for my children…
my joy, inspiration and my guides
without whom
i would have never known what adventures
the universe has to offer
***
with all my love
Becca
Matthew
Keri
Prologue
November 2nd 2140
The air was still in the bright, white room that went intensely silent with anticipation. Ten people sat at a conference table, each dressed in a way that revealed their distinct personalities. A gathering of the elite scientific minds of the future, Team Halikkon: TITAN Division, pooling their knowledge and expertise to finally save the world from the plight of catastrophic global warming consuming the planet.
Earth's best, brightest, and most innovative saviors had come together for that very purpose, except for one interesting old man. He appeared out of place in his expensive black suit while keeping a tethered, secured briefcase on the table in front of him.
Everyone in the room kept their gaze fixed to the massive screens on every wall, watching the nuclear thrusters light up beneath the enormous circular machine, propelling the vessel from the distant island station toward the sky and into the heavens.
The room’s silence was almost deafening aside the low rumble from the monitor’s audio, the tension so thick that not even their own breath could be heard while they remained fixated on the giant displays.
The TITAN craft rose from the launch station like an enormous city-sized circular drone. The feat was seemingly impossible that such a massive construction could actually make it off the ground at all.
And it would not have, except for a brilliant, new nuclear propulsion and rocket system designed by a husband-wife pair of Halikkon team members, which would keep TITAN hovering just at the edge of space, just within the stratosphere.
“This, this is incredible… it simply defies physics,” one scientist said under her breath.
“This is an amazing moment in our history. Your incredible innovations have given us hope!” the old man exclaimed as he gestured to the husband-wife team standing at the head of the conference table.
The woman smiled at his comment and reached backward, searching for the comfort of the tall man behind her. His eyes remained fixed on the screen, even as he grappled for her fingertips. Then, intuitively, he took her hand and clenched it, giving her a reassuring squeeze. The woman’s shoulders slumped, and she let out a deep sigh of comfort.
The giant machine with the word TITAN stamped in various locations on the gray tube-like propulsion frames continued to ascend steadily and slowly. The status indicators on the side of the screens increased while TITAN climbed higher and higher.
As the numeric indicators flickered the kilometers of ascent in a repetitive cycle, an impassive feminine voice, breaking the silence, announced: “Thirteen kilometers.”
The team did not acknowledge or move at all.
“Eighteen kilometers.”
Even though the pleasant, fresh fragrance of the office plants and other greenery lingered in the air, one could almost catch the scent of scorched rocket fuel filling the room as they gazed at the unbelievable scene unfolding before their eyes.
“Twenty-nine kilometers.” The horizontal machine continued its ascent, and the messaging droned on—followed by a continuous monotone beep and blazing of green and amber lights across all the displays.
The excited interruption caused the group to break from their frozen state, their looks morphing to more anxious, tense appearances. Each team member twitched their gaze from the consoles to their tablets and again to the wall monitors.
Perspiration appeared on the foreheads of some of the scientists as they glanced at each other to see if they were the only ones in a contorted state of anxiety. Some bounced their legs to a staccato beat. Others twisted their fingers or grabbed a wrist under the table. However, no one could tell by looking at them from within the room or on their holo displays. They had each concealed their nervous tells underneath the table almost perfectly.
The older man wearing the suit remained seated, eyes still locked on the display.
The men behind him stood rigid and, with dark smart sunglasses shielding their gaze, it wasn't easy to read them. Were they staring at the screen too? Or was their attention focused on searching for and countering any threats in the room that may spring up?
The suited man rapidly tapped against the briefcase, appearing more nervous than mesmerized, like the rest of the team. The woman clutched the tall man’s hand tighter until he winced, but he did not pull away.
A collective “Yes!” sounded from the scientists in the room.
A melody of excitement finally filled the air as the Artificial Intelligence said, “Congratulations, Team Halikkon. TITAN has now reached its destination at thirty-two kilometers, mid-stratosphere. Preliminary orbit established; stabilization protocols beginning. Engaging Halikkon Nuclear Drives. Readying TITAN away team dropship for launch, expected commencement in T-Minus forty-three hours and twelve minutes.”
The older man in the suit rose to his feet, clapping his hands enthusiastically before walking toward the group, secured briefcase hovering above the floor in tow, exchanging handshakes. Each team member wore a broad smile, finally showing overwhelming pride in their accomplishment.
“You did great, Dr. Kuzland,” he said.
“Thank you, Mr. President,” she answered with a broad, gleaming smile.
