The War of the Artilect: Chapter 12

Elder Lane was in his pod for so long that Adrian Garza felt himself growing sleepy. As he fought to stay awake he marveled at how weak, frail, and tired he felt. When he was in his synthetic world he was a perfect physical specimen – strong, young, and highly agile. Here, however, gravity pulled at him and his joints ached. He felt horrible. He was able to stay awake for a while, but eventually he succumbed to sleep.

All at once he felt something shaking him roughly. “Adrian! Get up! Are you dead? What do you think you’re doing?”

Adrian’s eyes fluttered open, and he looked up at the person standing over him. When he saw it was Elder Lane he quickly shuffled to his feet. “My apologies, sir! I did not mean to doze off. I’m not used to being out here.”

“None of us are,” Elder Lane replied. “This isn’t where we belong, you know. The physical world is a terrible place of death and destruction. There’s a reason why we abandoned it all those years ago. This is no place for a man to be.”

“The outsiders would change that,” Adrian replied. “They want to take us away from the synthetic worlds so we can dwell in their cities. They think that our life here is a dead end.”

“Yes…I know,” Lane said. “Speaking of that, I have a message for you to relay to them. Please tell them that, sadly, we have no further information about the swarms. They are as big a mystery to us as they are to them. Furthermore, tell them that we will wait here while they engage them in combat. Please let them know that they have our sincerest thanks, and we’re looking forward to a positive result.”

Adrian nodded. “I will send them a message.”

Elder Lane turned to go, and then stopped. “Incidentally, Adrian, just how are you able to communicate with these aliens? Doesn’t the Wall block all outside communications?”

Adrian shrugged. “I don’t know, sir. Apparently it does not. All I know is that when the Sentinel brought me back here he installed some communications equipment in the same facility where we house our Wall generators. It’s quite easy to use and it seems to work very well. He told me I could use it whenever I needed to contact him.”

“Very good,” Elder Lane replied. “Thank you.”

The elder then climbed back into his pod. Adrian left the chamber and headed toward the elevator that would take him up to the surface.

Although Elder Lane had crawled back into his pod and shut the canopy, he did not activate it. Instead he lay still and listened. He knew it would take Adrian quite some time to get to the surface, send the message, and return to his pod, so he settled in for a long wait.

Unlike Adrian, he found it easy to stay awake. His nerves were on edge and he was fraught with panic. Those fools, Lane thought. They don’t understand what we’re up against! These aliens aren’t just another defenseless colony. They didn’t get through our Wall because it failed! They had no trouble bringing it down; it was like tissue paper to them. The swarms are useless against them. Useless! But what else is there? I have to try; it’s the only thing that can save us. If I fail these aliens will force us to leave our homes and will make us live in their cities – under their rule, of course. Instead of being masters of our own worlds we will be slaves to their whims, bound to whatever archaic and outdated laws that they care to impose. I will not serve them, and I refuse to allow us to become their slaves.

Time passed by very slowly. Elder Lane was not used to sitting still, doing nothing, and found it difficult to wait. It seemed like hours had gone by and still there was no sign of Adrian. He eventually started wondering if something had happened to him. What if he had already returned to his pod and Lane just hadn’t noticed? In fact, what if he had returned hours ago? He was about to get out of his pod and go looking for him when he suddenly heard footsteps approaching.

Elder Lane closed his eyes and held very still. In the distance he heard footsteps, then the sound of a pod opening. A moment later he heard it snap shut. He waited a few more minutes and then let out a sigh of relief. The aged man carefully opened up his pod and stepped outside it. He then strolled out of the chamber and over to the elevator, just as he had done many times before.

The sight of the surface had been a tremendous shock to Adrian, but Elder Lane took it in stride. As he left the ruined building and made his way down the broken streets of Star City he gave no heed to the destruction that surrounded him. Unlike the others, he had made regular trips to the surface during the past five thousand years. Since he was their leader the council had forced him to be the one to keep an eye on the swarms, in order to make sure that they were still operational and that no new threats had arisen. Lane hated doing it but someone had to make sure that no outsider was threatening their synthetic worlds. Even though all of the colonies had been ruthlessly destroyed long ago, there was still a tremendous fear of the unknown. No one ever explored the galaxy; no one knew what monsters might still be lurking in the shadows, unseen until it was too late. The swarms were their only line of defense, and they dared not neglect them.

This is exactly what I was afraid of, Elder Lane though, as he approached the ruined Central Defense Building. It finally happened. But what if this fails? What if the swarms fail? What do I do then?

At one time the defense building had been an imposing structure, designed to withstand almost any type of assault. The one foe it could not survive, however, was time. Through long centuries of neglect the building had decayed into utter ruin. The vast majority of its systems had crumbled into dust, and its rooms were filled with rubble. The elder was not concerned about any of this; there was only one system that they needed, and he took pains to make sure that the surviving robots kept it going.

It was a long walk through dimly-lit hallways to get to the heart of the structure. Many of the walls had collapsed, and portions of the ceiling had caved in as well, forcing him to take a convoluted route to get to the command room. He knew at some point that the rest of the structure would cave in and they would lose all control over the swarms at all, but he brushed that thought aside.

The lighting in the central command room was very dim. Most of the screens were in ruins and there was no longer any furniture. A thick layer of dust covered everything, and the air itself was thin and stale. However, in one corner of the room was a bank of functional computers. A rack of lights glowed feebly beneath layers of grime and dirt, and a solitary unbroken console was in front of it.

Elder Lane walked over to the console, brushed the dirt off, and pressed a button. He let out a sigh of relief when the screen came to life.

Now it’s time to go to war, he thought to himself. He studied the console intently and began typing out a series of commands.