The Archytas Read online

  “This is my offer to your people, take it or leave it.”

  Tom thought for a moment. He wondered if it was safe to leave the planet. Wondered what would happen to his wife, to his son.

  “It won’t happen, Yudar. I have been working so hard here. I work so hard on the farm every day, and for what, to reach Utopia. I can’t just give that up. Take the deal without me. Go with them. They will look after you, I promise you that.”

  “Look, Tom. Your planet is dying. The food is running low. You are under attack from robots that you created. A mess that once again your species inflicted upon itself. There is nothing left for you here. No way to save yourselves but to leave. You probably do not have enough food to feed all of your people. You do not have enough ships. You do not have enough materials to build more ships. You have lost, Tom. Lost everything. There are not enough spaces to take you all. There will be so many people left behind. So many, Tom. Can you not see that I am trying to save you? I am offering a deal, a free ticket out of here and to a new life in the Fornax Constellation.”

  Tom thought for a moment. Yudar always seemed to speak the truth, Tom knew this fact, but still could not think of a life somewhere else. Something inside of him, perhaps fear, kept him wanting to live on his farm. But, Yudar was right, with no food, people would die, and even if he reached completion, there probably wouldn’t be anything left of Utopia.

  “Listen, Tom. God told me that only one thousand people could leave. I am valuable, I know the way, and I can communicate with my people. I am an engineer, skilled. I am valuable to God’s mission. You, well you are a farmer. There are thousands like you. What I am offering here is to save you. Save you from this planet. It is crumbling apart and you know it. We can leave. We can leave as one, and start a future in Fornax. That is what I have offered. Will you accept?”

  “Can I bring Jamie with me?”

  “No,” said Yudar, “only you. I tried my hardest for Jamie but there are limited spaces. I bargained for a seat for you and you only. Will you come?”

  Tom thought very hard. His son was the most important thing to him, but staying on this planet was probably not an option anymore. Those in charge would be leaving, certainly, and everything left behind was destined to collapse.

  Yudar glanced at Tom, giving him a warm smile.

  “Okay,” said Tom, returning a smile. “We have a deal.”

  35

  Carter was standing in line. Before him stood eight ships the size of cities. Behind him, a vast plain of nothing. Barren land that once housed the city that made up his temporary home.

  The day had finally come and the planet had been classified as retired. In a few hours he would be travelling through space, once again, as his species searched for the next habitable.

  As he was waiting to enter his allocated ship, the Archytas, he began to look forward to his recreation travel.

  He looked back behind him at the empty land, and again thought about how everything they had accomplished here was just a waste of time. Prolonging the inevitable that time would eventually take. It reminded him of his dreams. Empty fields and dead leaves. Nothing but dirt and broken pieces of metal left behind by his species.

  Eventually, the line of people began to move forward. Efficiently and at walking pace, they moved up the ramp and into the ship.

  He had only travelled aboard the Archytas six times before, but always when he entered, the clean crisp scent made him feel at home. The emptiness that he had found himself experiencing daily would almost instantly fade away when he entered the vessel. He knew this, and he took great relief in knowing such a fact.

  On the ship, he dispersed from the main line, and walked down a long corridor to his room. A few other people trailed off into small corridors that led to where they would be sleeping, and eventually, outside Room 2774, Carter was finally alone.

  Carter let out a sigh as the door scanned his body; a dim blue light traced a line from his feet to his head, before the door slid open to the side, making a clean swooshing sound as it did.

  As he began to enter his room, footsteps approached from beyond the corridor. For whatever reason, Carter waited; he was curious as to who he would be sharing the ship with for the next few thousand years.

  It was a man who Carter instantly recognised. A man he had only met once previously. Carter let out a softer sigh, this time of absolute relief.

  “It looks like we are travelling on the same ship,” said Yudar.

  “It looks like we are,” replied Carter.

  36

  Jamie Somertri ran out into the desolate meadows and watched in awe at the skies above Utopia, as they lit up in a glorious glow. The huge glass roof that housed the residents and workers in their miniature paradise slid aimlessly to the side, and from the inner walls of the capital, Jamie saw ships. However, the ships were not the usual UDF vessels that he was accustomed to, they were bigger, and they illuminated the evening in a blanket of white light.

  He stared at the ships and watched them rise vertically into the sky. He wondered where his father was. He had not returned yet from his meeting with the president, and Jamie was beginning to feel worried. He wondered why the roof was off; he had never see that before, and was not entirely sure what was happening. He wondered if his father was okay, or if something terrible had happened to him whilst he was away. He wondered if his mother was okay too.

  The ships continued their ascent until they were nothing but small specks of dust heading out of the atmosphere and into the darkness of space.

  After the event, the roof of Utopia remained open; he could see the vast sheet of glass reflecting light from an unknown beyond. He did not know what had happened, what those ships were, or where they were going, but he was certain that when Tom came home, he would explain everything.

  That night, Jamie made his own dinner. As he ate, he stared impatiently out of the window and waited for his father to return, but he never did return, and never would.

