Jasyn, Clarc, Solvig, and Novik reached the plateau at the base of the cliffside and began following it further down into a narrower valley toward the tower of light, which still appeared several kilometers away. Novik had taken the lead, repositioning two of the all-purpose appendages as a third and fourth leg to allow him to traverse the terrain more effectively without slowing his team down. Solvig followed close behind him, still seeming strangely distant as she studied everything around her.
Clarc didn’t so much walk as skulk, always keeping one eye on the clouds, which mercilessly advanced toward the cliff behind them. In the distance, they could still hear the steady hiss of the nanoparticle rain, occasionally punctuated by the faint scream of a dying humanoid.
Finally, they reached a natural bend in the canyon wall. They saw their destination just a few hundred meters ahead and below them: a bruise in the natural order of the valley where the city, and its non-reflective obsidian walls, had pierced the canyon wall. The majority of the front face had collapsed, and the spiral tower rose out from the rubble, angling out of the resulting sinkhole to one of the rectangular clouds above.
In daylight, it was clearly made of four glowing pylons of curved amber glass or transplas that braided around each other, joined in some places by crossbars around the perimeter of the structure, making the inside a twisted tunnel of sorts.
“Remarkable architecture,” Solvig noted. “Moreso when you see it in the proper spectrum of light. I can’t imagine how we would even build such a thing and anchor it at that odd angle without it collapsing under its own weight.”
“Yes, Doctor,” Novik said, “even if that material is somehow feather light, and assuming it isn’t somehow anchored to the cloud object, it’s at least 18 kilometers long.”
“Now all we have to do is figure out how to use it,” Clarc said, it came out almost as a sneer.
“I’m detecting a definite power signature coming from the area, and I can see pulses of light within the tower itself.”
“Lucky for us then.” Clarc sat down and impatiently stared at Novik.
“Dr. Clarc, I would remind you that I gave you every opportunity to stay behind with Major Wolff and attempt to make your way to the caves. Your presence here is your own choice.”
“Is it? Dr. Novik? Or is it just that I think keeping the group together is more important than whether or not Dr. Katsaros’ hunch was a good one.” She glared at Jaysn and held up a hand before he could protest. “This was a bad idea an hour ago when we abandoned a village full of natives who told us this was absolutely not the direction to go. This was a bad idea when we abandoned Major Wolff. This is a bad idea now.”
“Doctor Clarc, I had no choice. Major Wolff was not—”
“You didn’t even put up a fight! You handed him that torch and your blessing without a second thought. You’re the self-appointed leader of this group. That means you’re responsible for keeping the group together and alive. You don’t let Wolff and Tamana go off and sacrifice themselves for a bunch of anomalous subroutines inside a giant data construct.”
There was a pause, and Jaysn saw Clarc flinch at last.
“I assure you, I did consider it, far more thoroughly and efficiently in those few seconds than you could possibly understand. In the end, I decided to honor their choices and accept that they were in keeping with who they were as people. If I denied them that, then you would likely be standing here accusing me of denying them agency, just like the Overseer. So already your argument is invalid. Why can’t you say the part you’re circling around?” Novik asked. “Why don’t you just admit you don’t trust me, or any synthetic intelligence, and at least tell me what I, personally, have done to give you this impression.”
Clarc grunted in suppressed rage at her defeat. “When I was four years old, my family lived on one of the mining outposts on Beta Tangra. Sort of like that base back on LT-9, only bigger. When I was four, my father died–a containment breach in a hab module he was working in. Just an unlucky guy in the wrong place on the wrong day.” She shifted uncomfortably. “Anyway, we lived in a mining colony, not Earth. We didn’t have Cognate Life Models. We couldn’t even begin to afford one. Instead, Mom hired an SI – a very particular one that had, shall we say, a relaxed view of ethical protocols. She convinced it to impersonate my father. It did a damned good job. Right down to calling me Pumpkin with the exact tone he always did.”
Jaysn watched her eyes well up, though her voice remained steel, aware that the slightest waver could still bring everything down in an instant. Amin had only made the off-handed comment about her father being an SI back in the galley on LT-9. This was the horror story, and he could already see the scars it had left.
