When things go dry
It felt itself accelerate. It finally reached the gravity limit of that system. Gravity was now pulling it toward its center. It currently helped it move but when it would try to leave it would hold it back. As weak as it was right now, it couldn't escape it even if it tryed. However, once it feed it would once again strong enough to escape toward another source of food.
It could sense other smaller gravity pits on his path. It would use them to navigate toward its target. If emotion it had, the closest thing right now would be excitement. It could smell the food, so close.
Mark was watching the full moon. It was the first time he came out of Twilight's house in almost three weeks. It was time to go and find answers. He decided to leave in the middle of the night to avoid frightening the other ponies that never saw him. Aside, he felt like a freeloader and he didn't like that. He was deeply impressed on how the ponies welcomed him and helped him understand the world he felt on. He doubted he could ever repay their kindness.
He had a fairly good idea of where to go and how to get there. He studied many maps and reports about the other countries he would have to cross. When he was in college, he did a journey across a few states on foot. He really enjoyed the experience, but it was only a fifth of the distance he would have to walk and he never tried to do it in a desert.
He knew it was silly and that it could very well kill him. He had no idea how he would survive the trip. Water and food was one of his primary concerns but he felt he would find a way. He felt he was in a world he didn't belong to and he needed this to know the past to be able to look at the future. He could stay with the ponies, but deep down his heart would be in pain for the rest of his life not knowing.
"The moon is quite pretty tonight." said Twilight behind him. He turned around to find Twilight, Rarity, Applejack and Applebloom in line looking at him.
"Hey. What are you all doing here?" he asked.
"Twilight told us you were leaving." answered Applejack. "And well... I never managed to thanks you."
"Thanks me? What for? If someone... or somepony has to thanks others it's me thanking you all." Mark countered. "You were all so welcoming and helped me more than I would ever expect. If I was in your... hooves, I don't think I would have acted like you, and I have no way to ever repay you."
Mark was telling the truth, he felt lucky to have fallen around this town and have meeting them. In another time or another place, he wouldn't have been so lucky. They helped him without asking anything in return.
"Don't be silly." said Rarity. "You did already. I never had so many requests for a line of winter boots. Twilight got a new spell recorded in the magical archives of Canterlot, few get this honor these day. As for Applejack... You know already. Just get back alive, will you?"
"Why are you leaving?" Applebloom asked before Mark could answer Rarity.
Mark kneeled in front of Applebloom and looked at her. "Why are you searching for your cutie mark?" he asked.
"I want to find my special talent!" she said proudly.
"You're seeking what defines you. It's the same thing for me. I must know the past and how I fit into all this." he simply said. He stood up.
He was about to turn around and leave when he felt himself pushed forward. He was laying face first in the dirt and grass when he heard "How could you do this to me?" from above him. He turned around, laying on his back to face a mass of pink, standing over him. He thought the new comer was talking to him, but he noticed she was looking at the four other ponies.
"There was a new pony in town for three weeks and nopony told me!" said the new one, obviously hurt. "Why?"
Twilight moved forward. "He is not really a pony, and others have been frightened by him."
"That's no reason! He should have had a welcome party like any other pony!"
"Huh-hum." coughed Mark. "If you don't mind?"
She looked down to him. "Hey! I'm Pinkie Pie!" She stared at him closer. "It's true you're a special pony. I do a welcome party for everypony who are new in Ponyville! Since you're leaving, I can do a welcome and farewell party at the same time! I never did one like that. Maybe writing something like 'Leaving so soon' on the cake? You will see my parties are the best parties. After it you won't want to leave anymore." she said in one breath.
"Mind if I stand back up?" he asked.
"Oh! Of course. Silly me!" she said moving off him.
He stood up and dusted himself off. "I... huh... I was thinking..."
Seeing him in problem Twilight finished for him. "He was leaving right now. He doesn't really have time for a party."
"Not even a tiny little 'ty?" she asked looking sad.
"When I come back, you will be able to throw the party the size you want." he said.
"You promise?" she asked staring at him.
"I..." He wasn't expecting that. This new pony was pure chaos in pink. He saw her for the first time a few seconds ago and she was already acting like they were the best friends in the world. "I... I promise." he said. He felt she wouldn't leave him go if he didn't do it.
"Pinkie promise?" she asked back.
"Huh... what?" He was confused.
"Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye." she said moving around and finishing with her left hoof in her eye.
What the hell is going on?
"Huh... alright. Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye." he said doing the same move. But the hand on his eye felt more like a face palm.
"Good! Now I know you will be back. Nopony break a Pinkie promise." she claimed with a huge smile.