  Eventually, due to tiredness, Jamie wandered to his room to sleep, and the next morning, other than his mother’s indecipherable mutterings, he would be completely alone. Abandoned to silence, his world, left for the birds.

  37

  Justin Jenkins was watching himself. He had been staring at the back of his own head for a long time, confused.

  He was standing beneath his farmhouse, in his laboratory. Above him, in the kitchen, the corpse of his father, Geoff Jenkins.

  Justin did not understand what he was seeing. He could not comprehend the fact that before him, another him was dead in a chair.

  He walked the steps and into the kitchen. Geoff too had a bullet hole in the back of his head. A pool of dried blood painted across the floor. Yet Justin felt no sadness at this sight. He could not access his emotions. Distant melancholy remained absent, answers were not forthcoming, and nothing made sense amongst the madness of death.

  On the kitchen table, a scattering of shotgun shells, nothing else unusual, nothing out of the ordinary.

  Outside the farmhouse, the beautiful field of crops was now gone. Justin remembered that he had programmed the pigeons not to eat his vegetables, but for whatever reason, something had gone wrong. His crops were the same as the neighbouring farms; ruined.

  The pigeons were still hovering around, but in much fewer numbers. They no longer circled in a vortex, instead, just the odd bird here and there, looking for something to destroy, but there was nothing left.

  Justin walked outside and started across where turnips and potatoes had once blanketed the field with their presence. He eventually reached the boundary of his grandfather’s farm. Along the ground, a scattering of cogwheels and string. Pigeons destroyed by the UDF ships. Remains of an empire.

  Justin did not know what to do. He walked back to the farmhouse with an unusual feeling of emptiness. He searched the void of his mind, to the memories now replaced by something else. A certain nothingness lingered there, a complete loss, absent of hope.

/>   He retrieved a rake from the farmhouse, and returned outside to the fields. He methodically began to rake the ground where root vegetables had once grown. He did this for a while; occasionally a pigeon would swoop down from seemingly nowhere, peck at where he was raking, before returning to the skies.

  38

  Carter and Yudar were standing in Room 2774 aboard the Archytas.

  “How have you been?” asked Yudar.

  “I’ve been waiting a long time to see you.”

  “I know. I had to wait. I did not want to bring any unwanted attention. We have to be very careful.”

  “I understand. They record everything.”

  “Not here though.”

  “Good,” said Carter, offering a smile to Yudar.

  “How do you like the ship?”

  “A lot,” said Carter, “I’ve travelled with her many times before.”

  “Good, I named it after the Ancient Greek philosopher. My sense of humour I suppose.”

  “You named it?”

  “Not just name it, I designed it. I am an engineer. I designed this ship long before you were animated, shortly before the events that you have been dreaming about. The name came later. It was a joke. Archytas was a genius, the first genius of the human species. He built the first ever artificial flying device on Terra, a pigeon. I liked the irony.”

  “I’ve never heard of Archytas, but then again, there is a lot I don’t know about history.”

  “That may be true, but I am sure you know his work. You have heard of Pythagoras?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Then you have heard of Archytas, they were the same person.”

  Carter paused for a moment as if to process, a discerning look on his face, eventually he spoke, “How do you know so much?”

  “I have been alive for a very long time. I have watched everything, lived through events you would not believe. I have seen more than most. Those dreams, the dreams you remember about the birds, I was there, on Terra. I experienced that time with my own body and mind. I witnessed spectacular events, the downfall of human society. I influenced things, set events in motion.”

  “How old are you?”

  Yudar laughed, “How old is time?”

  “Nobody knows.”

  “Not yet,” Yudar smiled. “Anyway, how much of 2774 did you dream?”

  “All of it,” Carter stated, “more than once. And many years before and after. I can’t piece it together though. I have memories of things, fire, birds, masks, too much to remember.”

  “It is designed so you do not remember anything, only to stimulate the sensory; that was the original purpose. Without experiences such as creativity, joy, even love, without those things we need sensory stimulation or the over-analytical part of the brain takes over. It is to numb us. Mould us into the perfect slave, to go through the motions of life without emotions, analysis, and without questioning, but you broke out, I am not sure why, but you did.”

  “But why can I only remember partial moments? Sometimes only a second or two of a simulation dream stays with me, other times it’s more, of course, but why so little?”

  “Imagine watching absolutely everything that everyone does in a single day. Watching a whole species in the space of eight hours. The actions of every person, hearing every conversation. Now imagine all of that information, every event, and every small detail, all of it. That amount of information is impossible to comprehend in such a time. There is no way that the subconscious can analyse and process all of the experiences. It is impossible. Overload. This is why we forget, it is far too much for the mind, rejected on waking. You remember because something within your mind is very different, but it would be foolish to assume that you could remember all of the information you receive. One simulation dream is more than a human brain processes in a single lifetime.”

  “Then where does it go? The lost information.”

