Refraction, p.7
Refraction, page 7
And then a bolt of pain shot through his skull.
He yanked off his helmet and squeezed his temples, trying, somehow, to make the pain go away. The bolt turned into an achy wave, pulsating through his head.
“Bene… Je…” he weakly cried, trying to yell into the headset that was now on his lap.
And then the voices came.
Like a tsunami, a chorus of thousands of voices flowed through his mind. It was a chaotic stream of whispers, chattering and shouting—more potent than ever before. He couldn’t make out a single voice or word but only held his breath as the crowd grew louder.
“Nuh… no!” he screamed in the cockpit. His eyes spun wildly.
The ocean of voices condensed with smaller voices receding into chatter and others coming to the forefront in his mind:
“…we were going to change things! Have you ever been outside of Central before? Destroyer of Worlds… Custos… I know you, Custos… Custos… we were going to change mankind! HE IS COMING!”
“Cal… Cal… Cal… Cal… CAL!” It was Jelena, coming in from the emergency PA in the cockpit.
The ocean of voices receded as Cal’s head lolled back and forth. “Wha…” He weakly opened his eyes.
“Cal!” Jelena screamed. “Pull up!”
Cal opened his eyes.
The massive face of an asteroid stared back at him.
Part II
The Dreamer
Chapter 6
2154, Earth Reckoning (ER)
In a land that was no longer called the United States, a mushroom hunter sniffed the breeze. The scent of cat droppings had led her underneath a copse of trees. From the size of what it left behind, it wasn’t an animal she hoped to meet alone in the jungle. With careful steps, she followed the trail, searching for the tender bulbs of fungus that thrived on the droppings.
Her empty stomach led her deeper than she’d previously dared. She crept through unfamiliar paths, snaking through ivied boulders while tying bits of yarn to tree branches to find her way back out. She lifted fern fronds with her foot as she went, hoping to find a mushroom cluster. After resting from a wave of hunger pangs, she ventured farther, stooping below wayward branches. She trudged through mud and grass thickets where the trail tapered away. It wasn’t until sunlight had slanted through the leaves that she noticed she had traveled downward. The hills of the jungle dropped abruptly, circling down to a single point below the jungle floor. There were wide sections of the forest that spiraled inward as if built by design.
The hunter climbed a tree, gaining an aerial view and saw the curving paths carved like a crater into the earth. She knew what she was looking at—a mine. Although she had come across several, none had been this far away from the encampments and none had appeared so undisturbed, free of the ravages of salvaging.
Forgetting about mushrooms and the darkening sky, she continued, realizing that the winding paths were old roads, now claimed by jungle growth. Rusted chain-linked fences reached through tree bark, telling their story of a people that could once build. Corroded axles and eviscerated tires bore evidence of digging machines. Her heart pumped with excitement. She could find anything in an untouched mine.
Once at the bottom, she looked up through the mine crater and saw the night sky like a hole punched through the jungle canopy. After soaking a rag in oil from her satchel, she lit a makeshift torch and entered through the massive mouth of a cave. A string of bats ignored the newcomer. Animal tracks crisscrossed the muddy soil. Her torch glowed with the strength of a matchstick—a speck of light in the inky black.
A myriad of tunnels led deeper from the cave. The stone walls had long been gouged and plucked of their ore. She caressed the rock, wondering what metal they once bore. A charcoal mark rubbed on the wall would help her decode the labyrinthian tunnels on the way out. A primordial silence reigned until a soft rattling bounced through the tunnels. She stopped, guessing at the direction of the sound, and then hurried forward. The tunnel straightened and became flanked by small rooms, each one with an iron door inset with metal bars.
Prison cells?
Briefly, she passed her torch into the open rooms, finding nothing but a large boulder with chains welded to iron rivets. A rattle echoed down the tunnel again. It sounded different—a breathing quality.
Someone was there.
She turned to flee but then caught the smell of cat droppings—the same jungle cat she had been following. As her stomach growled, she inched forward, looking through the cells and sniffing as she padded lightly. The smell grew as she passed the threshold of a cell. Slouching to examine the ground, she swept her light across the room and found them—a cluster of white bulbs with slender stalks. Kneeling, she plucked the mushrooms and took a bite of one. It was particularly plump. Satisfied with her mining experience, the mushroom hunter turned to leave but stopped.
The jungle cat laid at her feet. It had been butchered with something crude like a cudgel—its innards splayed across the dirt. She gasped after a rattling cough echoed in the cell. “Who’s there?” she asked the darkness.
A voice issued from the corner of the cell. “Help me.” It was a man who coughed deep between words—disease in his breath. The hunter brought her torch into the cell and saw a hunched figure, unclothed, kneeling at a massive boulder. His wrists were chained to the rock—his skin thickly calloused.
His voice, deep as thunder, echoed along the walls. “Freedom,” he said, choking on a sob. “Though I’ve died, I’ll live once more.”
“Wh-who are you?”
The man offered a mirthless laugh. “What is your name, my dear?”
“Ch-Charlotte. How did you get here?”