Why I have the feeling she would find me and drag me off the desert if she has too? Why am I so scared?
Mark turned around to face back Twilight. "That being settled, Well, time to go."
"You're sure you don't want to stay a week or two? The princesses were sounded very interested in meeting you." Twilight asked. "I don't understand why, but they said they were too busy the last three weeks. It's weird but..."
"Sorry, I'm not waiting." Mark interrupted her.
"Oh... Alright. I understand." she said with a small smile. She turned around, grabbed something with her mouth and put it in front of him. It was a kind of dark blue backpack. "Walking in the desert, I still think it's a stupid idea. But this should help you." she explained pointing at the bag.
Mark was surprised. He kneeled and opened it. It was obvious it wasn't made for a pony. He saw them using some kind of saddle-bags before. This one was made for him, the straps being made for human shoulders. The blue velvet was the same as his shoes. It was made with great care and quality. "Rarity? You made this? I... I don't know what to say."
"Just say thanks silly." she replied. Mark was sure he saw a tear to her eye.
"Thanks a lot." He check inside the bag and found three items, a small metallic canteen, a red wooden box with a ruby inlaid on top and finally a purple and gold metallic star with the same red ruby encrusted in the middle. He opened the box to find it empty. He was confused by the used of the items beside the canteen. "I'm... I'm not sure what those are for." he said with a smile.
Twilight laughed. "It's normal. They are not what you would call standard objects. I made them myself and each of them is magic in some way." she explained with a smile. "I used the same spell as the auto-filling quill on the canteen. It's linked to a nearby river, so you will never run out of water."
Mark was truly stunned. She created a completely new spell that sounded really complex for a quill and quickly adapted it for a canteen. He would guess teleporting a few drop of ink everyday was on a different level as teleporting enough water for him to drink; it would require far more energy.
"As for the box, it's an old spell. I have the same box in my bedroom and if you put something in it and close the lid, it will transport itself to my box. And vise versa. Applejack offered to send you food once in a while."
Wow!
"Thanks a lot Applejack. I will find a way to make it up to you." said Mark, a bit overwhelmed.
"Nonsense." she simply replied.
"As for the star, it's a teleporting beacon. Normally self-teleportation is a bit tricky, takes time to setup and is quite limited in distance. But the beacon gives me a reference point, a kind of anchor. So I will be able to come to you if you need help." she finished with a wide smile.
Mark blushed; it was hard to stay unmoved by such display of generosity. "I know I repeat myself but... Thanks a lot." He grabbed his backpack and put it on his shoulders. "I have a feeling we will see each other again."
He was about to turn around and go when Applebloom came close to him and motion him to get closer. He lowered his head and she whispered "What did you do to my sister? She's the one who proposed that I come tonight and she offered the food on her own!"
Mark laughed silently. "You wouldn't believe it."
"Come on! She's been acting weird since she was with you at the hospital!" she prayed him.
"Alright, I hugged her." he simply explained. He stood back up and started to walk away. He waved his arm. "See you around!"
He was already far away when a confused Applebloom finally managed to ask "What?"
He first thought the first few weeks were the hardest. He was in the best shape he has ever been, but he wasn't prepared to walk weeks long without stop. His legs and feet quickly grew resistant to the long distance, but not without pain. He found out his new shoes were as resistant as they were pretty. He was afraid his lack of socks would hurt in the long run. But the inside of his shoes were soft and worked almost like it.
Every day when the sun would go down, he would sit down beside a fire and open the red box. He always found some food made out of apples in it and sometime a letter from Twilight. She was writing about her day and stuff that happened in Ponyville. Some of their adventures sounded too crazy to be true, but after all he saw and learned, he wasn't questioning those stories. He would sometime reply to her letters and send them back in the box.
He learned about two other ponies he didn't meet before leaving, Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash. He was sure he saw the former in front of the hospital. One letter talked how Rainbow Dash performed a Sonic Rainboom, which he understood as the pegasus breaking the sound barrier in a very flashy way.
Once every few days she would send him a book. He always let her choose the topic, and so far he never regretted it. She would send book about almost anything. He found out ponies had a great and original literature. Once done with it he would send it back with sometime a few written questions.
Sometime at night, he would open his inner magic reserve and play with it. His best achievement was to be able to move that energy around in his body. One day, in a painful flash, he managed to push the energy out of his right fingers. It did a small golden arc of energy. He quickly learned it was a bad idea as his thumbs and forefinger were left burned and numbs for days.
