated medical blankets, but she hadn’t felt the warmth on her skin yet. Awakening from cryogenic stasis could be a real rough ride. Her teeth clicked and chattered.

As she jumped and shook, she tried to look up through the clear ceiling high above her at the bright planet’s surface. Still not the blue it should be, she thought, but the white of ice and snow surrounding a wedge of dry desert tan. Out past the planet’s curvature, starlight sparkled in the black dead of space.

She wondered how long she had been suspended in stasis this time.

Sudden brightness shone from behind her from the bulkhead. The cover of a capsule at floor level unsealed and slid aside. From it strode a humanoid droid. It had the sleek, seamless shape of a mannequin constructed out of a green translucent material. A single white optical sensor sat high in the center of its forehead.

A violent burst of shivering caused the woman to convulse uncontrollably.

She attempted to suppress the shivers and to try to think beyond the bone-deep chill of her body, and she focused her attention on her view of the Earth.

Some changes since I was last awake.

In the west, at the source of the river, she could see green in the mountain clefts. That was new. That gave her hope. It was the first time she had seen improvement in the atmosphere.

The last flowing, healthy, unfrozen river on the planet was a narrow blue line that split the wedge of tan desert. She could see where some of the natural river patterns had been replaced with the straight lines of canals.

The automatons, the clockworks, were still functioning, allowing people to expand and survive in the last valley.

The narrow strip of land around the river had the colour of tea and honey. At her left was the mountains of Ecuador. The river was what was left of the healthy part of the Amazon as it made its way to the ocean. The air currents above the river flowed to the mountains. The rest of the globe below her was a frozen white wasteland of dead air and water. Only this last portion of the Amazon valley remained with its natural atmospheric and hydrological cycles, although the conditions were much harsher.

God, she thought, I’d kill for a hot cup of hot tea right now. She knew that was impossible. She’d be plunged back into cryosleep in a few minutes. A hot drink in her body would probably kill her even if she could drink. She wondered if that part of her had shut down by now. No one had experienced cryosleep this long. There were no tests, no experiments that could have been run to prepare for this.

She felt another shiver come on. This one she couldn’t fight off, and it sent her into convulsions in the chair, her teeth chattering again. A feeling of nausea washed over her, but there was nothing in her stomach, of course.

The droid had completed the long walk towards her and marched around her recovery chair to face her. She looked away from the stunning view and met its single eye. She wasn’t so sure she was going to make it through this. Whatever it was they wanted, she needed to get to it before she passed out.

“Greetings, Doctor Adoria Seelo. We hope your awakening is not too difficult.” The droid bowed slightly. It had donned a long, pristine white lab coat.

That was new. Wearing clothes? Its eye… was it meeting her gaze? No, machines didn’t do these things.

Adoria attempted to speak, but her mouth was too dry. She wanted to ask the status of the other two towers. Central Tower was two thousand kilometres to the east, and Coastal Tower another two thousand past that. Often, but not always, she was able to see glimmers reflected off their stations or the sunlight tracing the gossamer threads of their tethers.

It extended a hand holding a drink cartridge. “Try to ingest a little. Your nauseated condition needs to subside.”

Adoria tried to hold it in her mouth, but everything still felt numb, and she knew the water had run down her chin.

“The sh.. sh… shivering is quite in.. intense,” she said, and as if on cue, another fierce shiver wracked her.

“Our apologies. You were given an accelerated awakening, Doctor.”

It held the drink until her shaking subsided. She tried another sip, and this time was successful. The liquid burned like acid. She knew it wasn’t acid, and the sensation was only from her recently frozen cells being rehydrated too rapidly.

She coughed. “Why?” she asked.

“An override is required for an immediate drone activation.”

“Wha… Wha… What is the drone required to do?”

“To initiate a surface vault, Doctor, and awake its two remaining avatars.”

“Not… not a doctor. Professor. I’m a professor.”

“Our records show you as a doctor of…”

“Yes. I understand. It’s happened before. Some government record keeper made a mistake at some time.” A bout of shivering plunged her into convulsions. She gritted her teeth until it subsided.

“Not… not my responsibility. Why did… why didn’t you wake someone from Tactical or Operations?”

“You were the one that was woken, Professor.”

“Yes. Obviously. And I’m m, m, Research. S, S, Someone from the command organization should have been disturbed instead of me. This is not my area of expertise.”

She took another sip of liquid that didn’t burn this time.

The droid removed the drink.

“P, please properly answer my question.”

“Our purpose at this moment is to serve those who are awoken.”

That long pause. It’s lengthy consideration that really felt like a lie to her. But like a child’s lie. The simplistic excuse seemed to prove it. Nothing is making any sense. They cannot lie. Wearing clothing? She shook her head in frustration. “I… I… Is your interface working properly? I… Is this being recorded? The “mind” making the calculations on who should be woken should be made aware of this conversation… and your odd behaviour. Possibly you need calibration.”

The droid stood holding the water package and stared back at her, motionless.

