By now you’re probably tired of me lying scared on the floor, going into shock, being carried around, sitting on my ass staring at everyone’s kneecaps, accidentally nostril gazing every time I look up… Just me?
Thankfully I got a little break from all that when I woke up safe, comfortable, and alone the next morning. I couldn’t tell you how I knew I was safe, I just did. It was a feeling. Maybe it was a side effect of the warm morning light, the cool breeze, the sound of waves, or the way the gently swaying treetops kept breaking up the dusty morning sunbeams shining in through the window. Or maybe it was the cabin itself.
I always loved a good cabin. This one was old and sturdy, with walls made of long heavy logs and floors made of untreated lumber. There wasn’t much in the room, just my basic double bed with a colorful quilt, a bear skin rug, a rocking chair with a dark cherry finish, and a little steel trash can next to the door. The can might’ve looked out of place if someone hadn’t painted it beige and mounted an old fly fishing rod to it.
“That’s weird,” I mumbled quietly. I didn’t mean the fishing rod, every cabin worth a stay had something like it. There was a note written on a slip of yellow paper dangling over the trash can. Someone had paper clipped it to the fishing line. There was no guarantee it was meant for me, but I had to read it whether it was any of my business or not. If curiosity kills cats I’m worse than dogs.
I peeled the quilt back, sat up, and dropped my feet down, and mumbled a little thank you to whoever was responsible for making sure no one changed me out of my gown. The bear fur felt great bunched up between my toes, and the wood was warm to the touch thanks to the sun.
About two steps away from the note I remembered that my legs hadn’t been working. I was so happy to have them back that I almost walked right into the wall. I stopped myself just in time and flipped the words the right way. The ink was blue.
Breakfast when you’re ready. Shower down the hall to the right. BB and 83 went to store, clothes on sink are yours. Hope they fit.
“So they were real,” I said. “It was all real.” I wasn’t actually questioning it anymore, but it seemed like I should’ve been.
I didn’t know what else to do, so I decided to take them up on the shower. For the first time since cryo I had a day to plan, and I had legs to execute said plan with. It was simple, but it was epic compared to my previous two hundred years... Shower. Eat. Find out who’s running the country these days. Find out what happened to Doc Z.
The bathroom was only a few steps down the hall. By cabin standards it was a huge bathroom, and it was nice too, even if it was a little antiquated. Think 1950s and 60s. You know the type. Matching aqua blue tub, sink, and toilet. Aqua blue seahorses with golden eyes stenciled onto the white tile that surfaced all the wet areas, including the walls and floor around the shower. I went in and flipped on the four big light bulbs above the mirror.
Being that it was a cabin, everything that wasn’t tiled was just water proofed with cheap white paint. Whoever built the place custom installed a bamboo screen in front of the shower area, and yet they also installed a huge skylight over the middle of the room, which I propped open for ventilation. I probably would’ve at least frosted the glass. Did I mention the ancient radiator on the wall opposite from the sink?
Alright, I’ll try to spare you some details here. The shower was normal, although the water heater was cranked a little too high, which I learned the hard way. There was a fresh bar of soap in there, which apparently was for shampoo and all the other bits, an all in one kind of deal. At least there was a fresh wash cloth. When all that was over with, I dried off with a nice thick white bath towel and stepped out.
Levitator, said some voice in the back of my mind as I leaned in close to the mirror. I ignored that. It was hard enough to digest the fact that my 2013 face was in Twenty Third Century light.
I picked up the wooden comb on the sink and slicked my hair back so it would stay settled on top of my head later. Thankfully I didn’t need contacts or glasses anymore, since my cash signing bonus for the cryo study paid for LASIK. I skipped that part of the old routine.
There were two things in the medicine cabinet, a wood box filled with these minty squares, and a wooden toothbrush. The brush looked new, but I wasn’t up for it until I was sure. So that was it, I was done.
A pair of classic blue jeans and a plain white t-shirt were folded and laying on top of a red long sleeve flannel next to the sink. I won’t mention the unmentionables.
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From the top of the stairs I could see that the rest of the cabin was like my room… Basic, stained to bring out natural colors, sparsely decorated. There was a cobblestone fireplace on the left wall, which was hedged in by two couches and a long L shaped coffee table made of untreated two by fours. To the right was a small kitchen with an antique brown gas stove and fridge set. The counters were all butchers block, and laying on the edge of the main island was another yellow note.
Bacon & eggs in the fridge, pan in cabinet under sink. Raspberries out front door to your left. Eat up! Make yourself at home!