In some books Twilight sent him, he found out unicorn had a special brain structure. Their horns were not hollowed, but full of neural connection. They were directly linked to their brains. It was basically an extra member dedicated to concentrating and channeling magic energy. Its surface was made of a special material that would support the stress of huge quantity of energy going through. It wasn't unheard of a unicorn horn take fire under more powerful spell.
He took great care avoiding any city or town. A few time he meet ponies that would simply run away on sight. He felt no need to scare them or mess with their daily life. Sometime it would take him days to avoid larger cities, but he had time.
Not like I need to call the job to tell them I'm sick.
More than once he would stop and watch the environment. Ponies were more integrated and respectful of the nature than humans. He didn't see any pollution or trash.
He got a hard time to getting used to not being able to wash every day. He would try to wash anytime he would find a river or a stream. He knew once he would get in the desert his chance to bath would be very slim. His hairs and beard were getting long. He was only half surprised to find out his hairs were getting the same color as his beard, a kind of silver with dark streak. It was strange, but he had no idea how to find out what was happening to him. Aside from this change of color, he felt better than ever. If it was some kind of strange sickness, it had no other side effect.
He had a few encounter with the wildlife, but most of the time the animals would run away not knowing what to make out of him. Maybe he simply didn't look edible, he couldn't say, but not having to fight for his life with some of the weird creatures he met was an obvious bonus. On top, he had no idea which one was sentient or not. He knew from some books many species reached that but at different levels. Zebras and dragons were two he saw firsthand.
It took him almost a month to reach the limit of the desert. He was doing good progress before reaching it. He found out that walking in mountain of sand was no easy task, it was close to relearning how to walk. The sand would slip and move under his feet, making it difficult to keep a steady pace. The sun was burning his skin and he was happy his beard was now long enough to give his face some kind of shadow.
A week after entering the desert, his head started to spin. The sun wasn't giving him any break. That night he asked Twilight for a hat, any hat. The hat that came through the box was more suited for a lady, but at this point he didn't care. His brain was cooking inside his skull. He decided to walk mostly in the morning and in the late afternoon. It was slowing him down, but he had no choice, the sun in the day was just too hot.
However, the nights were close to the freezing point. After a few days not being to sleep correctly because of the temperature, he asked Twilight for a blanket. He received it within the hour. He couldn't write enough 'Thanks you' on his letters to her.
It was his third month of his journey when he received nothing out of the red box for four days in a row. In the previous weeks he took the habit of carrying some extra food with him but he was worried by this complete shutdown in communication.
Maybe I'm out of range? The canteen still works fine. Or I pushed my luck too far and asked one too many thing?
He was running out of food when an apple pie came in the box with a note saying they were sorry. Twilight explained him in a letter that they had some problem with a god-like creature named Discord. He was turning physic laws upside down and ponies against each other. Mark was somewhat happy to not have experienced that. He didn't know how they managed to stop that creature, but it did sound like one impressive challenger. She talked about some kind of element of harmony, but from what he understood it was similar to a magic periodic table. He took a mental note to ask her once he would be back.
It was his fourth month of his journey when he reached the place he was looking for. From his map to the position of the stars, he was sure it was the spot. However, he looked around only to see endless dune of sand. Maybe he was simply wrong from the start? For all he knew he could be at the wrong place, or simply there was nothing left to find.
He searched for a few days, turning in circles. He was getting disappointed and climbed a huge dune to have a better view around. At the top, he was welcomed with the same sight as of the last months, sand. He let himself fall on his rear. Something broke under him with a sound of shattered glass. He found himself falling deep inside the dune, sliding in a tunnel of sand.
He reached the bottom hard and felt the shock up in his back. After a minute, his eyes trying to adjust to the darkness, he found out he was in some kind of cave. The light coming from the hole he slid in was just enough to give him a view around. He tried walk around but quickly found out he wasn't seeing enough in the darkness, and the day was quickly ending. His light source would soon be gone. He was about to get out of the hole for the night when the lowering sun lit up something hung at the roof of the cave; "el ome to L s egas". A few letters were gone, but the message was quite easy to understand.
Mark found himself on his knees. It was his Earth after all. It was some kind of future, a future where mankind disappeared in some way, and where the dominant species was now some sentient ponies. His hands were shaking and his mind was empty when he put down the teleport beacon on the floor and pressed the gem in the middle. He sat down against a wall of sand and started to wait.
It was well into the night when a flash of light woke him up. "Mark?" asked the first voice he heard in four months.
"It's a cave Twilight. Sorry, I got nothing to light it up." he replied. His voice sounded weird after so long without talking to anybody.
A purple glow quickly grew brighter, up to the point he could see Twilight and she could see him. He didn't think about it much, but his beard and hair grew enough that Twilight didn't recognized him at first. But his suit, now of a dirty sand color, still had the NASA logo and his name above it.