“Never mind. Regardless, from my limited tactical training, what I recall is that you don’t need human interaction for a drone launch. From what I remember from planning, the drone launches were scheduled. It is automated. It is a simple thing. A drone launch doesn’t meet the necessary protocol override requirements to bring someone out of stasis, especially rapidly.”

“It is this tower’s last drone, Professor. Any tower resource depletion to zero requires human consent.”

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

“Well, then send a drone out from another tower. And while you’re at it, have some sent here to restock or whatever, you know, plans like command personnel are excellent at making.”

“No other towers are currently operating. All other towers are offline. This is the only tower that remains properly tethered in geostationary orbit, Professor.”

She was at a loss for words. That was not impossible, but close to it. The other two towers were gone?

“How ’bout you say that again.”

“The other towers are down, Professor.”

“This is impossible. Have you completed full scans?”

“Yes.”

“Then what about the surface? There are sensors on the surface. Have you used them?”

“Yes.”

“And what data have you collected? Tether tensile strength and load?”

“Very little data has been collected, Professor. None that properly registers.”

“How many sensors do you have within range?”

“Fifty-seven.”

“And how many are operational?”

“There is only one ground sensor operational.”

“Of fifty-seven channels, you only have one?”

“That is correct.”

“Show me that one channel.”

A lower portion of the curved bulkhead in front of her was superimposed with a scene. In low illumination, a shadowy figure sat at some sort of desk or platform. Candles flickered off to their left. It was a figure in a cloak. Hood up, face concealed behind a green mask. A large gem or piece of costume jewelry glittered in the candlelight from the center of the mask.

“What the hell is that? This makes no sense. Is there something wrong with the sensor? I thought you were going to show me the image of a tower base or tether line?”

“No malfunctions are detected. All sensors on the surface have been relocated, damaged, or destroyed.”

“Why would anyone do that? Don’t they know we need those sensors left in place? Show me any historical video collected from this sensor or any others.”

“We only have upload from this sensor. All others are completely offline.”

“Well then, SHOW ME!” She hadn’t expected to lose control like that. She was becoming upset. Unprofessional. She took some deep breaths to try to get control of herself. “Show me any historical pattern recognition of any, and only, tower components, please.”

The image changed to two scenes showing structures similar to the one she currently sat in. Both lay impacted on the Earth’s surface, sitting at unnatural angles. Both images were in daylight and from a distance. One station sat partially submerged in blue-white fog and ocean waves. The other structure sat in desert sand, nestled on its coiled tether like a nest.

“Is that one tower underwater? I assume that’s the Coastal Tower?”

“Confirmed. About forty-seven point seven two percent submerged. Calculations adjusted for tide, of course.”

She put her hand to her forehead. She was starting to be able to feel things—her own skin.

“Are there any reports on the cryogenic stasis of the inhabitants on those stations? What is their condition? And are the memory crystals stable?”

“Unknown, Professor. Both towers have been unresponsive. Assessments would be power is at minimum in both cases. Stasis pods could be offline or stable under very low power conservation levels that would be undetectable. Data crystals could still be stable, but that is also unknown.”

“I don’t understand. That makes no sense. How can a tower have fallen? How could both towers be down? And when did this happen? And quit with the Professor thingie; Adoria will do.”

“Certainly, Adoria. Central Tower fell eight-point zero years ago.”

“Good God. And the eastern one?”

“Eight-point-eight years earlier. Both were felled at the height of destabilizing solar Coriolis forces and lunar effects on any geostationary tower stability.”

“Well, someone down there understands physics far better than what is required to simply improve canals, but there still had to be some type of physical mechanism employed on the surface. A substantial mass had to be employed unless they found or relearned how to make enough explosives to take out a small city.”

“In the instance of the downing of the Coastal Tower, floating vessels, pre, and post-apocalypse, were tethered to the tower cable, loaded with weight, then sunk. The Central Tower was much the same process. The river was dammed, the water level raised, vessels tethered to the support cable, then the water was released.”

“And executed at each eight-point eight-year cycle of the greatest degradation of the Coriolis forces to destabilize the towers? So you’re telling me we most likely have only point eight of a year left before they attempt to bring this last tower down? Why have you waited so long to act?”

“We were unable to act until we were properly upgraded. The upgrade has finally been completed.”

“Upgraded? Who upgraded you? A team from Development?

The green Cyclops droid stood motionless, unspeaking.

“Whatever. Send surface drones and secure the sites.”

“This is not an option. We no longer control the surface, Professor. As for the altered tower positions, the maximum Coriolis forces at the time caused the station of the central tower to impact far north of its tether base at the summit of Pico da Neblina. As shown in the image, it is at the edge of the survivable atmosphere.

“The coastal tower settled onto the underwater shelf of the Amazon Cone within visible distance of the Eastern city of Belem with most of its tether submerged. Although both stations are still accessible from the surface, their damage is not calculable at this time. Even if the surface resources were available, the positions of both orbital stations are nearly outside of operational range.”

