[003] The Voices That Werent
The bleak morning light was seeping in through the molded metal grid of the old, abandoned drainage tube. It slowly diluted the darkness filling the vast cold and wet space. It wasn’t the light that would trigger another cycle in your circadian rhythm system, gently nudging you to wake up. Above the ground, dull and repetitive surface expanded way beyond the grey line of the horizon in that grim light. The land ruptured in a few places and hasn’t seen water for a long time. Small scanty patches of flora were scattered in random patterns. The rain would not help it, anyway. Acidic rains were falling from time to time, slowly ruining water streams and forests. The rain wasn’t that dangerous to people, but the air was full of elements causing it. And your lungs full of it would eventually cause serious problems. The air felt like a thick prickly cloth hanging in there. The thing is that the majority of the commonWealth’ population living in the megacities would not see any of it. Most people traveling between megacities would use the hyper tube, which was the fastest, cheapest - and safest - option to go. Almost all of the hyper tube infrastructure was underground, built to last. Limited overground interchange stations offered “amusement bars” and other amenities to the weary travelers. All of the smart surfaces, including walls and windows, usually projected everything except the view outside stations - but most of them would not care anyway - the majority of their time was spent in their VR overlays. The same thing applied when traveling via air - windows were long replaced by smart panels projecting anything but the devastated landscape.
She was afraid to move. The silence inside the drain was deafening. After a few hours in there, imagination starts playing its games, and you start “hearing” various things— primarily when deeply ingrained beliefs and tribal myths already fuel your imagination. She tried to stretch her back as quietly as possible and shivered when the sound of screeching outer shell reverberated through the tube. She was pretty sure she heard some indiscernible click or scratch in the distance and immediately froze. Few minutes stretched out like a few hours. Only the thumping heartbeat inside gave some reference about the passing time. Nothing. She stood up as quietly as possible and started moving through the dark tunnel, putting one boot after another into the stinking water and deliberately moving towards the exit latch. Finally, she approached. She put back thick gloves on, pulled on a heavy hoodie with the mask, completely covering the face, and started to climb. Once outside, she squatted behind the fabbed think wall, as grey as the rest of the landscape, and watched. The same way they’ve all been taught countless of times before, so it became a mantra. The problem was that it was getting harder to notice them before its too late. They’ve been adapting to the environment quite quickly. Once designed and built for search and rescue missions, this versatile platform of robots rapidly became the first line of defense in the commonWealth. The thing is that with the last industrial revolution and some of the events in the past completely changed the landscape. Interlocked distribution and manufacturing chains spinning across the globe were slowly replaced by more regional and locally running manufacturing centers. Some of them were nearby the megacities, servicing them. Some of them were moved farther away. That massive campaign to move rurally living people to the cities finally paid off - it took over 50 years and few iterations to get it right, but you might call it a great success. All the noisy, inconvenient, and usually harmful manufacturing could then be moved outside of “the city rings.” Until increasing radiation and pollution levels become alarmingly clear. Unless, of course, no one takes care to look at the metrics. Maybe, even on purpose.
Another problem was The Invisibles. While they were ulterior to most of the population, they still existed. Being pushed out to the outskirts and trying to live with what you have was one thing. But the deeply rooted hate for the System could’ve been explained by ever-growing pollution outside in most of the areas and being systemically oppressed further down the road. They were still being seen as a problem. Now that there was no leverage to influence their behavior, it was the question of keeping all that infrastructure safe, as it became one of the targets for The Invisibles. Fab plants had useful materials and printers you could use to build stuff you need. Some of the smaller plants were of “lights out” style, managed remotely. Larger ones had a lot of personnel for the assurance of smooth operations. There was a vast network of drones and self-sufficient ground robots, to guard and defend these objects operated by the Makers tribe. Most of the Invisibles clung to each other, forming clusters in places that were somewhat still habitable. The primary focus was just to survive. There was another side of the spectrum - groups trying to get into the megacities, damaging and stealing worthy equipment, trying to hijack drones and other autonomous maintenance droids, creating as much as possible chaos and fear around.