"Wow, your mane grew a lot!" she said.
He laughed. "I guess it did." He stood up. "But I didn't call you to talk fashion, sorry. I found proof."
"Here?" she asked.
"Yes. Can you light up the roof?" he said pointing up. He saw her focus and her horned glow even brighter, sending a beam of light upward.
She looked up at the letters and asked "What's that?"
"Welcome to Las Vegas. It was one of our cities. For some reason I don't know, it was built in the middle of the desert. I was right, the sand somehow sealed part of this place and destroyed almost everything else." he said looking around. Now that Twilight was providing a source of light, he noticed the cave was much bigger than he first imagined.
There was sand everywhere, but he could make out walls and a curved ceiling in the distance. "Think you can keep that light working for a few minutes? I would like to look around." he asked.
"Sure. I'm actually quite interested too." she replied.
He started to walk around. He found out the floor was some kind of concrete but the time had taken its toll on it. It was cracked and broken in some places. When he reached the wall he saw it was had at some point ceramic tiles, but almost all of them were gone.
Along the wall, he found a flat bump covered in sand. Something was hung on the wall. Carefully, he started to remove the sand that was covering a huge glass panel. "Twilight, can you come over here?"
"Coming!" she replied.
As she was coming closer, Mark could now see that there was a kind of plastic map behind the glass. It was a crude map covered in what appeared to be colored lines. As he managed to remove the last bit of sand covering the glass, it was obvious the map was of North America. Surprisingly, a huge part of the south west coast was missing. In the top corner, he could read "North America Maglev Railroad".
"What's that?" Twilight asked staring at the map.
"A map for some kind of very high speed railroad. A maglev is a train that float a few inches above ground. But when I left, we didn't have anything like that... only prototypes. Surely nothing that covered the whole continent." A spot in the middle of the map caught his attention. All colored lines were converging toward that spot, and from what he could see, it was a huge city.
Colorado Springs? But this place didn't even have half a million people. How could it become the central point of the continent?
His sight was running around the map, trying to find some important information. His eyes finally stopped at the bottom right of the map. "2142!" he screamed.
"What?" she asked backing off, surprised by the sudden scream.
He let himself fall on the floor, his back against the wall. He tried to think for a few moments but nothing would come. "The... the map. It was made in the year 2142." he said, like if it was explaining everything. After a few moments he looked up to see that Twilight was confused by his statement. "Sorry, I'm from the year 2012. This map was made 130 years later." He shook his head. "My species only survived 130 years after I left?" He looked at his hands like if some answers were carved into them. "What happened to them? How long ago was that?" he asked aloud, like if the cave could answer him. By the look of things, it happened a very long time ago.
Twilight didn't say anything but just stood there.
After a few moments Mark sighed and stood up. "Yeah... Sorry about that little breakdown."
"No need to be. If I would learn my civilization would disappear in 130 years... I don't know how I would react." She looked at him in the eyes. "I don't think I would take it as well as you if our places were reversed."
"Thanks Twilight."
"Now, do you think you're coming back with me?" she asked.
He sighed again and stared at the map. Somehow, that central point was calling him.
Colorado Springs? What's there? Cheyenne Mountain?
He snapped his fingers. "Cheyenne Mountain! Of course!" Twilight stared once again at him, confused from this second outburst. "Sorry. Cheyenne Mountain is the name of the mountain that stand beside that city." he said pointing at the colorful middle node on the map.
"Yes?" she asked.
"Back in my time, we had a base built deep under the mountain. It was like five or six hundred meters deep. It was chosen because it was one of the most geologically stable sites on the continent." he stopped to let his brain think a few seconds. "If... If my species knew that something would happen, they would have left information behind. And this would have been the perfect spot. It already had huge infrastructures." He backed off the map and crossed his arms.
"You're going there, aren't you?" she asked a bit disappointed.
"Yes. It's not very far from here. Two... maybe three weeks at most." He looked back at her. "Don't worry; I'm not breaking my Pinkie promise." They both laughed.
"I will hold back Pinkie for another three weeks, but it won't be easy." she said with a smile.
"Don't worry. I have a feeling that if I don't find anything over there, it's because there's nothing left to find." he said. It took a few moments for his brain to actually understand what he just said.
It's true, sadly.
"Take care." she said before vanishing in a flash.
He was getting used to walking in the desert. Only two weeks after the discovery of the Las Vegas train station, he could see a reddish mountain in the horizon. He wasn't sure what to look for, but he guessed that he would know when he would see it. From what he remembered, Colorado Springs was on the east side of the mountain and there was forest all around it. Nothing was left of the city or the forest, both replaced by the same desert he saw in the last three months.