The president then made his way from her to another member of the Halikkon team. The tall man gave her a wink before engulfing her in his arms like a loving partner, celebrating her remarkable success.
She received the hug with equal excitement and again raised her head to gaze into his eyes before kissing him.
The man beamed. “You did it, Sweet!”
She kissed him once more. “Wouldn’t have without your help.”
“Let us toast to your success,” the president said, standing beside three of the Halikkon scientists at the end of the conference table—Dr. Zoe Griphen, Dr. Rebecca Hawthorne, and Dr. Aura Leighey.
He raised an open bottle of champagne and made his way to each of the men and women around the table to pour into empty glasses.
“A toast to a new beginning and the restoration of life on our dear planet,” he said, his gaze fixed on Dr. Evata Kuzland.
She gave him a shy smile before he winked, scanning the eyes of the others before saying, “Mother Nature is proud of this team, Team Halikkon. And I am proud. TO LIFE, and ONWARD!”
They chorused a cheer before the soft tapping clangs of their glasses filled the air.
The celebration went on for a few minutes before the president turned to them again and said, “Okay! Now, let’s go out there and celebrate this great, great day with the rest of the world.”
Evata, her husband, Rosa, and the team made their way through the long, bright hallway. Paintings and photos lined both sides of the corridor, showcasing the various achievements made during Halikkon’s sixty-four years of innovation and space exploration.
The Mars landing, nuclear drives, mining systems for the moon colony were on display for all to see. There was an impressive model of TITAN placed within a transparent display, dividing the hall at the center. A manifesto of the international team’s crowning jewel to save Earth from over-warming and eventual fiery demise.
The surrounding voices faded, leaving only the clicking of heels and thumps of shoes moving toward the large, transparent door.
Unfortunately, this was the downside of inventing a planet-saving technology like the TITAN greenhouse-gas-removing orbital. They had to endure the ever-inquisitive press and their many questions, the flashing of cameras’ lights, and their video footage.
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From inside, Eva already saw them trying to capture photos of the team. They finally stepped up to the transparent door as it opened, handing them over to the hungry reporters and news horde waiting outside.
A hand reached for her lower waist as they paused before exiting, and then a soft voice in her ear pulled her back to reality.
“You got this, dear,” her husband, Rosa, whispered, then kissed her cheek. That act sent tingles down her spine—a sensation of excitement and comfort that gave her a newfound sense of courage.
Her strides grew faster and more solid as they approached the podium positioned at the bottom of the stairs. The urge she had felt earlier to escape from view, flee, and seek comfort had all but vanished. Instead, she relaxed into his arm, still embracing her back, soothing her.
News reporting drones flew haphazardly, barely dodging one another as they raced to hover above her and Team Halikkon. The drone lenses gleamed at them, trying to make history with the breaking story.
The president made a brief introduction, then stepped aside to give Evata the center stage as the reporters pushed forward with their insatiable din, each voice overlapping while calling her name. The torrent of words came at her all at once, like a scrambled signal threatening to break her composure. But then she reminded herself of the more essential words she had heard a moment ago that had given her the determination to stand there. You got this. It was in Rosa’s kind, gentle voice. She thought of his hand supporting her. Even though he had long removed his touch, she still felt his emotional connection.
“Mrs. Evata…”
“Dr. Kuzland…”
Through the din of shouting questions, one voice caught her attention. “Dr. Kuzland, please, what can you tell us?”
With a deep breath, she asserted, “I’m happy to report that TITAN has reached its destination, positioned within the stratosphere at thirty-two kilometers. TITAN is stabilized and online. The away team is currently preparing for launch and will rendezvous with their new home within forty-eight hours.”
She paused to swallow a sip of water and continued with, “Our planet is safe now, and in just a few short weeks, the global drop in temperatures will become evident. Then, we can all go out, go about our business and take care of our families, no longer worried about finding ourselves burned to a crisp by the roadside in a few years.”
The reporters broke into laughter, easing any building tension. Then the questions came, and then more questions.
And then the one question she’d been waiting for finally arrived.
“If the temperature really drops, do we not have to consider the possibility of temperatures perhaps dropping too low? I mean, we may all freeze to death too, like another ice age, right?” he said with a chuckle.
She turned to the young man who had called out to her. It was a question none of the others had asked yet. They seemed to be more interested in the actual science of TITAN, which she knew they would not understand half of what she had explained, anyway.