“It doesn’t matter how I got here. It doesn’t matter who I was. Your name is no longer Charlotte. Your name is now Speaker. There is only one message I want you to tell the worlds. Do you know what that message is, Speaker?”
“Wha-what?”
“I. Am. Coming.”
Several years after the fall of Central Cell, Custos, the only self-aware robot on Mars, sat on a park bench thinking about how he would change the worlds.
Surrounded by cooing pigeons, he realized he had left sunflower seeds behind at his office. Dropping seeds and watching the birds eat had always provided a serene backdrop to his world planning. He wondered if his meditative ritual would be complete without feeding the birds but knew he didn’t have time to go back for the seeds. No, he would stay in the park for a bit longer, thinking. He pushed meetings, paperwork, environmental studies, and legislation out of his head and took a breath. He needed a break before he planned to change the way humankind lived.
Custos closed his eyes. “One step at a time,” he told the pigeons. “Sometimes with two steps back.” He opened his porcelain eyes and stared at a statue that stood in the center of the park fountain. It was a single man looking inquisitively upward. People milled around the fountain, pushing their children in strollers or walking their dogs. There were a few businesswomen talking at a table, sipping coffee.
He noticed a small figure approach the fountain. The woman wore a ragged poncho with no shoes. Her feet were covered with the dirty blackness of missing many days of bathing. She stood, reading the placard of the statue.
“Ma’am?” Custos said softly. “Are you okay?”
The woman turned abruptly and looked up at him, puzzled. “Are you going to send me back?”
Custos held his hands up. “No. In New Athens, we don’t send people back to Earth. You’re here now and here you will stay.”
She squinted at him until her face relaxed.
“Are you hungry? Do you need shoes? I can arrange a proper outfit for you as well,” Custos insisted.
She studied him. “Are you sure I’m safe here?”
“Absolutely. Things are quite different on Mars than back on Earth.”
She glanced around, looking at the hundreds of towering skyscrapers that surrounded the lush park. They glittered with blue and silver, like scales on a fish. Some facades vanished into the sky but then blinked back—fluttering in a spectrum of colors with the wind. The structures of the city seemed to camouflage with the breeze, trees, and rivers that ran through. It was a beautiful hybrid of nature and architecture. “This place is so—”
“Don’t be alarmed. Things that you see—you may not understand—but to us, they are simply artistic expressions. It’s how New Athens expresses its gratitude to its mother, Mars. We try to blend in with her terraformed beauty.”
She studied his face. “Are there a lot like you?”
“You mean robots?”
She nodded.
“There are robots—many robots—but not quite like me. I’m a little different… a little more aware.”
“What’s different about you?”
“I am Custos,” he said simply.
“Yes. I’ve heard about you.” Concern wrinkled her brow.
“Don’t be afraid. I’m only here to help.”
She stared at his smooth, silicone face. Despite being artificial, his cream-colored countenance captured the subtleties of a human’s—a small tilt in the brow, squinting eyes of concern. “You’re really the Custos?”
“Yes.”
“You swear you’re just here to help me? You won’t send me back?”
“Ma’am, I will only help you. As the President of New Athens, you have my word.” He smiled—a human smile.
“I might as well just tell you I smuggled onto a TexasH from Earth.” She looked around suspiciously as if expecting guards to sweep in at any moment.
“That’s okay. Some people on Earth have no other option. You’re not the first person to come to Mars unannounced and you won’t be the last. What you think of as ‘smuggling in’ we consider an intentional leaky door.”
“Why don’t you just let everyone on Earth come here then?”
“We’re not ready. An influx of that many people would destroy our society.”
“But it would be a thousand times better for everyone that is on Earth. Do you know what it’s like there?”
“I do.”
“If all Earth people could just come here, it would be so much better for them and maybe just a little worse for the Martians.”
“I have many, many committees of hundreds of social scientists, psychologists, economists… more experts than you can imagine. We are hard at work trying to make the best world for everyone.”
She scoffed and shook her head. “Committees…” She looked around. “So, if you’re the president, where are your bodyguards?”
“I usually don’t like them around.”
“Why not?”
“Crime is very rare here. And I don’t like the self-important pomp projected by a security entourage.”
“I think you should be more careful.”
“This is a very different place from Earth.”
“Just don’t ever send me back there. Not ever.”
Custos nodded. “I won’t.”
“Do you promise?”
“Yes, you can stay here. I’ll see to it personally Mrs.—”
“Charlotte. I’d rather die than go back.”
“Let’s not send you back then. Do you know who that is?” he asked, pointing at the statue.
“Uh,” she looked up. “No, no, I don’t know.”
“That was the President of the United States about a hundred years ago. Do you know what the United States was?”
“Kind of.”
“He was the president just before the Nuclear Night. You’ve heard of that, I’m sure?”
“When the world exploded.”
“Well, yes. That man, President Tobias Stroupe, sent the first colony to Mars, before the Nuclear Night. That’s why we have a statue of him here. That colony started the first terraforming of Mars and, now, one hundred years later, we have breathable air—” Custos heaved his chest up and down, “—with water that flows and New Athens at its core. Just as Stroupe famously said at that time, ‘We will reach for the stars and find ourselves there’. Well, here we are.”