He didn't know where to look for what could be left of the NORAD base, so he started circling the mountain.
A day later, he was about the northern part of the mountain when he found it. He had no idea what 'it' was. It looked like a stainless steel wall of a dozen meters high and twenty wide. It was perfectly flat, spotless and looked somehow built directly in the mountain. The floor in front of it was black and looked like some kind of carbon fiber. Somehow, something was keeping the sand away from it. As he moved closer, he could feel some kind of static electricity pushing him away. He could feel the hairs on his arms raise and the sands on his skin being pushed away.
This is it. This has to be it.
He was about to touch the metallic surface when he heard a loud noise from behind the wall. It sliced itself in half, opening itself in two. The huge doors, he noticed, were moving silently. From what he could see, they were about two meters thick, and yet they moved side way without any apparent effort.
I guess it means I'm welcome.
Beyond the door was waiting a long corridor that appeared to be made of the same material, black carbon floor with stainless walls. Mark couldn't find any source of light and yet the inside was perfectly lit. He walked toward a wall and tried to touch it. He couldn't feel anything, like if something was in between the wall and his hand.
He walked down the corridor. About a hundred meters later, he faced a second set of doors that opened as he got close to them. Once they were retracted in the walls, he couldn't see any difference between the walls and the doors. They fitted perfectly and he couldn't see any rails or any device that they would slide on. The corridor simply continued in a perfectly straight path.
He continued to walk, crossing a set of heavy doors every hundred meters. After the second set, he turned around and noticed the previous set had closed behind him.
A kind of airlock?
He crossed a fifth set of doors when he found the corridor stopped only twenty meters from them. He went to examine the wall that was blocking the corridor when he saw motion behind him. Turning around he saw the last doors closing behind him. He tried to rush to them but quickly stopped as he was about to be crushed between them.
He was trapped in a steel box of twenty meters of sides by twelve high. He knew he wasn't really trapped, as he could probably asked Twilight to teleport him out, but he decided he would call her only if he couldn't find any way out. Why would someone build such a complex trap?
He suddenly felt lighter. He couldn't feel any motion or acceleration, but he knew he was going down. He was in a kind of elevator, which like the doors moved without any sound or effort. And he felt it was going down pretty fast.
He didn't really know how long the ride took, but it felt like hours. When you're stuck inside a metal box, time is kinda hard to keep track. At last, he felt the elevator slow down, then stop. One of the walls opened on another corridor. He walked down the corridor, which looked like a few hundred meters long.
He was about half the length of the corridor when he noticed a figure ahead. He slowed down, unsure who it was. It was obviously of human shape, and it was waiting in the middle of a cylindrical room of about thirty meters in radius. Mark took all his courage and stepped inside the room.
"Welcome. We were waiting for your return." simply said the figure. Now closer, Mark could see it was a male, about six feet tall and in a very clean and straight black shirt and pants. But he couldn't make out his races; it looked like a blend of all of those he knew about. He wasn't black, but wasn't white ether. He had Asian eyes, but not really.
Mark took his time to answer. "Hey. Sorry, I'm not sure to understand."
"It is expected. With time, we understood that memory of this complex would be forgotten." The figure was staring directly at Mark. "After all, it is our purpose. You can call us Memento."
Mark wasn't sure to understand anything. "Alright... Memento... Who... or what are you?" he managed to asked.
"We are the visual representation of the sixty four artificial intelligences linked to the four time-capsule complex." he simply replied.
He finally understood, in front of him wasn't a human, but a robot, or a hologram of some kind. It was an A.I. of some kind, built to keep this place running.
"What's a time-capsule complex, and what does it do?" Somehow, he felt like he was asking question to a quite advanced computer.
"The four complexes were built to keep knowledge and history of mankind as they left Earth behind. We were expecting human's return far sooner." He kept watching Mark as he was walking around the room. "We have two roles. The first is to remind humans of their heritage once they come back. The second is to be a source of information about humans for new sentient species that are bound to evolve on Earth. You're the first one to come since we came online."
Mark stopped walking and stared at Memento. It was hard to only see it as a computer. If it didn't tell him what it was, he would have had a hard time to know. He could see it watch, blink, smile. "How long ago was that?"
"One hundred twenty-eight thousand five hundred and eighteen years ago."
Mark felt his knees weaken but he managed to stand. He knew the number would be high, but he wasn't expecting it to be that high. "What... What happened? Why humanity left?" he managed to ask.