But on the other hand, they would use the drone-recorded footage later to pick things out of context and twist them to say whatever the news networks wished. They’d do everything possible to control the narrative, even with the AI’s conxenseth-truth algorithms stabilizing and correcting the news output in real-time.
But that man had asked an interesting question, and he was not willing to leave it unanswered.
It dawned on Evata that she had been staring at him for far too long without an answer, and the flashes of light were only mesmerizing her further. Finally, the Halikkon Director, Edmund Divorsik, intervened and stepped up beside her.
“No, no, of course not. That’s impossible. There are rigid guidelines, auto-monitoring, alerting, and corrections set in place to ensure TITAN’s output is exactly as it should be, assuring that the temperature remains conducive for us and every living thing on the planet, as a matter of fact.”
“How could you be so sure? There may be some kind of mistake. A bugged program?” the young reporter pressed again.
Edmund stepped forward. “Look, sir, what do you take us for? Amateurs? We ran thousands of simulations and models to ensure absolutely nothing of the sort could happen. Not to mention, the Artificial Intelligence aboard TITAN is the very best and the most advance the world has ever seen.”
“So, our safety, our future, is now being completely managed by a machine? How well could that go?” he replied sarcastically. By his reply, he immediately gave himself away as an anti-AIer, a small population of legacy humans that abhorred Artificial Intelligence.
Dr. Rosa had advocated for the respectful treatment of evolved AI and protecting the rights of the most advanced entities. But even some in the scientific community mocked him and were not quite ready to treat the systems that served them as ‘pals’.
“Sir, there are over one hundred technical experts headed to TITAN right now, the world’s best and brightest human engineers and scientists, who have volunteered to make TITAN their permanent home. We are, in fact, the best scientific minds in the world, the ones who placed the first colony on Mars, as you will recall. So, your statement that our lives are being run completely by a machine is, well, completely false. It is an inaccurate, single-cell’s conversation. That will be enough for now. Thank you all.”
Edmund guided the president, Evata, and the team back into the building while the drones raced above them again to catch more footage.
“What was that all about, Eva?” Edmund asked, still able to hear the murmuring of the disappointed news crowd. Then, with both arms outstretched, he opened his hands to her, as if asking for something to be handed to him.
“Well?”
The TITAN group grew quiet, each staring at the floor, trying to evade each other’s gaze except for Edmund, whose gaze remained locked on Evata.
“You are an elite scientist now, Eva. So, you have to act like it. The crowd out there is hungry. They want to know what you are doing to save the world.”
She sighed deeply.
“I froze, okay? I am not very good with crowds, and you know it!”
Everything went quiet for an extended moment until
the president interrupted the long silence, clapping his hands tenderly. “All right, that’s enough of a scolding from false-news reporters for today. You did great, Eva. Extraordinary. The first time’s always a bitch. Don’t let the single-cells of the world steal your moment. You’ve done a glorious thing for us all, for the entire world,” he told her.
He winked at her while they made their way past the front receptionist droid. It stared at them with its white carbon shell and silver eyes as though they were not even there.
Eva sighed and turned to her husband. “Rosa, we need to leave; we need to go home to Viktoriya. I want to go home; I need—We did what we were supposed to do here today. I don’t like leaving her with the nanny and being away from her for this long when she’s so young. I need to get away from this place.”
“Let’s go, honey,” Rosa answered. “Don’t let this get to you. There is always some single-cell to sour the day, no matter what good is actually coming of our work, the team’s work,” he replied warmly, as they exited the building to their elevator, then toward their autonomous car pulling itself to the exit, ready to take them home.
December 22nd 2145
Shades of yellow and blue merged together in a mesmerizing rectangular pattern—the two colors in an elegant dance with one another.
The blue twirled while the yellow bowed into a low curtsy. Their dance repeated over and over in a never-ending ballet.
The pattern of the dancing colors on the wall both excited and overwhelmed five-year-old Viktoriya.
She didn’t want to look away. In fact, she could not look away. Some kind of grand design appealed to her senses, while a familiar song of patterns played in her mind.
She sat perched on the low windowsill of their large living room with her knees tucked close to her chest. She stared through the delicate strands of dark chestnut hair falling along her face, engulfed in the repeating patterns of the dancing colors across the grand room.
Peering into the pattern, the surface seemed to overlap, morph and change in front of her eyes, becoming much more than a simple flat plane, now having depth and space.
She could gaze into it at a certain angle, focusing on the pattern just right. Then she tried reaching into the space—only to find her fingers gently tapping against the wall, destroying the appearance of depth.