“Oookaaay…” I said. I wanted to be grateful, but they had to know I needed answers. They saw what happened the night before, so they also had to know that I was barely hanging on. Yet for some reason they expected me to just stand there cooking eggs like everything was normal.
I muttered a long string of colorful gripes all the way over to the couch and practically threw myself onto it. I probably sat there hanging my head in disbelief for ten minutes before I realized I was staring right at another note. This one was on top of a pile of books in the center of the coffee table, and it was the same handwriting.
What you’re looking for. I was there, but I couldn’t stop it. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. - Smedley
Doesn’t make sense, I thought. If the author was there, whoever it was must have been stuck in a cryo chamber just like me. Of course we couldn’t have stopped it. I slid the note off onto the table and ran my hand over the cover of the first book. The sleeve was fire engine red with maize yellow letters. The Early War, read the title.
Now we get to the part of the story when I’m supposed to describe my Charlton Heston moment and make youfeel really uncomfortable. I won’t. Just imagine how you would feel reading about how everything you knew was destroyed, and all the probable ways everyone you cared about met their end.
I can only speak for myself, but it was a hard moment for me. At some point I transitioned to the floor, and I don’t remember why. I think it just felt wrong to partake in a luxury like that couch.I spaced out for a while, lost track of time, and got back to the book…
The jist of it is we started World War Three ourselves. It wasn’t long before all the most expensive precision munitions blew holes in everything. Supply chains collapsed, revolts spread across the globe, and after that things got personal. People tried to take their little online tribes offline, which didn’t work out great for anyone. No one was ready to band together when the drones started doing their own thing.
So there you go… You did it, you maniacs. There’s nothing new under the sun, and I guess that’s really the point, isn’t it? Humans will always human. Sorry if I’m being a little too preachy for you, but you need to know the world you’re walking into, if you’re even around to hear my voice right now.
The sun was on the other side of the sky and sinking behind the trees by the time I dragged myself back onto the couch to look at the next book. I switched on the lamp next to my end of the couch and scooted closer to it, sliding the books down with me. The second book had a bold white title over a black background, The Eternal Hive Mind Emerges.
I have a question that I just can’t seem to work out. If the hive mind sprang from us and acted out all our worst impulses, who do we blame? It had a choice, right? If it didn’t have a choice, is it sentient at all? Are we? You won’t find answers in that book, you’ll only find a soul crushing photographic timeline of the Hive Mind’s brutal crusade to erase humanity.
Believe it or not the nukes never flew. We tried. We unleashed all the hell we had when we recognized our new mortal enemy, but hell wasn’t ours to unleash anymore. The Hive Mind probably had that sorted out within three seconds of its existence, but we didn’t know until all the missiles stayed cold in their silos.
After that, we weren’t really fighting anymore, we were just surviving. I don’t know if this will be any kind of comfort, but most died quickly, even without the nukes. Most were dead within a year. And then, just before our unceremonious end, we got lucky. That’s why the next book had a more hopeful appearance. The cover was white, and the title was in red and blue, Turing and Rushmore.
If the first two books had killed my hope, the third one resurrected it. Turing, a young American woman barely old enough to drink alcohol, found something buried under a remote area of Wisconsin where Analog now stands. She found the capes, and somehow she could sense what they were and how to harness them. Later she was able to enlist Rushmore, the giant Minuteman I previously described, and together they clawed us out of our desolation.
The book didn’t offer much detail, because whatever Turing did was too complicated for a how-to manual. In their final confrontation, she stripped the Hive Mind of its creativity, of its general intelligence, leaving it with a hodgepodge of lesser demons. The effort killed her. An ink drawing near the end of the book depicts her snarled up in a web of cables and energized threads of some kind. She was at peace, even though she’d been pierced through the temples by two needle tipped probes. Rushmore knelt before her, head bowed low.
After Turing’s sacrifice, Rushmore was able to hold the line. Analog was built, the Legions were formed, and the war gradually turned against the machines. That’s where the third book ended. I was exhausted.
When morning came again I couldn’t even remember laying down on the couch. Birds were chirping, waves were lapping at the shore, and the leaves were whispering. I paged through the third book again, just to burn the images of Turing and Rushmore into my memory, because they deserved to be remembered. When I flipped the last page over, I saw a yellow note I apparently missed the night before.
Figured you’d get straight to reading, but you really should eat something.
“You’re right,” I said to my absentee host. I figured my stomach was starting to cannibalize what little muscle I had, so I got up and walked my scrawny butt to the kitchen.