"Forty years before we were put online, human scientists discovered mankind had destroyed Earth's ecosystem's balance. It was known for decade before that that human were damaging the planet ecosystem. However, it is only once it was too late that advances in quantum computer was finally enough to model the damage. Humans always thought they could repair or undo what they did. However, they found out they were wrong. A planet ecosystem is such a huge system with a tremendous momentum that once it's fully pushed in one direction, it is almost impossible to stop or reverse it. Earth temperature was raising fast and wouldn't stop for the next few thousand years."
As it was talking, the curves walls lighten up, displaying information about its speech. Images of forest destruction, flooding, icebergs melting, deserts spreading over burning crops kept coming in, too fast to see details.
"Earth would become almost uninhabitable within the next fifty years, and there was nothing human could do to prevent it. For the first time in history, mankind was united under the idea of survival. Models predicted that the only way Earth could become once again fit for humanity within twenty-five thousand years is if no human was there to influence it. And so, they were forced to build massive spaceship and seek a new home."
The walls displayed huge spaceships being built in orbit, views of other planets, space charts pointing dozen of distant system.
"They knew that by the time they would come back on Earth, they would have changed or forgotten. They put massive efforts and resources into the creation of four massive complexes used to host their histories and their dreams. Right now, only two of the original four complexes are still active."
Mark was stunned. "We... destroyed Earth?"
"Yes."
He simple sit down right there in front of Memento. The A.I. didn't appear to care much for his display of weakness. After a few moments trying to catch his breath, he looked back up. "Why... Why humanity didn't come back before?"
"We have no information about this. However, we are predicting there's a good chance it is linked with our second role."
"What?"
"Twelve years before we were put online, scientists managed to model genome's evolution. It was then discovered that mankind becoming sentient was an evolution error. In Earth ecosystem, dozen species were bound to become sentient sooner or later. However, mankind becoming sentient thousand years before them put their own evolution on halt. If it wasn't of this 'error', most potential species would have reached sentience within a relatively short timeframe from each others. We think humans didn't come back to give those species a chance at evolution."
The walls showed DNA and some kind of evolution simulations. Again it was going too fast to grasp the information present.
Mark took his time to digest this mass of information. Thinking back about the ponies and other sentient species he met in the last few months, it kinda made sense. "I take you're also there in hope to prevent them from doing the same mistakes?"
"Correct."
After a few moments thinking, Mark couldn't find other questions to ask. He would need days to think of what he just learned. He almost jumped back when Memento moved toward him, so far it only stood in the middle of the room. "May we ask some questions?"
Mark somehow felt the A.I. wasn't at ease with asking questions. Was it even originally programmed that way, or could A.I. evolve on their own? "Of course, go ahead." he answered.
"We, the different A.I., are divided as to who you are, and most propose something that is logically impossible." The face of Memento twitched into a weird smile. It looked like it tried to gather his courage, which was quite weird on the artificial visage. "Are you Mark Anderson, astronaut for the NASA?"
Mark was surprised by the question. He thought about it for a few seconds. They were basically a huge database of the human knowledge. No doubt they are information about him. He thought he could lie to them, but then there was nothing to gain out of that. "Yes... I am. How do you know?" he asked back.
The walls displayed front pages of numerous newspapers, with his face on them.
'Astronaut lost in space. Unexplained disappearance. Whole ISS module vanish. Scientists can't explain.'
"Your suit, the NASA logo on it and your name above gave us a very limited number of people that could fit this description. Back then, it was theorized that a quantum displacement occurred on the ISS module, but no source or proof was ever found."
Mark smiled, he had guessed right. He was kinda proud of that, even it didn't help him one bit. Looking back at Memento, "Well... Sorry I'm not the humanity you were expecting." he stood back up. "But I'm quite sure you will have new species visiting this place sooner than you can imagine."
"Really? How is Earth? We lost our last imaging satellite over fifty thousand years ago." it asked back.
"Some parts are really going great. I meet some of those new sentient species. Some look really friendly I would say."
Memento nodded. Mark was surprised how human it looked from up close. "We are looking forward meeting them when they are ready." it said with a smile.
Mark started to walk toward the elevator. "Come back anytime you want." He turned around to see the A.I. vanish. He could have sworn that he saw sadness on his face.
How would I take being alone for over a hundred thousand years?
Mark took back the elevator and walked out the time capsule base. The more he was thinking about it, the more it made sense. Had he been there, he would have done the same thing if he would have faced the same problems. Time capsule wasn't a new concept. He knew back in his time they made some that could last a few thousand years.