  “It goes nowhere. The subconscious mind decides not to process it. Waking experiences stay with you, but subconscious thoughts are retained only if the mind decides to keep them. You have no control over it. Dreams, they are a way of receiving information and letting the mind decide whether it is important enough to store. Your mind remembered birds; it decided to give you this information in waking. Again, I do not know the reason, the significance, if any. But you are one of the first to do this.”

  “What about Maxwell? Sykes told me he was dreaming of the same.”

  “It was not just Maxwell. It was your unit, the eight of you. You have all dreamed about birds, I still do not know why. I have other people to talk with. I need to understand why.”

  “Will you fill in the gaps? Explain what happened and the relevance of birds?”

  “I will, in time. I have to leave now though, I have been away for too long. I have to get back to work.”

  “You have to work? I thought this was recreation travel.”

  “Not for me,” said Yudar. “Engineers never rest.” Yudar smiled once again. “I will be back in a few days. Try not to relax too hard.”

  39

  Grace was full of doubts as she left her home; both bags slung over her shoulder, finally walking away.

  She was not sure where the streets would end, and how long it would take. She wrestled with the thought that there must be something better, somewhere better. She knew that life was not supposed to be the way it was. She knew somewhere deep inside of her that a better life was out there. Her biggest doubt was if there were such a place, then surely she would have heard others mention it. Others would have left too, but maybe they already had.

  It was morning; Grace was walking along streets filled with neon lights, music blazed from speakers, small market stalls packed with people, tiny restaurants set up along the way. The smell of food overpowering; delightful. Grace couldn’t allow herself to be tempted. She had some credits remaining for emergencies, but they would expire in five days. Next Monday she would be credited once again, for the final time. She calculated quickly in her head; twelve days until everything would disappear.

  As she walked, she wondered if it was worth it. Was the life she was leaving behind really that bad? Could she have been happy, found a way to be content in her previous existence, or would she have just rotted away like the others? She was not sure.

  Grace processed her plan once again. At the start of the following week, once she received her final credits, she would resupply, survive as long as she could on her stockpiles. She had to hope now, hope that the final day of food would last her on her journey, wherever it led.

  Grace walked for hours, mind full of ideas and thoughts. She was constantly taking in her surroundings. Looking at the street boxes for the homeless and wondering how they managed to survive outside the working world. She thought how all of the streets looked the same. No change to the amount of neon or food stores or markets. No change to the stiff grey concrete of apartment blocks. However far she walked away from her own home, nothing varied. The streets seemed to stretch off forever in every direction. An endless painting of neon and grey.

  Grace stopped briefly and set her bags down. She sat down on a concrete step that led up to a generic apartment building, pulled out a tin opener and a can of tomatoes, and prepared for her lunch.

  She enjoyed the chance to rest her legs, but ate quickly. She was not particularly hungry, but actually, Grace was the type of person who always ate fast. Her taste senses stimulated by those first few mouthfuls of food; all of the enjoyment from eating became lost after a few seconds. It was the same for every meal, and Grace was aware of this. Different people received more or less stimulation from different senses. For her, the strongest was touch.

  After eating, Grace returned to her feet and continued forward in the same direction as before. The last thing she could do was lose her way, a difficult task when everything looked the same, but Grace was always good at keeping direction. She possessed an extraordinary intuition or internal compass.

  As sh
e walked, she kept a constant lookout for somewhere to sleep for the night, somewhere safe and discreet. She knew it was too early to sleep, but if the right place presented itself, she would take advantage of the opportunity offered. Such an opportunity was not so forthcoming though, and by the time Grace realised it, nightfall had come.

  With options limited, Grace found an alleyway illuminated by a neon sign advertising a restaurant. The street was quiet, abandoned, but at the same time, rather exposed.

  “In plain sight,” said Grace. She set her things down in the alleyway; the night was warm so she did not need to trouble herself with a blanket. She used one of her bags as a pillow, checked her right pocket to confirm her knife, and for the very first time, tried to sleep on the streets.

  40

  Carter wandered the Archytas trying to enjoy his recreation travel, but could not help but feel at a loss. He wanted to know what had happened. He wanted answers and found it difficult to feel at ease. He knew the answers would come soon, but he could not contain the anticipation of having to wait.

  He wandered up to the Observation Deck. It was crowded with disorganised groups of black clothed males mixed with white clothed females. It was far from the usual order he was used to seeing. In space, there were no neatly formed lines, just a mess of beings doing their own thing. It was something that Carter would have to get himself accustomed to once again.

  It was the second day on ship, and most areas were crowded for that reason. The Observation Deck was full of members of his species, waiting to see that final glimpse of the retired planet as it disappeared from sight forever. Carter wondered where they would go next. How far it would be. How long they would stay.

  He recalled a story from long ago, the early years, and long before he was animated. It was when his species did not find a planet in time. A mistake or bad planning, he could not remember, but so many people were lost to time. They ran out of daily meals. Sacrificed an entire ship of lives to keep the mission on course. He wondered if Yudar had been the one that made the decision. To call time on an entire ship of his species. End the lives of millions, a sacrifice, so that the others could continue searching.