anno machina
Anno Machina
The lights over Adam’s head drowned his eyes in a sea of white. Adam’s resting place in the brightly lit laboratory was cold and smooth. A sprawling mass of legs, arms, head, and torso, he suddenly became very aware of his own body and the unity of all its parts. He told his arm to move and it responded by slowly waving its attached hand in front of his face.
Adam’s muscles had not been dormant. Dormancy suggests a long existence with little use. Adam’s muscles were a new creation, unaware of the weight they would hold, the pain they would feel, or the gradual decline they would experience.
As he shifted his weight off the metallic table, Adam’s legs nearly buckled from the pressure placed on them. A cursory glance around the sterile white room was a study in blinking lights, computer screens, and what appeared to be a large cube emanating light from its center. A strange reverence came over Adam as he stared into the light spilling out of the cracks and crevices of the large cube. A blade of light slithered across his face and Adam felt every hair on his body stand as if trying to get closer to the source of the light.
What was this place? More importantly, what was he?
“The Machine has a purpose for my life,” Adam thought.
Adam, keeping his eye on the crack through which a golden light spilled, moved closer to the Machine as a predator sneaking up on its prey. The Machine beckoned for a
touch and Adam felt compelled to respond. As his hand grazed over the smooth side of the cube, Adam became curious of what was beyond the walls surrounding him.
The world outside Adam’s birthplace called to him in a soft voice, begging for discovery and exploration.
As he walked through the doors of the tall needle-shaped building that had housed his birth and self-realization, Adam was greeted by a thousand identical structures whose apexes all pointed toward the nothingness that was the sky.
“What the Machine has created is good,” Adam thought.
Adam walked the streets and alleys of the civilization marveling at the precision of each building and the craftsmanship of the Machine. Looming towers gave way to perfectly symmetrical streets running in a grid for as long as the eye could see. Strings of light snaked from one building to another and filled the sky with a brilliant luminescence that gave the effect of stars even in the day.
A strange feeling overcame Adam as he looked at the rows and rows of symmetrical needles standing together in solidarity. Being surrounded by thousands of identical towers caused Adam to realize exactly how alone he was.
“Surely the Machine doesn’t plan for me to live here by myself.”
As the words escaped his mouth, Adam saw a figure wander out of one of the buildings. The other being looked exactly like Adam and wore the same expression of awe on his face. Flocks of people were now flooding the streets, stumbling from the buildings and exploring the world they found themselves in. Adam approached the man with uncertainty.
Unsure of what to say, Adam stuttered to the man, “Who are you?”
He was ashamed of the fear in his voice and immediately regretted speaking.
The figure he had seen come out of the building stared at him blankly and, without a word, lunged at him.
As Adam toppled to the ground, the man’s hands gripped firmly around Adam’s neck. Spittle showered Adam as his attacker spoke softly to Adam through clinched teeth.
“The Machine has no idea what it has created,” the attacker managed. “There is a flaw in this world and it’s tearing me apart.”
Each word hung in the air but his audience barely took notice of the word’s meaning.
Adam’s field of vision was turning to white when he no longer felt the attacker’s hands around his neck. The blood shot back to his brain and he gasped for air. He glanced around and noticed a crowd had formed in a circle around the scene of the attack. As he climbed to his feet, Adam saw his attacker lying face down in a pool of blood. A man holding a metal pipe tinged with red glared at Adam, dropped the pipe and walked away.
The crowd dispersed and left Adam to piece together the events under the setting sun and hanging lights.
500 years later
The citadel was filled with equal parts blood and the smell of burning flesh.
Abel began to believe that if he stood still any longer, his feet would become frozen to the ground and he would never leave. The young soldier decided to pace through the building from room to room, hardly recognizing any of the faces he saw.
Abel’s commanding officer took notice of the expression of fear on his charge’s face.
“Abel you gotta calm down. You’re wearing me out with all your pacing.”
“Sorry sir. It’s freezing in here so I thought walking around might warm me up.”
“You just worry about your post, soldier.”
Initially the conflict had centered on the dwindling supply of fuel in the world. Nearly every aspect of the world’s infrastructure and technology was dependent on the use of a carbon-based fuel, tolacarbonyl. Tola for short. As the population increased, demand for tola directly increased. The world government commissioned a group of top scientists to create an alternative to the scarce tola but after years of failed attempts, the government executed the scientists on suspicions of sedition.
A large rebel group was rumored to be behind the government’s inability to create a tola alternative. The group held that man’s insatiable hunger for progress would eventually leave the planet uninhabitable. The “Naturals” as they were called, had been responsible for some of the worst terrorist attacks in history. Car bombs had been set off in crowded markets, human reengineering plants had been decimated using nuclear technology, and three world leaders had been assassinated at the hands of the Naturals.
Abel’s platoon had been held up in downtown Bethlehem for three days and the outlook was bleak. The southwest quadrant of the city was a known breeding ground for Naturals and when government troops moved in, the bloodshed followed them.
Abel was unable to connect the dots in his head as to how the war had reached such brutality but it was clear that this was no longer a war for a natural resource but a war for the livelihood of an entire civilization.
“How did we get ourselves in this far?” Abel wondered aloud. “The Machine didn’t create us to kill each other.”
“Quit it with that Machine-talk,” one of the soldiers yelled at him. “The machine is nothing to be worshipped. It got here the same way we did. God–or something we can’t see–put us here, because where would the Machine have come from? What created the Machine?”
“You two are both idiots. We’re here, we need tola, we have guns and that’s all there is to it,” another soldier barked. “Machine or no Machine, we need to be looking out for ourselves.”