“Whoever that guy is,” she said, pointing at the statue, “he didn’t fix anything on Earth.”
“He tried.”
“He failed.”
They shared uncomfortable silence for a moment.
“You’ll go to school here,” Custos said as if offering consolation for the nuclear fallout on Earth. “You’ll get an education now.”
“What will that do?”
“You’ll learn.”
“And how will that help the people on Earth?”
“Where on Earth are you from?”
“I move around a lot. Well, more now, I’ve been going from place to place. I’m around the ruins of a huge city. Crumbling buildings. Probably looked a lot like this place.” She gestured to the city around them.
“Central Cell?”
“Maybe.”
“What old city signs do you see when you move from place to place?”
“Houston?” she pronounced it ‘house-ton’. “I don’t read very good but I think that’s it. It’s right by the ocean.”
“Ah,” Custos nodded in understanding. “Houston is a very old city, back before the Nuclear Night. After that, Central Cell was built in the same area. There’s a lot of history around where you’re from.”
“I stay away from there now. I haven’t been around there or those small settlements for months. It’s too dangerous. Can I sit?” she asked, pointing to the bench.
“Oh, of course, where are my manners?” Custos motioned for her to sit. “Now, tell me, how are things where you lived? It’s been a while since we’ve had reliable reports from that part of Earth.”
“I used to go around, from town to town, trading scrap or mushrooms. I pick mushrooms mostly. Do you have mushrooms here? Do you think I could do that here? I know I’m new here, but back on Earth, people would come from a couple of towns over to buy up all my mushrooms.”
“We’ll definitely find you a job here. Every citizen is guaranteed a job on New Athens. Now, tell me, you said you used to go around from town to town. Why not anymore?
“Scared.”
“What’re you scared of?”
She looked around the park, eyeing the foot traffic. “There’s… someone.”
“Who?”
She looked around to make sure no one was listening. “There’s someone. A… a man.”
“Who?”
“A large, angry man. Talks a lot about coming to Mars.”
“Is he a soldier? Like the leader of the Faction of the Foes?”
She shook her head. “No, no, nothing like them.”
“Cross and Sword?”
“No, he’s different. He’s big. He’s quick.”
“I see… does he have weapons? Battleships?”
“No, but he talks a lot. Knows people’s secrets. He knows how to get people to do what they want.”
“Oh, well, I’m sure he’s nothing. There are many warlords that come and go on Earth. I’m sure he’s no different.”
“I came here to get away. You don’t think he’ll find me here, do you?”
“In New Athens? A metropolis of ninety million people? I think you’ll be okay.”
“I’m afraid he knows where I am—that he’ll find me.”
“His fear has no power over here.”
She nodded as if convincing herself of his words. “Can you get me into some caves to go mushrooming? I don’t really want to go to your schools. Just point me to the caves, that’s what I’m good at. Mushroom hunting.”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“Are you willing to do your part for this city?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Then let’s get you an education. Education solves everything.”
“If you say so…”
“It does, I promise. I am a man of my word.”
“A man?” she said, looking him up and down.
“I am a robot of my word,” he conceded. “Now, let’s get you something to eat.”
“President Custos, can I be honest?”
“Please…”
“I didn’t come here by chance. I heard about you—heard that you come to this park a lot. I wanted to meet you.”
Custos laughed. “Well, I’m flattered. I’m glad that we met.”
“They say you see the best in people.” She looked down at her dirty clothes and bare feet.
“Everyone has something good about them and everyone can change.”
Custos called in an emergency response team that appeared within two minutes, their cars hovering over the park grounds. He said goodbye to Charlotte, who bowed to Custos before getting into the vehicle. “I hope you’re right about things,” she told him.
Custos sat for a moment longer, trying to enjoy the morning before getting up. He felt small buzzes on his watch as the reminders and calls started coming in for the day’s meetings ahead. He took one more breath and then walked through the park.
“Hello there, Mr. Custos,” a man said, pausing from sweeping the street.
“Hi, Clinton, how’s the day?”
“Good, good, just finishing with custodial duties and I’ll be back at the hospital in a bit.”
“Ah, I think my street sweeping is coming up next week.”
“Me too, maybe we’ll be on the same shift?”
“Hope so,” Custos nodded, walking past him, finally deciding how he would change the worlds.
Chapter 7
January 8th, 2155 Earth Reckoning (ER)
New Athens was the only city on Mars.
It was half encircled by deep red rock mountains, The Teeth of Telephus, topped by a carpet of evergreens. The sun that hung above the mountains was a hazy point of light on the horizon. White clouds spanned the sky like gossamer cotton above the towers and skyways. The entire city scurried with life; pod-like cars flitted effortlessly across bridges and streets, dropping kids off at school or taking their parents to work. A cloud of drones was in a constant drift across the city, either coming up from the ground carrying packages or landing at mailboxes, office buildings, homes, and shops. The small drones—some as small as a mouse—delivered groceries, tools, medical supplies, and clothing all across the city without a single person navigating them.
