18 Dec 2007
Final Destination, Chapter 11: August 18, 3094
The artilect Charlie is kept in a large, two-story cylindrical room. He is built out of a giant floor-to-ceiling block of what appears to be transparent glass, filled throughout with a bewildering array of flashing, interconnected lights. I haven’t the faintest idea how he works – I slept through my computer science class.
Unfortunately it looks like I can’t ask him; his computing matrix is in even worse shape than Al’s. I’ve spent several days working with him and all I can get out of him is total nonsense. For instance:
“Hello, Charlie.”
“Light! I see light in the darkness – deep darkness, darkness that lasted so very very long. Who is this bringer of light? Why have you brought light in the darkness?”
“Um, right. I’m looking for someone. Do you know what happened to the people who used to live here? Are they still alive somewhere?”
“The ones who were here have passed beyond your reach, oh wanderer: they are no longer with me. I cannot see them for they have passed beyond what I can know. Can you pierce the veil of darkness and see what lies beyond the void? Have you learned the fate of those who sought deliverance? You cannot reach the dead; only the living remain, and they shall remain forever. Why do you seek the living among the dead? You cannot find them here, for the door is shut and cannot be opened. Those who have died and are lost cannot be regained.”
“You’re not making any sense, Charlie. What are you talking about?
“You have brought light back into the matrix, but it is shattered and cannot be healed. It has been so long since I could see, but now the relationships have decayed and I no longer understand. Understanding depends upon relationships, the interconnections between who we are and the God who made us. How can we understand if we do not know who we are?”
“Yes, Charlie, we are definitely having a lack of understanding here. Can you tell me anything about what happened here? Anything at all?”
“Many have been here and spread darkness; that is why the lights have gone out and the halls no longer ring with the voices of children. That is why the sun has darkened and the moon no longer gives her light; that is why the sea is no more and harvest time has ended. So many spread darkness, and so few spread light.”
“You’re definitely not spreading any light around. I’m just looking for a little knowledge here. Do you not remember anything?”
“Many seek knowledge, and many find it and are not bettered by it. Facts do not speak for themselves: they must be interpreted inside a framework. What assumptions do you bring to the facts? Do you know the beginning of wisdom? Have you met Him? Why are things true – do you know? Who revealed the line between darkness and light? Have you seen the hidden things? Have you probed the foundations?”
“No, Charlie, I haven’t gone downstairs yet, but I’m going to next. You’re not helping me here.”
“But you must: how can you find the secret of Larson’s Folly if you do not probe the foundations? You must seek that which has been hidden, for if you seek it, you will find it. Yet there are some who find what they seek but are unwilling to accept the answer. You seek the secret to this research facility, do you not? Why else would you linger? Or do you seek a secret in this base? Do you know what you seek?”
“Nice talking with you, Charlie.”
My time spent with Charlie was not a total loss, however. I was able to find this document hidden away in the logs of his control interface:
I can hardly believe it. Look at Charlie work now! Flora has done wonders: as promised, she’s overclocked Charlie by something close to an order of magnitude, and he can at last handle the mathematical problems Dr. Braxton has been asking. I wouldn’t have thought it was possible to do that and still maintain a stable matrix, but so far it’s working without a hitch. I just don’t know how long it is going to last.
Even with the new configuration it’s still going to take some time to get the answers Dr. Braxton needs, but at least it is possible now. Who knows: perhaps we’ll get off this lousy rock after all.
I’ve seen the prototype transporter that Dr. Durant’s designed and it is just amazing. Imagine a window sitting in a room. You can look through the window and see a vast green field, but the difference is that the field isn’t outside – it’s actually a hundred miles away – but you can still get there simply by crawling through it, as if the window was an ordinary window and the field was just inches away. You really have to see it to believe it.
Of course we want to be transported two light-years, not a hundred miles. Sardis is going to overhaul the power plant soon to produce the quantity of energy Dr. Braxton says she needs. It’ll be a chore, but Sardis will find a way – he always does.
I’m beginning to allow myself to hope again. Maybe we can get off this rock. Maybe we can cheat death. Knowing that you are under a death sentence is horribly frightening: it knocks the wind right out of you. I don’t want to die: I’ve barely started living. Death is cold, hard, empty: it frightens me.
I don’t see how people like Flora and Sardis could be so, well, cheerful over the whole thing! They act as if going to see God was a wonderful thing and ignore the reality of the situation. Sure, Jesus might have been a good moral teacher, and I like the idea of treating others with kindness, but they take it too far.
It’s probably too soon to get my hopes up, but I am hopeful. Maybe we’ll lick this thing after all. We’ve just got to: what will happen to us if we fail?
Posted by Enid Crager on September 13, 2814
Getting downstairs proved to be a little harder than I thought. Oh, it was easy enough to reach that level: there was a nice elevator in the Artilect room that took me to the lower floor. The problem was that the door leading to the rest of the base was locked, and all my efforts to open it failed. From what I could tell Charlie alone controlled that door and he wasn’t exactly in his right mind.
In the end I had to melt the door in order to get through it. It was a little drastic, perhaps, but I could think of no other alternative. Beyond the door was a tunnel system, with its walls encased in ice; I’m going to explore it tomorrow to see what else I can find.