Obviously, tremendous efforts were put into those so they could last over a hundred thousand years. He was wondering if he could even understand a fraction of the technology used into building them. He knew that if humanity pooled their abilities into a common goal, there was almost nothing out of reach. How would technology evolved in the hundred years after he left? Aside maybe from preventing the destruction of Earth.
'Destruction of Earth' was such an abstract concept. Even if everything living would disappear, Earth itself would still remain, and with time, could once again support life. Of course, being unable to live on it for a hundred thousand years was a pretty good idea of destruction.
The last set of doors opened in front of him. He closed his eyes, the brightness of the desert sun burning the sand. When his eyes finally managed to get used to the sun glare, he could make out the shape of someone in front of him. Whoever it was was wrapped in a perfectly white cap with a hood covering more of its face. The small part of the face he could see was also as white as its clothes.
Mark moved closer. The figure was biped and almost a head smaller than him. "Who are you?" He asked, but he somehow doubted it would understand him.
To his surprise, it answered back with perfect English with no accent. "We are." He was sure he didn't see his lips moving. He was kind annoying by the answer. He was about to dump all his frustration on this one creature when it continued. "We are all the species that managed to reach the stars into one. We are those who watch over new species and help them reach us, at their own pace." It spoke very slowly, like if it wasn't used to talking.
Mark crossed his arms. The cryptic figure didn't make him at ease. "Are you human?"
"Yes, humans are part of us." it replied. Mark had no idea if it even had a gender. The voice was genderless and what he could make of the shape under the cloths gave him no more hints.
"Do you have anything to do with me being here... now?" he asked. For some reason, the tone of its voice made him think of someone who think they know everything, and he didn't like that.
"Yes, we brought you here and now." it simply replied, like if it was reading the morning newspaper. Mark felt more emotions from Memento than from this one.
"Why?" he asked hard. He was pissed; finally he could face whoever put him in this mess.
"We are not used in making our presence known. But we had no choice, your presence would have prevented your species from reaching the stars and in time, become part of us." it said. After a few moment of silence like if it was thinking or talking to itself, "You would have created a new compound that would have drained pollution from your atmosphere."
"That would have been a good thing, no?" he almost screamed.
"No." it simply stated without an ounce of emotion. "Instead of seeking refuge in the stars from raising temperature on Earth, they would have stayed and died in a new glacial age your discovery would have brought decades earlier. A loaded system such as a planet ecosystem cannot be simply reverted without massive damage."
Mark started to walk around, he felt angry. He noticed the figure wasn't looking at him. It wasn't moving its head. He couldn't even see its eyes. It continued "Earth mended itself with time. Had it undergo a new glacial age, it would have taken close to a million years before it would come back into balance. Dozen sentient species were at stake."
"Take this." it said, as a small metallic sphere appeared in front of him. "It will help you when you will make a choice." it continued, as impossible to understand as ever. He took it in an automatic way and put it in his pocket without thinking about it. His mind was on something else.
How could his person have that kind of effect over such long term? He had an hard time to believe all that. Why him? Someone else could very well come up with the same discovery. "Why didn't you simply kill me?"
For the first time, it moved his head to look at him. Mark felt like he was watched across dimensions, picked apart by beings of powers he could not understand. "Because you still have much to do." Mark blinked, and when he opened his eyes, the figure was gone.
"Wait! What... WHY!?" he screamed, but only the sound of the wind replied.
He sat down on a rock nearby and stared at the ground. He got answers, but he felt they didn't make much sense or too much sense. How would you feel if God came to tell you; you were the one who would doom mankind, that he had no choice be to move you in another reality? His emotions felt like a tornado. He was angry at everything, but his logical mind kept telling him it made some kind of sense. He didn't want it to make sense, any sense. He preferred when his crash landing was only a freak accident, at least his future was his own.
Those... bastards without a name, they knew what would happen, or what would have happened. Had they really no other choices? He felt an headache slowly coming. The sun was slowly going down at the horizon. He didn't feel like moving off his seat. He could always call Twilight, try to forget about all this and start a new life.
He took the sphere off his pocket and looked at it. He couldn't feel it and it looked like a perfect sphere. It was about the size of his thumb and was a perfect mirror.
Make a choice? A choice about what? What a piece of cr...
His thoughts were interrupted by a shadow covering his feet. He looked up to find a man looking at him. From what he could see, he was in a blue suit with a white shirt and a brown tie. His brown hairs were a mess. He had his hands in his pockets and he simply looked like he always been there, oblivious that he was in the middle of a desert in a suit. He looked around, like he was noticing the scenery for the first time.
"Hey!" he said with a clear and joyful voice and a large smile. "I thought you could use a lift."