“Anyway, because of that, I felt like I grew up with two loving parents. One was just always via holo or vidscreen because ‘Daddy got shipped off on another off-world assignment and can’t come home for another year.’”
Solvig leaned in and put a reassuring hand on Clarc’s knee, who abruptly brushed it away and stood.
“Anyway,” Clarc continued, “When I turned sixteen and applied for university, I found out the truth when I discovered I had a large educational trust set up by my late father. When I went to confront my mother, she practically went insane, acting like I was the one who betrayed her.” She smirked and coughed out a laugh. “She had kept up the lie so long that I think part of her had forgotten, and had started believing she was still married and happily in love. Meanwhile, that bastard SI didn’t care that he’d been cheating us out of our grief, and that he’d been lying and manipulating us for years. He said he only did it to keep from hurting us, that he genuinely cared, and that he’d even put every credit mom had paid for his time back into my college trust – as if that somehow made everything okay and eased his ethical protocols.”
Novik stood motionless in front of her, his receptors remaining trained on her, giving her his full attention. Jaysn realized his own jaw had gone slack. Finally, Novik spoke. “Your anger is not unwarranted, Dr. Clarc, and I genuinely feel for you having gone through such a horrible revelation. It is not irrational for you to mistrust synthetic intelligence. I would suggest, however, that I have done nothing to deserve such ill will. What that SI did to you is ethically wrong, even if done out of genuine concern for your well-being, but it is not a mistake I would make. In fact, while I believe I was right to allow Wolff and Tamana to sacrifice themselves, I do feel genuine remorse that I was forced into that decision, but I believe I made the right choice, and because of that, I will grieve them both when the time comes.”
The ground vibrated beneath them. Not the violent rumble of the earthquakes earlier, but instead an assured, steady rumble, like the idling thrusters of a transport shuttle before ignition.
“Look,” Solvig squeaked, pointing to a fissure spreading through the valley floor in the distance, fanning out in all directions as it moved. The land leveled itself as boulders and trees sank into crevices in the ground, and the silver hiss of nanoparticles echoed back.
“Their power is increasing. We’ve only got minutes left before one of those cracks reaches us, and the particles start flooding the sinkhole,” Novik said and resumed leading the way down the slope to where the tower met the city.
Wolff tried to keep the question of whether he was in a simulation or not out of his mind. To him, it was simply a disaster zone, and the simulated humanoids that surrounded him were civilians who were caught up in it and needed help. That was all. Nothing more. Nothing less.
He could stay focused on that. He actually felt relieved he didn’t have to think about Fermi Paradoxes, Drake Equations, shepherd species, ion decay chains. This was simple. This was his job as a soldier. He knew how to make snap decisions and prioritize tasks. He knew how to make difficult calls, like who would live and who would die. Most of all, he knew how to face himself in a mirror after making those calls, provided he ever saw another mirror.
He followed the shouts and screams to their source. Two groups of humanoids trapped on floating islands between fissures — one group of four, one group of eight. He might have time to save both, but the choice was obvious. He found a suitable cluster of trees at just the right distance, fired up the torch, and adjusted the plasma blade to about half a meter in length.
He slowly and methodically used the blade to cut notches out of the base of two of the tallest trees. Bark and wood chipped, sparked, and flew off in all directions, replaced with a smell that reminded him of campfires from his youth. He decided he was getting sentimental in what might very well be his final hours.
It took just under two minutes to carve sufficient notches out of the base of two of the tallest trees. He gestured for the villagers to be ready to get out of the way, even going so far as to make a falling tree gesture with his arm. He wasn’t sure they understood, but he had no more time. He positioned himself opposite the villagers and pushed his shoulder into the tree with all his might. First one, then the other bent, cracked, and surrendered to gravity.
The trees missed the villagers and hit the ground exactly as he had planned, spanning the crack and making a makeshift bridge. He made the “chest beat/head turn” gesture three times before the villagers understood or mustered the courage to begin the crossing.
The first was smaller, likely a juvenile, not yet full-grown, but full of the misplaced courage of youth. It crossed on all fours, slipping a couple of times, but catching itself and continuing unconcerned. When it reached the safety of ground, it leaped off the logs and landed on its feet, beating its chest three times and gesturing for the others to follow.