“Why is that?” she wondered aloud.
Why indeed? The splinter of the mind and the ever-elusive, unanswerable ‘why’ embraced her gently before releasing her to ponder another idea.
Her mom sat on the gray leather couch, their favorite spot to watch cartoons together—which blocked part of the view to the wall.
Moments ago, her mother had tried to invite her to play with the toys she had left laid out on the floor from her last imaginative escapade, but she simply couldn’t escape the task at hand. Analyzing every inch of the wall, the colors and shapes embracing her as they ferried her away into another reality.
She didn’t quite understand why she found the wall so interesting, but she would not move from it now. Again, the wall’s color pattern appeared to recover its depth as she stared further.
But like before, when she tried to reach into the space, her fingers simply tapped against the wall to her dismay.
The beep of the front door unbolting distracted Viktoriya for a moment. Her eyes flickered to the door.
“Rosa!” her mom exclaimed, jumping up from the couch and running to hug her dad, who had appeared at the entrance.
“Daddy!” she called, though she didn’t move. Not even the arrival of her father could deter her from watching the blue and yellow swirling dance.
“Hi, sweet girl,” he said before turning to her mom with an eager face.
“So, how’d it go at Vik’s session?”
The mention of the doctor brought a smile to Viktoriya’s face. She always enjoyed going to visit Dr. Maribelle.
It was fun visiting her office—the place was so bright and had plenty of games. And as far as she could tell, the other kids who went there were pretty nice, too.
“Good, I think we finally have an answer,” her mom said. Viktoriya’s attention now drew toward her parents’ conversation near the hallway, but the wall was still quite distracting.
“Dr. Maribelle has diagnosed Vik with autism. And though it isn’t an official diagnosis, the doctor confirmed it was probably High-Functioning Autism, as she had speculated before. HFA.”
Her father cleared his throat. “High-Functioning Autism? So, this is, as she said is a component of her neuroatypical condition?”
Her mom nodded, straightening her shirt. “Exactly. So. How are you?”
Viktoriya completely abandoned her pattern-counting routine and focused intently on the conversation between her parents.
He sighed. “Good. Relieved, I think. To finally have answers. To have help. How’s Vik—”
Her father’s dark eyes turned toward her, but his face changed when he noticed her listening in. He held out his arms. “Oh, sweetie, come on over here!”
She paused for a moment, quite comfortable in her spot and unsure if she wanted a hug at all right now.
Her mom placed her hand on his forearm. “Come only if you want to darling, you don’t have to.”
She smiled at her parents, slowly got up from her seat on the windowsill—her favorite spot in the house—and walked through the living room with its tall ceilings.
Viktoriya dragged her liquid-squishy sensory mat behind her, the sound of the plastic on the floor making a distinct swishing noise.
She took notice of an oversized, framed painting of a legacy farmland above the fireplace, placed much higher than she would have supposed it belonged.
The dimensions and proximity of the artwork to the mantle were distracting, but she shrugged it off for now.
A couple of steps led up to the hallway where her parents stood, and they both rushed to meet her at the bottom.
They sat on the edge of the steps, and she fell into their open embrace.
Her mom tucked the loose strands of her hair behind her ear. “Do you remember what Dr. Maribelle said, darling?”
Viktoriya nodded as she kneaded the squishy mat.
Her parents both smiled and gave her a gentle, reassuring hug.
“We’ve got this, ladies,” her father said, pulling them both in close. “Because we can do anything.”
Her mom nodded. “As a family.”
Viktoriya buried herself deeper in her parent’s arms until she glimpsed a commercial on the television.
“Mommy, Daddy, look! On the TV, what is she doing? What is that girl—Where is she going?”
“She’s riding a horse, my love. The girl is horseback riding,” her mom said.
“Where is she going? It looks so fun! I want to ride a horse!” she exclaimed.
“Can I ride a horse?”
“We’ll find out if you’re big enough. See how big that girl is?”
“Okay. I’m five years old, okay? Look, where is she going now?”
“Honey, she’s going wherever she dreams of going. She is on a beautiful, magical journey, and she can go anywhere and do anything she desires or imagines, exactly like you,” her mom said, placing her hand on her cheek, looking deep into her eyes.
“My dear girl, you can do anything you put your mind to. You are limitless and as bold as love. You are forever unique and special. You are the only Viktoriya that there is.”
“The only one that will ever be?”
“The only one.”