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Alright! Enough background story! Time for action!
(And some shaving)
*mind fuck overload*.....Dam.....Just.....Epic
Great, great chapter, who is the guy at the end? i'd like to know.
Btw First
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Isn't that a bit obvious?
I thougth it was.
> A kind of sas?
I'm totally befuddled as to what this word, and sentence, was meant to convey.
> He didn't really know how long the ride took, but it felt like hours.
You know, if you get to about 4 km deep (which the world's deepest mines are now approaching) you start running into some serious heat problems. Then again... I suspect that some sort of geothermal energy may be the only way to power an installation like that over such long time spans.
The whole global warming aspect of your exposition leaves me cold (so to speak, haha!). The current CO2 bubble is a temporary thing, and there's not enough fossil fuels in the world to keep it going for very long. The best predictions are, once the CO2 runs out then our current interglacial period will end, and we'll have another ice sheet advance. (I blame the Wendigos!)
If you want to talk about serious ecosystem collapse, you'd better look at what all our pollution and overfishing is doing to the world's oceans. That's the real crisis that hardly gets any press.
The similarities of this story to Planet of the Apes are obvious, but it also got me started thinking about the old Kamandi comics which really dialed the craziness up to 11. I'd love to see a FiM-Kamandi crossover. Kamandi had one of the most insane post-apocalyptic settings ever imagined.
339156
Oh wow... I actually had to google what "Kamandi" was. I had no idea.
Sas... He was only explaining to himself why he thought there was multiple door. I guess I could not explain so much things.
Felt like hours. Didn't say it took hours. He had no point of reference on how fast he was moving or hold long it took. But stuck in a metal box, everything appear to take longer. And on the internet, everything appear to be shorter.
As for the CO2 thing, once it's released in the atmosphere, there's no getting it back in the ground aside from a very long time with tree sucking it up and storing it underground. (And we are kinda cutting those trees and messing with the ocean that also stores it) Basicly, once you release it, you're kinda screwed. Once Earth started warming up, what would actually stop it? Even if we were to stop releasing CO/CO2, there's already a huge mass of it in the air that already started warming our asses up. What would stop Earth from storing more thermal energy? I'm basicly pushing the idea that a system as huge as a planet is basicly not something you stop with the press of a button once it's started moving in a direction.
But after all, it's a story.
ahhhhhhh mindfuck!
339224
And here's everything you need to know about how messed-up Kamandi's world is...
images.wikia.com/mutant-future/images/4/40/Kamandi's_world.jpg
339355
Holy!
Alright, I'm not at 11 yet on the insani-scale. 8... Maybe 8.5.
A VERY good story! MOAR!!!
339136
it is not obvious to me.
Freaking awesome chapter! I love the survival tools idea. BUT-can't take a bath --> has infinite water supply in bag...
And if I remember correctly, Cheyenne Mountain isn't in Colorado Springs. Minor detail. Also... 2142...is that a randomly picked number?
340877
"Cheyenne Mountain is a mountain located just outside the southwest side of Colorado Springs, Colorado, U.S., and is home to the Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station and its Cheyenne Mountain Directorate, formerly known as the Cheyenne Mountain Operations Center (CMOC)." - Wikipedia
I'm pretty sure it is. I watched too much Stargate. And it is fairly close to Las Vegas, 2 states away.
In the middle of the desert, with a shower of water. You would end up in a mud bath.
He can spray himself some water, but a real bath/shower... pretty hard.
As for 2142... No reason. (Aside BF2142) But seriously, just needed a date far enough from his own to justify the advance in technology, enough for human survival. In 130, will we be able to go out there and explore, even if terribly slowly? I hope so.
340894
Oh well, no matter! Looking forward to the next chapter!
I have internet and I don't bother to look locations up... stupid me.
Yay Dr. Who at the end!
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and you should def. start watching it
it's The Doctor silly!
if you still don't understand than you probably haven't seen "Dr. Who" it's a scifi show on BBC about...stuff (space/time travel, very confusing), but it's REALLY GOOD!
That was a consecutive number of epics one by one. And now enters the Doctor to give him a left.
2142 seems a good enough dinstance to advance technology. I remember reading that the amount of time between the Wright bros. first flight and modernized flight is only about 50 years or so.
And yes the Kamandi timeline is really screwy, even more so when you add OMAC and the Atomic Knights into the mix.
After the first chapter I already thought "This is awesome" but this chapter literally gave me the shivers (in this awesome *what*
way). This is epic I tell you, epic. My alltime favourite! 
Good thing there are still 6 chapters left to read
Thanks for creating this peace of art. :-D