Then, to Wolff’s surprise, it did not run off up the hill toward the caves. Instead, it held out its hands, steadying the logs, grabbing the others as soon as they were close enough, and helping everyone get across. Only when they were all safe and no more appeared to be coming up from the village, at least for the moment, did it head off with the others.
Satisfied that his plan was working, Wolff followed the cracked landscape to the next group of stranded villagers and began to repeat the process. More were still coming up from the direction of the village, but he was almost certain that the number who had already crossed was greater than the population of the village. Were these neighbors? Rivals? Strangers? Some were carrying small children. A few were still clutching fragments of the obelisk like sacred relics.
He used the torch to cut more trees and make more bridges. Again, humanoids crossed, tentatively at first. Some stayed behind to assist. Others studied Wolff intently and began grabbing the fallen trees and moving them before Wolff could. A couple even used their combined strength to grab the old bridges that were no longer in use and move them to new locations.
On the far side, trapped on the islands, he saw villagers lining everyone up as the bridges were assembled – the smallest directed to the front, followed by the females. It reminded him of a very orderly lifeboat evacuation. He couldn’t help but smile. They were learning, right in front of his eyes – actually learning.
Instinctively, and even though he knew they didn’t understand what he was saying, Wolff shouted orders over the hiss of the rain and the panic brays of the humanoids. “Stand back. Two of you come help me. You move to your left and put down that hunk of obelisk.” If nothing else, he felt he was in control of the situation.
Wolff was busy working on taking down another tree when the ground abruptly shook again, shifting one of the previously set bridges and sending the far end toppling into the silvery death of the crevasse. He paid it no mind and focused on his immediate task until he heard the high-pitched bray.
A female, small and slender, had been in the middle of the bridge when it toppled. She now clung desperately to a thin branch, her feet dangling centimeters from the nanoparticle water below.
Wolff didn’t hesitate. He instantly dropped the torch and leaped onto the trunk head-first, steadied himself as best he could, and reached out, just barely catching the female’s wrist on the second attempt. The tree beneath him began to roll. He was off balance. Worse, he could see the silver tide working its magic below. It would be seconds before the tree was a brittle shell unable to support their weight. Well, it wasn’t the first time he thought he was going to die today, he decided. You can’t expect to evade them all.
Something grabbed him from behind. He turned and saw a large humanoid, much older than most, had grabbed his belt with its left hand while wrapping its right arm and legs around the trunk for stability.
“No, you have to get back, it’s all about to go,” Wolf shouted.
The humanoid barked back a low, defiant noise he didn’t care to hear twice in his lifetime. His grip intensified, steadying Wolff.
Wolff pulled with all his might, slowly lifting the female to where she could get her feet back under her with enough leverage to climb up the tree, over the two of them, and collapse on the ground in near exhaustion.
There was another horn-like blast of artificial thunder, and the ground shook again. The tree slid further down into the widening gorge, turning as it moved. Wolf lost his grip and would have fallen face-first into the swirling silver river below, but the humanoid kept a firm grip on his belt, slowly swinging him from left to right.
“No, don’t!” Wolff shouted.
The humanoid responded with a long, sustained bray of pain and determination, then swung Wollf two meters in the air, landing him on the ground above with a thud that momentarily knocked the wind out of him. Wolff scrambled to the edge of the crevasse just in time to see the tree give way, its remains sinking into the nanoparticles along with the humanoid, who did not scream or cry out as he dissolved into nothingness.
Wolff forced himself to sit up. The female was transfixed on the forest behind them. Wolff turned to see the cloud, now almost directly overhead, and the fatal rain-line only minutes away from reaching them. Humanoids continued to scream from the woods on the other side of the expanding cracks in the landscape.
Wolff stood and helped the female to her feet, beat his chest three times, then gestured toward the cliffs. She turned, but did not leave, looking back at him.
“Yeah, I’m not sure you’ll make it either,” he sighed. “Try anyway.” He repeated the gesture, more forcefully. Reluctantly, she began running. Wolff walked over, picked up the discarded torch, lit it, and scanned for the most strategically useful tree.