“I just don’t see how you can believe–
Abel was cut off mid-sentence by an explosion that blew out the windows and sent shards of glass flying through the air. He scrambled for his gun, which had been laid as a subconscious protest to the war. He clung to it like a child clings to its mother’s hand as he watched the soldiers around him scream in pain or pass out from blood loss. The gun gave him no feeling of safety and felt foreign and awkward in his hands.
He looked across the trashed room and saw his commanding officer screaming something at him.
The sound of the explosion left a ringing in Abel’s ears but it was his fear that drowned the noise out.
Another explosion followed the first and this time the foundation of the building shook. As Abel was regaining his bearings a third explosion hit and then a fourth almost immediately after it. The blasts began to gain a rhythm that felt like a death march.
Abel got to his feet and sprinted out of the room, stepping between the dead and dying bodies. His fear was now drowned out by a dogged determination to not die in the building with the rest of the soldiers whose ideals he didn’t agree with.
Navigating through the halls of what Abel assumed had been a hospital was hell. The tan one piece uniform the government and issued to enforcement fighters chafed his legs as he ran.
The Naturals had made sure to cut power to the building as soon as the troops moved. The explosions outside were the only light source Abel could use to avoid running into walls or gurneys or caches or body piles.
Abel wasn’t sure where he was running. There was no set destination in his mind but he was sure that he wanted to get as far away from the building as possible before a shell landed in his room.
As he reached the door, the street had an eerie, calm feeling. A sun was almost completely set and the sky had a few brushes of pink left in it but the black was slowly over taking the pink. The sky was illuminated by the stars and the light from the
Concentrated Energy Lasers being hurled at the building. Abel thought it strange how the Machine could see fit to create something as beautiful as the sunset he was watching and juxtapose it with a brutal slaughter like the one he had just escaped.
The sound outside was almost deafening and Abel began to run north where he knew of a few Naturals who could take him in. Abel looked back at the building one last time and as it shrunk from his view, he felt something inside of himself take hold.
1000 years later
Jessica and Campbell had been looking for food all day. This was the first time their mother had let them forage without her help. They had gone out enough to know that the red berries were not to be eaten and should be avoided. The green berries were sour but edible and every once in a while, they would find a patch of purple berries; that was their treasure.
The war had ended like a train letting its momentum carry itself to a gradual stop. The tola supply had run completely dry so the government war machine shut down. The domino effect was massive. Because the tola had been the fuel behind society’s continual advances and technological breakthroughs, technology began to decline. There was no way to manufacture new medicines because the factories were run by computers. There was no way to fix computers or make new ones because the plants that made computers ran off of tola. Technology had come to a halt and slowly began to skid backwards.
Society moved to an egrarian economy and people began growing their own food. The Naturals had won.
Jessica and Campbell moved through the fields gingerly as if they were sneaking up on something. Jessica would hide low in the stalks of tall grass and look over at Campbell. Campbell would then run and hide behind a log pretending to shoot an animal with his bow and arrow as he ran. The sun had almost reached its apex as they came to the edge of the clearing.
“We should turn around,” Campbell said. “We’ve never been this far out,”
“Just a bit further,” his sister replied.
She read the look of doubt on her brother’s face.
“We don’t even have to tell mom and dad. We will go a little further and go right back to the house.”
“Just a little further,” he agreed.
The kids stepped into the dark forest that seemed to drown the sunlight. The air felt stale as they moved through the forest.
“This is stupid,” Campbell said. “Let’s go back.”
“Just a little further,” Jessica said. “I have something I want to show you.”
Campbell shot his sister a questioning look.
The tree coverage overhead seemed to grow thicker and thicker the deeper they got. The trees seemed to be groaning as the children navigated the leave covered ground. The kids reached a dried riverbed and Jessica gave her brother a gesture to slow down and be quiet.
Campbell crouched down and followed his sister closely as she led him parallel to the river bed.
“Jess, we’re way too far out. Mom and dad are going to kill us if they find out we went out here.”
Jessica had come to a stop now and was staring up into the trees.
“I don’t understand how they got up there,” she said.
Campbell searched the trees in front of him but could not find what his sister was talking about.
“Jessica we need to go. This place is creeping me out.”
Her eyes were fixed on a spot high above their heads.
Campbell began to study the trees higher up and finally found what his sister was talking about. Swinging in the trees high above them were about 50 skeletons in tan uniforms.
Campbell screamed and backed away from his sister whose eyes were still locked on the mess of tan in the trees. As he backed away in shock he tripped over a rock in the riverbed.
“Sometimes I come here to think,” she said as she looked over at him. “Are you ok?”
Campbell got to his feet and sprinted away from his sister.
“Wait! Campbell! Come back! That’s the wrong way.”
Campbell’s heart was pounding through his chest as he ran through the dark forest. He could hear his sister calling after him but the shock of what he had seen was still fresh. Ahead he saw the light shining through where the forest broke and another field began.
Jessica was racing after her brother, half sorry for scaring him and half sorry for letting him in on her secret place. When he reached the edge of the forest he came to a stop and she caught up to him.
“Campbell you can’t freak out like that. That’s the kind of thing mom and dad will kill us for. You can’t tell them about any–”
Campbell’s mouth was open and his eyes were wide as he slowly walked forward out of the forest.
Jessica was still concerned that she had scarred her younger brother for life by showing him the dead bodies. But then she looked ahead and saw what he was looking at.
In the valley below them, a thousand needles sprang from the ground and pointed towards heaven. The masses of metallic grey ran in a grid and looked bland compared to the green and orange and yellow that had surrounded them in the forest. The uniformity of it sickened Jessica and Campbell.
“What is this place?” Campbell asked.
“Only God could know what this place was,” Jessica said.
tell me what you think! i’ve been at the newspaper for 8 hours! woopty doopty dooooooodle!