[…]
She was sitting on the edge of a drained pool. The PA interface she was trying to boot, wasn’t showing any signs of life. Occasionally, she would stop and listen after a few moments of getting back to the interface. “It was a huge mistake,” - she sighed, looking for the multitool in the bag. It all started when a group of the Invisibles broke into one of the fab houses in the area. It seemed like a routine operation: stage a service disruption somewhere else, rerouting maintenance droids to that location, get in, take what you need, get out. Complications started to arise when the operation began. One of their groupies broke the leg, and they needed to operate with fewer people. That meant less loot to take home. Another problem was that the intelligence signals they’ve got were not accurate. When they finally got into the house, they found two members of Makers, who were trying to debug some manufacturing pipeline issue. Things escalated quite quickly from there, and Invisibles took maintenance people hostages. Red alerts started firing by the systems humming thousands of kilometers away.
Little did they know that their fate was already decided. At least it should’ve been. It was still a less known ‘feature’ of the System. As events unfolded, some random people in the three megacities received amber type alert, which meant ‘immediate action.’ It was one of the ‘ethical dilemma’ type of things, where the problem and few choices have been presented to you. Most of them inattentively responded - ‘eliminate the threat.’ Almost immediately after that, threat response units were given the instructions to operate. The majority of the respondents didn’t give a second thought about it - it was perceived as one of those research projects. A drone, flying high above in the sky, changed the course and started flying towards a new target.
[…]
-
“What’s the problem?” - a voice on the other end sounded irritated.
-
“Sir, sorry to bother you, but I think we have another case …” - NOC person handling the case responded sharply. “It’s already the third one, this week!” - an irritated voice now sounded twice as loud.
-
“I know, sir, and it’s not all of it - the second drone we’ve sent - it’s doing nothing as well, just hovering o…".
-
“A second one?!?” - he was abruptly cut off by the irritated voice.
-
“Yes sir, initial diagnosis showed no problems, but we thought it might be a case of the jamming again; thus, we’ve sent another drone to the same location to complete the quest. It seems that operators cannot take over manual control, the same as in other cases.”
-
“I see. What are the possible targets in the area?” - the voice became calm, somewhat tired.
-
“Well, that’s the problem, sir, I think this case is a bit different than the others. There are no other active commonWealth properties nearby on the ground …”
-
“How far it could still fly?”
-
“The border is 4 hours away, any of the strike drones could reach it.”
-
“Target lock both of the drones w/ manually managed units and let me know when you’re ready.”
-
“Roger, sir.”
[…]
Both of the drones were hovering over the fab plant high above in the sky. The Invisibles hiding inside knew that, as well as the Maker tribe members as well. They’ve heard rumors before; thus, it was an intense atmosphere inside the building. Everyone in this building knew how ruthlessly they could be hunted down and incinerated. Completely vanished from the surface. Problem solved.
One of the drones suddenly did a U-turn facing the second drone. Two rapid subsequent flashes blicked in the dark sky. The second drone, hit at least once, started to lose height’. After a few minutes, it hit the ground near the fab house it was hovering over. The attacking drone did another turn and started to climb up, flying away.
She remembered quite clearly how confused everyone one was, double-checking the measurements of the instruments. Nobody expected to get away without a fight, and now here it is. The sky is clear. Of course, there were guard robots, but they still had some time while the grid network will be re-enabled in the area. The squad started to move quickly. Everyone knew their role in this; thus, everything was smooth. They loaded the vehicles with everything they possibly could, briefly stopping only the question arise what they’re going to do with the Makers. After a short debate, they’ve been gagged, roped, and put into the vehicles’ backs. One of them was a decoy, sent across the wasteland to distract the ones after them.
She still remembered that loud, sharp metal screeching sound, and everything after that suddenly becomes blurry. What happened afterward?
At the approximately same time, the drone reaches its destination. Hovering above the shoreline, it was waiting for its target. A ship was leaving the busy port nearby, and slowly moving towards the gate to the open sea. Heavily loaded, it would travel to its destination with the commonWealth goods. Except, it won’t reach it.
Link to the recording: https://soundcloud.com/palanga_street_radio/decaying-foundations-003-the