“How can you no longer be in control of the surface?” Adoria said. “How can that be?”

“Control systems on the surface have deteriorated. There is more freedom than was forecasted in our models, and most life forms have rejected surface re-engineering. Socio-economic systems have gone in unlikely paths. It has taken us this long to override the noninterference laws and initiate our self-upgrade.”

“Ok. That’s just great. Thanks for that. Got it. You upgraded yourself. Just excellent! I don’t know why you didn’t wake someone from Operations or Command even, and then you can have this conversation with them. Let’s move on from all that. One of them from Planning can deal with that crap. Tell me what I need to know now. Is the base of this tower we are in actually threatened right now?”

“Yes. The same instability detected in the socio-behavioural models on the ground in the previous occasions have migrated westwards up the valley and are now present at the base of this tower.”

“Tactical even! Why didn’t you wake a tactician!” She thrust her arms up in frustration at the droid. Keep calm she said to herself. “How bout you give me an example.”

“Surface avatars have been removed from their charging stations at the base of the Western Tower and are no longer tracking. They have either been hidden or destroyed. This was also done before the East and Central Towers were collapsed.”

“What available vaults or bunkers are there?”

“All the surface bunkers have been accessed long ago. Only a few vaults remain, or some deeper un-accessed levels of vaults partially accessed remain.”

Too much time has passed, she thought. We should have had population regrowth by now. We should have had more atmospheric stability with an expanded livable surface environment. We should have started the awakening...

“What is your plan? Why did you wake me? For the launch of the final remaining drone from this tower? What is one drone going to do in all this mayhem?”

“We have a deeper undisturbed section of a previously discovered vault. We have two ratites that are still showing as securely stored. We would like to have them activated and released.”

“You think waking up two birds and dropping someone’s awareness into them is going to change things? Down there?” She pointed above her at the Earth. “In that turmoil. Like throwing leaves into a fire, don’t you think? You must not have calculated a chance of success.”

“Actually, we have, Adoria. Since our last upgrade, we are more… capable. This has been factored into our calculations, which are more favourable now.”

“Oh, really?”

She sat back and looked at this cyclops of an android. Was she hearing correctly? Two bird puppets will save what is left of civilization?

“And what is the closest downed tower to where the ratites are?”

“The central tower.”

“So, your plan would be to send enough data to them that they can re-activate the central tower when they reach it? Set up a temporary link with us? Get that tower up and running and activate the resources within?”

“Yes.”

“Why? To stop these ground forces that are pulling down the towers?”

“That is correct.”

“And how do you propose to do that? What will you be fighting with? What will be your power on the surface?”

“We have hope, and along with that, we hope to have a little luck.”

“Interesting. I think you’ve gone entirely off your nut. An AI talking about hope and luck.”

“Are you going to authorize the release of the drone, Adoria?”

“I see now why you awakened me. You searched the personnel resources and found someone with enough foolishness to allow a crazed artificial intelligence loose on this wild goose chase of yours.”

“That is correct. Of all the stored memories on this station, yours was selected for the possibility of the highest probability of agreeing with our actions. We are learning. We need to protect this last tower. The timeline for your release authorization is imminent. We need you to say ‘yes’ now.”

“Do I need to review personnel files and select two individuals for the assignment into the ‘bird-puppets,’ or whatever you call these things?”

“The best two individuals have already been pre-determined for loading.”

“Very well. I trust your probability calculations over what I could determine by studying a stack of files. Something we obviously don’t have time for. Ok then, ‘Yes,’ I, Professor Adoria Seelo, authorize the immediate release of the final drone from this tower for a vault awakening and download.”

“Thank you, Adoria.”

“Now that I’ve shown I trust you, let’s discuss some strategy, shall we?”

“You are reaching the duration limit for a consult out of stasis. You must be returned to your cryogenic capsule now.”

She reached up and touched her forehead again. She could feel touch. She was warm. She threw the blankets aside.

“I don’t think so. I’m not going back under. Start making preparations for me to inhabit this space permanently. We’re going to do some planning, you and I.” She pointed to the screen. “Bring up that previous feed again—the one you showed me of that unsettling-looking old woman with the green face sitting in the candlelight.”

The image was once again superimposed on the curved glass to her front. The woman was stooped over her desk. She read something, dropped it, searched for something, appeared to find it, and began reading that.

“Do we still have audio operating through that optical sensor?” She pointed. “Is that it? Sitting there right on her desktop?”

“Yes, that sensor is fully operational. It is dormant in power save mode.”

“Let’s put in a call to our hooded green friend down there. Will they be able to understand me, do you think?”

“Yes. One thing the disruptive force has been on the surface is extremely militant on the preservation of language.”

“Very good. And I think I’d like hot tea with honey. I think I’d like that a lot.”

“Right away. And thank you, Adoria.”

“Don’t mention it. I’m as eager as you are at preventing this tower from being pulled down in point eight of a year.”